The Tarot is not the alphabet. The Tarot is an alphabet. Pointing out how the letter A resembles a standing Bateleur won’t be as useful as understanding that letter forms carry suggestions. These suggestions may become more discernible if, instead of seeing each letter as a definitive shape, we see them as snapshots of a graphic continuum. Shape is a consequence of movement, and movement is a visual manifestation of space. For the sake of orientation, let’s imagine two spatial axes, a vertical one that we will define as ‘being’ and an horizontal one that we will define as ‘becoming’. A single vertical stroke creates the most minimal shape in our alphabet, the letter I. We could take this basic shape as reference, and establish it as “being.” The letter I would represent the individual. Now, let’s assume that our sense of being gets reshaped by our sense of becoming. This is, when the vertical axis represented by the letter I is activated horizontally, we have the letter I reshaping itself to form all the other letters of the alphabet. When the letter I breaks apart and becomes receptive to the ground, we have an A. When the letter I grows arms to embrace the world, it creates the letter B. If the letter I curves itself, forming a letter C, it becomes receptive to the future. This way, by understanding the ‘motion’ that took place for the original vertical stroke to become any other letter, the content of such movements becomes an indirect tale. Each letter becomes a play, a narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end, giving us the chance to experience the alphabet in an entirely new way. This cognitive shift is similar to the one necessary for us if we want to abandon a symbolic conception of the Tarot, and start speaking the Marseille Tarot’s true language. This is a vocabulary made of shapes, and focusing on them is a visual meditation. This way, if we look at two cards in a row we can ask ourselves: “what needs to happen for this image to become that other one”?