Working the tarot: 81 weeks, card by card, from the minor arcana onwards

A course that works through the deck, not around it

Working through the Tarot, as this course presents it, is an 81 week long course working through each and every one of the tarot cards. That length is the first thing to understand about it, because it tells you what kind of course this is. It is not a weekend introduction, and it is not a set of meanings to memorise and recite. It is a long, ordered practice, in which each card is given its own week, and the deck is worked through in sequence, rather than dipped into at random.

Each week, in the course as described, will be merging with each card in sequential order, starting with the minor arcana. Merging is a stronger word than studying, and it is worth taking seriously. Studying a card gives you information about it. Merging with a card, in the course's language, means bringing the card into your life, so that you learn it from the inside as well as from a book: in your mundane life, in your internal life, and in the way you meet the situations the card describes.

Starting with the minor arcana, and why the order matters

Starting with the minor arcana is a deliberate order, not an accident of the syllabus. The minor arcana are the cards of ordinary life: work, money, feeling, conflict, rest, and the small decisions that make up most days. Beginning there means beginning where you actually live, rather than with the grand figures of the major arcana, which are easier to admire and harder to live with. A course that starts in ordinary life is a course that can be tested in ordinary life, week by week.

Sequential order matters for a similar reason. If you choose your own order, you will choose, without meaning to, the cards you already like, and avoid the cards that challenge you. A sequence does not let you do that. It puts the difficult card in front of you in its turn, and asks you to spend a week with it, whether you wanted that week or not. Over 81 weeks, that discipline covers the whole deck, including the cards you would have skipped, and those are often the cards you most needed to meet.

Bringing the card into your life

The goal it, is to bring the card into one's life: into our mundane life, internal life, and, by extension, into the way we act and decide. That is a practical goal, and it can be practised in small, concrete ways. In the week of a card, notice where its theme already appears in your day, without forcing it. Notice where you resist it, and where you welcome it. Notice what the card asks of you that you would rather not do, and what it offers that you have been overlooking.

Keep the practice grounded in the week itself. A card is not a horoscope for seven days, and it is not a reason to rearrange your life on a whim. It is a lens for a week: a way of looking at the life you already have, with a particular theme in mind, so that you see things you would otherwise have walked past. At the end of the week, write down what you saw, in plain language, before you move on to the next card. Without that note, the weeks blur together, and 81 weeks become a long time spent without a record.

The challenges of each card, and integrating with the deck

This course will help to learn about the challenges of each card, help integrate with the deck, as well as bless and consecrate each card as we go along. The challenges are the heart of the learning, because a card learned only in its pleasant aspect is half learned. Every card has a difficulty in it, whether that difficulty is excess, or lack, or a refusal, or a fear, and meeting that difficulty in its week, rather than reading past it, is what integrates the card into your practice.

Integration with the deck, over 81 weeks, is a different thing from familiarity with a few favourite cards. A deck you have worked through, card by card, in order, is a deck you can read from, because you know how each card sits beside its neighbours, and how a sequence of cards builds a story rather than a set of isolated meanings. Blessing and consecrating each card as you go along marks that process as a practice, not merely a study course: each card is set apart, in its turn, for the work it is being given.

Pace, records, and finishing what you start

Eighty-one weeks is a long commitment, and a long commitment needs a pace you can actually keep. Do not try to rush the course by doubling up weeks when you fall behind, and do not try to make up for a missed week by skimming two cards in one. A week missed is a week missed; return to the sequence, and continue. The course is built on sequence, and sequence survives a pause far better than it survives a scramble.

Keep a record for the whole course, not just for the cards you enjoyed: the week, the card, what the card brought into your mundane and internal life, the challenge you met in it, and what you decided afterwards. Over 81 weeks, that record becomes a map of your own life through the deck, far more useful than any set of meanings copied from a book, because it records what you actually lived with, card by card, in order. Finish the course, and you will have not only a deck you know, but a record of two years of your own practice.

Working the tarot course

This course works through the tarot, card by card, over a long and ordered practice, rather than around the edges of the deck.

This is an 81 week long course working through each and every one of the tarot cards. Basically each week will be merging with each card in sequential order starting with the minor arcana. The goal is to bring the card into one's life, into our mundane life and internal life. This course will help to learn about the challenges of each card, help integrate with the deck, as well as bless and consecrate each card as we go along. I make no promise about what the course will do for you, only that it teaches the deck in this ordered, week-by-week way.

If you want to work the tarot in this way, this is the course I offer: Working the tarot course, $216 CAD. View the product

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