Read the whole deck

There are no minor cards in the Tarot - although a modern convention tend to make us call the pip and court cards as "minors".

There are trumps from I to XXI, there is the Mat or Fol or Fool, there are the court cards or honors, there are the numeral cards or pips.

Put aside all of your "major arcana" and court cards, watch the pips as living beings, cells, animals, people, plants (especially plants !), minerals, display them as a picture and tell a story.

Take the court cards by suit, smell their smell by looking at them - if it smells like cardboard, picture the smell in your mind, if it smells bad wash your hands. Taste the sound of the numeral cards.

In the dark, listen to each suits' colors separately, put them together and use them to throw a light on the book you're reading.

Arrange all the numeral card by their order, touch their movements.

Plant a coin (Denier), water it with a cup (Coupe), cut it with a sword (Épée), put it on the fire of a baton (Bâton).

Count the coins, how much do they amount to ? What about their weight ? Is it bearable ?
Measure the cups, how many gallons do you get ? Enough to drink or too few to quench your thirst ?
Shake the swords, what's the wind speed in knots ? What about its shapes, how does it crystalize ? Is  a a breeze or a hurricane ?
Warm yourself with the Batons, which way does the température go ? Is it the frail flame of a candle, a comfortable fireplace or a blazing conflagration ?

Take note of your answers, learn them by heart deeper and deeper till you forget them.

Restart twenty-two times, twenty one times in order, one time in disorder.

Shuffle the whole deck, pick 78 cards and read that.
Shuffle the whole deck, draw a single card, listen it, watch it sprout, grow, bloom, fade and wither. Pick its seeds. Do the same with the remaining 77 cards, let them be reborn sowing a seed of each plant in yourself, and from your fruits nourish every hungry one you meet.

Draw 40 cards and pretend they're in the order from the As of coins to the 10 of batons.

Count the swords and batons from smallest to largest and cups and coins from largest to smallest, turn around the table counter clockwise then repeat inverting the order.

Spread the cards from ace to ten from left to right and from deniers to batons through coupes and épées from bottom to top.

Behold, listen, sniff, touch, feel, perceive.

At night, spread your cards in your dreams, take a good look at your hands and sort your whole deck, then spread all the cards again, count the missing cards, the ones that moved, the repeating ones.

At day, with your eyes closed, take your cards in hand, spread the cards and tidy them up, then open your eyes and without sleeping dream of the cards.

Learn to cut the 78 cards deck with a single hand.

Know how to fan elegantly your cards.

Never cheat.

Mix everything thoroughly, et let cook on a well tempered fire.

When you'll be done with pip and court cards, forget all you thought you knew about trumps and apply the same method, it will be extremely faster.

 

B.S.G.

text and translation revised on the 19th of September MMXXIIII