Annie Lionnet. The Tarot Directory. Book Sales; ISBN: 0785814574; Spiral edition (March 2002)
The Tarot Directory came out earlier this year. It is a neat little item for beginners and teachers. It is a spiral bound hard cover approximately 8×5 in size. Each section is tabbed for ease of use. It runs about $21.95USD.
I saw this and thought: Hey, what a great idea! But as I stood there in Barnes & Noble holding it, I thought about how I didn’t need all those pictures, and though nice, it would probably end up with most of my other beginner books, on a dusty shelf.
Then another thought struck my mind. I consider myself an intermediate-advance student. I could adapt this idea to my own ends. In fact anyone could.
What you need:
Binder
Any size ring binder will do. You can find thin and thick three rings for 8×10 pages almost anywhere and in any color. I chose to go a bit smaller though. You can find all size binders in office supply stores. Sometimes you’ll have to check the organizer section or the student section. A good place is college book stores. I got an 8×5 three ring at the Colorado State University bookstore as well as some accessories for it. It should have pockets in the front and back covers for any loose-leaf items you may want to carry.
You can get some fancy zippered ones to. These usually have all sorts of pockets and can even hold a deck if they are big enough.
Tabs
You can usually find these in the same place you buy your binder. Get the size and shape the fit your binder. You may need at least two packs.
Paper
Again good idea to buy with your binder. Usually you want lined paper. If you are using an old organizer binder than you can find blank paper in the organizer section of your office supply store.
How much to get depends on you. If you plan to hand write out your binder, get lots. Otherwise a ream or two will do until you run out. I put this in the notes section of my binder.
Getting the information together:
Now it is time to decide on what you want in your binder. First decide if it will be for home use only, or if it will travel with you. I designed mine for travel.
Decide on your Sections
Sit down and write out what you want for each of your tabs. Here is a sample list of what I included in my own binder:
Majors(meanings)
Wands
Cups
Swords
Pentacles
Associations and Symbology (things like timings, groupings, and other reading helpers)
Significators(information on choosing a significator, I use an oracle deck for this, so this has a whole nother set of meanings)
Meditations
Exercises
Notes
Putting it together
As I mentioned earlier you can chose to write out your book yourself. However I chose to use a computer. You can use any word processor to print out your information, even for smaller sizes(though some cutting is required if you don’t want to buy special paper). I use the notes section of my organizer program, that I got for $20USD at Office Depot to print the 8×5 pages. Then I cut them out and hole-punch them using a notebook page as a guide. I believe newer versions of Outlook express will print note pages at various sizes but someone with the program will have to check on that.
Decoration:
You can always decorate your book. Collage, decoupage and stickers are just some of many options. Have fun, be creative. I hope you enjoy creating your very own tarot tool.
Michelle Norton
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