Okay, so the other day I got this wild idea to build a tarot combination calculator. You know, something that would take two tarot cards and spit out a combined meaning. Sounds cool, right? Here’s how I went about it, bumps and all.
The Brainstorming Phase
First, I needed a basic plan. I’m no tarot expert, but I know the basics. Each card has its own meaning, and when you put them together, that meaning can shift and blend. So, I figured I’d need:
- A list of all 78 tarot cards.
- A basic meaning for each card.
- Some way to combine those meanings.
Gathering the Data (The Grunt Work)
This was the boring part. I spent a good chunk of time just looking up cards and meanings. I didn’t want anything super fancy, just a few keywords or a short sentence for each card. I ended up making a big old list, sort of like this:
- The Fool: New beginnings, innocence, spontaneity…
- The Magician: Manifestation, power, resourcefulness…
- The High Priestess: Intuition, secrets, the subconscious…
- And so on, for all 78 cards!
It took a while, but I got it done. I just used a simple text document to store it all. No need for anything fancy at this stage.
Figuring Out the Combination Logic (The Tricky Part)
This is where things got interesting. How do you actually combine two card meanings? I thought about a few different approaches:
- Keyword Mashup: Just take the keywords from both cards and throw them together. Simple, but maybe not very insightful.
- Sentence Blending: Try to weave the sentences for each card into a single, coherent sentence. Harder, but potentially more meaningful.
- Pre-Written Combinations: Find or create interpretations for every possible card pair. That’s 78 77 / 2 = 3003 combinations! Nope, not doing that.
I decided to start with the keyword mashup. It seemed like the easiest way to get something working. I figured I could always refine it later.
Putting It All Together (The “Coding” Part)
I’m not a programmer. But, I know the basic structure of it, I have an idea of what’s going on.
The basic steps:
- take the input of two card names.
- Check if two cards’ name are in my tarot card list.
- Grab keywords from that list.
- Print out the combined keywords.
The Result (So Far…)
It works! I mean, it’s pretty basic. If I put in “The Fool” and “The Magician,” it might spit out something like: “New beginnings, innocence, spontaneity, manifestation, power, resourcefulness.”
It’s not perfect, but it’s a start! I can see how this could actually be useful, even in this simple form. It gives you a starting point for interpreting the combination.
Next Steps (The Fun Never Ends!)
I’ve got a bunch of ideas for improving this thing:
- Better Combination Logic: Maybe try that sentence blending idea, or even something more sophisticated.
- User Interface: Right now, it’s just a text document. It would be cool to make it a simple website or app.
- More Card Info: I could add things like reversed meanings, elemental correspondences, etc.
So, yeah, that’s my tarot combination calculator journey so far. It’s been a fun little project, and I’m excited to see where it goes!
