My cards start with a thought.
I do not question: I draw a lighthouse
I am in my day-to-day and intuition says "a lighthouse." I do not ask myself why or what for. I draw a lighthouse.
While I do it, more images show up. A storm. The lighthouse has to stand on top of a rock, it has to be night and the waves have to hit hard. I do not decide it, I perceive it, and I put on paper everything that appears in my mind.
Only while I am putting it together do I start asking myself questions: what the lighthouse symbolizes, what it is to me, what my surroundings say. Symbolism does not come before the work, it is revealed by making it.
Many cards are also born from something I read. I make them so I do not forget it, because creating is my way of studying. That is why every card has its own imprint and its own origin.
The Axis, card No. 22, was born from a reading: The Axis: When Three Colors Become White Light.
→ See The Lighthouse, the steady light
Cards that come from a dream
Some cards are dreamlike. One was born from a very vivid dream in which I was sitting in front of a temple, waiting for its doors to open.
When I woke up I understood the message: I have to remember to sit in humility, waiting for my being to express itself. Not to force the door. To wait for it to open.
→ See The Temple, the inner temple
Cards that come from a meditation
The Sword was born from a meditation. It appeared to me as a cutting sword, and each animal it carries has a meaning for me.
When I see it, it reminds me of the power I have. It works like an asset, like those items in video games that you pick up along the way. In my case they are elements that help me find myself and remind me who I am.
That card took me a month. Others come out in a day.
The technique: photomontage with my imprint
Once the image is clear, I build it as a photomontage. Today I use a lot of technology and I am starting to add AI to improve some aspects of the process.
But the core I want to do myself. A card has to carry my imprint and my energetic style, and that cannot be delegated.
The symbol is set by the one who looks
Here is the most important thing of all.
For me the horse symbolizes emotions, from everything I have read about Freemasonry and esotericism. For someone else it can symbolize something completely different, and that is fine.
That is why sometimes I do not like to explain the symbolism of each card. When I tell it, the reader adopts my meaning, and the one who should set it is their own inner being.
It is the same as with tarot: you draw a card, look at it and carry it with you all day. You live it and see what energy it brings. The card works as a mirror, not as a dictionary.
→ See The Horse, the noble strength
How to create your own symbolic card
You do not need to know how to draw.
- Quiet your waters. In the morning, do an introspection exercise to align the emotional, the mental and the physical. A few minutes of silence is enough.
- Draw the first thing that comes. Loose strokes, lines, patterns. If you feel like drawing something specific, draw it however you can.
- Do not correct from the mind. The stroke must not be conditioned. What matters is not whether it is well made, but the meaning you give it from intuition.
- Switch languages if it asks for it. If at that moment you want to write, write. If you want to paint, paint. The card can be a word, a color or a scribble.
- Ask your card. Then look at it and ask yourself what it symbolizes for you. That is where the work begins.
If you want to go deeper into art as an inner tool, continue with Art as a Self-Knowledge Tool and Art as Alchemy of the Psyche.
