The toki pona 'book' of the possibilities of time

I had been thinking for a long time about making my own tarot deck. However, due to my lack of drawing skills, I had given up on making one for myself. Then I came across the Toki Pona language. 120 words, simple grammar, and unique glyphs. At first, it seemed like a mere curiosity, and I didn't delve into it.

Later, an idea occurred to me: each tarot card encompasses an entire concept, not just a single word or phrase, and Toki Pona works in a very similar way. Is it possible to create a combination of the two? The answer is that it was eventually completed, but I leave it to the reader to judge how well the original goal was achieved.

This was the starting point.

The preparations

In the first step, I took all 78 cards one by one to select the basic meanings that were closest to my understaning. I used several books to help me with this. Then came the language, I had to learn at least the basic knowledge of the Toki Pona language.

The problem

I knew from the beginning that I didn't just want to translate the names of the cards into Toki Pona (e.g. The Fool - jan nasa), but also wanted to bring something unique to the cards. Based on this, I came to the following decision: since the Toki Pona characters are quite "eloquent", I would use them to illustrate the cards. But how? How to transform characters into illustrations?

Drafting the cards

I finally decided to write a few lines of "poem" for each major arcana card, then translate it into Toki Pona and use the glyphs to create the unique images. (For the minor arcana I simplified this process and used only short phrases instead of full "poems")

I have also made some rules for myself for the illustrative use of gylphs:
- I leave out particles.
- All signs must be interpretable, even if they appear upside down or slightly distorted on the image.
- If necessary, I can place some glyphs that are not included in the “poem”, if this sign does not distort the meaning of the card.
- I can “merge” signs to make the image more expressive, but only if this does not cause ambiguity in interpretation.

Besides to creating the illustration, I have also given a new meaning for each card in addition to its original meaning, which may make it easier to interpret the spread. I also included a line of Toki Pona text with each card.

Making the physical deck

Honestly, it didn't take much thought to decide what the physical size of the cards should be. I've often been bothered by the fact that no matter how much I like a tarot deck, it's too big to shuffle or to hold comfortably in my hand. So I decided on the standard poker (French) card size (2.48 x 3.46 in,63 x 88 mm), and it's also much cheaper to make a deck of this size.

I chose an on-demand printer as my contractor, since that way I wouldn't have to order the deck in bulk (and if the end result doesn't look good, I wouldn't have spent a fortune on it). I skipped the deck box, since in most cases it ends up somewhere in the trash anyway.

Finally, after a few weeks of waiting, the deck arrived.

This is the very concise story of the few months during which the idea finally turned into a tarot deck.