Okay, so I had this idea to mess around with tarot cards and crosswords, just for kicks. I’ve always been a little fascinated by tarot, you know, the imagery, the supposed meanings, and all that. And crosswords? Well, they’re just a fun way to kill time and keep the brain ticking. So, I thought, why not mash them up?
Getting Started
First things first, I grabbed my old tarot deck. It’s a pretty standard Rider-Waite deck, nothing fancy. I laid out all the cards, face up, just to get a good look at them all. I wasn’t planning on doing any actual readings or anything, I just wanted to use the names and maybe some of the imagery as inspiration.
Brainstorming Clues
Next, I started jotting down some ideas for crossword clues. This was the fun part. I decided to focus on the Major Arcana cards first, since they have the most well-known names and themes. For example, for “The Fool,” I wrote down something like, “Tarot card representing innocence and new beginnings (3,4).” For “The Magician,” I came up with, “Card associated with skill and manifestation (3,8).”
It wasn’t always easy, though. Some cards were trickier than others. “The Hanged Man,” for instance, was a bit of a head-scratcher. I ended up with something like, “Tarot card depicting a man suspended upside down (3,6,3).” Not the most elegant clue, but it would have to do.
Building the Grid
With a decent list of clues, I moved on to actually creating the crossword grid. I used one of those online crossword generators, which made things a lot easier. I just plugged in the answers – the names of the tarot cards – and the software did the rest. I did have to tweak it a bit here and there to make sure it all fit together nicely, but it wasn’t too bad.
The Wolf Twist
Now, about that “howling wolf” part. I just thought it would be cool to incorporate a wolf theme somehow. So, I decided to make one of the clues relate to a howling wolf, and I made sure it connected to other words in the grid. I used the clue “Animal often depicted howling at the moon (4)” for the word “wolf”. I added some wolf related words, such as “moon,” and “luna.”
The Final Product
After a bit more fiddling and refining, I finally had a complete crossword puzzle. It wasn’t perfect, but I was pretty happy with it. It was a fun little project, and it definitely got me thinking about tarot cards in a new way. I might even try making more of these in the future, maybe with different themes or using the Minor Arcana cards. We’ll see.
- Started with a simple idea: combine tarot and crosswords.
- Gathered my tarot deck and spread out the cards.
- Brainstormed crossword clues based on the card names and meanings.
- Used an online tool to generate the crossword grid.
- Added a “howling wolf” element for a bit of a twist.
- Ended up with a fun, unique crossword puzzle.
It was a nice way to spend an afternoon, and who knows, maybe I’ll even try to solve it myself later. Or maybe I’ll just frame it and hang it on the wall as a reminder of that time I combined two random things and made something kinda cool.