A tarot deck made by your circle
Arcanakin helps a group name the archetypes it shares and set them along the 22 steps of the Major Arcana, from the Fool to the World. What the group creates becomes a deck its people can return to, draw from and remember each other by.
What it is
The old structure of the tarot, filled with your own archetypes
The 22 cards of the Major Arcana trace a journey that people have recognised for six centuries: setting out, learning, losing, turning inward, being remade. Arcanakin keeps that journey and lets a group fill it with what it actually values.
A team might find that its Chariot is a Captain who navigates rather than controls. A retreat might find that its Tower is a Volcano, where what erupts has been gathering for years. Each card carries the words, the image and the story of the people who offered it.
How it works
From a gathering to a deck
- 1
Gather
Each person offers an inspiration for a card: a sketch on paper, a drawing on their phone, or a few words. They add the story behind it.
- 2
Place
The facilitators set each inspiration on one of the 22 steps, from the Fool to the World. Some cards hold two voices.
- 3
Choose the look together
Everyone says what the circle looks like to them: a tarot lineage, a few colours, one word. The most shared answers become the deck's style, so no single person decides it.
- 4
Shape the cards
Each card gets its words: a path from shadow to essence, affirmations, a line of wisdom, questions to sit with. Each sketch becomes finished artwork in the circle's style.
- 5
Reveal and return
The deck is shared with its circle. People draw a card, lay out a spread, and see how each card came to be and who offered it.
The ritual
Choosing a card still takes a moment
The cards lie face down. You move across them and notice which one draws you, then press and hold until it fills with light. Your card rises, waits for you to be ready, and its face emerges out of the dark. A soft chime marks each step, and on a phone you feel it too.
For whom
Any group that has shared something real
Where it began
Fourteen people, a table in Sicily
Arcanakin began at the Unplugged Forum's retreat in Sicily in September 2026. Fourteen of us each sketched an idea for a card on a small notepad and told the group the story behind it. A heart erupting from Etna. A procession of candles for Santa Lucia. A pine cone carrying new life.
Markus Lehto and Eda Çarmıklı took those sketches and stories and shaped them into The Sicily Deck, the first Arcanakin deck. Building it showed us that any circle could make its own, and that the making brings people closer to each other.
Start a deck
Make a deck with your circle
Arcanakin is in its first season, and we are making decks with a small number of groups. If you would like one for your retreat, team, family or gathering, write to us and tell us a little about your circle.
Have a link from your circle? Open it directly. Each deck is private to its circle and opens with its own access code.
About
Who makes Arcanakin
Arcanakin is a project of Joint Idea Ofis Yönetimi ve Danışmanlık Hizmetleri A.Ş., created by Markus Lehto and Eda Çarmıklı. Write to markus@jointidea.com.
Image credits
The historical examples shown when a circle chooses its style come from Wikimedia Commons: the Tarot de Marseille by Nicolas Conver (1760, photographed by the Tarot World Project, CC BY-SA 4.0); the Rider–Waite–Smith deck drawn by Pamela Colman Smith (1909); the tarot of Oswald Wirth (1889); the Visconti-Sforza tarocchi (15th century); the Great Hunt mosaic at Villa Romana del Casale, Piazza Armerina; a fresco from the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii; and Alphonse Mucha's The Four Seasons (1896). All are in the public domain except where a licence is named.
Privacy
What we keep, and who can see it
What is stored
When you join a deck: the name you give, your answers to the style questions, and a photo of your face only if you choose to add one. For facilitators: the welcome text they write for their circle. Card texts and sketches are those the circle offered for its deck.
Who can see it
Only people who have that deck's access code. Your name and photo appear in the deck's Circle, and facilitators see the style answers. Nothing is public, and nothing is sold or shared with anyone else.
Cookies
Arcanakin uses three small cookies that keep you signed in: one for the deck's access code, one for your place in the circle, and one for facilitators. There is no advertising and no tracking. Your browser may remember whether you turned sound on or off.
Where it is kept
On servers run by Railway in the European Union (Amsterdam). Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser contacts Google when a page opens.
Removing your data
You can remove or change your photo and answers at any time from the deck's Join page. To have everything about you removed, or to ask what we hold, write to markus@jointidea.com. We keep a circle's data for as long as its deck exists.
Who is responsible
Joint Idea Ofis Yönetimi ve Danışmanlık Hizmetleri A.Ş. is responsible for this data under the EU General Data Protection Regulation and Turkey's Law on the Protection of Personal Data (KVKK).