Your Tarot Journal

 

There’s more to tarot reading than meets the seer’s eye. Indeed, tarot cards have many uses outside of predicting the future, such as help for specific situations and guidance for moving through a difficult time. Outside of that, tarot cards can also be used for meditation, writing, inspiration, and daily musings. As someone who collects tarot cards for the artwork and inspiration, I’ve found many uses for them over the years. One such use is journaling. 

I’m the type of writer who loves the idea of journaling and buys a lot of journals, but when I actually sit down to write in my journal, I literally draw a blank. To that end, I thought it would be a good idea to connect journal writing with tarot cards, and I came up with a few ideas that require nothing more than a deck of tarot cards and a journal. Here are some ideas for using your cards to construct your tarot journal.

Writing Prompts

One fun idea for journal writing is designing your own writing prompts using your tarot cards. To begin, open your journal, grab a colorful pen, and draw a tarot card from your deck. What do you see? What’s happening on the card? Think of 5 writing prompts that have been inspired from the picture on your card and write them into your journal for safekeeping. You can share them or refer back to them as needed!

Writing Inspiration

How about using a tarot card as writing inspiration? These tiny pictures are like artwork and can inspire us so much! Open your journal and grab a card from your deck. What’s happening on your card? Is there a scene that inspires you? A character depicted that seems interesting? What’s the setting? The mood? Jot down your ideas about the card so that you can refer back to them when writing.

Daily Musings

If you’re not looking to use your journal for writing inspiration, you can use the tarot cards for daily meditation and musings. For example, you can draw a card from the pack and think about what that card says to you. Write down your thoughts: What emotion do you feel looking at this card? What do you think about the scene? Is it happy or sad? How can you connect this with what you’re feeling right now? Is nature shown in the picture? What can you write about nature as shown on your card?

Recalling Daily Moods

For this one, you’re going to fan out the cards face-up and then draw ones out of the fan that speak to you. What cards are you drawn to, based on your feelings that day? Try going over the cards and making connections. Are they all happy cards? Are they showing scenes of anger or fear? What does that say about your day and your current mood? 

Starting your Day with Imagination and Creativity 

Of course we go into tarot reading with a bit of imagination and a little creativity. The cards say so much to us, but we’re also making links to life using our deepest thoughts and intuition. As you draw a card in the morning, think about what you can add to the card and/or what story you can tell from the picture on this card. Let your mind wander until you feel a spark of creativity, and jot all of this down. This should jumpstart your creativity for the morning and throughout the day!

Tip: If you can, purchase themed tarot cards, as they often have stronger artwork than the original Rider-Waite tarot. Here is a link to a buying source: https://www.llewellyn.com/browse_category.php?product_category_id=199

See my Wizard of Writing blog for an article on writing inspiration using the tarot: 

http://thewizardofwriting.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-magician-using-tarot-cards-for.html