#tarot tip

What do I put in a tarot journal?!

Well, it is YOUR journal📖😊 - so feel free to customize & make it to fit you! ❤️

Here’s some ideas:

💡Keep logs of the readings you; whether for you or someone else. Writing down your personal interpretations during readings will help you to remember things about what you’re drawing.

💡 Have some pages dedicated to each of the cards. This could entail keywords & phrases, correspondences, even express how the card’s artwork speaks to you.

💡 Jot down your personalized, custom tarot spreads that you’ve put together yourself; any spreads that you’ve tried and want to make sure it’s remembered; or any you’ve come across that you would like to practice in the future.

Other ideas:

Previous readings

Daily card draws (include keywords, interpretations, etc.)

Tarot spreads you’ve made

Questions you wish to include in future readings/spreads

Reoccurring cards

Tips & tricks as you learn them

Card keywords, phrases, correspondences

Symbolism

Why should I keep a tarot journal?

Self-reflection

Helps deepen your connection with your deck

Tracks your progress as a reader

Records your journey through Tarot

Prompts you to explore parts of yourself

This is from the website Sibyl, i like to use these categories as a way to navigate conversations with the spirits that I'm talking to. I took a screenshot so i can save it to my cheat sheets folder and figured this could come in handy for someone else too!

If you're new to tarot (either a reader or a person that purchases readings) it's very important to remember one thing.

Tarot is not all-knowing and it doesn't predicts future in a way you think it does.

Tarot speaks and informs of current energy and the possible outcome BUT the energy is like a fluid, constantly changing and going in different directions. If you don't like the outcome of a situation, you can change it through your actions. Nothing is fixed.

It's very important not to depend on the cards too much. Take the information the tarot gives you and use it, but don't base your entire future on a reading!

I've seen both clients and readers who made this mistake - they blindly followed the cards without critical thinking. If you have to ask the cards about every single thing, maybe the tarot is not for you.

So, I write this due to a 13 card spread I do every month with the new moon to help me look into my cycle and how to grow that cycle.  The issue?  I have a very small desk and its already crammed full of shit, and I don’t have many other surfaces to work with right now.  The odds are not in my favor.  

But here are things that I do to help me read with not enough space for the huge pretty spread.  I might have limited space, but I don’t want to limit my cards and messages!

Draw the # of cards after shuffling and read through them one by one by flipping the topmost (first) card and then slipping it face up on the bottom.  Pretty basic solution.  However, you don’t get to see all the cards near each other and how they interact with one another, and sometimes that can be what it takes for some people to form the connections between cards.

Break the spread up into manageable pieces.  You’d probably draw the same way as the first method but then spread as usual with 3-4 cards, maybe up to 5 or 6, and be able to see how they all intermingle.  With this, you can make your own formation or try to stick as close to what the spread formation is.  I do this a bit linearly, so I line up the cards left to right from the first position to last.  With this solution, you get to see the cards next to one another and put together possible solutions.

This final solution costs a little bit of money, but I use Tabletop Simulator, a game on Steam.  It has a deck maker where you can take photos of your decks and thus import them into the game for your exclusive use or you can upload to the (and find decks on) Steam Workshop.  I have several decks from the workshop and several I’ve made for my own use.  Since my camera broke on my phone and I can’t afford to replace my phone, I have been using TTS to get photos of my readings for my shop clients & for my free readings here on the blog.  It also gives me space to do even 25 card spreads easily, I can take photos, I can save it all to my hard drive.  If you are into any kind of Tech Witchery, this game might be a game changer for you (heh, I do think I’m funny, yea).

Don’t listen to the “cheat sheets”, especially for yes or no questions. I keep seeing a particularly egregious tarot “tip” where all the cups mean yes, major Arcana is a “maybe”, and witch babes, it does not work like that. Every single card in every single suit is capable of giving a yes or no answer, depending on the card, reversals, your question, the general vibes you pick up when you see the card, etc.

READ THE CARD. Listen to your gut.