Tarot Journal

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 05 Jun 2003, and now archived in the Forum Library.

TCarbonell	05 Jun 2003
I have read about keeping a Tarot Journal but I'm a little confused about what to keep in it. How is the journal used exactly? To record meanings of cards as a method of remembering? To record readings? What are some examples of journals other people use? I also have another question. What happens when I find that a card means something to me, and I can't find that definition in any book? Yet, no matter how hard I try to attribute the 'traditional' meaning to the card, I can't because I have my own meaning that I can't get away from. Thanks everyone!!!

Sulis	05 Jun 2003
First can I say hello and welcome to the site. I use a journal for all of the things you`ve mentioned. I have one in which I record most of my readings. This is extremely useful, you can look back on it and get insights into cards which you may have forgotten. I have another journal which I write thoughts on cards and card meanings in. I also use this one for tarot spreads. I leave a couple of pages per card so that I can write any new insights as they come to me. I also find that different decks give you different takes on the same general meaning. To answer your other question, I think that your own personal meanings are the ones to go with, as you make more entries in your journal about each card you`ll get more and more meanings for each card, these meanings will be your meanings and not those of some tarot author. I think you`ll be suprised at how often your meanings tally with the traditional anyway. Love and light Crystalmynx xx

TCarbonell	05 Jun 2003
Thanks Crystal - I find that the more time I spend with the Tarot the more I start to get away from the book meanings and devise my own. OFcourse, I don't get away too much, but I find that some meanings just don't speak to me. I also am finding that following the traditional spreads is complicated, it's very hard for me to read the cards AND keep track of which card stands for what, so I've started to play around with my own spreads and creating spreads that make sense to me according to the layout on the table. This is why i've started considering keeping a journal, in a way, it's like writing my OWN book on tarot. Thanks for your input!

Belladonna	05 Jun 2003
Hello! I have one Tarot journal in which I have a page for every card where I can write down my understanding of that card, and add to it as my insight increases or changes. I have another notebook in which I record spreads that I have done for myself and others including the entire interpretation. (I tend now to only do this for myself, but I still like to record the spread itself for close friends, family members for follow up purposes.) I have yet another journal in which I record my daily card. This can be as in depth or simple as I'm in the mood for. Sometimes I pull 3 cards. Sometimes I journal the kind of day I've had, or some event if it seems to relate. Don't worry if you've developed your own insight into a card that doesn't seem to match any book's description, but be careful not to become to narrow or rigid. Any one card can represent a huge range of human experience.

Sobeknofret	05 Jun 2003
I have a tarot journal that I keep with my decks. I do keep notes on my studies of individual cards and individual decks; right now I'm studying reversals, so that's what a lot of my writing is about. I record every spread that I do, including my daily draws; sometimes, a card that doesn't make sense now will a day or a month down the road, and it's nice to be able to refer back to the original spread. I also jot down notes about new spreads that I learn, and where they came from. Also, meditations on cards go here too. My journal is a bit of a hodge-podge of stuff, but I can always find what I'm looking for pretty quickly. And it's been very nice to refer back to in some situations. It's also kind of fun to see how my interpretations of cards have changed over time. :) Oh, and when intuition is telling you one thing about a card, and the "tradition" another, chuck the "tradition" and go with your intuition. It seems to be a more reliable thing is those cases. --Sobe

skytwig	05 Jun 2003
Nice information here. Kind of like a Book of Shadows for Tarot - Book of Tarot! :)

sagitarian	05 Jun 2003
I can't answer about the tarot journal. I tried to keep one once, and I ended up not being loyal to it. So finally I ended up tossing it, but what I did was I used to pull a daily card, just some insight on maybe how things would go that day. I would look at the card and see what I feel from it, and write that down. Then I would write down the traditional meaning (using my favorite book, 78 degrees of wisdom by Rachel Polluck). After putting both down, then I would see what parts of the traditional meaning that I agreed with (for this moment) and write down a combination of both meanings mixed together. Later on, if you get confused about a card doing a reading, then you can look up that card in your tarot journal. As for your own meaning, go with what you feel. That is what the card is trying to say to you, it's message to you. It doesn't matter if your own personal meaning and the traditional meaning don't match up. In fact, that's what you're suppose to do, is find your own meaning in the cards, and only use the "traditional" meanings as a form of back up if you feel blocked. But by creating your own tarot journal, at least this way, it is what you originally felt the card meant at least at one other point in time and not only a traditional meaning. Hope this helped, let us know how it goes!

Sulis	06 Jun 2003
Quote: Originally posted by skytwig Kind of like a Book of Shadows for Tarot - Book of Tarot! :) Exactly, that`s exactly what a tarot journal is. Crystalmynx xx

Blue Override	06 Jun 2003
I do mine on the computer, in Dreamweaver (or whatever webpage software you use). I have scans of the whole Thoth deck - my primary one - and of the Victoria Regina - my secondary deck. I post the pictures in the spread and number them, in case I want to look at them later as I laid them out and then write a little journal entry in a linked page. I store them on my university web account, so I don't ever lose or delete the files and they're not publicly accessable, so they're secret. It's very useful, I just open the file up and add things to it. . .

catti	06 Jun 2003
my journal has evolved from a hodgepodge collectiion of scraps of paper with EVRYTHING from impressions to lay out to time place date written on it to a hodgepodge collection of data in 3 different notebooks. For me it is important to write it down...it helps me learn to think something then write it down, reading it after is secondary. However , from finding the little peices of paper sometimes YEARS later i grew to appreciate the value of writing down your personal spreads and seeing what happened. Did you predict? Have your interpretations changed? Or are you now using a different deck and can cross-reference to the old deck. It is a useful tool to help you aquaint not only with book meanings but with your own evolving journey in the Tarot. oh and my books are my book of shadows...:-)

Cerulean	06 Jun 2003
Has anyone used a workbook as their journal? While the Susan Levitt kit has a workbook, I tend to scribble notes in response in another style booklet. Once I wrote in the workbook of "Following Your Path" by Alexandra Collins Dickerman, as it had 22 tarotlike archetype exercises in a nice format and regretted filling the pages...the book had my original stuff in it and now I want to work through it with a different perspective. I find my old scribbles annoying. I finally got a clean copy to start summer-study for myself.

divinerbynature	07 Jun 2003
i keep two journals myself, one for my readings, were i put the date, the question, and the spread that im using at the time. the other i use to collect information and things thati think would help me, kinda like a quick refrence book or some thing. in that i have a section were i put every thing that i could find on the different suites, and what every possible meaning or insight that they have, same with all the numbers, major arcana, ect. basicly i take every thing apart and pick it to death then analize it. :)

LittleWing	07 Jun 2003
i use a journal - one page per card - to note keywords etc ..... new insights. i feel i want to write more than i have capacity for - so i love the idea on keeping a seperate journal for my daily card (s). then i suppose every now and then i can condense and put into my main journal. it will also be interesting to look back on in time. thanks.

Cerulean	07 Jun 2003
...Some of you are building your own personal reference journals and while it may be based on one deck, it could be your use of tarot with different decks as well. I like the approach of using different decks, the focus of the journal being one's relationship to tarot study. Once I took one copy of the Ukiyoe Tarot or scans and every time I wanted to collect references on one page or do a color study of the cards, I pasted such things in two facing pages of a notebook. The color studies actually weren't useful after awhile, as the palette was the same, just varied in amounts of use for the pattern. If I had been analytical, I would have taken pattern samples and wrote my reference page numbers for the motifs--but I really got tired of doing it after five or six cards. The one thing that I could say though is some tarots won't hold up to such scrutiny and sometimes a tarot does---but it requires you to realize this is an area of study that you want to devote yourself. I can vouch for the Ukiyoe Tarot---if you put time in devoting yourself to some references I named in another thread, you will find it holds up for art study of popular motifs for the period. Many of my other tarots requires a fun look, not analysis...it is not the fault of the design, it just happens to me me, and a personal decision this isn't suited to me at that time.

bublee_tweety	23 Feb 2004
In my previous readings I also jot down what I read in my journal. But now I'm planning to voice record it in my tape recorder. I guess this is more convenient and faster than writing them.

lunakasha	23 Feb 2004
Hi bublee_tweety! Here is another thread about tarot journaling, if you are interested: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22187 There are lots of great ideas in here...enjoy! :D Luna

Phoenyx*	23 Feb 2004
My "tarot journal" is a hodgepodge mish-mash of different things, so I just ended up calling it my Journal of Occult Studies. :P Which is completely seperate from my actual Book of Shadows.

mj07	03 Mar 2004
okay, starting to feel slightly overwhelmed by all the great ideas. so... for us newbies, what would some of you more experienced members suggest as a good start? doing a single card draw everyday and analyzing it, meditating on it, then writing about it? or one a week (which, being as impatient as I am I'm thinking "omg, that will take more than a YEAR! eek!") feel like I don't even know where to start... drowning in the shallow end here! :P

lark	03 Mar 2004
hi mjo7 Sounds like you have a good plan. There are no rules. If a day seems to short spend two days. If you feel you know that card well by noon and you have time, pull another. The most important thing is spending TIME with the cards. I use a stenographer spiral notebook. Small compact easy to deal with. I do a five card daily draw I write down my first impressions of the cards in black ink then at night or the next morning look at it again and write my observations of how the cards manifested in my day in red ink. Simple, but it works for me. The cards start to take on personal meanings for me this way. I have a beautiful leather bound journal my daughter gave me. In here I write card meanings, spreads, draw, paint, paste pictures, write tarot poetry. What ever I see that I like goes in here. It's like a tarot scrapebook. I find I have to keep it simple, if it gets to complicated I don't stick with it. I'm better with a feeling of lose freedom, no rules. Just wide eyed wonder.

Macavity	03 Mar 2004
I'm currently experimenting with one of these... http://www.theintoy.co.uk/images/images_big/a54pktloose.JPG I can now intersperse my "writings" with a page of (small or pocket-sized) cards to muse over! But I do like the (any!) loose leaf format, with no restriction on content or the need to cross out stuff I might later regret :laugh: Macavity (journaling nemesis) })

Pagan X	03 Mar 2004
The first rule: You make the rules. Over the years, I have picked up a couple of nice bound books with Tarot covers, so keep your eyes open. I record the date, the spread, the question, the cards and my interpretations. I also write meditations of specific cards, or if certain cards keep repeating, thoughts about them and trends. Now I'm all high-tech. I have a tablet laptop that enables me to keep a Journal in my own handwriting, and cut and paste web pages, ,gifs, ,jpgs etc into my entries. I can go to tarotadvice.com or facade.com, pick a deck, pick a spread, boom! all there with commentary too! Copy and paste into my journal and add my own handwritten notes in different colors. tarotadvice. com has a nice onsite Journal function that saves your readings done there and allows you to save your comments about them.

The Tarot Journal thread was originally posted on 05 Jun 2003 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.