My daily (Thoth) tarot card regimen

Craxiette said:

Thanks Barleywine, it does sound like pathworking in some form or another might be something for me, eventually! I think it might be wise though to have some more basic understandings first, knowing myself I think this kind of deeper work would otherwise soon overwhelm me! I can see why you wrote that it would take "a larger comittment of time". The tree of life by Regardie is right on the top of my "must read now list", I've skimmed through most of Dion Fortune's The mystical Qabalah, but intend to give it more focused attention when I have got the time. The qabalah never interested me before I got the tarot deck, but now it feels like a very essential foundation for tarot study and a very useful tool in general. Also, reading the Book of Thoth made me wanting to read more of Crowley...ah, so many books, so little time!

Edit: Oh yes, Robert Wang! Thanks for reminding me, I have to put this one on my reading list as well!

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Oops, I believe I mis-spoke. I just double-checked myself and, while there IS a Regardie book that reads more like a Tarot/Tree of Life fusion than the magical text its name implies, it ISN'T "The Tree of Life, A Study in Magic." I removed the reference from my previous post until I can find that other book in my library. In the meantime, though, "The Tree of Life" is a good one to keep on your reading list for its historical details and overview of magical training and practice.

Barleywine said:

I removed the reference from my previous post until I can find that other book in my library.

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Sounds like, A Garden of Pomegranates. But not the original edition. It's the expanded one with new material by the Cicero's. They added a complete set of guided meditations for each Path/Tarot card.

Great, now I have to read both!

Craxiette said:

@Manda: If you can be bothered, I'd also love to hear some about what routine you have found works best for you!

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Most of my daily Thoth routine consists of avoiding the ol' basty...

Just kidding, just kidding. I wake, reach for my notebook to write dreams down, then do my own personal Hell "Morning Pages", then have a smoothie. Do a little yoga, then 15-20 minute meditation on a card, same one for 7 days in a row. I write down anything significant that comes to me on loose leaf paper which I methodically file in a three ring binder, after which I walk the dog, usually thinking more about the card, come home, shower, and begin my day in earnest. I look for examples of the cards energy, or of any card, kind of just as a matter of course, almost like thinking in tarotese.

I find I do better with tarot study with a consistent routine of small chunks of time than trying to cram it all in together in a giant study session when I think I have time. I'm not sure that recording dreams and the amount of writing I do is solely for tarot study, but it certainly doesn't hurt anything. Yoga and walks are just for my personal health, but I am sure that helps too.

Thanks Manda!
Sounds like a nice way to get a good start on the day
I agree totally with the "small chunks of time", I think it's also a good way of making sure the tarot study is not a separate thing but integrated in all the rest that I do. Dream journalling definitely has benefits on it's own, but together with tarot I find they have synergistic effects -tarotese is much closer to dreamese than spoken language is -the cards help me understand my dreams better and my dreams help me understand the cards better.

After doing my regimen for some weeks I realize the benefit of doing one card on several days to get a deeper understanding, my dreams tell me this, because I'm starting to get some "lag", where the card of a couple of days ago turns up as a central theme in a dream. During the first days, I had an amazing correspondence of the card of the day showing up in the dreams of that night. Maybe this overlap is inevitable either way...I'll have to experiment some more to find out! So far I'm sticking with one card per day as I would like to have an overview of the whole deck first before I move on.

I wish I had the discipline to get up a bit earlier and do a proper yoga session in the morning. I'm hoping that starting easy I will be able to build on it eventually.