How do YOU manage your tarot journal?

wytchayn said:

I'm crazy about composition notebooks and have a ton of blank ones lying around, so that's always an option. But I struggle with how to keep the information organized when they're not extendable. For that reason I like the binder option, but they're so big!

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You can get small binders, and paper that fits them. Do a search for "mini three-ring binder"

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I used to keep a tarot notebook (in a composition notebook) but I've lost it. It had notes I am totally bummed about losing, too - from old internet bulletin boards that are long gone (early to mid-90s), library books from other cities, etc. Totally irreplaceable. For that reason I feel like virtual journals are the way to go, but I've never really warmed up to blogging. Currently my notes are scattered throughout a few different notebooks. I need to rake them all together and start a new notebook (and make sure not to lose it this time.)

This isn't what I was thinking of - I'll try to find the notebooks I'm on about, promise, but the link is on the depths of the celtic connection forum - but these might appeal and do have removable/reattachable pages.
http://www.rollabind.com/

Staples had a system like that, too. I think it's called Arc.

wytchayn said:

For that reason I like the binder option, but they're so big! I like to be mobile, and my chiropractor would kill me if I schlepped that everywhere.

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I know what you mean! I use little binders. They take A5 pages.

For the last year or two, I’ve been using Scrivener for my tarot journal. I have one great big project which is divided into six main folders:
1. Card meanings, where I’ve collected notes on the cards and suits etc., plus links to pictures of cards from a few different decks.
2. Daily draws.
3. Readings, where I keep written record of some (but far from all) of my readings.
4. Projects, which includes exercises I’ve done with books, and exercises with specific decks.
5. Decks, where I list and reviews the decks I have, plus keep an ever-growing wish-list.
6. Research, where I keep an annotated bibliography of tarot books I’ve read, plus notes on good stuff I’ve read online (and where, so I can find it again).

That description makes it sound really organised, but it’s so not! It’s a big mess, actually. Large sections are incomplete, or only inconsistently kept up. I keep thinking I need to prune and rearrange…but…um…I haven’t.

So Scrivener does work. Cool. Not portable enough for me, though. And for some reason writing my journal by hand feels right.

Curious Dragon said:

So Scrivener does work. Cool. Not portable enough for me, though. And for some reason writing my journal by hand feels right.

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It does, yes. It’s fabulous software and I absolutely love it — but no, it’s not portable. I wish! They say they’re working on a mobile version, but that day seems a long way off. *sigh*

I know what you mean about writing a journal by hand. I swear my mind comes up with different thoughts when I actually write with a pen. …Which makes me want to add old-school journalling to my big mess of tarot notes! Heh, why not add to the confusion, right?

How do I manage my Tarot journal? Very simply. I don't have one.

This doesn't mean I'm not serious. I am.

In my twenties, when I *thought* I was serious, I had all sots of magical journals and grimoires. As I get older and much more serious about learning, I don't use journals, which I realised in retrospect were just a way of my affirming to myself that I was serious. I no longer need to do that. Ten or twelve years ago I dug out all my ancient, long-neglected journals, and ritually sent them to the paper recycler's.

Years ago, I went through and did a detailed Tarot journal expounding on the meanings of the cards, my personal relations to them, historical or fictional figures that reminded me of them, literary quotes, and the like. I did a page for each card, starting with a thematic (rather than numerical) ordering of the Major Arcana and then sweeping through the suits and the court cards. In theory, I've always liked the idea of a digital project because it can be edited, expanded, and made to look pretty after umpteen drafts, but I could never follow through with a project unless it was pen-and-paper.

Like Nisaba, though, I've abandoned the journaling practice as my work with Tarot has grown more complex. I remember my readings, exercises I do with various cards, and Kabbalistic or astrological research I do, but I don't bother trying to consolidate everything into a set of notes or a one-volume journal. I just don't find it necessary. Part of this, I think, is that I've always felt that I didn't really know something unless I had it by heart; writing information down in a book might be a useful reference, but it always felt like a crutch to me.

opalbutterfly said:

This isn't what I was thinking of - I'll try to find the notebooks I'm on about, promise, but the link is on the depths of the celtic connection forum - but these might appeal and do have removable/reattachable pages.
http://www.rollabind.com/

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Looks really nice. Thanks.