JOURNAL SUPPORT GROUP!

This thread is to help encourage and support anyone who needs a nudge to start or continue a journal to help them better connect with their decks, the individual cards.

So please post whatever you wish, you can talk about the art of keeping a journal, just put what deck you're starting with, the only goal of the thread is to show support and encouragement. There is no right or wrong way and you needn't add a what or a how. Just share what you like! Feel free to post a picture of your journal, heck, if you use a special pen, you can share that! This is a thread about each of US AND THE JOY OF JOURNALS, so be creative!

All that is required is to post! So....Let's START!

I am awaiting my third edition Bohemian Gothic that should be here this week.
Seems like a good place to start as one of the first decks I did a journal on was the second edition Bohemian Gothic. This thread, FOR ME, is more about keeping a journal to get to know or reconnect with the cards of a specific deck (I already DO record my tarot READINGS though).

And to start it off, I have ordered two journals to encourage me, ones I thought would match the decks I am going to journal about (THE MARSEILLE is after the Bohemian Gothic!). I think it helps to help a journal you love to look at and write in although really a pad of paper and pen or pencil is all you really need.

I prefer the act of actually writing vs. typing on the computer when I journal. Mileage varies.

Hi GreatDane thanks on setting up the thread and speaking to the mods on where to put it

CONFESSION.
I am a journoholic, yet the worst kind of journoholic - I start journals with full intent for it to be the most magical, amazing, insightful journey of self-discovery.
After day 3, days 4-`10 get missed, then I get distracted and then its an empty book.

Yet I know that journalling is one of the best ways to keep a track of your tarot, of learning, reflecting, observing, exploring. Im just really rubbish at it lol. Its like exercise, I know its good for me, yet I'm rubbish to make the commitment lol.

I think for me I want to experience Tarot Journalling different from my previous experience of it. When I started to learn tarot, journalling and doing the COTD (card of the day) was a physical learning exercise - draw card, write down book keywords, observe day to link the day with the card. Sometimes it was a helpful guidance, and other times it just wasn't. I dont need to put COTD for that reason because I hope (by now!) I know the card basics.

However, on TarotTrends blog she mentions about the COTD for the 'advanced tarotista' to be a spiritual discipline

When you were learning tarot perhaps you pulled a Card of the Day as part of your studies. Now you can pull a COTD as part of a spiritual discipline. Some people read scripture every day, some people do yoga every day. Do your COTD with that same sense of spiritual devotion. Let your COTD give you a spiritual message, or a lesson or focus for the day.

Click to expand...

I think I need to pull a card with that in mind - which is another reason why the Golden Dawn got people to learn and draw and make their cards, so they can use them to read and communicate with Spirit (as well as a learning exercise for all the Kabbalah stuff).

So, I will join in this exercise. I think for me pen and paper would be good - old school! And I think I will just use whatever deck I feel drawn to that day - I feel if I start to limit myself much more I will cave. Like you GreatDane, I dont 'need' to get a special notebook, but its nice to get something new to help reaffirm the intention. So when Im out tomorrow I'll see if I can find a new book.

So, I, Inanna_Tarot, intend to keep a tarot journal, for daily draws (if nothing else) to help me evolve a spiritual discipline between me and Tarot, between me and Spirit/HGA, and over time I hope it will deepen my knowledge, experience and love of Tarot and teach me some new things too. I can journal about any tarot deck I like, including digital decks on my apps as well as physically shuffling the cards.

And if I start practicing it now, I should be rocking this resolution come January 1st lol.

Thanks for helping get this party started, Inanna_Tarot!

I'm excited. I am very visual and tactile, so writing is a joy. I have enjoyed doing a journal with various decks and now it is time again. FOR ME, it's the best way to think about and focus on a card and also it's nice to go back in a month, a year or years, and read what I thought then after I do another journal on the deck. I am excited to use the Third Ed Bohemian Gothic because while it will be new, in a way, it is old to me as I did journal with one of it's earlier incarnations!

I hope that together we can keep poking each other to keep journalling..

especially when I feel like its not getting me anywhere, or that its been a few days where I've slipped up and dont see the point in carrying on lol.

I have had beautiful journals that I am too scared to write in, so Im thinking something nice but plain might be a good way forward for me, something I'm not too scared to scribble in. And it needs to fit in my bag, Ive done A4 pad journalling before and it doesnt work for me as I get so overwhelmed by a big piece of paper and the urge to fill it, and its not very portable for little thoughts as you pull a card and enjoy a coffee out and about type thing.

Once I start, it's like a frenzy, Inanna!

I really get into it. It's that I just haven't done it for awhile. But when my third ed Bohemian Gothic and my journal I ordered gets here, I will go through the deck in less than a week. For me, it's like just look at a card for maybe 30-60 seconds and write my impressions and go to the next one. Before I know it, I've gone through about a third of the deck! So I usually finish within five days. That doesn't mean I don't go back and add things I think about, but for my initial thoughts, that flows quickly.

Hi greatdane my birthday twin! after your thread yesterday I started writing my journal. I decided to study the Victorian romantic first I did 6 cards and actually found a lot of information! For example the three of swords. I never realize that there is a man on the horse in the background. And also the woman is bare feet but have her shoes wrapped up on the ground beside her! Lol

WELL DONE KELLYSHAY!

Isn't it amazing what we get when we really look at a card and journal? I will likely have my Bohemian Gothic by Tuesday and I will start journaling in just a notebook I have while I await the special one I got for this deck and then I will transfer the info over. I could start with another deck, but I am very anxious to see this new incarnation of the Bohemian Gothic so that will be first. I think it's great you got those extra details!

I just took out my stack of journals. I got some from when I was 17, I got some with only art, some with poetry, some filled with post it notes and several that are mixed up in years.
And a lot of only just started and never fully committed to. But I think I won't pick a new one, just take one of the latest and keep at it.
It won't be a pure tarot journal but with a focus on it.

oh the one I picked I only filled out on the 1 of january 2013 and it has my goals in them and I am happy to say that I fulfilled at least a few small ones and one big goal :-D

woop woop Jema!

This is good this Journalling lark

Ya know - is it just me, but in this world where everything we do is almost virtually transparent, that we can actually have this little space where we are completely honest and no one can track it,search it, copy and paste it out of context or argue with how we FEEL.
Or am I being paranoid?

Tonight, as I feel the desire to try and write something, yet I am at my parents house with no notebooks or anything to hand, I decided to use my laptop and just typed up some thoughts on a word document. Rather nice to type and to think without having to worry.
I live on my laptop to maybe a laptop journal would better? Or should I go traditional with a pen and pad? Hmmm Well, either way I can always print out what I have already written.

I Love Journaling!

I started to journal when I was 12. It is such a good way to stay in touch with our true heart, and as tarot readers I think that is an absolutely essential thing to do.

Also, I totally agree with this:

inanna_tarot said:

Ya know - is it just me, but in this world where everything we do is almost virtually transparent, that we can actually have this little space where we are completely honest and no one can track it,search it, copy and paste it out of context or argue with how we FEEL.

Click to expand...

I think that is a marvelously succinct summary of what journaling is all about.

Greatdane, I love your journals that match exactly the deck you are going to study. Like others have posted here, I have tarot notes from readings scribbled out here and there but I'm going to dedicate an entire journal to a single deck. I think it will be the Merryday, I have a real affinity for that deck and I have a copy of the book by Louisa Poole which offers so much insight. I'll let the entries be random because I have such a tight and active schedule already that if I try to compel myself to do, say, one reading per week, I'm setting myself up for failure.