What Is A Tarot Journal And How Do You Use One?

There’s nothing as straightforward and as personal as a tarot journal to record your journey into tarot.

Whether you’re a tarot beginner or someone who’s been practicing the art for a while now, keeping a tarot journal can prove to be beneficial to your spiritual journey ahead.

But what exactly is a tarot journal?

To get a deeper understanding of what a tarot journal is, we have to know the benefits of journaling on its own.

Why keep a journal?

A journal is normally where we keep our innermost thoughts. Some prefer jotting down what happened during the day, while others tend to be more future-leaning in their journals, talking about goals and paving paths towards them through thorough written plans.

For some people, their journal helps them sort through issues they can’t really discuss with other people. For others, it transforms into a day-to-day tracker– from habits, to calories– literally anything the journal-keeper deems important to take note of.

This goes to show how versatile journaling can be, and how each journal is a representation nearly as unique as their owner.

Quite like any tool, journaling can take you above and beyond, unlocking more knowledge and unknowns, if done with consistency and clear intent.

With clear intention and mindfulness, your daily journal-jotting will be filled with more insight, maybe even getting you answers to questions you’ve had spinning in your mind for so long.

The subconscious mind coupled with the act of mindful writing is extremely powerful– and to use it hand in hand with the art of tarot is bound to take your tarot game to the next level.

How can I infuse journaling with tarot?

This is where the fun begins.

You know how those spellcasters in TV shows and movies tend to take a huge spellbook with them? Well, keeping a tarot journal feels sort of like that.

Your tarot journal is meant to record everything you’ve learned from your experiences with tarot, and it aims to record valuable insight you are definitely going to need in the future.

After all, our minds can be cluttered with too many thoughts at any single moment, and those valuable gems of thought might end up getting lost forever in all that noise!

As someone constantly on a learning journey, professionally or otherwise, it’ll be wise for you to collect these gems and store them for when you can use them later on.

The best tip for those first time journal writers would be to simply… write.

Most people get too conscious about what they’re going to write, hindering them from even starting! The thing is, you should remember that you’re writing only for yourself.

You’re not going to show this notebook to anyone! This is your personal tome of experiences and learnings– of spells, if you want to call it that.

Another tip is to keep your journal aligned with your aesthetic. It’s not completely necessary, but it’s definitely motivating to write into a compilation you put so much care into at the get go.

Oh, and you can keep a digital journal, but there’s something more personal about the physical and tactile, don’t you think?

Plus, writing down your thoughts in your own handwriting tends to contribute more to retention as opposed to typing them out.

At the end of the day, it’s still definitely your choice!

What should I write in my tarot journal?

Now that we’ve covered the basics, the final question is: what should you record in your journal?

Here are a couple of items you might want to consider jotting down in your tarot journal:

Card Meanings

Sharpening your memory of what each of the cards can mean (also: depending on the context) will definitely build up that knowledge base of yours and even sharpen your intuition.

Card Spreads

Be it well-known spreads or spreads you’ve decided to experiment with on your own, it’s best to keep track of ones you’ve used or are interested in.

Readings

Jotting down entire readings for yourself or for others can help you review them at a later time.

Striking Intuitive Messages

Sometimes, during a reading, you’re going to either hear or feel a particular message– which might be the spirit guides conveying a message loud and clear to you.

It’s best you take note of these, as they may be useful for you or for your client later down the road.

Tips, Tricks, and Various Insight

Whether you’re a beginner or a long-time reader, you are bound to encounter so many nuances in your readings that you might want to take note of. These details can sometimes be what makes you better in the long run.

Tarot Prompts

Some people use tarot with their journal prompts, picking a card and relating it to a question they can ask themselves for a day.

You can do this to gain more insight on a situation you or your loved ones are in, helping you make sense of what’s happening on a more spiritual level.

How To Keep A Tarot Journal

Of course, the formatting, order, and whatever other extras you put into your tarot journal may vary. After all, it is your tarot journal. Feel free to jot down whatever you think will help you on your spiritual journey.

Tarot is, after all, more than just reading cards. It’s got a lot to do with understanding the tendencies of life to twist and turn a few certain ways, and the ripples of effect these can make on everyone.

This is why keeping a collection of knowledge within reach can serve as a guide for you to navigate through your own understanding of yourself and of the world, and to help everyone (including yourself) achieve what is better– with a little insight and intuition, of course.