‘Write a spell in the morning, and it will act as a compass, a shield, and a map for your whole day.
– T. Susan Chang, Fortune Wheel House Podcast
One of the recommendations made to new tarot readers is to pull a card for the day. The idea is to help people to learn the card meanings, and integrate tarot into their daily routine.
And I do think it’s a great way to focus on getting to know the meanings, especially if you’re journaling and checking back later on to see how the card showed in your day.
But as a reader who has a few years under his belt, I do now find the idea of pulling a a single card tiresome. I don’t feel it activates or integrates Tarot into my daily life. It feels very passive and I fail to make it a habit.
Luckily, I discovered the Fortune’s Wheelhouse Podcast and the idea of a ‘tarot spell’ offered by T. Susan Chang.
I’m going to skim over the concept of magic and tarot as your ‘spell’ doesn’t need to be ‘magical’ but it does need to be meaningful to you.
I do think that pulling two cards everyday is a useful way of seeing the cards in different context and combinations and provides insight that you can draw on in future. This is especially true if you track your dailies and see what repeat cards come up.
I don’t go as far as completing a spreadsheet but I do note when I get the same cards turning up.
Things I do & don’t do in my current practice:
- I do pull two cards
- I do say something before I draw
- I do write my ’spell’ on a bit of paper
- I don’t log them in a spreadsheet
- I change decks every decan
- I do photograph my cards
- I do write down my spells in ink
- I do focus on guidance/affirmation based wording.
Here are a few samples of my daily draws:
Everyone’s practice is different.
T. Susan Chang has talked on her podcast appearances about how she focuses on fulfilling the requirements of the spell . This heads off the energy for the day so it doesn’t manifest randomly.
Personally, I want to see and listen to a message and, perhaps, prepare myself to change my vibe.
Drawing two cards and writing a two line ‘spell’ is how I now place tarot into the heart of my day.
Susie answers the question: Now, how do you go about creating this powerful talisman? in her article on Llewellyn.com entitled Tarot Spells: Make Magic from Your Card of the Day and provides an example. The also goes into detail in her excellent book Tarot Correspondences.
As I said above, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way.
How do you make tarot part of your day? Do you have a daily draw routine? Please let me know in the comments.
Further Reading:
Tarot Spells: Make Magic From Your Card of the Day on tsusanchang.com
A Year of Spells on tsusanchang.com
Footnote:
In her book, Tarot Correspondences, T. Susan Chang acknowledges Paul Stuart as the person who introduced her to the concept of card spells.
