5 Tips for Developing a Regular Tarot Practice
Having trouble making time for the cards in your day? Read on!
Earlier this week I posted a vlog of my weekend morning routine on Instagram and I got a wonderful question that I’ve actually heard quite a few times before (and even pondered myself!):
What is your biggest advice for implementing tarot into everyday life? I want to start doing readings everyday, but I haven’t figured out a way to put it into my routine for the day.
If you want to work with your tarot cards more regularly than you do, or more meaningfully than you think you currently do, or even if you’re just curious about some new ways to incorporate tarot reading into your life, read on.
This week, I have 5 tips to help you build a regular tarot practice that works for you!
Tip 1: Keep it simple.
It probably goes without saying that it’s easier to keep up with a short and sweet daily practice of any kind as opposed to a more time-consuming or complicated one, right? Especially since most of us are so busy all the time.
Tarot is no exception.
But my advice to keep it simple is not solely because of time constraints, although that is a huge part of it.
Even if we did have time to settle in with a multiple-card spread and our tarot journals every day, do we need all that for a single 24-hour period? We’re all different, of course, and each day is different, but as a daily routine, that would be overkill for me. It’s just too much information for me to try to parse through before I do it all over again and get even more information the next morning!
Just one question a day and one card to answer it is plenty. After all, you’re going to do it all over again tomorrow, so how hard-hitting and complex does this question have to be?
Some tarot card pulls will take time to unfold and reveal their message to us anyway, even if we have asked a fairly simple - and single- question. So we probably don’t need to add to the complexity by asking multiple questions and pulling several cards a day.
In fact, this desire to keep it simple is precisely why I created my Inquire Within deck of tarot questions. I wanted a short and sweet way to connect with my intuition and explore the cards every day in bite-size pieces that are nurturing and empowering.
Tip 2: Be flexible and try different things.
For example, if you are having trouble incorporating tarot into your daily routine, have you considered an evening card pull?
Settling in for bed and winding down with something as meditative as a tarot card pull makes as much sense to me as journaling or curling up with a book before bedtime. You could make it a reflective tarot card pull, to sum up what transpired and how you felt about your day, or you could ask about the next day and let it simmer into your subconscious as you fall asleep.
While I love my slow mornings and we all certainly get a lot of messages from all over about “the best” morning routines or the morning routines of “the most successful people,” we are not all morning people and mornings are not the end all be all of self-care and spirituality.
Your daily tarot practice doesn’t have to look like anybody else’s, or like anything in particular. And the when of it all is just one part of finding what works for you.
Several weeks ago, I started making my daily card pulls on some mornings a way to figure out what to wear! As a Pisces sun and Gemini rising, creative self-expression and identity (for better or worse) matter a lot to me. So I wondered if I would feel more authentic without overthinking if I let my tarot cards help me get dressed in the morning. It can get surprisingly therapeutic some days and is a fun and light-hearted way to connect with the cards.
Tip 3: Consider what you want or need from your cards.
This tip is kind of related to the previous one, but I wanted to bring it up on its own because it’s important.
In the two tips mentioned above, I’ve talked about things I want from a daily tarot card pull - a nurturing or empowering message, intuitive inspiration.
What do you want in a daily reading? Why do you want or need to consult your tarot cards every day (or close to it)? If your answer is “I guess I don’t, now that you ask” please skip ahead to Tip 5!
Ask yourself what you want to feel and experience with your daily tarot reading, and then model your practice after that. Model your question after that, and model how, where, and when you pull your card in service of that.
A few years ago, I was having a particularly depressive summer (that summertime sadness, if you will). Everything felt terrible and pointless and I really saw no point in getting out of bed. As someone who’s been dealing with clinical depression for awhile, I know my available tools and the moves I need to force myself to make when I get like this. And one of those things is deliberate and forced positive thoughts, especially to start the day. So, I created a simple 3-card tarot spread to do every morning for that few-week stretch.
I know, I know, I said to keep things simple. But this spread is really basic and is all about focusing on the positive no matter what card comes up. Here it is:
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Office Hours with The Tarot Professor to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.