How to draw a daily card so it actually teaches you, and how to keep a tarot journal
If you could keep only one lesson from this whole course, it should be this one. The tarot card of the day is the simplest practice there is and the most useful for a beginner. One card a day and ten minutes of your time. After a month you'll know the deck better than after any book.
In a big spread a beginner drowns: ten cards, each with its own meaning, and all of it has to fit together. With one card that doesn't happen. You see it in the morning and spend the day noticing where it shows up. In the evening you're no longer reading a meaning, you're checking it against your own life. That way a meaning sticks as an event, not as a word on a list.
Don't ask the daily card anything specific. Its question is always the same: what should I pay attention to today?
The notes are half the value. A plain note on your phone is enough. Four lines a day:
Within a couple of weeks you'll start seeing coincidences that are hard to miss. For example, Eight of Wands turns up on days when everything moves fast, and Four of Cups on days when you don't feel like doing anything. That's the moment the cards stop being strangers.
Sometimes one card appears three days in a row. It's not a bug and not a bad omen, just a coincidence worth noticing. Ask yourself what theme this card is holding in your life and what you haven't done about it yet.
On our site you can turn the daily card into a game. Draw it 30 days in a row and you collect the Gold Card: a free personal reading from a live tarot reader. Thirty days is also about how long it takes for the habit to stick.
In lesson 8 we learn to ask a closed question and read a yes or no spread.