The Tarot Muse
Carolyn R. Guss
Certified Professional Tarot Reader and Teacher
610-658-3252
tarotmuse@earthlink.net
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Card-a-Day
Tarot
by Carolyn R. Guss, The Tarot Muse ©
So you have a deck of
Tarot cards—bought by or given to you—and maybe even a book to help you
understand the meanings. Now what? As a Tarot instructor as well as a
reader—one who struggled for years to work with the cards on my own—I
heartily recommend finding a teacher or joining a class, at least to get you
started. Once you absorb the basics and have obtained some practice reading for
yourself and others, you can progress on your own quite nicely. But if you
choose to go-it-alone, how and where do you start?
Approaching the
Tarot—a deck of 78 cards rich in symbolism and meaning—can be a bit
daunting. One of the simplest yet most effective ways of getting your feet wet
is to use the "card-a-day" method. James Wanless, Tarot scholar and
co-creator of the popular Voyager Tarot, encourages choosing a single Tarot card
every day as a practice, much as one might do yoga, meditation, or any other
daily discipline. Working with a card a day doesn't require a significant
investiture of time, such as doing a reading for yourself would. If, as your
instructor, I suggest that you do a reading every single day, the odds are
pretty good that you won't follow through, even given the best intentions.
However, if I ask you to choose just one card from the deck each day and spend a
few minutes contemplating it, you might find yourself able to do that—at
least, say, four out of seven days a week. (Of course, seven out of seven would
be even better.)
In her spirited
guide on writing, Bird by Bird, Anne
Lamott explains the title—and one of its basic tenets—by describing her
ten-year-old brother attempting to produce an entire report on birds the night
before it was due (after three months of procrastination). Their father
encouraged his desperate son by advising, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take
it bird by bird." One might easily say the same about the Tarot,
substituting "card" for "bird." And to paraphrase a
sixteenth-century adage, "Even the longest journey begins with a single
card."
The Tarot is a journey, as
a look at the opening card—THE FOOL—will show you. And it is a long journey
if one chooses to make it the trip of a lifetime, as some of us have done. But
ultimately it is a journey of 78 steps, which really isn't that many. For
example, I just left my office and walked downstairs and out into the back yard
to check on our cat, who is stalking cicadas—a trip requiring precisely 78
steps (and that netted me a "why did you bother?" look from the cat).
Choosing a Tarot card is
just as easy—as well as more productive than keeping tabs on a self-sufficient
feline.
Working with a card a day
helps you to both learn the meanings of the cards and interpret them, by
applying each one to your daily life. Basically, you can use one of two methods.
If you wish to be methodical about it, just start with the first card in the
deck—THE FOOL or THE MAGICIAN, trumps 0 or I, respectively—and move on
through to the last. Such a practice will help you to see patterns and
progressions in both the Major Arcana (the 22 archetypal cards) and the Minor
Arcana (the four suits, including the court cards), and will prove immensely
satisfying. With this method you will have engaged with every card in the deck
in two-and-a-half months—less time than it takes to finish a bottle of daily
vitamins.
If you prefer a more
free-form approach, shuffle the deck each day and, after quieting your mind,
randomly select a card: voila, your card for the day! With either method it is a
good idea to study the card you have chosen—and by study, I mean stare at it
in a concentrated fashion for as long as you are comfortable doing so—and then
write about it: first a basic physical description of the card, followed by your
own impression of what it signifies to you. You can also, of course, feel free
to consult your Tarot manual of choice for the book-meaning of the card—but
not until after you have formed and noted your own impressions. (Keeping these
in a notebook or journal will prove immensely helpful to your Tarot progress
both now and in the future.)
Although if you are a
beginner you will not see the pre-determined patterns that you would in working
systematically through the deck, this method has the added benefit of offering
the possibility of repeat cards, which can be especially significant to you on a
personal level. For example, you might find yourself receiving THE HERMIT (trump
IX) three times within two weeks, which would indicate pretty directly that you
might want to spend some solitary time and/or that you need to start listening
more closely to your own inner voice—one frequently being contingent on the
other. I always watch for "repeat" cards, tallying up at the end of
each month those that have appeared as my daily card more than twice in thirty
days.
Of course if you are
already familiar with the cards and are using the card-a-day method as an
intuitive practice, you can skip writing out a physical description (although I
would still take a moment to stare at and absorb the card visually: you will
notice different images at different times), and simply jot down what relevance
you think this particular card might have for you today, or anything that comes
to mind regarding the card.
Sometimes the connection
between the card and your day will be elusive or esoteric, and at other times so
wholly literal as to be laughable. I am currently using The Alchemical Tarot for
my card-a-day practice; recently I selected the 10 of Coins, which depicts an
older man whose copious hair and opulent beard are rife with gold coins; two
more reside on his cheeks, and a final pair are pinched in his eyes like twin
monocles. Clearly this is a card of abundance, possibly over-abundance. After
studying it, I wrote in my daily log, "Do not let concerns about money get
in the way of what you are trying to do, such that you are blinded to the work
itself. There will be enough." Later that day, due to an unfortunate mix-up
with a client, I lost $20, a not-insignificant amount of money to me these days.
After the initial upset, I turned to the image of the coin-covered man and
realized that the loss was okay, that "there will be enough." On
another day, after choosing the 6 of Cups from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck—in
which two children play in a courtyard with chalices full of flowers—I was
asked to take care of a woman's houseplants and garden while she was away on
vacation.
James Wanless considers
the daily card he selects to be a window-into and mirror-of his day. He sees
choosing the card as "a directive, a pro-active device." Wanless
encourages following the message you determine from the card with a direct
action, thus bringing the subconscious quality of the Tarot into conscious
awareness, a process he deems "intuition into-action."
Choosing a card for the
day in either the morning or the evening can be an effective tool for
understanding your day (and the Tarot), particularly if you make it a habit. In
the morning you might want to ask, "What is it that I most need to be aware
of today?" or "What will my day be like?" If you select the card
in the evening, an appropriate query might be, "What was the message of my
day?" or "What do I most need to consider as this day comes to a
close?" Alternately, ask nothing: just keep your mind clear, simply opening
yourself to whatever card the Tarot offers you. In that way you might view the
card chosen as a theme or motif for your day. One of my students, too rushed in
the morning and too tired in the evening, chooses her daily card in a quiet
moment during her lunch hour, a practice that centers and directs her in the
midst of a busy day.
And what if you receive a
difficult card? Wanless suggests identifying to yourself just why you find the
card problematic (that is, what does it signify to you?) and then
"grounding the negativity" of the card. If all else fails—and you
absolutely cannot deal with the energy of the card you have chosen—or find it
to have no relevance whatsoever to your day—well, pick another card (although
I recommend attempting to work with the card you originally selected: and never,
if you are serious about the Tarot, continue choosing cards until you receive
just the card you think you want to see).
Most proponents of the
card-a-day system recommend placing your daily card in a spot where you might
glance at it several times during the day, such as atop a desk (or in a desk
drawer if you need to keep it private). If you choose the card at night, you can
place it on your bedside table or dresser so that you will see it before
sleeping and upon awaking. In The Complete
Book of Tarot Spreads, Evelin Burger and Johannes Fiebig explain that, in
revisiting the card throughout the day, "the significance of the card will
grow; it will come alive, and will start to ‘speak' to you."
If you are just
discovering the Tarot, drawing a daily card is an intriguing introduction and
effective learning tool that, as Burger and Fiebig state, "forms a
continued involvement [with the Tarot]. Using Tarot each day for a few minutes
will become more rewarding than doing an occasional reading." For the more
advanced practitioner, the card-a-day method creates a unique dialogue between
the Tarot and each reader's intuition: an interior journey that is, as Shawn
Colvin sings, "a mystery that goes on and on and on."