Making the most of a Daily Draw

[Joan Marie]

One of the first pieces of advice anyone new to Tarot gets is to get in the habit of doing a Daily Draw.

You choose one card, study the image and maybe consult the Little White Book (LWB) that came with it. You may even keep a Tarot Journal where you make notes about the card you draw each day. This is a good thing to do because it helps you get your thoughts together about it and you find the connection (or disconnection) between the "prescribed" meaning and the things you might have noticed about the card and how you reacted to it.

Whenever possible, it's best to do this at the beginning of your day because then you can add a really important dimension to your study and do something that will really help bring meaning of the card to you: you can apply it to your actual day.

Think of when you were in school and you learned a new word and the teacher made you "use it in a sentence." That was to help cement the word for you, make it part of you. You can do the same thing with your daily draw.

After you have drawn a card and made a little study of it, keep it mind. If you can put it somewhere you can see it all day, do that, but if you're on the go, take a picture of it with your phone. You could even make it your phone's "wallpaper" for the day. Now you will remember to look for the moments in your day that exemplify that card. Sort of like "using it in a sentence."

For example, you choose the 10 of Wands:

Now you may see this card as predicting a day of toil and misery for you, so in that case you may as well just go back to bed. But what would be more interesting is to just go about your day as normal and look for those "10 of Wands" moments and note them.

Here is a scenario: You get to work and some unexpected catastrophe causes a giant pile of tedious work to land on you. You think, "How 10 of wands."
You accept the situation gracefully because, after all it is a 10 of Wands day.

So you dive into the work, barely lifting your head from it all morning when a co-worker asks if you want to go to lunch. "No," you say, "I'm just going to get a sandwich and eat at my desk or I'll never finish this" surrendering to the 10 of Wands vibe.

By the end of the day, your eyes are bloodshot, your nerves are rattled, you're edgy and grumpy. A co-worker invites you for an after-work drink. You go because you feel like you really need it. This is another "10 of wands moment" because you are addressing this feeling of being overburdened and over worked by taking action. But the alcohol combined with your burned-out self is not a great combination. You drink a little more than you should, don't sleep well and the next day is even harder because of it.

So now, you can think back on your "10 of Wands Day" and the card will have more concrete meaning for you. You can think back on how you applied it. It was probably good that you accepted the situation cheerfully. But maybe you should have asked for help. Also, might it have been a better idea to "put down the 10 wands" and have a nice relaxing lunch with a friend instead of pushing yourself into a state that led you to sort of "over-medicate" later that evening?

This kind of applied consideration, this "using it in a sentence" is a good practice for really cementing the Daily Draw card's meanings for you, when you can recall those moments that really made the card come alive to you.

It can also help you think more creatively, or expansively about how to use the message of the cards in your day.

[BlueStar]

I find the daily draw an excellent way to learn the cards, learn how I personally interpret the cards, and to practise connecting with intuition. Instead of the morning I do the draw in the evening. If I did it in the morning and got a challenging card I'd be worrying about when that situation might occur during the day. Doing it in the evening allows me to be more relaxed about reading the card. Just thought I'd mention it in case it helps someone.

You can also do the reading with 3 cards when you feel more confident, one each for the morning, afternoon and evening.

Either way the daily draw is a great technique.

[Joan Marie]

Instead of the morning I do the draw in the evening. If I did it in the morning and got a challenging card I'd be worrying about when that situation might occur during the day. Doing it in the evening allows me to be more relaxed about reading the card. Just thought I'd mention it in case it helps someone.

Do you mean you do a draw in the evening for the next day?

I don't know why, but I've never thought of doing it this way before, but now that you say it, it seems so obvious.
Doing it in the evening also gives you a chance to "sleep on" it and be well prepared for the next day. Maybe even trigger a useful dream.

Personally, I've always felt at my best for doing readings in the morning, but I'd like to be more flexible about that. This sounds like something I'd really like to give a try at.

[BlueStar]

Hi Joan, no I meant I do the daily draw at the end of the same day for that day , and see how it relates to the day I've experience. It works for me. I never thought of doing it for the next day, that's a good idea too.

[Joan Marie]

Hi Joan, no I meant I do the daily draw at the end of the same day for that day , and see how it relates to the day I've experience.

That's an interesting idea, it's more of a reflective exercise. I really like that too.

So we've already come up with 2 variations on the standard Daily Draw in this thread. Not bad, eh?

[archimedes]

I enjoyed your reflection on how the 10 Wands might be reflected in the experience of the day, Joan Marie- and how we could use that knowledge to change our choices!

Another strategy can be to deliberately choose a specific card whose energies you want to bring into your day. I have a friend who spoke about reading where sometimes she'll say, 'no - THIS is how it's going to be!' -selecting a different card and lay it over the one she'd drawn.

I draw daily cards most days. Usually I'll try to keep in mind the aspect of my day that is most important or that I need help with, asking how I can make the most of what life brings that day.

Even though I've been reading a fair while and know the cards well, I still like to look at the 'book meaning' as often there will be little helpful comments there or perspectives I might not usually take. This is particularly true for decks that align with different meaning-systems, like Druid or Celestial.

[TheLoracular]

I have been doing daily draws for Twitter for 10 months now. I've experimented with both random draws and with using a sequence like 0-22 in the Major Arcana and then letting my intuition take it from there. Reading a card for not myself but for hundreds of people has been a lot of fun and good practice in learning how to share my thoughts in 200 characters

[Joan Marie]

Reading a card for not myself but for hundreds of people has been a lot of fun and good practice in learning how to share my thoughts in 200 characters

I did a kind of "course" with Enrique Enriquez a while back and one of the things he talked about was keeping readings short, concise, on point. Or rather, not feeling the need to go on and on about what you saw in the cards which he felt was a kind of trap a lot of tarot readers get into with clients, as if to give the client their "money's worth" required lots and lots of words.

I can see how doing a daily tweet-reading would be good practice for that approach.