I have given up journaling altogether, you?

I can't keep a journal to save my life, and I've tried and tried to do it!

I do keep *some* saved draws and progressive interpretations of them as they unfold, but I'm not diligent with it.

What I have found useful is this forum! It acts like a personal blog/journal because I find I post things that strike me as relevant at any given time. The deck study group I'm involved in holds all my information for me, and is easily accessible. Whenever I'm curious about a topic I know I've commented on, I just go back through my posting history till I find it and review what I wrote and what others wrote as well.

Works for me!

I keep journals more like Le Fanu's examples. Mostly information, with a bit of musing. If they are deck specific, I record readings on the last pages. That is easier for me to keep up with (and more useful) than just freewriting every day.

When I was continuously doing readings for myself I journaled all the time, mostly for the record. Two things happened:

1) Arthritis and carpel tunnel syndrome - writing anything in long hand gives me a lot of pain and is now illegible by the end of the sentence. Yes, there are electronic ways to journal, but the hand-written word made the producing of the journal more personal, more aesthetic. Typing is just not the same...and that, too, can cause pain.

2) I actually don't do many Tarot readings anymore!

reply to tarot journaling

I really enjoy tarot journaling, I have one main tarot journal I made myself all hand bound (book binding) over 2000 pages lol insane I know, I even went a bit extreme and put a large diary lock on it. lol I began this journal many many years ago, then completely took it apart re bound it added more pages made new cover etc. had lots of fun. This book goes with me everywhere, for I muse about tarot, do readings for friends, associates etc. I found it easier to carry one book then 50 books from my tarot book collection. there would be time I would receive new insight on a card, and I would write it my journal, to finding that insight after months came in handy when I hit a readers block for someone else. I enjoy doing individual intensive deck studies, I find new meanings with every new deck that will work with other decks, so it is nice to have all in one place. keep in mind your journal doesn't need to be as big as mine. lol

I will forever keep journaling, great way to remember, even many years later, I love looking back at reading of my own or notes I kept when my intuition gave new meanings during someone else's reading, and have the response OMGish I so forgot about that, and see my tarot life develop. many good laughs, lots of knowledge and wisdom gained, when I get old and my memory goes, I have my journal so it's all good. lol

I do keep separate journals for my daily readings, tarot deck reviews, and a journal for my decks - cost, where I got them, when, if it's a set or a deck, blah blah blah.

I like to write down my daily readings, and then go back later. Eventually I may toss the oldest ones. I don't use expensive journals for my daily readings. I don't know if I will ever stop journaling them, but it could happen.

(This is aside from the "regular" daily journal, the pet journal (or as DH calls it, the Dead Pet Book) and other miscellaneous journals I have around.

If I made journaling a must-do thing, then, since I am very refractory by nature, I would thoroughly despise doing it. Therefore, since I don't have to do it, I don't. I do have a sort of diary in a loose-leaf ring binder, in which, if I feel like it, I'll enter the date, information that I want to remember, and any readings that seem significant. I also have an alphabetically indexed section of the binder in which I keep Tarot, Qabalah, Astrology, and Numerology notes. They are topically arranged, and cross-referenced, so they may easily be found.

Well it takes all kinds, on one hand I'm glad that it's not me alone that has no desire whatsoever to journal Tarot; but it's also great that many do and enjoy it or evolve some complex or even not so complex system of their own. Good for you all, no matter how you do or don't go about it. Glad to read the stories.

If I do write in the notebooks I use for tarot stuff, it is usually just to note a new spread, or to take notes about a certain deck - something I might read online or in a book, and want to remember it. I rarely keep track of readings - unless they are really good, then I might write them down. I think I like the idea of journaling more than actually doing it. I am also a little paranoid about writing my deep dark personal feelings down. I didn't have much privacy as a kid, my mother (and brothers) were forever in my room and looking thru my stuff - and the few times I did have journals, someone always found them and read them and then later threw things in my face. Cures you real fast of wanting to bare your soul on paper.

Bhavana said:

I didn't have much privacy as a kid, my mother (and brothers) were forever in my room and looking thru my stuff - and the few times I did have journals, someone always found them and read them and then later threw things in my face. Cures you real fast of wanting to bare your soul on paper.

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That would cure me pretty fast of any compulsion I might have to journal too!

I've written all of my life. I've kept many different forms of diaries, journals, creative project notebooks and documentation. It's a natural pastime for me to sit and write. Write anything.
There was a long period when I did not write. I leapt out of it when two things happened: I found interesting pocket-sized notebooks and I discovered fountain pens. Now I have a superb device for capturing my writing and a superb tool for writing. And I made a supreme effort to improve my handwriting so it's not only legible, it's fun to do.

Keeping a tarot journal may be fun as you develop your craft but not many artists keep their practice drawings or photographers their flawed images.

However, do you believe you can predict the future with tarot? If you do not document your prognostications and carefully assess them objectively in the hard light of truth, how will you know where your powers begin or end?