Best daily practices

Sorry to throw out another question so soon, but I'm thrilled to have other Thoth people to discuss with. As a newbie I'm wondering what you experienced Thoth people do to stay connected to the deck everyday? Is there a daily spread that is a part of your routine? Do you draw a single card everyday? Read for yourself or others? Study in other ways?
Because I am new, I draw (usually) 2 cards a day to study, contemplate, journal on. I think about how these cards relate to where I am, what is going on that day, etc. I read about the cards in my books, and synthesize these meanings in my binder and journal more personal ideas in my notebook. I also read about the Tarot, TOL, etc. (My library is growing and growing...)
This is working for me now, but I'm wondering how these early routines evolve, develop and deepen with the Thoth deck specifically.

dianekay said:

Sorry to throw out another question so soon, but I'm thrilled to have other Thoth people to discuss with.

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That's quite alright, the more the merrier.

I suppose each has their own answer, for me it was contemplating the Tree of Life daily, and at different points throughout the day. Once I learned the basics of Kabbalah the deck really opened up for me, it's the machinery on which the deck is built. Every card is connected to others in meaningful ways and thinking about it often helped makes those connections clear.

There are a number of stickies at the top of the Kabbalah forum which can help you get started.

Kabbalah and Alphabets Forum

dianekay said:

Is there a daily spread that is a part of your routine? Do you draw a single card everyday? Read for yourself or others? Study in other ways?

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I once tried to draw daily cards, but it quickly became too boring for me. I have phases where I do nothing and other phases where I study much and take lots of notes in my journal. And then suddenly other things become more important and the cards lie unnoticed again.

I have my little trimmed Thoth all the time with me. I like to play with it, for example I take out all the cards associated with nr. 5, or with Venus, or Gemini, or all the cards with a certain dominant colour. Then I spread them out and look at them, and if any ideas pop up, I write them down.

The trimmed deck also opens up many interesting ways of interactions between the cards. The geomentry continues between the cards sometimes.

And just shuffling it, putting it back in order, and shuffling it again, keeps it warm in my hand

But the best practice is the practice that suits YOU!

I grew tired of the single card daily reading too, but then I happened to listen some podcasts by Dusty White, who wrote two books with many exercises.
He is more of an intuitive reader and doesn't use Quabalah at all, but his exercises can be tailored to include more approaches.
As daily practice I found one of those exercises very useful: you draw two cards and give them a blended meaning, general or as an answer to a question.
Then hou journal your toughts and insight.
I think the most important thing in any practice is to keep track of it, journaling I mean.
If you search the forum there are all of Dusty's exercises and, if you would like a study buddy, then you can count on me.
This exercise can be done with three cards as well, and more of them are very interesting.
Let me know if you want to start one with me.. i am looking for a study buddy and we could exchange readings too if u like

Keeping track of daily cards

What I do is build an Excel spreadsheet and keep track of the daily cards. It's quite useful because over time it tells me which arcana type, suit, number etc appears more often in my readings. And quite there are a few cards that keep appearing more often than others or even two or three days consecutively. Another example, a few weeks ago I had asthma attacks and the pentacles (health related) kept showing quite often until I got better.

I second study of the Tree of Life in conjunction with contemplation of the cards. Although I came to the Thoth early, I was already eyeball-deep in the Hermetic Qabalah, so it kind of just got entrained in all of that. These days, I get the most mileage out of using the Thoth deck in support of my contributions to the Your Readings sub-forum, and in the usually denser debates in the Thoth sub-forum.

With me it was the other way 'round. I discovered the Thoth, waded through Duquette's book about it and decided that to do it justice I needed an at least passing familiarity with the Tree of Life. So I took a few months off the deck to study some books about Qabalah and then went back to the Thoth proper.

I found that drawing the Tree and putting it on the wall really helped and I still just look at it at times and muse over the different connections it makes.

studying the Tree of life is an essential part of exploring the Thoth for me too. In some ways for me it is a little like coming full circle and picking up threads I dropped when I was younger. I remember being really excited on coming across the Tree thinking it was the golden key to everything. I made my way up to a book shop in central London (no internet then) I think it was Atlantis. In my memory, which may be playing tricks on me, there was a really tall, topless man with a white turban behind the counter, not serving, just standing there silently. In my youthful very overactive imagination, I thought I felt slightly nauseous outside and worried that maybe I was a bad person and that his presence had pulled out inner yucky stuff. Not that I had a clue what that might have been though...

I think I came away with Israel Regardie's Tree of life which at the time I didn't understand a word of, so dense, and it sat getting dusty on my bookshelves for the next couple of decades or so. I still haven't really read it properly so I might have to get down to that.

eta.. I had previously bought Regardie's Foundations of Practical Magic, which I think is what introduced me to the Tree. I really liked his connection to healing and I must have been learning the Tree as I am looking at some scribbles now on the Sephiroth. I noticed I underlined " In all things, great and small, I see the beauty of the Divine expression" which apparently is from Paul F. Case's 'Pattern on the Trestleboard' on the Truth about the Self. (Reproduced with permission in his book).

If I recall, Dion Fortune, William Gray and Paul Foster Case softened me up for Regardie, which I believe I was reading at the time I discovered the Book of Thoth. I'm pretty sure it was Regardie who suggested that the Tree of Life is a bottomless filing cabinet capable of holding every conceivable idea in the universe. That has stuck with me ever since, although I've come to a much more organic appreciation of it through Crowley and others.