Why should you keep a journal? To remember and learn more about yourself! I’ve mentioned writing in a journal in many other posts (like meeting your spiritual guides with a pendulum), but haven’t discussed what to write in it or what it’s helpful for. So this article will be information filled on how to keep a spiritual journal/tarot journal. I’ll refer to it both ways throughout, it’s really up to you for what to call it.
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This post will discuss why to keep the journal, ideas of layouts for the journal, how to write about tarot in the journal, and other ideas of what to write down in your journal. This is similar to a diary that you would write in every day, just what goes in is slightly different.
Why you should keep a tarot journal
Keeping a tarot journal is a great tool whether you’re brand new to tarot, or are a pro at it. It’s important to keep a notebook to remember your journey. To look back at what you’ve learned. If you don’t remember what you’ve done in the past, how will you know to move forward instead of asking the same questions? You might also find something repeating itself. Which is trying to remind you to pay attention to it! (I’ve had one of the Kings appear in a tarot reading almost every day over the past week using different decks.)
It’s important to keep a tarot journal for bigger pieces too. If you’re doing shadow work, or past life work, wouldn’t you want to be able to go back to that and find it easily rather than just forget and have to ask all over again? When you get a new tarot deck, or new crystal, it can be important to write about it. And do a interview spread to get to know that object. That you’ll want to have written down somewhere to pay attention to.
If you’re just using pieces of paper or notes on your phone, the information may end up lost. If you keep everything in a journal, then you can easily flip back to it.
This journal is here to aid in personal growth on your journey.
How to set up your spiritual journal
This one is entirely up to you! But here are some pointers:
Have a new journal to write in. It can be a bullet journal, a lined journal, or completely blank. Pick some pens that you’d like to use for it (I prefer to use the same ones all the time for continuity/personal preference. Perhaps have one color to highlight specific pieces, and another for the main writing (see the image below).
It can be helpful to have a table of contents at the front, if you want to quickly find something you’ve worked on in the past. For this, you would have to number all of the pages or have a notebook already with numbers. Use some of the first pages in the notebook to set this up, with page number and name of the page. If not, dog-ear important pages or use sticky notes to mark important pages. This is optional, you definitely don’t have to do this.
Have dedicated pages to what you currently have in your possession: a few pages for all of your crystals to be written down, maybe with their energies associated with them. Or if you use runes, write out the meanings of all of the runes in some pages.
Specific Page Setup
For each page, start with a title and the date. It’s a lot easier to look for something with a title called “Chakras” than go through the entire notebook looking for something on a page that might say “root” or “sacral.” If you write the date in, you can also see how far you’ve come when looking back, or be able to find something you wrote down easier if you remember the season or where you were at the time.
In the image below, there are tarot cards lined up – I will write them out in the order they are for the spread so I can remember if I want to go back and look at it later. You can also do this with runes or oracle cards. The second image is an example of a crystal grid written out to remember for future use or to just look back at.
Tarot Uses
So how do you write down tarot information in your journal? Follow the image above, with the cards. Write down what spread you’re using, which tarot cards, and draw them out. Then write them out with what they mean. Try and find a common meaning in all of them, or the take-away from the overall spread if you can.
Add in if it’s for a dream, then write down the dream. If it’s for the full moon, or for relationships. Write if anything really sticks out to you, or if you notice a pattern.
If it’s for something important, try to remember the page! Or mark it for later.
Other things to write in your spiritual journal
Please write about almost anything in this journal! Write about your dreams, your pendulum divination, past lives, crystal grids, quotes, any inspiration. Try drawing something, or write down any unusual things happening. You can write in spells or affirmations. Favorite quotes. Use these as a suggestion and find what works for you.
You could also use this spiritual journal to go with the major arcana journal prompts!
I hope you’ve found this helpful! Let me know on Instagram @moonofgemini what else you put in your spiritual journal!