How to Make Your Daily Tarot Card Reading Useful
Daily tarot card readings aren’t useless. But the way you’re doing them may not be useful to you.
I work most often with tarot readers who have learned the basics but want to go deeper, and one question I often hear is “What do you do for daily tarot readings?”
There are two important points to highlight with this question.
One is the assumption that tarot readers are supposed to pull cards for themselves daily. The reality is that many accomplished tarot readers do not pull a card every day. Why would they?
This leads to the second (and more important) point worth highlighting: you should have a reason for pulling a card.
Do you have to have a reason? No, of course not. You also don’t have to take a big breath before swimming a long distance underwater, but it certainly makes for a better experience. Trust me. You should figure out why you’re doing it before you do it.
If you’re not sure, consider these three broad categories and then drill down to get to what matters most to you.
Learning about the cards
The reason why developing readers benefit from daily tarot card pulls is that they’re forced to encounter the cards and make meaning from them. The fact that it’s hard to make sense of a general card pull on a daily basis is intentional, not accidental.
By virtue of their ignorance, a reader is encouraged to turn to a deck’s guidebook or other tarot resource, or they can start to run through possible meanings based on intuitive or structured strategies. Either way, the reader is reinforcing knowledge about individual cards, and that’s the basis for fluent reading. There’s often not much profound coming out of these readings. But over time, you start to become familiar with meanings and the imagery.
Of course, learning about the cards can go much deeper and is valuable even for veteran readers. In addition to learning what a card means, consider the card further.
Imagery: What do you see in the card that you didn’t notice before? How does that support or contradict what you know of the card’s “traditional meaning”? Why is that symbol important today?
Sensation: What sights, sounds, scents, or other sensations do you experience when you connect with the card? What does that tell you about your deep, nonverbal understanding of the card and what excites, calms, confuses, or frightens you about it?
Structure: How does this card relate to the cards before and after it? How does it relate to other cards of the same number, suit, element, or other similar connection point?
As an aside, keep in mind that there’s an additional benefit to using daily card pulls for those still developing confidence in their reading techniques. Regular practice helps tarot reading become normal and routine. There’s a downside to this, but there’s plenty of upside while you’re getting used to tarot cards because you can get into a groove of personal preferences. Every day, you’re determining how you want to shuffle, how you will cut the deck, and even whether you turn a card bottom over top, left to right, or some other way. You might (and should) experiment, but eventually you’ll probably find some methods that work best for you, and that’s great to know.
And if you’re looking to learn how to read tarot better, consider enrolling in one of my classes, such as my self-paced intensive fundamentals course, Read Tarot like a Nerd.
Guidance for the day
Most often, a tarot reader who knows card meanings will start to look to the cards for guidance about the day. This can be specific, but many tarot readers are uncomfortable with specifics. They ask, “What if the specific interpretation turns out to be wrong, and it misdirects you from a broader truth?” Honestly, does it really matter?
In a one-card daily reading, the stakes should be pretty low. Unless you’re doing deep, ritualized readings and journaling for an hour into a single card, then such a question misunderstands the purpose of such a simple reading. What are you trying to get out of that one little card in a daily pull that matters so much?
Sure, you can be connecting with the divine in a moment of magical connection, but you can connect with the divine and your inner magic without it being any more life-changing than the decision to brush your teeth before or after your morning coffee. Technically, it changes the organization of energy in the world, changing the future, but not in a way that you should worry about.
So to get back to the main thread here, guidance for the day can be specific or general, but it should be intentional. Why do you need guidance on a daily basis?
It’s possible that you can get a lot out of asking the same broad question—I’ve done it. There were several months when I asked my deck, “What aspect of my spiritual self am I exploring today?” That’s some high-level stuff there to be asking every day for a few months, but it was useful because it was a clear question that I could answer with a single card. I had a clear intention behind my card pulling.
That said, most of us need to mix up the kind of constant guidance we seek, if not daily, then every few days or at least once a week. It can get boring and too vague to be worth taking time to do. Consider asking these specific questions for a more targeted and precise experience.
Dominant energy: For what energy can I prepare today?
Personal aspect: What aspect of myself would it be useful to intentionally embody today?
Area for reflection: What card has a lesson to teach me about myself and my relationship to its key concepts?
Positive prediction: For what opportunity should I be on the lookout today?
Negative prediction: For what problems should I be on the lookout today?
Specific advice: What advice do you for me about X today? (X can be anything from how to make the most of a business presentation to what accessories would be a fun addition to your outfit.)
Are there more than six things? Presumably. I just can’t think of any at this moment and this was supposed to be the basis for a 15-second Reel. (Seriously.) Besides, six is enough. You can double up on one of them (or have a learning day) and then run through them all on a weekly basis for some very powerful reading practice and daily insights. Just be sure to review the guidance that you received and how things turned out. This is a way of combining the benefits of using a daily card pull for both learning and guidance.
Personal empowerment
Tarot is primarily used as a tool for divination, but as T. Susan Chang writes in Tarot Correspondences, tarot can be used in applied practice as well. You essentially take your divination and put it to use in a way that’s different from using the answer to your benefit.
In this more advanced approach to reading tarot cards daily, the pulled card provides general guidance. But the end goal is not getting an answer to a question but about understanding the energy of the day so that you can use it as a focus and intentionally work with it as energy (or intentionally rework it).
Magical focus: What is the dominant energy of the day (so that I can ride its tailwinds and make the most of this day)?
Energetic reworking: What energy will I experience today (so that I can meet problems and make opportunities on my own terms)?
After the divination, there is follow-up application, where the card can become a talisman or component in some personal ritual or spell.
In the former, there’s an assumption that each day has its own energy, and that the energy is a kind of gift since all energy can be useful when applied to a relevant scenario. That requires you to be able to find the good (or useful in all cards), which is not always easy.
In the latter, there’s an assumption that each day holds the potential for challenges and opportunities that share an energetic theme. By encountering that energy, you may be able to redirect or “purge” that energy if it’s not in alignment with your personal goals. The energy may not always seem like a gift but just part of Nature’s chaos. As a result, you may need to get creative with how you use it and release its power before it becomes disruptive in your day.
When you’re using tarot for personal coaching, goal setting, and accountability, you’re also using tarot for personal empowerment, but it’s better to not rely on daily one-card readings for that kind of larger work. Take the time for special readings, as I teach in Tarot to Transform Your Life.
Ready to get serious about your tarot reading and find your favorite ways to read the cards? Enroll in Read Tarot like a Nerd. Honestly, who reads more astutely and loves to read than your inner nerd? It’s all online in modules, so you can take it at your own pace and just email me with follow-up questions. (And it’s not expensive for what it can help you learn about tarot reading.)