by Nina Lee Braden
Several Tarot teachers recommend drawing a card a day as the best single way to learn Tarot. I find that not only is a Card a Day a good way to learn Tarot, it is also a good way to learn any card system. However, a Card a Day is more than just a learning tool; it is also a visual and personal meditation method.
In a Card a Day, we draw a card each day, and we let the visual images of that card imprint our day as either an affirmation or a challenge or a lesson for the day. This helps us to learn to read and relate the card system to our daily lives, more important than to learning to read fancy spreads which may or may not relate to our daily lives.
The Card a Day is something that all of us can do. It takes no special study or training.
It is important to realize that a Card a Day is not a fortune for the day. This practice does not foretell what will happen to us for the day, although sometimes the card choice may be uncanny. It is really a lesson, a challenge, an affirmation, a meditation for the day. Instead of reading a thought in a daily meditation book, we choose a card and let our minds ponder that card to be our meditation for the day.
There are literally dozens of different card systems which are popular today: Tarot, Lakota Sweat Lodge, Sacred Path, Medicine, Beasts of Albion, Angel Blessings, Way of the Cartouche, Druid Animal Oracle, Rune, African Divination, Phoenix and more. A Card a Day can be used with any of them.
Here is my format for Card for a Day.
1) Select a card. I do this randomly by drawing either a card off the top of a shuffled deck or a random card from a deck which has been fanned out, face down.
2) Study the picture. Study the symbols. Examine the card closely. Look at the numbers. Count objects. See where your eye is drawn. See what commands your attention. What colors do you see?
3) Ask yourself, "How does this card apply to me?" All cards in a well-designed deck apply to you; the trick is in discovering how. Your reaction to the card and your thoughts about it are actually more important than which card you get. In other words, no matter what card I get, it has value for me, it has a message for me. My task is to discover that message, that value. Some cards will apply more easily and obviously to us than others, naturally, but any card will work because it is our reaction to the card which is of chief importance, not the card itself. We can make even the so-called negative or problematic or challenging cards work for us in some way.
Always make the card make sense for you. The way that it makes sense for you may not be the same as the "book" meaning of the card. Your reaction to the card is just as important as the card's meaning, often even more so. What is your reaction to this card?
4) Think about how you can use the message of the card in your life today.
5) At the end of the day, think back and review ways to apply the card to your life. Ask yourself, "Have I learned the lesson of this card today? Have I met the challenge of this card?"
Art copyright 1992, Nina Lee Braden
Scanning by Alice Martin
Copyright 1997, Nina Lee Braden. All Rights Reserved.
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