Tarot Worksheet #1 - The Card Explorer
Update 9/22/2016: Fixed blatant mistake on the actual worksheet section! Changed "Misc" to "Lessons". Now the world is all better.
Update 7/12/2016: Worksheet has been relocated from DropBox to GoogleDrive. Background image has been removed from document to minimize file size. Minor changes and typos have been made.
I started making tarot worksheets. Unleash. The Inner. Tutor. Wooooot!
Other than being a tarot nerd, I am a full-time self-employed English Tutor. I've finally figured how I can combine creative lesson prepping with my tarot passions. I think I've always enjoyed helping people with the "process". A lot of my blog posts are creative tarot exercises that I come up with to spice up the routine.
So here's my first official tarot worksheet. It has the most original name: Tarot Worksheet #1. It is a generic one-card worksheet that will help you explore a single card in depth.
How to use the worksheet's different sections
FREE ASSOCIATION: As the section heading suggests--freely associate. Use your imagination and the power of your mind to form connections with the card and better integrate definition into your own understanding. It could be a burst of single-worded vocabulary, a creative phrase, a quotation, an imagery evoking the 5 senses, a stream-of-consciousness style word-vomit, or snippets of poetic language. Anything goes, really.
SYMBOLISM: break down the specific images on the card and address them individually. What does each image represent? What does it mean for you personally? You can use this space to note down the general definition of a universal symbol, or note down any personal connotations that you may have. Or both.
STORY: I hope this section excites the creative storyteller/writer in you. You can use the card you are working with as a prompt and compose a short creative writing piece that (and it doesn't have to be writing! It could be a comic stripe, doodle, abstract art...)
describes the scene of the card
taps into the atmospherics of the card
animates the card as if it is a scene from a movie and is in motion
allows the characters to speak and converse with each other or with you
evokes the 5 senses and sensory understanding of the card
LESSONS: This one is pretty self-explanatory. What is the lesson or wisdom that this card offers? In what way does it empower you? What life lessons does it remind you of? What is something you have learned in your own life that can be applied to this card?
KEY WORDS: Now that you have gone through the 4 other sections, you can use this circle to note down the key words that you have chosen to represent this card. What words encapsulate this card? If you distill the vastness of meanings that is this card and only 4-5 words are left, which words would remain?
Remember, there is no particular order in which you have to go through these sections. You can fill in all of them or only some of them, in any order that you feel like. If you're not sure what to fill in, you can look at the sample page on page 2 for ideas.
Happy Worksheeting! (Sounds kind of strange, but you know what I mean.)
Oh yeah in case I haven't already mentioned, the worksheet is free to view, download, and share. Hurrah!
More Resources
If you are interested in reading more about viewing tarot cards through the lens of storytelling as well as cultivating an intuitive tarot practice, check out my e-book: Tarot Beginnings: An Introduction to the Story and Study of Tarot.
