Tarot Journaling Archives - Energetic Tarot

Exploring Saturn Return With The Tower Card

Nov 11, 2021 | Journaling, Learn Tarot, Soul Purpose

Saturn Return is something I have a very personal connection with, it’s one of the main reasons you’re even reading this blog! To help break down this pivotal time in our lives we’ll be using The Tower card to break down what this time might mean and how we can navigate the challenges it throws our way.

What does ‘Saturn Return’ mean?

All the planets in our solar system travel around the sun at different speeds. For our lovely planet Earth, this is 365 days which gives us our 12-month year, for the moon, it’s 28 days giving us our monthly moon cycle, but for Saturn, this journey takes between 28-30 years.

This means that when you reach the age of 28-30 Saturn will once again be in the same position as it was when you were born and with it comes a whole lot of rediscovery, reflection and if you’re lucky like me, a quarter-life crisis. You may also notice that you go through this cycle again around the ages of 57-60, most commonly known as a mid-life crisis.

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“Saturn Returns usually happen between ages twenty-eight and thirty and fifty-eight and sixty. Those are the ages at which you lose your illusions and mistaken ways of thinking to take great steps forward.”

— Suh Yoon Lee, The Having: The Secret Art of Feeling and Growing Rich

Saturn is the planet of structure and boundaries so when we talk about a Saturn Return, often we’re looking at these areas that have so far been a part of our lives, crumbling or cracking, forcing us to take a look at where we are and take stock of our lives as a whole.

How can The Tower guide us through our Saturn Return?

Although the planet of Saturn is linked with The World in Tarot, our Saturn Return is the epitome of Tower energy. It’s a destructive or at least a no-holds-barred look at everything in our life and our connection to it. We often have that sudden realisation that we’re getting older and that we may not be where we want to be in life, or at least in a place where we feel aligned and truly happy.

For me, this came right bang on time on my 28th birthday and continued right up to my 30th. Just a few days before my 28th I had this bolt of panic hit me, it was literally like The Tower card had come and slapped me in the face. I was only two years away from entering into my 30’s and I was living my life as if I had everything I could want, even though I didn’t feel it.

I had a flat in the centre of Manchester, a job I loved with people I was friends with and that paid me a good wage and in that second, when Saturn broke down the door with its bags packed ready for a two-year visit, I realised that it wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I was happy with it, but it didn’t feel like the conclusion, it felt like a pit stop and I needed to decide what journey was next.

So, I called up BUNAC, the work abroad people, and booked a year of travelling and working in New Zealand. This was my tower moment when I decided that the structure around me was already crumbling, already shaking on cracked foundations and I needed to face the reality that it wasn’t going to last much longer. I needed to reset everything and build something new for myself.

Rummaging through the rubble

The Tower and consequently Saturn Return, always leave behind a big pile of rubble, the remnants of our own lives that we then have to sort through. We throw out the bricks that no longer feel like they’re a part of our future structure and we keep the bricks that still feel aligned.

I went to New Zealand with an idea of what my life should look like in this new phase and I came back with a completely different view of the future. I collected new bricks on my journey and threw away others that looked like they should fit but I knew deep down that they wouldn’t. It was a bit like going for a lovely stroll along the beach, picking up pebbles and shells that look appealing on the surface but the more you look at them the less they feel like yours.

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“It’s exhilarating to be alive in a time of
awakening consciousness; it can also be
confusing, disorienting, and painful.”

— Adrienne Rich, Poet and Feminist

As I inched closer and closer to my 30th birthday and the end of the road for my New Zealand adventure, I decided to start The Self-Care Emporium and become a freelance marketing consultant once I returned back to the UK. I’d always had the gut feeling that I should work for myself and this Tower period of my life had cleared the way for that to happen and pretty much forced my hand in the situation. I had no structure to go back home to, so I could build whatever I wanted with these new materials I’d picked up on my journey.

Navigating Saturn Return with The Tower

I want to stress, my story isn’t always the way it goes, I was lucky and very privileged to have the means and position in order to navigate my own Saturn Return in the way I did. It’s important to know that a Saturn Return, even though mine sound very exciting, can be a very rough period and it’s ok to struggle through it and not feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I went to New Zealand and met loads of amazing people and did amazing things, but I wasn’t settled. My depression and anxiety were high and I ended up ending my journey sooner than I had originally planned. Saturn Returns are hard and uncomfortable. They challenge you and everything you think you know, but we can use the wisdom of The Tower card to help us better understand and weather this storm. We can learn that some structures are just not meant to last for our entire lives and that’s ok. That even if everything does come crumbling down in a traumatic crashing of dust, that the dust will always settle and we will always be able to rebuild.

With all this in mind, if you’re currently trying to battle your way through your own Saturn Return or if you’re coming up to the age where a quarter-life crisis is looming, then here are a few Tower card Tarot journal prompts to help you find a bit of clarity in all the confusion.

What are the structures you currently have in place and do they feel like they are supporting you right now?
If everything disappeared overnight, what kind of life would you want to rebuild for yourself?
What values, passions, ambitions, do you have that may not be supported by the way your life is currently and how could you make more room for them?
Do a life audit. List all the things that bring you joy and fulfilment currently and all the things that don’t. Explore how much control you have over both, do you have the power to change things? Do you have the authority, or are you giving that power to someone/something else?
List all the things you would do if there were no barriers or hoops to jump through. Then, list what things currently stand in your way from doing those things. Look at these barriers and challenge their authority. Are they barriers implemented by others or by society, or are they self-created?

Tarot Journaling: Where to start with your Tarot Journaling journey

Oct 21, 2021 | Journaling, Learn Tarot

Tarot journaling is on the rise and I’m not mad about it. It’s one of the few things in my life that I feel completely passionate about. Tarot is like a game of pass the parcel, every time I come back to it there’s a new layer to peel back and so much more depth and meaning to uncover.

You will probably start reading Tarot for yourself at the beginning of your journey, in order to get some practice in, but many people simply use this time as a means to an end. They want to hurry through and learn enough so they can read for others, but that means they miss the true nourishment of the Tarot.

Why use Tarot journaling?

I use Tarot journaling at least once a week, I could just give myself a reading and let that be it, but combining Tarot with journaling means that I spend more time actually thinking about the messages I’m receiving and breaking down my thoughts and feelings about what I’m reading on the cards.

If I just lay out the 10 cards in my Celtic Cross spread and worked through the reading verbally, talking to myself as if I was my own client, I will 100% forget everything as soon as I walk away. In order for things to sink in I have to write them down, so that’s how it all began for me, because of my terrible memory.

Not only does Tarot journaling help your reading to sink in a little deeper, but it also gives you space to really delve into the thoughts and feelings that come up for you. If I look at a card and feel resistance to the messages it’s giving me, I can use my journal to delve into those feelings more. Look at where those feelings may be coming from, why they may be arising when I look at that particular card. Doing this also allows me more flexibility to understand my own reactions and how those reactions are reflected in other cards in the spread. If I feel that resistance and figure out that it’s coming from a deeply rooted belief, is that belief reflected in the subconscious card? How can that subconscious card help me unpack this understanding further?

How to structure your Tarot journal

You don’t have to get fancy with it, you could use a cheap spiral notebook you got in a sale, or you can splash out and grab yourself something a bit more extravagant. I use my Magic of i Vegan Leather journal purely because I feel like choosing a journal I absolutely love applies a bit more magic to the practice.

When it comes to making notes about the reading, I like to keep things pretty straightforward. Once I’ve picked my 10 cards for my reading and I’ve set an intention for it, I make a note of what cards are in which positions.

Tarot Journaling - Magic of i journal — *Magic of i Vegan Leather Journal – Black*

Tarot Journaling Structure — *My personal Tarot journal structure*

From there I have two different approaches depending on how I feel. The first is to create headings for each card saying what position it is in and what the card is. Then I breakdown the messages I got from it and explore the things that come up underneath each heading.

Or, a more free flowing approach is sometimes necessary, especially when I want to just get everything down on the page with no limitations. For this, I first look at the reading as a whole and write a paragraph of my first initial thoughts. Then I go through card by card, always keeping in mind the cards around the one I’m focusing on, to make sure I use all the information that is being offered to me. I keep going card by card and then at the end I like to sum up and set myself some actionable tasks and goals based on everything I’ve uncovered.

How often should you do some Tarot journaling?

I try and do this every Sunday to help set me up for the week, but I don’t always do a full 10-card reading, I try and tap into my intuition to see how many cards I need for that week. I try and stick with 7-10 just so that I’ve got enough information to really get stuck in.

It’s worth noting though that there will be periods where I don’t feel like I need to do this for a few weeks. I never force myself to journal, I do it when I feel like it needs to be done or when I’m feeling like I need a bit more direction from the universe. Tarot journaling, like any kind of wellbeing and self-care ritual, should never become a chore. If you don’t feel like doing it, don’t do it! Nobody is judging you for skipping a session, you’re not losing out or missing any messages. Listen to your gut and trust that it will tell you when it needs some Tarot journaling time.

If you’re looking to get started with the world of Tarot and want an in-depth way to learn the basic meanings of the cards so you can get started, make sure to check out my self-led Tarot For Beginners online course. I take you through all 78 cards so that you can build a strong foundational knowledge on which to grow and develop your Tarot skills.