30 journaling prompts pulled from the Major Arcana

Below are thirty prompts drawn from the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana. Some cards generate more than one prompt; the heavy hitters earn it. You can take them in order, work through one a week for a season, or pair a prompt with whichever card you pull on a given day.

Treat the prompts as starting lines, not assignments. Stop when the writing wants to stop. Come back if it does not.

The Fool · beginnings

• ·What am I about to begin that I have not given myself permission to call a beginning?
• ·Where in my life am I overprepared as a way of postponing a leap?

The Magician · agency

• ·List five resources I already have that I have been pretending I do not.

The High Priestess · inner knowing

• ·What do I know about my situation that I have not yet said out loud?
• ·Whose voice am I using when I dismiss my own intuition?

The Empress · nourishment

• ·What in my life is actually feeding me right now, and what only looks like it does?

The Emperor · structure

• ·Where in my life am I asking for more freedom and would actually be better served by more structure?

The Hierophant · inherited rules

• ·Name one rule I am following only because someone I respect once followed it.
• ·Which of my values are actually mine, and which are still on loan?

The Lovers · choice in attachment

• ·Whom or what have I been choosing automatically, rather than choosing on purpose?

The Chariot · direction

• ·If I had to pick one direction for the next six months and could only carry three things, what are the three things?

Strength · power without force

• ·Where am I currently using force where patience would do the work better?

The Hermit · solitude

• ·When was the last time I was alone without my phone? What did I notice?
• ·What is one question I can only answer if I take myself out of the conversation?

Wheel of Fortune · timing

• ·What in my life right now is not a problem, just a phase?

Justice · honesty

• ·Write the sentence I have been most reluctant to say to one specific person.
• ·Where in my life am I receiving more than I am giving, and is that okay with both sides?

The Hanged Man · perspective

• ·What would change if I considered the possibility that I am wrong about a current core conviction?

Death · ending

• ·What in my life has already ended that I am still maintaining the appearance of?
• ·If I let one thing go this season, what would it be — and what would I have to feel to let it go?

Temperance · integration

• ·What two opposing pulls in me would, if reconciled, produce a more honest life?

The Devil · grip

• ·What chain in my life is loose enough to step out of, that I am still treating as locked?
• ·What part of me actually does not want to be free of this?

The Tower · the necessary fall

• ·If a structure in my life collapsed tomorrow, which one am I quietly hoping it would be?

The Star · hope

• ·What is one small thing I still believe in, that I have stopped saying out loud?

The Moon · what is hidden

• ·What am I afraid I will see clearly if I stop turning away?
• ·Which of my recent decisions were made in the dark, and which in the light?

The Sun · simple aliveness

• ·What in my life is unambiguously good, that I have been forgetting to enjoy?

Judgement · the calling back

• ·What former self of mine deserves an apology, and for what?

The World · completion

• ·What chapter of my life am I quietly finishing right now?
• ·What would I write at the bottom of the page if this season is the end of one?

How to use the list

One a week is plenty. Read the prompt, then sit with the card before you write. If a prompt does not land, skip it — the deck will bring it back later, when it is ready to be answered. The prompts that scare you slightly are the ones to start with.