A Creative Exercise Using Tarot Cards as Writing Prompts
Every morning since January 13, I’ve been doing a short writing exercise using tarot cards as prompts. I’ve done this previously, but let the practice fall by the wayside. But I’m having fun with it now and I enjoy starting my day with these flash fiction stories and descriptive paragraphs. Since January, I’ve worked with the We’Moon Tarot, the Fairy Tale Tarot by Lisa Hunt, and the Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. Here are four of my exercises from this week, all examples of my creative writing with the Shadowscapes Tarot.
See some of my other creative writing here. And learn to use tarot as your muse in this video from 2020, Writing with Tarot: Channel Your Muse (Writing Tutorial, Tarot Spreads, and Writing Prompts!).
Six of Pentacles
February 23, 2026. 7 a.m.
I was particularly drawn to the curious instrument he was playing, which opened up the a story of a musical tradition through the generations.
The bramblehorn is an odd instrument. It’s made from the twisted, thorned, and hollow stem of a berry plant that is native to my country. Once the blossom fades and long after the fruit has been harvested, the dried stem and sepals form a wind instrument with a flute-like sound, somewhere between a wooden flute and a recorder.
But as dried up and twisted as this old berry branch is, it is only its tune that causes the fountain to gush and water the young, green plant that is the future generation of the bramble.
I play every day at this rock spout carved by the ancients. I play the bramblehorn I harvested, dried, and tuned as a child. I play every day so that the next generation can play as well.
Six of Cups
February 24, 2026 6:47 a.m.
I never know where these stories are going when I start writing, but wondering who the gray fae creatures were opened up a novel approach to the Six of Cups.
There’s something they don’t tell you about tea parties. Tea parties are, without a doubt, a wonderful act of imagination for little girls and other people who practice this tradition. But there are many more layers to a tea party.
This is one of the most powerful of early experiences for summoning ancestors and spirits. It’s easy enough to see the stuffed teddy bears and jointed dolls at the table. And the conversations they have are dear and telling. But they are not the only beings at the table. Guides, guardians, and ancestors are drawn to the concentration of imaginative potential.
A tea party if a child’s first séance. It is their first summoning of their spiritual helpers. And it is the first step to a lifelong connection with their personal power and inner magic.
If you’re ready to gain the conversation of your holy guardian angel, there’s no better way to do it than with a tea party.
Five of Cups
February 25, 2026 6:28 a.m.
My imagination got the best of me as I saw fairies who tangled her hair and made her pay a ransom to get them to stop.
A rocky finger of land juts into gentle blue waves that fade gracefully into the misty sky.
Standing at the very edge of the land, a woman in a flowing gown with tattoos on her arms holds a clear fish bowl with a fish floating above the water. She offers it to the fairy that hovers in front of her. Additional fairies crowd behind her, while others hide in the water. Energy and light spiral around her.
One of the fairies is caught in her hair, grasping a strand of it. She seems to be paying a ransom to get the fairy out of her hair.
The fairies have a good blackmail business going by the looks of it. Two warped or broken bowls litter the island—perhaps old ransom paid. A bowl with two swimming fish sits behind the woman—maybe a freshly paid ransom. A golden bowl floats in the waves, or maybe has come to a stop grounded on the sandy bottom of the water. Maybe it’s held in place by fairies. I believe capturing the golden bowl would stop the fairies from blackmailing her.
But the land cuts away steeply to deep water very quickly. It would be dangerous to try to retrieve the golden bowl. And those fairy rascals are everywhere. Should she let them continue to tangle her hair or risk the adventure that could lead to freedom?
Seven of Swords
February 27, 2026 6:20 a.m.
It was fun to explore why the man is poking the fog with a sword and what the white swan is doing. I think I came up with an interesting interpretation!
The black fog was rolling in. The crows scattered with a squawking ruckus. I was at Fossil Folly, a natural stone formation jutting up out of bare ground with little apparent purpose, but containing shapes of animals and birds. The whole thing looked like a petrified Pillar of Creation from a deep space photo.
Seven swords extend from this decorative?–creative?–dead?–rock, and I quickly grabbed one to fend off the threatening mist. A sword against smoky tendrils might seem ridiculous, but here at Fossil Folly smoke could thicken into form and engulf anything in its way, turning it to stone. To save myself from this fate, I only need to use the point of the sword to break up the fog as it thickened. I wore a mask with a long tube-like beak so I wouldn’t breathe in the malicious mist.
Fossil Folly, the Pillar of Creation, was a place of transformation. If the mist was light it could transform beings into whatever they wanted. But if the murk coagulated, it fossilized everything in its way. My love had already transformed into a beautiful white swan. I was starting my own metamorphosis. Painful wings pierced my skin as they grew out of the prima materia of skin, sinew, and bone.
I must complete my own transformation into a black swan so I can be with her forever.
But if I can’t keep this cloying fog at bay, I will become one with the rock.
