I’m excited to announce the first meeting of Tarot House San Francisco on Thursday, August 26, 2010!

In cooperation with Tarot Professionals, we’ve established Tarot House San Francisco, a monthly gathering of Tarot readers, enthusiasts, and collectors, meeting the last Thursday of each month at the Unitarian Universalist Center of San Francisco, 1187 Franklin Street, 7:00 – 9:00 pm.

I’m further delighted that our first meeting will coincide with a visit from the UK by Tarot Professionals Directors Marcus Katz and Tali Goodwin, in town to attend the fabulous San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium!

We’ll discuss Tarot, we’ll exchange ideas, and we’ll actually pull out our cards and read!

As an additional benefit, all members of the Tarot House will gain individual membership to Tarot Professionals and full access to the magazine, guides, videos, and forum. Not only do you benefit from the ideas and experience of the monthly meeting, you have all of the resources of Tarot Professionals available every day of the month!

You can read more about Tarot Professionals and Tarosophy(TM) restoring the spiritual dignity of Tarot at: http://www.tarotprofessionals.com

The fee for each meeting is $7.00, which covers our cost of providing the space and the group subscription to Tarot Professionals, which makes your individual membership available each month.  (You know you spend that much on lattes and lunch every workday – and Starbucks doesn’t give you a Tarot Professionals membership!)

Please RSVP by email or by phone at 415.508.7323 so we can be certain to have enough chairs, coffee, and tea.

See you on August 26!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted – I’ve been so busy living life, it’s been a while since I’ve had time to record it!

We have lots of new, fun, and amazing things on the horizon – a podcast with Thalassa about the San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium in August, a review of the Transparent Oracle, and tales of our recent adventures in Los Angeles with David Palladini, James Wanless, and Lon Milo DuQuette.

Check back this weekend for details!

Courtesy of the lovely folks at Schiffer Books, our friendly mail person delivered a copy of Emily Carding‘s Transparent Oracle to my door!

Image Courtesy of Schiffer Books

Like Emily’s Transparent Tarot (which I reviewed here, and we chatted with Emily about it in this podcast), the Transparent Oracle is nicely packaged, and includes a white cloth for ease in working with the cards. As with the Transparent Tarot, working with the cards on a light table takes the deck to an entirely different level visually.

First, the book.  An interesting and informative forward by Sorita d’Este and David Rankine, and then Emily’s own preface.  In her delightfully chatty style, Emily encourages us to play with the cards “as friends would”, and tells us that “My role here as author is simply to introduce you.”  How can one resist such a charming invitation?

The Oracle is based on the Seven Sacred Directions: East, West, North, South, Above, Below, and Within, and the elemental correspondences of the four geographic directions.  Emily thoughtfully provides notes on directions and correspondences for readers who are not in the Northern Hemisphere – a nice inclusionary touch which is refreshing to find.

The book gives dscriptions and discusses meanings and associations for each card.  Persisting in a habit developed very young, I played with the cards prior to reading the book, simply to have a chance to work with them intuitively and to see what occurred to me.

The artwork is, of course, wonderful – Emily’s talents are well known and well shown with this deck.  Flower wreaths, fairies, green men, gnomes, geometric shapes, and hands with olives, all beautifully rendered.  Wait – what? Hands with olives?  Okay, time to pop open the book and see what that is about.

Turns out that card 66 (the images are numbered to make it easier to find them in the book) is actually Telepathy, and what I thought might be olives are actually wave lines representing the telepathic energy moving out from the individual.  This card appears in the sequence Within, which I imagine must have been the most challenging for Emily to create – after all, how do you represent, even symbolically, intangibles such as Telepathy and Empathy?

Emily neatly solves this problem by having the cards “show the face and hands, two significant parts of our outer selves which reflect the inner, with energy lines and patterns, or different parts emphasized in color.”  So, no, they’re not olives – although I did play with the idea of them being olives, and thus olive-colored energy in telepathy, and contemplated what that might mean in the context of a reading.  You are welcome to share your ideas in the Comments!

As with the Transparent Tarot, it’s quite possible to spend so much time playing with the cards – looking at the images, sorting and stacking them in various combinations – that one never actually gets around to reading with them.  However fun and enticing the play is, don’t miss the opportunity to read with this deck – you will be rewarded for your discipline and focus, and can still have a great deal of fun playing with combinations and overlaying the cards to create new, interesting, and infinite images.

For even more interest, you can do a reading with the Transparent Tarot, and then pull cards from the Transparent Oracle to add a layer of meaning and enrich the visual experience.  Even though the cards are a different shape, they work together quite nicely – the roundness of the Oracle cards give visual and symbolic expansion to the traditional rectangular Tarot cards, taking the images out of their usual borders and offering a new perspective.

Brava, Emily! Congratulations on another fantastic artistic success!

Yes, this week!  Tuesday, July 6, 2010.  Since we’re suddenly in the month of July (and how did *that* happen?!), we’ll be looking at the 7s in the minor arcana.

We’ll be starting at 7:00 pm and going until 9:00 pm, at Borderlands Cafe, 870 Valencia Street in San Francisco.  We’ll be in the back of the cafe, with lots of tables and chairs for gathering in twos, threes, fives, etc. to ooh and aah over each other’s decks and do readings.

The Tarot Cafe isn’t a formal class or workshop.  It’s an opportunity to meet with others who read the Tarot, talk about cards, practice readings, compare techniques, and enjoy the delightful beverages and delicious food offered by the friendly staff at Borderlands Cafe. We’ll start the evening with a question or topic to get the conversation going, but after that, the only guide is your imagination!

We’re excited about these gatherings, as they will give us all a chance simply to enjoy the Tarot – and the company of fellow Tarot enthusiasts – twice a month.  There’s no admission fee; we ask only that you support the cafe by indulging in a coffee, tea, snack plate, or treat.  (Or all of the above – why choose?!)  Borderlands Cafe offers an extensive selection of teas and coffee drinks, and savory snacks and sweet treats sized for individual consumption, for sharing, or for a complete meal.  (My favorite is the Antipasto Plate – yum!)

Borderlands Cafe is at 870 Valencia Street, between 19th and 20th Streets.  It’s accessible from BART, Muni lines 14, 33, and 49, and a nice stretch of the legs from Muni  lines 22, 48, and J Metro.  Street parking is doable within a block or two of Borderlands, since the meters turn off at 6:00 pm.

Registration isn’t required, but we’d appreciate it if you would please email us so we have an idea of how many people to expect, that will allow us to reserve enough tables.  Even if you don’t manage to let us know ahead of time, feel free to drop in – the more, the merrier!

We’ve been so busy preparing for the Voyager Tarot Intensive this weekend, we almost forgot to share the preregistration special with you!

Use the code “pathways” at checkout, and receive $60.00 off the regular registration!

In this hands-on workshop, you’ll have two full days – and we do mean full! – with James as he guides you through the Voyager Tarot system. An energetic teacher, motivated by his passion for Tarot, James not only tells you about Tarot, he ensures that you experience the Tarot!

In addition to discussions about Tarot and the Voyager system, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to work with the cards, reading for yourself and others in the workshop, guided, encouraged, and inspired by James.

As a Seer, the dedicated learner in you has recognized and accepted the mantle as a ”way shower.” The Seer is a facilitator for other Seekers to find their way. It only takes a spark to illuminate and inspire another! In “seeing” for others, the Seer in you grows. Seeking never ends. Being an oracle for others is the Seer’s spiritual practice. A Seer, by virtue of sharing wisdom, prepares for evolving into the next stage of life.

Upon completion of this course, you will be a Seer, an oracle certified to read the Voyager Tarot. You will know how to interpret symbols and consult the cards for others as a tool for insight into relationships, work, money, health, and personal spiritual growth.

You can register online at Tarot Media Company, or by phone at 415.508.7323.

So that the session can be hands-on and focused, class size is strictly limited, and advance registration is required.

The class will be held from 10:00am to 5:30pm in San Francisco, California. Directions and details will be included in your registration confirmation.

The registration fee includes the workbook, lunch, and refreshments for both days. And remember to use the code “pathways” at checkout to receive $60.00 off the regular registration!

See you this weekend in San Francisco!

Rose Red, Andrew, Artemis J, and I will be reading Tarot at the Valhalla Renaissance Faire this weekend, June 12 – 13, in beautiful South Lake Tahoe.

The faire is nestled in the gorgeous mountaintop woods at Camp Richardson, very near the lake.  Hundreds of costumed actors provide entertainment in the streets and on stage, and vendors will tempt you with their various and interesting wares.  Come in costume, or come as you are! There’s plenty of fun to be had by all.

We’ll be doing readings both days – Saturday, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm, Sunday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm.

Come up to Tahoe, enjoy the lake, and enjoy a reading!

James Ricklef has announced the third printing of his Tarot of the Masters to be released in late June!  This will be a limited run of 100 copies, so if you want one, move quickly!

You can pre-order the deck by contacting James directly.  Pre-ordering means you receive it the instant it becomes available – no waiting!

And, if you pre-order the deck, James will give you $5.00 off the regular price!

If you haven’t seen this deck, you can check it out on James’ website here.

The Tarot of the Masters is a great deck – and you can take Rachel Pollack‘s word for it!

“Tarot of the Masters is my new favorite deck. Not only does the choice of art wonderfully fit the Rider-Waite-Smith images we all know, James Ricklef has smartly decided to redraw them in his own hand rather than simply collage them. The result is a unified deck with wonderful colors and exciting scenes. Because the paintings are themselves so interesting they add extra layers of story — and therefore meaning — to the classic cards.”

Remember, the new print run is only 100 copies, so if you want to add this wonderful deck to your collection, contact James!