Today started with a cup of coffee and the monthly Tarot School Readers Studio conference call.  The call is hosted by Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone of the Tarot School in New York and Mary Collin of Mary Collin Training and Consultancy in the UK.  Mary attended the Readers Studio 2007, and was so impressed by the event that she persuaded the Amberstones to start the monthly conference calls to do follow up and to keep the network created at the event going throughout the year.

Today’s call was well-attended (it’s a type of meeting, so one could say that people attended!), about 11 people in all.  Ruth Ann announced that she had created a stand-alone website for information about the Readers Studio at www.ReadersStudio.com.  (Formerly it had been part of the Tarot School main website at www.TarotSchool.com.)  Several of us logged on right then to check it out – very nice!  I’m even more excited about attending!

Wald then continued the conversation by asking why most of us, as experienced in the Tarot as we are (unusually, almost everyone on today’s call has been doing Tarot for ten or more years) continued the Tarot learning process after having spent so many years in study already.  Aside from the usual answers (there’s always something to learn, I just can’t resist buying new books), the general philosophy seemed to be that, no matter how much one learns, it’s the human condition to forget a great deal, and while it’s possible to tap into one’s knowledge unconsciously, having the conscious reinforcement is quite helpful.  There’s also the joy of adding new knowledge to what one knows (and can remember), or to recall something read elsewhere, and deepen one’s knowledge and internal understanding (not just intellectual comprehension, but real understanding) of this endlessly fascinating subject.

Ruth Ann and Wald also solicited ideas and suggestions for the 2008 Readers Studio.  The event will have a special extra session on “Advanced Birth Cards” the day before the conference actually attends, so there’s an additional opportunity for learning and making connections.

Ruth Ann and Wald also announced that their forthcoming book, The Secret Language of Tarot, being published by Red Wheel / Weiser Books,  will have its debut at the 2008 Readers Studio – how perfect! And yet another reason (as though there aren’t enough already!) to attend.

We were all talking and ideas were flying around, and suddenly we realized we’d gone 20 minutes over the planned time, leaving people only ten minutes to log onto their computers and prepare for the web conference that Mary has set up as an addition to the monthly phone conference calls.  I wasn’t able to stay around for the web conference – I had a wedding to go to – but I hear it was wonderful, and I can’t wait for next month!

You don’t have to have attended any of the Readers Studios to participate in the call.  You can contact the Amberstones via email and they’ll add you to the notification list for the calls.  I highly recommend it as a way to connect with new people in the Tarot community and to participate in some very exciting discussions about Tarot!

The latest podcast is up!  Episode 14 features a delightful conversation with Thalassa, founder of the Daughters of Divination and producer of the San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium.  Thalassa shares sneak previews of some of the fabulous presenters who’ll be speaking at the October 6, 2007 event in San Francisco, CA – Mary Greer, James Wanless, Joseph Martin, Allegra Printz, David Skibbins, Julie-Cuccia Watts, Raven Grimassi, Stephanie Taylor, Ellen Lorenzi-Prince, Alessandra Genetti, Sasha St. John, and Sue Wilhite.  Full details can be found on the Daughters of Divination site.  See you there!

Ever have one of those weeks where every day the Card of the Day is a major arcana card? And not one that elicits squeals of delight when you turn it over? That was last week. Hanged Man. Chariot. Tower. Tower. Chariot. And it was that kind of week. Part of it is that I’m in a Chariot year (based on my birth card), but still – enough is more than enough sometimes!

So I started thinking about *why* it was a pooky major arcana card week. If I’d picked different cards each day, the same events would nonetheless have transpired, so why did I feel so upset because of the cards I drew? (Okay, setting aside the fact that I haven’t reached complete nirvanic detachment yet, and I still become upset about things. Evolving takes time.)

What if, instead of the Tower card on Wednesday, I had drawn the 10 of Cups? All the things that happened Wednesday would still have happened – only I would have looked for the 10 of Cups in them. So instead of being distressed that my grandfather was hospitalized with his fourth heart attack, would I have looked at the event as being able to offer and to receive the comfort of family in dealing with the situation? (He’s doing fine now – he’s still in the hospital, but he’s telling jokes to the staff, and demanding cookies, and telling my grandmother he’s ready to go to McDonald’s.)

Or what if I’d drawn the Eight of Pentacles on Friday instead of the Chariot? Instead of feeling run over by my workday, in which the interruptions had interruptions, would I have instead focused on the fact that my day was filled with difficult situations, but ones which I had the skills and experience to manage, and that everything worked out by the end of the day?

I do think the card a day practice is invaluable in learning the Tarot, and in learning to deal with one’s life and self. I have decided, however, that any day on which I pull a difficult card, I will pull a second card for an alternate viewpoint for the day, and try to balance the two as I move through my day.

And, of course, having decided this, I haven’t pulled a difficult card all week! I’ll post about it as soon as I have a day with that result.

    Tarot brings comfort and consolation. Thursday morning (after not sleeping well Wednesday night), I managed to drag myself out of bed and make my way downstairs to start the day. I pulled the newspaper off the front step, and the first thing I saw was the news of Luciano Pavarotti‘s death. I sat down and cried. And cried.

Yes, he left us a beautiful collection of memories, and music preserved for posterity, and he brought beauty and joy to millions of people all over the world, and it’s important to keep that in mind. It’salso important to feel the grief and let it go. And I cried. And cried.

I finally managed to stop sniffling and make breakfast and get on with the business of the day. When I sat down for my morning meditation, I pulled the Eight of Wands from the Voyager Tarot by James Wanless, entitled Harmony.

How perfect! As I meditated on the musical imagery, and thought about harmony, I allowed myself to fully experience the gift of the harmony Pavarotti created – among opera singers and musicians, pop stars, and the millions of people who loved and appreciated his work. Later that day, reading many tributes to him, and hearing so many stories of kind acts and good deeds he did, I was able to feel that harmony within myself, and to remain conscious of manifesting harmony in myself and in my dealings with everyone. Thursday was the least-stressful day I’ve had at my day job in weeks.

Grazie, Luciano. Nella vita, lui ha cantato come un’angelo; ora lui canta con gli angeli.

If you need further proof that it’s hot and I’m fried from the heat, here it is: I completely forgot to post that podcast episode #13, featuring an interview with Lon Milo DuQuette, has been up for a week! You can find it here:

http://www.tarot-to-go.net/Podcasts.html

I had a chance to chat with Lon between sessions and readings at the Tarot Association of the British Isles annual conference. The interview was fun – although it may be a little too obvious that we’re both jetlagged and punchy. Happy listening!

Someone turned up the heat here in the bay area, and it’s hot. (Okay, I acknowledge that our hot isn’t really hot compared to, say, Kansas City, Atlanta, or Houston, but it’s hot by our standards.)  The heat is having a  “highly non-optimal” effect on the vegetation in the back yard, and my rose plant is wilting. I’m wilting, for that matter.  So today’s post features two of my favorite Tarot sites:

Aeclectic Tarot – http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/ –  Simply the best-presented multi-purpose Tarot site for reviews, discussions, and great interviews with Tarot authors.

The Tarot School – run by Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone, this site has lots of information for starting with Tarot, and offer classes and workshops in person, online, and via correspondence – no matter how many things you’re juggling on your dance card, you can fit a class into your schedule!  They also present the annual Readers Studio each spring.  I’m scheduled to go to my first one in 2008, and I’m really looking forward to it!

I know, I know – you’re probably already aware of these sites and are thinking “big deal”.  If you haven’t visited either of them recently (and really, when was the last time you actually went to the site and devoted real time to perusing it?), you should allow yourself a good hour (or at least 30 minutes) to revisit the sites and soak in all the wonderful Tarot goodness.

And now I’m going to go soak in some cold water goodness!

Every single beginning Tarot book advises to pick a card a day and work with it as a way to become familiar with the cards without having to spend hours memorizing. I do it, most of the readers I know do it, and it’s certainly helpful, both for learning the cards and for navigating through the day without spontaneously combusting (or at least reducing the probability of spontaneously combusting).

I’d like to hear from you – what other ways do you have to make Tarot a daily practice?

In a fit of schedule serendipity, Thalassa, founder of the Daughters of Divination and Producer of the San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium (“SF BATS”) and I managed to have the same hour free on the same day, and met for coffee and quick preview of this fall’s SF BATS on October 6. As usual, Thalassa has managed to put together a stellar speaker roster – featuring Mary K. Greer, Raven Grimassi and Stephanie Taylor, James Wanless, Joseph Martin, Julie Cuccia-Watts, along with local Tarot experts and authors – all in all, Thalassa has planned 18 speakers for your enlightenment, education, and entertainment! The event will be at the San Francisco Unitarian Center from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm on Saturday, October 6, 2007. Thalassa has also promised a Tarot Salon for Sunday, October 7, with details to follow.

We bravely traversed the wilds of Contra Costa County to set up the Tarot-To-Go booth at the Pittsburg Scottish Renaissance Festival last weekend (August 11 – 12). I’d worked the faire as a performer with my acting group many times, and my main memory of it was that it was *hot*. Really, really hot.

When we arrived to set up Friday afternoon, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, while it was warm, it wasn’t hot. It was, however, extremely windy. Windy as in “sit on the pavilion walls at the ground level in order to get them to hold still to hang them” windy. Fortunately, Rosered and Andrew were their usual sensible, reliable selves, and with the last-minute addition of two boxes of safety pins, we were set up and ready to go before nightfall.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and the crowd was pleasant. Some curious, some scared (one woman told us she couldn’t have a reading because she wasn’t sure it was okay in the Bible – you mean that book written by astrologers, augurers, and diviners of all types?), and some who had been looking for us. Wasn’t a huge day – certainly not in comparison to Valhalla Faire in June – but acceptable. Only one difficult client (she really wanted us to predict the future in exacting detail), which, at an event like this, isn’t a bad ratio at all.

Sunday was another matter entirely. It was *hot*. Really, truly, freaking *hot*. Out come the bowls of ice water to drench ourselves. So hot it’s almost impossible to breathe. The crowd was a usual Sunday late start (people sleeping in or coming after church services), and by the time they showed up, it was so hot that no one wanted to do anything. We did lots of one-card readings, but most people were too hot to contemplate anything more complex. The heat finally broke a bit before 4:00 pm, and we did a few regular readings before the faire closed at 5:00.

The upside of doing few readings was that it reduced the ratio of difficult clients, so all the clients were great to deal with, very interested and receptive. We introduced a lot of people to the idea of Tarot in general, and did a lot of debunking (I want all the media to just knock off the Tarot-as-devil’s-work stuff *now*), and overall it was a good weekend.

We’re looking forward to the Golden Gate Renaissance Faire this coming weekend, August 25 – 26, in San Francisco! If nothing else, we’re expecting a lot more people in the crowd to already know what Tarot is, so we’ll be able to engage them more on the actualities of it.

Come out to the faire and see us – look for the double-size blue-and-white-roofed pavilion!

I’ve been working with the Da Vinci Tarot (book by Mark McElroy, art by Iassen Ghiuselev and Atanas A. Atanassov, published by Lo Scarabeo) since it became available in 2005. Leonardo Da Vinci‘s work has always inspired others to create and to build upon his drawings and research, and this deck and book set is an excellent addition to the collection Da Vinci inspired projects. The art work is based on Da Vinci’s original drawings, with additions by Ghiuselev and Atanassov.

Da Vinci didn’t set out to create a Tarot deck; however, the artists and author combed Da Vinci’s notebooks for drawings and ideas which could be adapted to the Tarot, and did an admirable job of it. If you’re not familiar with Da Vinci’s line drawings, this deck will likely encourage you to seek them out. A good painter has to be good at drawing, and Da Vinci’s line drawings, many of them sketches for his famous paintings, are excellent. The two artists show great respect for Da Vinci’s work, and their additions to the drawings are not at all noticeable, unless you happen to know the original piece they adapted.

McElroy’s book is an excellent example of what the book in a book and deck set should be. He starts with a brief, but informative, overview of the history of Tarot, and of Da Vinci’s life and work. In following chapters, McElroy explains the philosophy behind the creation of the deck, and how Da Vinci’s work is well-suited to adaptation to many purposes.

The next chapter is devoted to working with the particular deck, and creative approaches to Tarot reading. The book includes two spreads, a Pentacle Spread based on Da Vinci’s drawing Vitruvian Man, and an Insight and Inspiration Spread based on Da Vinci’s diagram for a flying machine.

The final chapter, which is actually most of the book, is a commentary on each of the cards in the deck, including notes on the illustrations. For each card, McElroy lists what the card encourages, what it cautions against, general commentary, and exploration questions to consider as you work with that card. The exploration questions in particular are excellent for refreshing one’s thinking about the image and the symbols in the card. This is especially helpful in dealing with the “difficult” cards, such as the Tower (“How can I incorporate and make the best use of setbacks?”) and the 10 of Swords (“How can I make a decision and be done with this situation?”).

This deck is an excellent choice for anyone, as it inspires the reader to examine the traditional cards in a different way. I especially recommend it for readers who feel they’ve hit a plateau with their work and are looking for a fresh take on the cards. The exploration questions for each card will keep you busy for weeks, if not months, and your understanding and experience of the cards will be much richer and more meaningful for you and for your client.