After nine hours of sleep, I was feeling more or less human, and meandered down to breakfast.\u00a0 The hotel restaurant had set aside some tables for us, so we were able to eat in groups of eight, which was fun.\u00a0 Food, coffee, and good conversation perked me up considerably, so then back to the room to assemble myself for the day.<\/p>\n
The first session was “Tarot and Dream Interpretation” with Mick Frankel<\/a>.\u00a0 I always enjoy Mick’s workshops – he’s fabulously intelligent, incredibly well-read, and does a great job at presenting intricate concepts in a way that even someone who is completely unfamiliar is able to understand them.\u00a0 (You can read about his workshop on Tarot and I Ching at last year’s TABI conference here<\/a>.)\u00a0 Mick explained the importance of really listening when a client is narrating their dream, and gave us various techniques for analyzing the dream symbols and relating them to Tarot cards to give more insight.<\/p>\n He gave us a handout with some correlations on it – for example, if someone dreams of flying, then a correspondence might be found in one of the swords cards.\u00a0 If someone dreams of swimming, or of being near a body of water, then look to the suit of cups for correspondences.\u00a0 Trump cards usually describe the theme of the dream, and the minor arcana cards relate to the symbols and actions.\u00a0 Unless, of course, one of your symbols is obviously a trump – you dream of going to see a priestess, then you’re probably going to use the High Priestess card to represent that symbol instead of a minor card.<\/p>\n Mick walked us through interpretation of a couple of dreams he’d had, and then asked someone to volunteer a dream of theirs.\u00a0 Mary Collin<\/a> and Maggie both offered dreams to the group, and we had a wonderful time discussing the various interpretations and possible meanings of the dream symbols.\u00a0 As each of them described their dreams, everyone started pulling cards which they thought were a match to the dream symbols and actions.\u00a0 With so many people pulling from so many decks, it provided a rich array of interpretations.<\/p>\n A lovely lunch, and then back to a “Journey Into a Card” workshop with Emma-Sunerton Burl<\/a> and Semele Xerri<\/a>.\u00a0 They chose the Sun card from Crowley’s Thoth deck.\u00a0 They gave us some information about the card and Crowley’s attributions.\u00a0 Emma then led us on a guided meditation through the card, which was interesting and fun.\u00a0 After the meditation, we used the pastels and art paper provided to sketch our journeys.\u00a0 We then paired up and talked about our journeys with our partner.\u00a0 We were able to use some of our newly acquired dream interpretation skills from Mick’s workshop for additional insight into the journeys.<\/p>\n A break for tea and coffee – and shopping all the wonderful goodies at the TABI shop!\u00a0 And then back for a session with Juliet Sharman Burke<\/a>.\u00a0 Juliet talked about working with clients and then did a reading for Julie to demonstrate.\u00a0 She used the Mythic Tarot<\/a>, which is always wonderful to work with.\u00a0 Her methods for reading and interpreting the cards while engaging the client were very useful, and everyone agreed that they had acquired new ideas about working with clients.<\/p>\n We then had some down time to relax, rest – and shop!\u00a0 I treated myself to a garnet and hematite piece that’s quite fun – it’s a long string of beads which are magnetized, so it can be worn in many different ways. Now I truly am magnetic!<\/p>\n