This Friday!

Sorry, totally short notice, but since I just got asked, I couldn't have been able to post this sooner! I will be doing readings this Friday, March 19th, at Whimsies! Since this event is from 5:30pm to 7pm, I can only offer short readings, but if you've ever been a curious observer of tarot readings, this a great way to get your feet wet!

Also, Whimsies' Annual Spring Sale started today, so for more information, visit their blog at whimsiesincognito.blogspot.com. Hope to see you Friday!

New deck, new ideas, etc.

First of all, welcome again to my tarot blog. I had hoped I would make blogging about tarot a more regular occurrence! People have been keeping me busy, and man, am I grateful for that. So, let's get to business, shall we?

I have attended two workshops on tarot within the past few months. In early December, I attended "Throw out the #@%!ing Book!" and in February I attended "Readings for Lovers and the People Who Want Them". Both were taught by Ms. Courtney Weber, and now I am very pleased to pass along that she is now taking pre-orders for HER OWN DECK! Tarot of the Boroughs is a photographic deck instead of an illustrated deck. Yes, you bet your bippy that I pre-ordered. There are 78 cards in a tarot deck... creating a tarot deck is a huge undertaking, and I take my hat off to anyone with vision and fortitude to see it through to the finished product. Please check out the link, and if the images you see are appealing to you... well, you know what to do!

The second order of business is to ask if anyone would be interested in me doing an e-mail mailing list. If so, please e-mail tarrytowntarot[at]gmail[dot]com with the subject line: mailing list, and I will add your e-mail. I plan on only doing a mailing every few months or when I am reading at a public event.

Thirdly, February was a very busy month for me for readings, and I noticed before and after my readings, people were asking me questions about tarot itself, about the nature of tarot, the origins of tarot, psychics vs. tarot readers (if there is a vs. or not), my feelings on tarot and why it works for me as a reader, etc. Very good and interesting stuff came out of these questions, and I think an equal amount of time was spent on answering those questions as doing the readings themselves. So, if you do have a question that you think falls into that other realm, please feel free to e-mail me at that same e-mail address, and I'll do my best to answer it. And, as always, if I've read for you and you had nice things to say, testimonials are ALWAYS welcomed!

It will soon be spring! Enjoy the lengthening hours of daylight, and thanks again for reading!

Getting the fears out

So, let me introduce you to a little friend of mine. It's a new friend, and I'm just making their acquaintance. It's called the Deviant Moon Tarot.
Depicted here is the Six of Wands (I figured I'd clarify, since the picture is flipped). This is a good example of what this deck looks like, and perhaps explains my original fear of doing a reading with it. It is very dark-feeling... from the colors and from the skewed figures on the cards. Made me feel slightly insane looking at them. Of course, the name of the spread that came with the deck is the Lunatic Spread.
I was asked to do a reading with this deck, so I did, and it turned out better than I expected. I have introduced my energy to this deck, and it has revealed its energy to me, and I think we'll get along just swimmingly with it playing second fiddle to my main deck.
In short, I was scared to work with this deck. I was asked to read using this deck, and I did it. Remember Eleanor Roosevelt's quote: "Do one thing every day that scares you." Your fear is never equivalent to what you experience when you actually get over your fear and just do it! You can surprise yourself!

2010, New Year's blessings, and a very late post

Happy New Year, everyone! I feel that 2010 has something really great in store for all of us. This is a year for communication and connections, even if (and perhaps in spite of) Mercury being in retrograde for the start of it! Mercury in retrograde makes everything wonky, by the way. I'm not really up and up on my astrology, but tarot.com has great articles on everything from tarot to numerology to astrology, especially this article on the effect of mercury retrograde on careers. Mercury in retrograde makes communication go awry or get misconstrued. In spite of that kind of start, I still think this year will bring breakthroughs in communication with people. We'll connect with people on levels that are deep and true, seeing through differences to connect to the core of other people. We'll realize that our differences are few when viewed with our universal similarities. We all have hopes, dreams, unfinished plans, procrastination, and faults we're looking to correct.

So, blessings to everyone that has found their way to my little blog, and blessings to everyone that hasn't. Blessings to my true friends and even people that aren't my friends, because both groups of people teach me lessons I need to learn. Blessings to everyone that I've read for, and blessings to people I haven't read for yet, because I learn a little bit from everyone. I take your journeys with you each and every time you allow me to read for you, and I thank you.

I took a wonderful workshop last year (ha, last year! but it's true, even yesterday was last year!) with Courtney Weber (don't you just love the photo?), professional tarot reader and class act. You can read Courtney's adventures at her blog, agirlcalledwoo. She definitely helped my tarot reading, simply by allowing the entire class permission to throw out the little white book that comes with a tarot deck and asking us to rely on our own interpretations of the cards. She also took us through several exercises that helped develop more of a personal relationship with our decks. This is certainly stuff that I should have been doing long ago when I first started reading tarot. When you do something long enough, you become more involved in the rote of it than with actually *connecting*. It never hurts to go back to basics... it can only help! It makes you look at things in a new light. Never a bad thing in my book!

Onwards and upwards, my fellow spiritual wanderers! Thoughts and comments are most certainly appreciated!

The Deviant Moon Tarot

So, I talked about fear in my last entry. It's time for me to put up or shut up, and use a deck that I was initially going to either return or give away: the Deviant Moon Tarot. Because I saw the images on it, and it scared the crud out of me!

However, it caught my eye again as it sat on my bookshelf, and I decided to read a review of it (http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/deviant-moon/review.shtml). I think I'm only afraid of the images and the deck because I'm afraid to explore the darker side of my psyche. So I'm not going to return it or give it away; I'm going to use the deck because it was bought for me by a friend (the wonderful Karen), and because there is no denying our deeper nature.

I'm not going to use this deck with kids, though! :)

Throwing out the book

Lately (the past year or so) I've been more serious about my readings... getting better at them and really using more of my intuition and personal thoughts about what I'm seeing in the cards instead of the traditional meanings that I learned out of either a book or the little instructional booklet that comes with a deck of tarot cards. I've been reading tarot for over twelve years (whoa, that makes me feel old, and I'm not!), and I've only started to learn to trust in my own interpretations now. But from doing so, I have become an immensely better tarot reader, and a better person all around.

So what is it about tarot that makes us so afraid of our own gut instincts? Is it because these cards are outside ourselves, being laid out on the table for us? Does it feel so final and set in stone when those cards are staring up at us from the table, accusing us of our mistakes and faults? Do we feel naked and our souls bared when a spread is laid in front of us for the world to see? What is it exactly that makes us feel we are incapable of reading what the cards have to say without a road map and a guide of symbols as to what each card means?

I think it all boils down to fear. Fear of what we might discover about ourselves, fear of not being capable of reading our cards for ourselves, of not making the right interpretations, of being dead wrong. Fear of looking stupid, or of making a mistake. I've decided to embrace my fears and keeping going in spite of them, and in some cases, because of them.

How about you?

a few thoughts on readings and reversals

First off, I read for several nice people on Friday night at Whimsies, and was glad people came out despite the lousy weather.


It continues to amaze me that tarot really does work. A stranger sits down in front of me, shuffles the cards for a few minutes, and for the span of the reading, I know them; they let me share a little of their hopes, dreams, and plans for the future. And hopefully, when everything goes right, I can tell them a few things and add a little clarity or foresight to their situation.
So, let's try and illuminate a portion of tarot readings that some people get confused about: reversals. These are my thoughts on the subject, but every tarot reader goes about reading the cards differently. If you too read tarot, but don't use my philosophy of reversals, don't worry! Do what works for you!


I do use reversals (upside-down cards) in my readings. When in a relationship position, I interpret a reversed card as a sign of miscommunication within the relationship (just an example). Generally, I interpret upright cards as situations that the querent is in control of, and I interpret reversals as situations that are out of the querent’s hands and therefore shouldn’t stress out about them. I think the basic difference between upright and reversed cards is the intention and motivation behind the situations the cards represent.