Tarot Pride!

In a tarot tutorial I offered this morning, the subject of “coming out” as a tarot practitioner came up.  It’s OK to be into tarot.  It’s OK to work with the cards on a professional basis.  It’s OK to be engaged with the Mystery.  If you practice tarot, what do you call yourself?

• tarot reader
• tarot consultant
• diviner
• tarot counsellor
• soul guide
• midwife of the soul
• symbolic coach
• therapist
• archetypal medicine person
• imagic healer
• agent of feedback
• intuitive
• psychic reader
• other?

How will you “come out” loud and proud and name yourself as a tarotist?  Remember that you’re not a bad person if someone thinks its goofy, and you’re not a good person just because someone thinks its cool.  You’re simply an out and proud tarot person!

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Refreshment at Grey Heron

Jeannette, Jane, Jennifer, and I have enjoyed three days at Grey Heron, Andrea Mathieson’s home and retreat centre in Maple, ON. Cecile and Lynda were with us for the first part. It’s been refreshing, restorative, healing, and fun.

On Tuesday evening, Jeannette offered drum-doctoring to a group here. The spirit of the drum heard and responded to our healing requests with great power.

Yesterday was a day to relax. We journalled, ate, played with tarot cards and Crone Stones (see http://www.cronestones.com), read, and soaked in the music of Jennifer Berezan and Shawna Carol. The books on the table gave away the tone of our time together:

• Healing the Heart of the Earth by M. Pogacnik
• Tarot Games by C. Johnson & M. Shaw
• Man and His Symbols by C. Jung
• Crone Stones by C. Campbell
• Women of Wisdom edited by K. Steinnes
• Brave New World by A. Huxley

Alongside these, a tarot deck, the Crone Stones, and a pack of Soul Cards.

Our talks ranged from the profound soul-searching of fellow journeypeople to the silly and slightly potty-mouthed banter of good friends. Here’s a poem that came to me yesterday:

enrobed in soft green

longing to express True Self

as praise to our world

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Tarot and Life Purpose Workshop

On Saturday, an intimate group of people gathered for a day of exploring Tarot and Your Life Purpose.  This is a new and improved version of a workshop that I offered a year and a half ago.  Improved because it incorporates some aspects of the Work That Reconnects, more effective journal prompts, the birth cards, a life quest layout by Mary Greer, working in pairs, working alone, working as a group, and quiet reflective time to journal, contemplate, draw, colour, move, or make a poem.

Using the birth cards, we completed statements such as:

• These cards remind me that what I most love and appreciate about our world is…
• These cards remind me that a greater spiritual teaching for me is…

We completed the Mary Greer layout by finishing this sentence:

• I want to discover how to…

We role-played, commenting on people’s life purpose expression goals for the week as doubters, ancestors, and future beings.

All in all, a satisfying day of exploration.  Some laughter, some tears, and lots of connection.

If you would like to host this workshop in your area, please contact me at (416) 966 – 2685 or at evolutionary_tarot@yahoo.ca .  I’d be very happy to work with your group in this deep and rewarding way!

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Pace, Guidance, and Preparation

Today is a rainy day in Toronto.  Reminded to stay in, journal, pull cards, watch a Joanna Macy instructional DVD, and be with the weather that is.  Slowed down to a real human pace, moving at the pace of guidance (in Christina Baldwin’s words).  One favourite journalling resource I have is The Wise Earth Speaks to Your Spirit by Janell Moon.  I turned to the pages on rain, responded to the questions, and doodled with crayons.  It’s in these moments that I feel guided, by what or by whom doesn’t particularly matter to me.  I only know that it’s benevolent.  Also doing a tiny bit of preparation for Saturday’s workshop, “Tarot and Your Life Purpose”, by jotting down thoughts about what will work better than in the original plan.  Hope to see you here!

A short tarot reading about moving at the pace of guidance:

1. How can I best remember to move at a more natural human pace?     9 of Swords, reversed.     Integrate the idea through subtle self-talk.  Flow with my own breath.  Immerse myself in my core beliefs.
2. Who or what guides me during these moments of pace?     Devil, reversed.     My deep unconscious.  The trickster.  Subtly woven internal structures of guidance.
3. Regardless of topic, what is the core guidance that is offered to me?     Page of Wands, upright.     Boldly be myself.  Dare to be leaderly.  Recommit to my personal expression.

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Q & A This Evening

This evening, I’ll host our monthly tarot gathering.  Tonight’s topic is a non-topic, a tarot question and answer evening.  I offer these a couple of times a year and it’s fun.  Whatever aspect of tarot practice people want to explore is fair game.  I create a conversation or activity on the spot to help us all know more about that tarot skill.  Please join us at 7:00 p.m.!  Call me to let me know you’re coming (416) 966 – 2685.

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Happy, Productive Day

A fun, busy, and productive day.  Did two tarot tutorials and one tarot consultation. Great people, deep cards, and a feeling of aliveness from doing what I love to do! 

How about YOU?  What are you working at that’s life-giving and self-affirming?  Who’s there to support that life-giving work?  How can you show your appreciation for that?

 

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Delight at Grey Heron

Yesterday, my friend Jeannette and I travelled to visit our friend Andrea at her place in Maple, ON, a wonderful home and centre called Grey Heron.  Meals and conversation by the pond in the garden were balanced by fun and deep activities indoors.  We talked about what’s emerging for us in our work and in consciousness around us in general.  And we played a couple of games from Tarot Games, a splendid book filled with enjoyable and meaningful processes.  Combining the Tarot of the Spirit with the Soul Cards as we played “Sacred Cave” and “Seed Sowing” was powerful.  We got back to Toronto late this afternoon.  Andrea is a splendid hostess, a dynamic intuitive, and a priestess of Gaia’s song.  Do meet her if you can!  Check out the link to the right, Raven Essences.

         

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Reframing the Blurt

Any of us who offer tarot counselling, indeed ANY service of insight and discovery, have been tempted to blurt out some rather bossy and judgemental things.  Let’s be honest, there are times when it would have felt good to give a client a verbal ding in the noggin.  Those are the times I take a conscious breath, then reframe the blunt blurt as a constructive open-ended question so that the readee can come up with hir own response.  Here are a couple of examples to get us going.

“Leave your loser husband!”  in its reframed question form might become, “What courageous conversation might you and your husband need to have?”

“Your social life sucks because everyone thinks you’re tedious and depressing.”  might be more helpful as, “When you reflect for a moment on social interactions of the past few weeks, what has been your general level of enthusiasm and participation?” 

Feel free to share your own reframing ideas with us.

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Tarot Acts of Kindness

Yesterday, a friend mentioned a deck of reminder cards that inspire one to perform random acts of kindness to make our world a better place.  If enough of us remember to do some kindnesses locally, the effect is cumulative.  How about using the tarot as a prompt for a random act of kindness for the day?  What might each card suggest to you?  Here are a few ideas to get us going, based on the Rider-Waite-Smith deck:

• FOOL.  Walk your neighbour’s dog.
• CHARIOT.  Drive a senior person to the grocery store.
• WORLD.  Do that thing you promised to do on Earth Day.
• 9 of WANDS.  Start a neighbourhood watch programme.
• 6 of CUPS.  Go the the market, buy some flowers, and give them to someone nearby.
• 4 of SWORDS.  Offer your spare bedroom as a restful escape space for a stressed-out friend.
• 6 of PENTACLES.  Donate money to a shelter or food bank.

Let’s have some more ideas, friends.  What would you do for specific cards?

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Tarot Skills Mentoring

This month’s special is tarot tutorials with me for only $45 per hour (instead of the usual $75/hour).  People are taking me up on it, which is lovely.  I truly enjoy sharing what I’ve learned thus far on my tarot journey with others who desire to learn.

This morning, the fellow I was working with and I explored the art of asking helpful questions and getting to know one’s tarot deck in a more intimate way.  We did activities that encouraged him to find spectrums of personal meaning in each card.

It’s helpful to me to revisit phrases such as:

• The most helpful questions to ask of the tarot are those which invite descriptive, conversational responses from your source of wisdom via the language of the tarot.
• If you do choose to do a yes/no tarot process, it’s your FEELING about the answer you get that’s the REAL answer.
• AVOID yes/no questions, negatively worded questions, and questions about other people’s lives.
• If you get stuck about what to say, simply state the card’s name and begin to describe its imagery.

I hope YOU will join me on a personal tarot discovery journey.  Let me know!

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