Mabon Tarot Blog Hop 2014

Thank you for hopping over here from Joanne Sprott’s blog!

For me Tarot has been very fluid in my life. I found it at 18 when I was first branching out in to other religions and a friend gave me a How to Read Tarot cassette tape with instructions from Mary K Greer and a Color Your Own Tarot deck with key words printed on it. It was an amazing tool and I loved it but as I was 18 and first really getting out on my own from my parents, my Tarot love and study really didn’t hold my focus. The deck and tape got packed away and moved with me as I moved from my parents house to college.

When I turned 28, I had a whole new life change. I had graduate college, gotten married, gotten divorced and was struggling to connect with people again. I walked into a local Internet Cafe in 1998 and the owner’s wife was playing with cards. It struck me that I had seen those kind of cards before, on TV, in movies and then my brain recalled my deck and cassette from my teen years. I found the deck and cassette, which still worked, and was excited. But I really didn’t connect with the deck. Meliny was more than willing to show me her deck as well as the one her husband used. (Wait … Men read cards too?!?! my brain was shocked I tell you!) It was amazing to see the variety that were outside my Rider Waite knock off.

This lead to me studying with her and going to my first PantheaCon in 2000. I went to every Tarot class they had that year and got to attend a class taught by Mary K Greer. It was on 21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card. It was before her book on the topic of course. It was fascinating to be in the same room with this person I had only known via a cassette. I knew I had to learn more. I was gifted my second Tarot deck, The Goddess Tarot by Kris Waldherr and I bought my next deck, The Sacred Rose Tarot by Johanna Gargiulo-Sherman. I was on a roll! I loved reading for friends and finding interesting decks. I even found a Role Playing Game that had it’s own deck, which I found a touch creepy but was still interesting. Tarot was showing up everywhere for me.

I kept going to PantheaCons and attending classes and meeting Tarot people from all over. In one of my classes there was an amazing woman who taught Tarot near where I lived in Oakland and so I wanted to attend her series of classes. I had been to her presentations at PantheaCon so I could tell I would learn much from her in the smaller group setting.

I headed to Ancient Ways and went to my first class on the Tarot as taught by Thalassa. I met Artemis J in that class. We worked with each other and there was this magical connection as if I had found a kindred spirit who understood Tarot and loved it as much as I did. We both couldn’t stop talking about the cards and what we saw when we read. We were entranced by the lessons Thalassa shared as we explored the Majors and Minors of the basic Rider_Waite. I saw more meaning in the symbols and was able to ask questions and hear what others saw in the same cards. Yes the books are great tools and going to Tarot events once a year helped connect to others, but that small class series gave me my first Tarot Soulmate. We went on to create our own study group from there.

During one of those study groups Anastasia, my friend from Renaissance Fair, came as she was a reader as well, and Artemis and I enjoyed having her share her knowledge and love of the Tarot with us. The three of us would share and study different decks and talk about readings we had done and decks we enjoyed.

One of these glorious evenings Anastasia took out her Minchiate Tarot by Brian Williams, and pulled 3 cards for us to ponder the question of what we saw in the reading regarding the 3 of us at the table. The middle card was the 3 of coins whcih represented each of us. The other two were the Emperor of the East and the Emperor of the West. To me it meant that we three could create tarot magic where ever we went or where ever we choose to go. We decided to work with Anastasia on Tarot-To-Go and that expanded into me working for her at Tarot Media Company. I got to work at SFBATS and work at The Reader’s Studio in New York. I was introduced to Mary K Greer, who is as amazing as I had hoped, and many other terrific Tarot people across the country and from all over the world. I helped to start our local meet up, SF Tarot Cafe and then went on to host my own meet up, Fremont Tarot Meet N Greet.
I currently do a podcast with Charlie Harrington called Tarot Visions and continue to attend workshops and events all over the country.

Mind you all of this took a quantum leap of faith on my part as I was not sure what I could do with Tarot cards for my future. But, because of taking that chance, attending those PantheaCons, then the Tarot series with Thatlassa, only to meet Artemis J and to the Tuesday night study sessions with Anastasia, did I end up working in publishing, exploring all aspects of social media, being more proficient with WordPress and Twitter, and then expanding into podcasts and teaching. And to think it all started from a friend handing me a “Color Your Own Tarot” deck and a cassette with Mary K Greer on it.

Thanks for reading and get ready to hop on over to Louise Underhill’s post.

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