Tarot Site Renovations

I’ve been thinking a lot about tarot and how to attract more seekers to my tarot practice. In the past, the tarot link at the top of my Shades of Maybe domain took site visitors to my Tarot Wiki. Well, as of Wednesday that’s no longer the case. I’ve installed yet another instance of WordPress and revamped tarot.shadesofmaybe.com so it functions more like a tarot business and blog, than a repository of my tarot related information.

I’ve added pages that tell seekers about my reading rates, ethics, reading events, as well as a page of testimonials from past seekers. I’m also slowly and steadily moving the bulk of the tarot-related posts from this area to there. In the future, I hope to post reviews, essays, readings and tarot-related tidbits from my life to that site. Of course, I also hope the area attracts more seekers who’d like me to read for them and help them achieve their dreams.

Norwescon Reading and Signing Recap

Like I alluded to on my twitter/facebook accounts, this second trip to Seattle was nothing short of magickal. There is so much going through my head I had to take most of the weekend to sift through it all, and while I’m still sorting through the experiences, I wanted to get something posted here right away. Once again, this is quite the long posting.

I’ve been trying to get back into the habit of doing daily tarot readings and kicked Friday’s festivities off with a three card draw. As it aligned perfectly with my feelings for the day, I will use the cards to structure my summary here. You can visit my photo gallery to see the pictures I took at the event.

Hosting the Tarot

Last night I lead my first GEM meeting. I decided to share a concept that Katrina Wynne teaches in her Transformative Tarot Counseling program. It’s called Tarot Alive, and it is a playful approach to using tarot. It combines role-play, numerology (to help with card selection), and meditation to show people how to embody the energies of the major arcana. Effectively they become the personality in the card.

It was my hope that by sharing Tarot Alive with others that it would present them some practical ways to use tarot, and the archetypes, as personal assistants on their path. For example, they could perform variants of this experiment to embody other personalities to receive help or assistance with blocks in their lives.

I got pulled

Corrine Kenner, of Tarot for Writers fame, emailed me today saying that she enjoyed my review of her book. She liked it so much that her publicist pulled a quote from it and put it on the book’s Amazon.com page. Locate my quote under the Editorial Reviews section as D*I*Y Planner. I feel honored. She also emailed me a sneak peek of the Tarot for Writers Workbook, a companion guide.

Tidbits: too much in ze noggin’

I woke up way too early today. Couldn’t really sleep, there’s too much going on in my brain. So, I figure I’d write out a post and see if it helps my mind work through whatever is keeping it awake. Please click the read more button to see everything in this post.

On Ravens in the Library: Still waiting to hear from the editors on the book’s release. It was supposed to get sent to the publisher this week. Due to illness and business, they’ve been running behind schedule. But the imminent release of the book has me all ancy… I want it to arrive now, darnit!

Towards a Tarot Degree

I’ve wanted tarot certification for awhile now. Therefore it shouldn’t be a surprise that one of my 2009 goals is to get certified. This is important to me. I want validation on my knowledge and I when I teach tarot classes, I want to tell people that they can trust me and my knowledge because I’ve taken classes and gotten certification. Kender and I agreed that once we got our 2008 tax return he’d get a new Macbook Pro and I’d use my portion to pay for tarot classes. Our return hit the bank account Friday (insert much happy dancing here) and we put the order in for his new system yesterday.

I just finished paying for the Tarot School’s Correspondence Degree Program. It’s a 15-month program designed to solidify and certify people in tarot. I’m excited… looking forward to the start! This is one of two programs I’m going to get certified in. The other one is a “Transformational Tarot” and focuses more on how tarot can transform your life.

DIYP Article Up: Tarot for Writers Review

Tarot and writing go hand in hand for me. I entertain thoughts about writing a book on tarot one day and had hoped to include in-depth material on using the cards with a creative writing practice. Corrine Kenner beat me to that, with her Tarot for Writers. Now if I ever write that book, I’ll just be adding to the discussion she started.

I loved Tarot for Writers. Go read my review and find out why.

My First Tarot Publication

I can now finally say, that I am a published pagan/tarot author. It’s been one of my goals to start pushing out into the tarot writing scene and I’ve done it! I am very proud of this and hope there will be more chances to share and write about tarot in my future.

In the beginning of this year, I answered a call for writers from Megalithica Press asking for essays on how people use pop culture in with their magical life. I wrote a nice essay showing tarot enthusiasts how they could use pop culture with tarot. Including some of my secrets on using an iPod with tarot information and the cards.

The essay got accepted in the anthology and I was told the book would be due 2009. Well, I got my contributor copy last week. It’s out and available for purchase from either Megalithica Press (the publisher), or amazon.com. Of course, if you really want to help me and the publisher, I recommend you buy it directly from Megalithica. My name does not show up when you click that link, but believe me, I am in this book!

Review: Archeon Tarot

Artwork and Book Written by Timothy Lantz
Published by US Games Systems, Inc.
ISBN 1-57281-488-8

The Archeon is a very personal deck. It contains the personal mythology and beliefs of visionary artist Timothy Lantz. The Archeon Tarot defines and explores Lantz’s symbolism and mythology in a very contemporary and graphic fashion. The card’s imagery is absolutely stunning. Lantz uses a digital canvas to create the cards and explore the very depths of his soul. Long before this tarot deck was even published, I had seen images of the cards on his website. And I was impressed with what I saw. The cards are a wonderful blend of dark, gothic, carnivale mixed with elements of the mystical and fantastic. But don’t let the darkness of the deck’s imagery fool you because within each card there is a strong sense of light and beauty. Each card’s image contains dazzling backgrounds and characters expressing realistic emotions; each layer thick with symbolism. Even the cards’ back include snippets of Lantz’s personal mythology and symbolism.

Review: The Fey Tarot

Written by Riccardo Minetti, Artwork by Mara Aghem
Published by Lo Scarabeo and distributed by Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN 0-7387-0280-3

The Fey Tarot distills the best of both worlds in tarot and the art of Japanese anime and recombines them into something new and exciting. Written by Riccardo Minetti, featuring the artwork of Mara Aghem, this deck is wonderful for both the young at heart and in age. The tarot presented here is lighthearted and kind, “bringing no shadows.” However, this lightness does not eliminate the darkness of traditional tarot decks; instead, The Fey Tarot subdues and twists the negative card meanings inwards. In doing so, this set becomes easily accessible and understood by children.