78 Notes to Self: A Tarot Journal

Hello...Testing...1,2,3.  I have finally gotten around to uploading ye olde podcasts from ages ago and they have now gone live on Google Play Music and are almost live on iTunes.  They are also over at PodOmatic.  The Series on the Aces, The Tarot Court and other miscellaneous podcasts are now up and I'll be adding more until I exhaust my collection.  Then I'll start recording new ones.

About time, right?

Wow. You all are amazing, wonderful and super fantastic. That's really all I can say. You've rendered me speechless and that's quite a feat, let me tell you. I have done enough readings to pay cable and get caught up on some other bills, too. Some of you have referred me to friends and that's so great because I love reading for new folks as well as my "regulars" -- you know who you are. *wink* You've inspired me to really pay attention to what makes my heart sing and put my energies towards that which I love and when I do that, there is tangible reward following. Not to mention, I am feeling much calmer since I last posted in panic. So thank you, thank you, and thank you again.

Such great readers we have here! Your insight on my posted reading has truly helped give me perspective on myself, my situation, and much needed assurance that I can get through this and succeed. I don't measure success in dollars and cents, but it sure can feel disheartening when the bills pile up. That accusing voice in one's head screaming, "LOSER!" drowns out all others. Well, I may be pathetic sometimes, but a loser I'm not. Thanks for helping me see that again.

Michael recently emailed me with this lovely tarot deck in progress: The Urban Tarot by graphic artist Robert Scott. I emailed Robert and asked him if it was alright that I feature his work on 78 Notes and he graciously agreed.

I am not a tarot deck collector. Though I have upwards of 20 some tarot decks I use them all. I have traded or sold or given away decks that, while I initially felt drawn to the art, just didn't resonate with me in some way or another. There are many decks I can appreciate from afar and not feel the need to own. However, if this deck is ever completed, I really think I would like to work with it. These images, while maintaining the traditional symbolism also inject a modern sense to the meanings. Many deck artists do that, so it's not like that's something new, but the way Robert translates the Thoth tarot with gritty city scenes and characters is something that grabs my attention. The graphic style that appears as paper collage is multidimensional so that the images are layers and almost have a 3-D effect. The different parts of the scene will, at different times, appear to move forward and grab your attention. For both intuitive and traditional-meaning style tarot readers, these cards have so much to offer.

Hi! Long time no see!

Ok, so I haven't blogged for a while and I apologize for letting things lapse here, but I've been trying to look for a job and apartment and life has just gotten in the way of blogging. Ok, that and World of Warcrack, ahem, I mean Warcraft. For those who are blissfully unaware of this MMORPG (What's that? Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) I can only say: come play! I'm an Alliance player ( a level 27 human mage and a level 17 night elf druid) on Korgath server. That will mean nothing to anyone not familiar with WoW, so I'm sorry for that and I will stop now. The cool thing is I can play the game and log on to give tarot readings online at the same time, so it's not entirely a waste of time. But seriously, the life transition thing is taking up most of my focus and time. Job hunting is difficult and this whole divorce and moving, well, it's all very emotionally traumatic. Which is probably why I distract myself when I can with WoW. That and the online gaming addiction thing. They don't call it Warcrack for nothing.

Meanwhile, on the tarot front, I am working on writing that book many of you have urged me to get written already. It's not a small project and it's just getting started so it will be a while, but I have begun. I'm looking forward to it, as the whole process is new to me.

I will get a real tarot post up here in the next few days. Promise!

Getting there was the hard part, but that was my fault. One act of stupidity set off a chain reaction that left me stranded at Reagan National Airport for almost six hours. I could have driven to New York in that time and probably should have in hindsight. I haven’t flown since before 9-11, so all the new security measures had me a little bewildered, but that wasn’t the problem. I went to the wrong airport. I thought I was to fly out of Dulles International Airport but my flight was departing from National. Oh well, I thought, no big deal. It’s a commuter shuttle and I’ll just catch the next one. No such luck. The next flight was full. At that point I knew I would miss the entire first day’s session of The Reader’s Studio. I wanted to get in my car and go home, but my bag had traveled ahead of me and was sitting in LaGuardia Airport. Nothing to do but make sure I got on one of the next two flights out. I made it on the next one, but by the time I arrived at the conference, the last session had just ended. I was in no mood for it anyway, so I went to my room, chilled and became human again, then went down to the lounge to see who I could find.

Corrine Kenner’s was the first familiar face I saw. I said, “I believe a Cosmopolitan is in order.” She jumped out of her seat and hugged me, “Soooo glad you made it!” she said and invited me to sit down with the others. Joanna Colbert, James Wells, and Ferol Humphrey among others were noshing and introductions were made. Too embarrassed to admit I had gone to the wrong airport, I simply said, “I missed my flight.” Oh, I 'fessed up later that weekend, and we all got a good laugh from it. I so appreciated that warm welcome. It helped ease me out of my aggravation and tension and brought me safely into the embrace of the tarot community. And what a wonderful group of people it truly is.

I checked in with Ruth Ann Amberstone and was greeted with, “We missed you!” You’d think we were old friends, but this was the first time I’ve met any of these wonderful people in person. Her husband and partner of The Tarot School, Wald, greeted me in the hallway as I left the conference room and again I felt welcomed by a familiar friend. That’s how the weekend went, time after time, people I had only communicated with online materialized before my eyes as faces and smiles and hugs.

By the way, the gig is up for you lurkers here. I met several people who are regular readers of 78 Notes to Self but who do not comment or participate. I want to see your names in the comments section, you hear me? It was so wonderful to know there are lots of you out there who feel you know me and I want to get to know you, too. For me, meeting other tarot readers, both professional and non, was the highlight of the weekend. Though the sessions were both informative and full of incredible insight and gave me lots to chew on over the coming weeks, connecting with so many of you in the tarot world was so very rewarding. It’s so easy to communicate with your own peeps, you know?

Getting up in time to make the 7:30 am Breakfast Roundtable with James Wells was a bit of a challenge for this night owl. Mornings? What are those? But I didn’t want to miss a single minute more than I’d already missed of this event. Some of my friends from Aeclectic Tarot were fantastic, prodding me to ask Dr. Elinor Greenberg for her notes from her session on Tarot Counseling I had missed the day before. They filled me in on what I missed. Marcia Masino was conducting the first session on Saturday and Mary Greer was scheduled for the afternoon. Robert Place was there selling his new Buddah deck as well as his prints. I came home with The High Priestess from his yet unfinished The Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery. I really, really want a copy of his Alchemical Tarot, but it is out of print and if I can locate a copy the price is a bit too steep for my cheapness. Jeannette Roth was there from The Tarot Garden, too, with many hard to find gems. And I won a prize! Door prize drawings were held all weekend long generously donated by the vendors as well as others. The schwag from this event was amazing. I came home with two free tarot decks, the Cleopatra and the Witches Tarot, plus the 2007 Llewellyn Tarot Reader, lots of helpful handouts on various subjects from publishing your own book to techniques of reading. After hours, you could sign up for private readings with the likes of Rachel Pollack, Mary Greer, Corinne Kenner, James Wells, Julie Cuccia-Watts. The sign up sheets were already full by the time I got there, but Corinne did a short read for me anyway. Being surrounded by over a hundred tarot readers, I wasn’t really worried about whether or not I’d get a reading that weekend.

We’d get into deep discussions late into the night. Being among others who more or less share my own quirky, eclectic, mish-mashed spiritual ideas brought a sense of comfortableness. I didn’t feel like I had to watch my P’s and Q’s, not that I would have anyway, but still, it's nice to not only be accepted but welcomed into a community. At one point, folks were sharing about how tarot had contributed to their personal evolution, a question prompted by James Wells. While it was an excellent open-ended question, the kind he is known for, I found myself disgruntled by the common response: that while predictive readings were “okay” most people who answered spoke about “moving beyond that” and primarily using tarot for personal growth. Ok, fine, and that’s all well and good, but let’s be honest, brutally honest, here. You’ve got the cards, you have the skills, you’re gonna ask the mundane questions, too. I didn’t answer the question because I was getting the itch to be an ass, so I went out for a smoke instead. My answer would likely have been, “Tarot hasn’t done a thing for me except contribute to the manifestation of my out of control Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

I guess it kinda tweaks me that there's this distancing going on in the tarot world from divination and fortune telling. I get it, cranks and charlatans have given tarot a bad rap, but the tradition of fortunetelling tarot is valid as well. Rather than distance myself from it, I embrace it as part and parcel of the whole thing. Because I do want to know what might happen next week and if tarot can give me a glimpse into that, I'm all for it. It is a tremendous tool for personal growth, so it is certainly proper to focus on that, write, teach, and talk about that. But please. While there may be a few of you who seriously do not use the tarot for divination, most of us do and we shouldn't have to feel like we're scumming up the cards to do it. It's not immature tarot reading. It's just another facet of tarot reading.

Corrine took notes the entire time and has put them up on her blog, so I'm not going to repeat them here. Suffice it to say I was incredibly inspired and enjoyed every minute. I would recommend The Readers Studio to anyone interested at all in tarot. The Amberstones don't distinguish between beginner readers and more advanced, we're all put in the same classes, the same pool, and we all swim together. I recognize the cost of the event might be prohibitive for some, but as conferences go it's not that high. I didn't share a hotel room this year because it was my first time, but next year I will. I might drive up next time as well. Some folks wrapped the trip around other activities such as visiting family and friends in the northeast, too, so that helps. If it is even remotely affordable, do it next year. I'll see you there, and next time I'll be sure to go to the right airport so I don't miss a thing.

When I tried to rowse my sleeping computer this morning, it didn't want to wake up and it was making this very odd noise. "Brrrrrreeeeee. Burrrrreeee." I was busy getting ready for an appointment and wanted to look up the address again, so I cocked my head around to take a look at the screen and it was black with this ominous message: Cannot locate hard disk 0...

Blink.

Oh no, my dear laptop, you must be mistaken. I know you have a hard drive in you. You used it just last night, remember? Now, where did you misplace it?

Turn off. Turn on. Still can't find your hard drive?

Now I'm starting to get a wee bit upset because do you know how much of my stuff is on your hard drive? You better find it! I'm going to be late for my appointment and when I get back I'm bringing a NEW notebook computer with me, so you better find that hard drive you lost!


So I did just that. I went and bought me a brand new shiny Toshiba with a bigger hard drive, faster processor and lots of bells and whistles. So there. And when I pushed the power button the old girl laughed and pulled the hard drive out from behind her back and started up fine. Um. Ok fine, but now I don't trust you. So I am taking full advantage of your cooperation at this moment to move all my stuff, or as much as it as possible, to the new model. Anyway, you're still making those funny noises.


Anyway, that picture up there is the tired old Dell Inspiron 1150 which will be fixed with a new hard drive and given to the kids to use. This is my spanky new Toshiba Satellite A105 blah blah blah, fancy schmancy new web cruiser. It even has fingerprint ID scanning! No passwords needed, just rub the laptop like a genie in a bottle. I spent the entire day transferring, downloading, installing, backing up, etc. How utterly dependent so many of us have become on these machines.

Anyway, the short of it is, I am back in business. And the kids are gonna be thrilled...until they start fighting over it. You know it's gonna happen.

It's almost time once again for The Tarot School's annual Reader's Studio and I'm really thinking I should go. It looks like a wonderful tarot-packed weekend full of amazing workshops and guest speakers. I've never been to a tarot conference and this one is really drawing me towards investing the time and the money. This one is being held April 20-22, 2007 at the Marriott Courtyard hotel just across from LaGuardia Airport, so it's easy to access for out of towners like me.

For those of you not familiar with The Tarot School you owe it to yourself to check out their website and classes. It's chock full of valuable tarot information and ways to increase your tarot reading skills. They're based in New York City where their classes meet, but they offer correspondence courses and audio courses as well.

Check it out and let me know if you're planning to attend. Maybe I'll meet you there!

Update #1: I have an article published in the last issue of the American Tarot Association's printed Quarterly Journal, available with membership to the ATA. It was a deck interview with the Hudes Tarot. It was an interesting exercise and one I will be writing about here. In the upcoming issue I have an article called, "Confessions of a Wayward Tarot Journalist." If you are a member of the ATA, you'll be receiving the journal this month, I believe.

Update #2: My daughter came home from the hospital today. Yay! Thank you all for your kindness and support. It meant a lot to me and I truly appreciate it.

If you listened to Episode #15 on The Tarot Connection, then you heard Leisa and I discuss the use of pseudonyms among online readers and you know that I have given some thought to my own use of "Sophia" as an online "reader name."   I'm changing my alias here to my real name. I've used "Sophia" on several internet forums as a screenname, so it is, in a way, part of my online identity. I'll still answer to it if it's stuck in your head. Still, between the conversation I had with Leisa and my own post entitled Coming Out, I was beginning to feel a bit of a hypocrite. I mean, if I am encouraging tarot readers to come out of the closet, then why am I posting anonymously on a tarot blog? I swear, it had nothing to do with not wanting people to know I read tarot in real life, but still. It was, if not hypocritical, rather inconsistent of me.

Anyway, pleased to meet you, my name is Ginny Hunt, and I am a tarot reader.

Leisa ReFalo of The Tarot Connection invited me to become a regular contributor to her wonderful and engaging Tarot Podcast by including my own readings of my posts on 78 Notes To Self for her podcast listeners. You can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes 

Leisa's podcasts offer a wide array of tarot instruction, interviews with tarot artists, writers, teachers and professionals as well as recorded tarot workshops and seminars. Partnering with The Tarot Connection was an easy decision to make as Leisa and I share a similar vision and philosophy about tarot and regarding reading tarot for others. I truly respect and admire what Leisa is doing through podcasting technology, utilizing it as a means for tarot enthusiasts to access enriching information they can take with them as they travel to and from work or going about their daily lives. Podcasts free one up from the computer desk. You download the episode into your player and listen at your leisure, hands free and mobile. It's so cool!

If you don't have an iPod or other mobile device through which to subscribe to the Tarot Podcast, don't worry, you can still listen to the episodes via The Tarot Connection. As soon as I figure out the technology I will also put a player on the posts that are included in the podcasts here at 78 Notes To Self. So even if you are bound to the computer, you can play the episodes through your computer speakers or earphones as you work or websurf.

My introductory interview and posts are now up on The Tarot Connection, Episode #15.