The one “can’t miss” tarot event every year is Readers Studio. This event draws so many people from all over the globe to talk tarot for three whole days… clearly something completely up my alley!
I arrived on Wednesday night, knowing that the people that opted in for the bus trip to New York City would be returning shortly after my arrival, so I checked into the hotel room and made my way back down to the lobby to prowl for my tarot peeps. I didn’t have to wait long before people showed up, but most of us had the wise idea to call it an early night to be prepared for the next day’s “Tarot and Psychology” conference.
The day-long “Tarot and Psychology” conference on Thursday was a new addition to Readers Studio. This was a very interesting experience, and decidedly not for everyone in the tarot community. Personally I found it fascinating!
The day started off with a presentation from Dr. David Van Nuys. I enjoyed his speaking about the role of tarot and synchronicity in his personal life, and he reminded me of what a new age Mr. Rodgers might look like or sound like.
The next presenter was Dr. Elinor Greenberg, who took us through an exercise of making our own oracle cards based on the themes of our lives. Judging by looking around the room, there were a lot of happy tarot readers that love a craft project! After this exercise was completed, we were encouraged to use our new set of cards by themselves or in tandem with our tarot decks to deepen our readings. I certainly will be using my “Oracle of the High Priestess” for deepening my self-readings, but I probably won’t subject my clients to my remedial-looking “art” on my deck.
The final presenter of the Tarot and Psychology conference was Mary K. Greer, who was filling in for Dr. Arthur Rosengarten on 2 days notice! Unfortunately, Dr. Rosengarten got sick, so Mary, being the total tarot rock star she is, came up with a fascinating presentation about intuition and transference that really caused a stir for some people in the room. It made people a bit nervous when Mary, known as the “mother of modern tarot”, challenged people’s ideas of what is intuition and what is our own “stuff” that we may be transferring onto a client. It almost seemed as if with what she was saying, she didn’t believe in the concept of intuition (not true, by the way, as I was lucky enough to have a conversation with her to clarify afterwards).
What I got out of the Tarot and Psychology conference was that we, as readers, need to go further in analyzing both our clients and especially ourselves. When I began reading tarot for others, it was a struggle for me to open the doors of intuition wide for myself, and I suspect that is a journey that a lot of beginning readers go through. However, once there is a solid foundation of working with your intuition (some people might call the usage of “solid foundation” and “intuition” an oxymoron!), the doors to it need to be narrowed and focused. Not every intuitive “hit” is a hit. Not every message is a message intended for the client sitting in front of you… it could easily be a message for you! Fine-tuning reception of intuitive information is needed, and I think that was my lesson from attending this day-long conference.
All in all, I think this conference is a wonderful way to ease into the long weekend of Readers Studio. Stay turned for Part 2, when the actual conference began, tomorrow!
Blessings,
~*~Hilary~*~
www.tarotbyhilary.com
Images courtesy of Readers Studio/The Tarot School
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