Tarot Tips: 21st Birthday Edition!
Published: Mon, 02/01/16
"With so many ways to learn Tarot, I wanted to toss one more out there,..." You're receiving this email because
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![]() Newsletter of The Tarot School
http://TarotSchool.com ISSN: 1529-0565 Vol. 8 #2 / February 1, 2016
In this Issue: - Welcome
- Tarot Tip: AM/PM Tarot
- Tarot School Aphorism
- What's Gnu?
- PsychWise: How to Use Tarot Cards without Knowing their Meaning - Best Practices: Charging Like A Pro
- Upcoming Events ![]() Welcome to a new issue of Tarot Tips! And a special welcome to our new subscribers.
Today is the 21st Birthday of The TarotSchool! In business terms, that's a venerable age, but we like to think of ourselves as young and sassy! :) A lot has changed in the tarot community since we opened our doors in 1995. Over the last two decades, there's been an explosion of interest and creativity — books, decks, classes and conferences galore! It's been very exciting to see. We're happy to be an active part of this growth, and we're grateful that you have chosen to include The Tarot School as part of your personal tarot adventure! If you'd like to wish us a Happy 21st, leave a comment on our Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you! In addition to our own celebration, this month is Valentine’s Day. This day most notable for celebrating the love between two romantic partners has also found its way into representing affinity in a variety of relational connections. In tarot, there are like-minded people from all over the globe who form thriving and growing communities online and offline, all influenced by their love of and dedication to tarot. In our corner of the world, we bring people like these to our Readers Studio event, who some say feels like a kind of family reunion. We hope to see you there! In this issue, we are delighted to have a special tarot enthusiast grace Tarot Tips with an article. The lovely Arwen Lynch-Poe shares a great tip on incorporating the meanings from the LWB (little white book) that often accompanies a tarot deck. Dr. Elinor gives her take on using the tarot when you don’t know the card meaning at all, and In the Best Practices Column, Gina tells you how to charge for your professional reading services. And one more thing...
On this special birthday, we have a special gift for you -- our entire Will and Intent audio course! Here's Wald to tell you a little about it... "It will not surprise you that the world is not as it seems and that you are more than you know. Tarot is famous for showing the truth of these words. But tarot is becoming famous in our times for possessing secrets as well as truths. It points beyond wisdom, understanding and knowledge to a life of personal power. These things are not for everyone, but for some they are irresistably attractive. Will and Intent are secrets buried in tarot, engines of personal power. They are tools of awareness that… • make you more effective in the context of every day • give you access to the context of infinity • permit a shift of awareness that accomplishes amazing and unsuspected things • extend every moment of your life by intensifying it They are warrior's tools, part of a warrior's life. This course will introduce you to vocabulary and technique from such a life, and where to find them in tarot." To get all 8 mp3s and the full set of class notes, simply click on the birthday present below and you'll be taken to a special dropbox with the download links. It's completely free -- our gift to you! ![]() With love on the tarot journey, Ruth Ann, Wald, Gina & Elinor
Tarot Tips is here to help you with the practical side of your Tarot journey. In order to take the greatest
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questions regarding any aspect of your tarot study
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Spread the experience of tarot - share this newsletter with other Tarot Enthusiasts! Tarot Tip
AM/PM TAROT
by Arwen Lynch-Poe
With so many ways to learn Tarot, I wanted to toss one more out there. This is my tried-and-true AM/PM method. It emphasizes an intuitive style of reading while incorporating the meanings from your little white book. This works for any deck. There are four steps to this method. Step One: First thing in the morning, draw a card at random from your deck. Take three to five minutes to just look at the card. See what pops out first. Is it a color? An expression? A figure in the card? Now write down your observations. I find it best to have a dedicated Tarot journal for this. I also advocate using a simple spiral-bound notebook. This is because a pretty journal can be a bit daunting to write in at first, but no one seems to have a problem scribbling in an ordinary notebook. Step Two: Go about your day as you normally do. You can carry your notebook if you like to jot down anything that turns up in connection with the card you drew for the day. Maybe you meet a person with that same expression you noted earlier. Maybe you see that expression on your own face in a mirror. What synchronicities occur? Don’t forget to write down anything significant, even if it isn’t associated with your initial observations. Step Three: Just before you let your head hit that lovely, welcoming pillow, pull the card out again. If you didn’t have time to write about it during the day, do it now. See what pops out at you in terms of symbols on that card. You may see it in a whole new way now. Take three to five minutes to just write. This is a free-writing exercise so don’t stop to edit. No one else will read this. It’s your journal! Step Four: Take out the manual that came with the deck. This can be a LWB (Little White Book) or a full-sized book. Read what the author/artist has to say about this card. See what keywords they attribute to your choice. Now integrate that with what you saw in the morning and how you felt the card applied to your day. This final entry is the one you may wish to transfer to a more formal Tarot journal. The whole process is to engage your subconscious with your conscious mind. You are synchronizing what you see with the meanings of the cards. This gives you a way to connect to your cards in a personal way. The next time you see this card you may be reminded of what you first learned. As you grow as a reader, you will find that this method can help make you see Tarot cards everywhere you go. I use this method on new decks that I am planning to use in my professional work. Arwen Lynch-Poe is the past president of the American Tarot Association. The Fairy Tale Lenormand (art by Lisa Hunt) will be released 2016 by US Games. She is presently working on an oracle deck by another artist for US Games. She teaches writers how to use Tarot, and Tarot enthusiasts how to write, with her eCourse: 33 Days To Finish Your Book. She also has a YouTube channel. Tarot School Aphorism ![]() ![]() RUTH ANN'S HAIKU GRAPHICS
I've been having a great time generating
interesting graphics with a program called Amberlight (how could I not?), and then writing a haiku to go along with what the image suggests. It's not specifically tarot-related, but you might enjoy seeing them anyway. In addition to this one, you'll find more on my Pinterest board at https://www.pinterest.com/tarotschool/haiku-graphics/ (There's tarot content on some of our other boards that you might want to look at and share.) I'm just getting started with these, but I hope you like them. ![]() PsychWise – Tarot & Psychology Q & A with Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP, CPTR HOW TO USE TAROT CARDS WITHOUT KNOWING THEIR MEANING ![]() who is just beginning to learn Tarot and I have not yet memorized all the meanings of the cards. I would like to begin to use Tarot Cards with my psychotherapy clients. What do you suggest? ANSWER: That was exactly my situation when I started learning to
============================================================read Tarot Cards. Here are a few ideas that I found useful that do not require you to know the deck very well. Experienced Tarot Readers can use these methods to spice up a classic divination reading. METHODS 1. Illustrate the Issue Have your client describe their psychotherapy issue by looking through the deck face-up and picking cards that appear to relate to it. Ask them to explain to you why they chose each card. Benefit: Many of our feelings and ideas are subtle and hard to put into words. Sometimes they are just below the surface of our awareness and seeing the pictures on Tarot cards allows us to access them. An Example: A new client started his session by complaining about his girlfriend. Then he started complaining about his mother. Then he started talking about how he would ideally like his girlfriend to treat him. He then went on to talk about what he wanted from his mother. I said, “I am starting to get confused. Are you willing to try an experiment using Tarot cards?” He said that he was. I suggested that he pick four cards: Card 1: Represents the girlfriend when she is behaving in ways that he doesn’t like. Card 2: Represents his mother when she is behaving in ways that he doesn’t like. Card 3: Represents his ideal girl friend. Card 4: Represents his ideal mother. My client had no trouble picking the first three cards. However, when he went to choose a card to represent his ideal mother, he realized that he wanted to choose the same card that he already chose to represent his ideal girlfriend. This was an “aha!” moment for him. He said that this exercise made him realize that a lot of what he wanted from his girlfriend was unfair to her. It was really stuff that he resented his mother for not giving him. The rest of the session was spent talking about this topic. 2. Who do you want to be? Many of us do not give much thought to how we want to think, feel, and act in the present moment. We are reactive, not proactive. It can be very useful to look through a face-up Tarot deck for pictures that illustrate qualities that we admire and choose one that we would like to work on developing. Benefit: This can be a very powerful tool in helping us take charge of our own growth. An Example: Some years back, I found myself seated in a circle with about twenty other participants at a psychotherapy workshop. The leader, a well-known and charismatic male therapist, started to criticize one of the women in the group. Other people said things as well, but most of us were simply silent witnesses to her humiliation. I was shocked that this was happening and I wanted to stand up and say something to stop this scapegoating, but I was too afraid to do so. At that moment I realized that I needed to develop some new qualities in myself. Although I had not yet learned Tarot, I had the clear idea that I needed to be more “Emperor” like: I needed to learn how to stand my ground, fight for what I believe in, and defend other people when I feel that they are being unfairly attacked. I kept the idea of the Emperor as an archetype (the personification of a group of qualities that all went together in my mind) and planted the seed thought that I would grow in this direction. When I started to learn Tarot, I was delighted to see that Key 4 The Emperor was drawn so as to emphasize those characteristics that I wanted to develop. Then, I had lunch with a friend of mine who I had not seen in thirty years. He was a member of The Builders of the Adytum and he spontaneously showed me a colored copy of the Emperor card from that deck. I remember being strongly affected by the bright red of the Emperor’s cloak. I did not yet know Tarot symbolism, but I was not surprised to learn that “red” was associated with “Mars power,” action, and the breaking down of structures that were no longer needed, or were built on faulty premises (as in Key 16 The Tower). I took his showing me that card as a Cosmic validation that my choice of The Emperor as a developmental model for me was a step in the right direction. 3. Where do you want to go? Seneca, the Roman philosopher, once said, “If you do not know which harbor you are headed for, no wind is a good one.” I keep that in mind and periodically ask myself the question: “Where to now?” By this I mean, “What are my goals for myself right now?” I have found that looking through a face-up Tarot deck can clarify this for me. Benefit: Another powerful tool for actively taking charge of one’s life. An Example: My client Sharon complained of feeling as if she was drifting through life. She tended to go along with whatever her friends wanted to do, but then was left feeling vaguely unsatisfied. She had difficulty identifying her own goals and the direction that she wanted to take in her life. Even her sessions with me tended to be unfocused. I had begun to feel as if I was drifting along with her. To change the energy and give us a clear focus, I asked Sharon to look through my Tarot deck with the cards face-up, and choose two cards: one would represent her current state and the other would picture something about where she would like to end up. After she chose the cards, I laid them down in front of her and asked her tell me about her choices. Then I asked her to choose a third card that would allow her to connect the two and tell me about that. Below are Sharon’s choices. Card 1: Her Current State – 7 of Cups Card 2: Her Current Desired State – 8 of Cups Card 3: The Connector – Key 18 The Moon Here is what Sharon told me: I am the person in the 7 of Cups. There are all these choices that I could make. Any one of them would give my life direction and meaning. But I am too afraid to choose. In the 8 of Cups I am the person in the red cloak looking for my heart’s desire. I have already chosen my path and I am eagerly pursuing it, despite the rockiness of the path and the lack of bright illumination in the card. My problem is Key 18 The Moon, the Connector, what I have to do to get from being stuck to bravely forging ahead. In the Moon card, everything is dark and there is this very, very long path ahead of me. I am the little lobster sticking my head out of the water. I see the path, but I am too afraid to start. However, the good news is that in this card, I have already chosen my path. That is the step I need to take before the 8 of Cups is a reality and I am pursuing a particular goal. Sharon and I spent the rest of this session exploring everything the little lobster feared about getting out of the pool and onto the path. Now at least we had a focus for her therapy. SUMMARY As a therapist, I have found that many clients have difficulty finding the words to describe what they are feeling and what they want. Giving them pictures, such as Tarot cards, that they can sort through and relate to themselves, helps them articulate their issues more clearly. It also brings to the surface things that were out of awareness until they had to choose a card. As you can see, no real knowledge of Tarot or divination was needed to use the above techniques. I used the Rider/Waite/Smith deck in the exercises, but you could use any illustrated deck, even multiple decks to increase the choices. These methods can be interesting learning tools for therapists who are just starting to memorize the meanings of the cards. The client’s spontaneous associations can vividly bring to life a particular card’s meanings in a way that simply reading a book cannot. If you do know Tarot meanings and divination, it is easy to combine the two techniques. You could do one of the above exercises, face-up, and then do a more conventional reading to elaborate on the information. For example, with Sharon, I could have done a Celtic Cross with Key 18 The Moon as the center of the spread. ![]() is an internationally renowned Gestalt therapy trainer who specializes in teaching the diagnosis and treatment of Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid adaptations. She has been studying tarot since 1995 and is psychology consultant to The Tarot School, where she earned a Third Degree in Tarot. She is a member of B.O.T.A. (Builders of the Adytum) and has been certified as a professional tarot reader by the American Tarot Association. Best Practices for Professional Readers
CHARGING LIKE A PRO
By Gina Thies
One of the most important decisions you’ll have to make
after deciding to read professionally is how and what to charge for your readings. I know seasoned professionals who after years of professional readings still struggle with charging what they are worth. Let’s break it down and think about standard forms of employment and employment for profit. In the private and public sectors of business, some are paid on an hourly basis for employment, while others are salaried employees. How employees are compensated, and classifications of exemptions are outlined in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). This act requires that in addition to paying at least the minimum wage, employers also must pay overtime to employees who, with certain exceptions, work more than 40 hours in a given workweek. Most spiritually-minded professionals operate as non-incorporated business owners, and often are classified as independent contractors who own their business as sole proprietors and have to pay their own taxes. Without a lot of options to earn as an hourly employee, many readers who want control of their own hours, fees and other freedoms operate under the independent contractor umbrella. Charging like a professional boils down to being able to cover the costs of operating, plus what it would take to comfortably live on if readings or the other services you offer are your only sources of income. There are two main ways that readers charge for their services – hourly and flat fees. Some readers opt to charge a flat rate, since that suits their particular reading process. Time-based options are helpful for certain clients, allowing them ways to affordably work with a reader where budget is an issue. For others, a flat fee guarantees that they will get their questions answered without having to look at a clock. Either way, most professionals set their pricing according to their competitors. This can be a problem when you want to raise or lower your prices. Cheaper does not necessarily mean more clients in the door. To help you get an idea about charging, let me give an example of earning potentials for reading consultations. In the following example, the amounts are based on doing one-on-one client appointments without anything additional, such as events, fairs or classes. So let’s say a reader charges $100 for one-hour sessions and books 3 clients – 1 hour each on one work day. If the reader works 5 days and books 3 slots each day, he/she would earn $1500 for the week, 15 billable hours for one week. But let’s say it’s really not 3 hours that are just being used for the day. It is the 45-minute drive to the office and back home, the 30 to 60 minutes of time spent booking the appointments, another 30-60 minutes to check emails and return other phone calls, 1 – 2 hours on Facebook or other social media accounts. Now you are looking at approximately a 7-8 hour day, which is 35-40 hours a week, with only 15 of those hours that can actually be billed. This cuts the $100/hour considerably when you tally the 24-25 hours for which you are not getting paid. Nor does this take into consideration the taxes, merchant account fees and other costs of operating needed to run your business that in reality reduces earnings to as little as $600 for the week. So, by playing with figures and staying grounded in reality, you’ll have a better idea of what you should charge to make it a win for you! Resource: Handy Reference Guide to the Fair Labor Standards Act Tarot Salon
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