Season’s Greetings

Seasons Greetings 2008

Happy holidays! I made you a video greeting card.

A Room of Your Own

Where do you read tarot cards? In your living room? At the kitchen table? Or do you have to move the cat over, and work at the foot of your bed?

Most of us have to make the most of the space we have on hand, and we dream of making improvements as time and money permit. It never hurts to fantasize, though.

If you could design your own perfect tarot room, what would it look like? Would it be large or small? How would you decorate it? What furnishings would you include? What supplies would you want to keep on hand? What would you see when you look up from your tarot reader’s table?

Take a few minutes to imagine your ideal tarot space, and describe it for the rest of us here in the comments.

Tarot Fiction: A Genre in the Making?

Does The New York Times see a literary future in the cards? Apparently so:

In publishing, as in many fields, there are leaders and there are followers. Stephenie Meyer gives birth to legions of the undead. Marley begets Dewey who begets a pet shop in bookstore aisles. Among the authors on this month’s list, there are definite leaders, including J. K. Rowling and the forensic-thriller writer Patricia Cornwell — blame her for all those television shows with whooshing close-ups of scalpels slicing through dead flesh. The rest, well, there is a talking-dog book (going Almondine one better?). And not one, but two novels based in Florida in which tarot cards play a part. A genre in the making?

Here are the two books they’re talking about:

THE KING OF SWORDS
By Nick Stone
560 pages. Harper. $25.99.

Nick Stone’s second novel starring Max Mingus opens the morning after election day in 1980. When a body turns up at Primate Park in Miami, Detective Sergeant Mingus and his partner, Joe Liston, are called in to investigate. There’s a tarot card — the King of Swords — in the dead man’s stomach, and it leads the partners to a shadowy Haitian underground. Their boss at the Miami Task Force is looking to close the case — regardless of the truth. Mingus, in his own description, is “a cop who drank too much, slept too little and really couldn’t remember when exactly he’d crossed the line,” but this time he vows to do the right thing. The book is a prequel to Mr. Stone’s “Mr. Clarinet,” which was published last year.

THE FORTUNE TELLER’S DAUGHTER
By Lila Shaara
436 pages. Ballantine Books. $25.

Once a hotshot newspaper reporter, Harry Sterling has retreated to the campus of a small college in Florida to teach and to lick his wounds. (There are many: his brother was murdered by a man who’d been looking to kill Harry; shortly afterward his wife divorced him and took their son to live with her in Orlando; he has a bad relationship with alcohol.) But he can’t resist a good story, and one night he hears one: A local tarot card reader named Madame Dupree claims that the inventor of something called the Ziegart effect (it involves supercooling metals in order to make them conduct electricity better) actually stole the idea. Chasing down the tale, Harry becomes involved with the enigmatic Maggie Roth, who shares a double-wide trailer with Dupree. As the novel progresses, his pursuit of Maggie and the truth about Ziegart converge.

A First Look at the Wizards Tarot Deck

Here’s an early look at the Wizards Tarot deck that John Blumen and I have been working on for the last two years. Isn’t he the most amazing artist?

The Major Arcana cards all depict the professors at a school of magic. The Minor Arcana cards show the students, crafting charms, spells, and magic potions. The Court Cards portray their magical assistants, guides, and protectors—the elemental creatures who rule the four worlds of fire, water, air, and earth.

The deck is scheduled for release next fall, but the Tarot Garden is already taking pre-orders. Email info@tarotgarden.com if you’d like to get on the waiting list for copies as soon as they’re available.

It’s Snowing on this Blog

I danced the Macarena with my dog because that’s how I roll.

Here’s a fun way to spend the next two minutes of your life: mix and match your own customized “status report,” based on your birth month, birth date, and the color of your shirt.

Post your result in the comments section.

First, pick the month you were born:

January——-I kicked
February——I loved
March——–I karate chopped
April———-I licked
May———-I jumped on
June———-I smelled
July———–I did the Macarena with
August——–I had lunch with
September—-I danced with
October——-I sang to
November—–I yelled at
December—–I ran over

Now pick the date of your birth:

1 ——— a birdbath
2——— a monster
3——— a phone
4——— a fork
5——— a snowman
6——— a gangster
7——— my mobile phone
8——— my dog
9——— my best friends’ girlfriend/boyfriend
10——- my neighbor
11——- my science teacher
12——- a banana
13——- a fireman
14——- a stuffed animal
15——- a goat
16——- a pickle
17——- your mom
18——- a buffalo
19——- a Smurf
20——- a baseball bat
21——- a Ninja
22——- Chuck Norris
23——- a noodle
24——- a squirrel
25——- a football player
26——- President Bush
27——- David Letterman
28——- an Ipod
29——- a surfer
30——- a llama
31——- a homeless guy

And now pick the color of shirt you’re wearing:

White———because I’m cool like that.
Black———because that’s how I roll.
Pink———–because I’m crazy.
Red———–because the voices told me to.
Blue———–because I’m cute and I do what I want.
Green———because I think I need some serious help.
Purple———because I’m AWESOME!
Gray———-because Big Bird said to and he’s my leader.
Yellow——–because someone offered me a million dollars.
Orange ——–because my family thinks I’m stupid anyway.
Brown———because I can.
Other———-because I’m a Ninja!
None———-because I can’t control myself!

Planning for the Minnesota Area Tarot Symposium

Our committee met for a fabulous Vietnamese lunch today, and we did some more planning for next year’s Minnesota Area Tarot Symposium.

Our big promotion and publicity campaign won’t start until next week, but I’ll let you in on some of the behind-the-scenes activity. So far, we’ve found a great hotel, with rooms for $78 a night, space for 78 participants, and we decided to set a symposium admission charge of $78. There’s a restaurant next door with a banquet room, so we’ve booked it for a Saturday night tarot party. Our website is up and running, too.

During today’s lunch, we planned our next steps: in the next few days, Barbara Moore is going to draft a big email announcement for several tarot lists, and I’m going to get the PayPal links to work on our website. Nancy Antenucci and Melani Weber left with assignments, too, but right now I can’t remember what they are.

We also firmed up our speaker’s schedule a bit. Here’s our current lineup:

• Nancy Antenucci will lead the opening and closing ceremonies.
• Jeannette Roth from the Tarot Garden will show us several examples of the Star card as it’s developed over the centuries.
• Joanna Powell Colbert will lead a workshop on the Gaian Tarot.
• Julie Cuccia Watts will teach a class on the four queens from her Ma’at tarot deck.
• Barbara Moore will offer a Sunday-morning bonus workshop on creating “scrapbook” tarot cards.
• And I’ll introduce the new Wizards Tarot I’ve been developing.

We’re all looking forward to next summer. If you’re interested in attending, be sure to visit the symposium website and sign up for our email list!

Hello from Heaven

This is neat: Australians are getting a big hello from the heavens as Venus, Jupiter and a waxing crescent moon combine to create a celestial smiley face.

Photo source