Tarot Workouts are short, real-life case studies to help you exercise your tarot-reading muscle. To do this workout, read the question, and then step away from the essay to formulate your own response. Read the end later to see how my response compares to your own.  This sample reading uses the Mary-El Tarot deck painted by Marie White and published by REDFeather. The Mary-El is not a traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck, so extra mental stretching is advised! Your Client Beth is a 24-year-old woman who has been waiting in line for a tarot reading at a private party. When her ..read more

Take some tips from eclipse-watchers to better appreciate tarot card #19. Every day, a powerful, life-giving orb parades gloriously overhead, and each of us, to a man, dutifully looks away. We are taught not to look at the sun from an early age. By adulthood, our muscles are trained and our curiosity is quieted. Similarly with tarot’s Sun Card, its natural radiance means it often goes under-examined. We appreciate its superficial meaning — good news!! — but rarely look beyond that first impression. How can tarot readers dive deeper into the brilliance of tarot’s Sun Card to find more subtlety ..read more

When Tyler Richards sees the Temperance card, he thinks of his Caribbean-born mother and aunts making hot cocoa for him as a child. In order to cool down the chocolate from the heat of the stove, they’d slowly pour the liquid back and forth between two cups. “It was like the act of manifestation,” he explains. “Our ideas in the 5th Dimension are too hot to handle. With Temperance, we figure out what is needed to bring the 5D dream into our 3D world.” Tyler, pictured here with his current go-to deck, the Crow Tarot, is a tarot friend and fellow professional — the owner of Reckless Abandon ..read more

I was given this tarot deck by the Universe, via a generous neighbor who was downsizing to move abroad. I’ve been slow to write a review in large part because I have found it so satisfying to simply gaze at this gorgeous deck — to manipulate and reorganize the cards on my tarot table, looking for patterns, surprises, challenges… soaking it all in. The Mary-El Tarot, created by California-based artist Marie White, is an absolute masterpiece. Unlike most modern decks, the Mary-El is not a derivative of any of the Big Three: Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, or Tarot de Marseille. It is, however, entire ..read more

A gift of brightness for you at the end of 2023 Dear Tarot Friends, It’s been a heartwarming year for me, in large part because of my tarot connection with you. In gratitude, let me share some tarot-related light on this darkest day of the year. The brightness I have to offer today emanates from the brilliance of Ian Chillag, whose Everything Is Alive podcast will have you looking at your deck of cards (and everything, in fact) in an entirely new way. Hear Ian’s Interview with Playing Cards Listen away, and enjoy! I wish you a wonderful, sky-brightening time until we meet again. Yetta Sn ..read more

My young mother is lying in bed wearing a hospital gown. My father, pale-faced and looking scared, is trying to coax me through a tiny window above her feet. I am reluctant, but agree to at least look outside. Pushing my forehead against the window frame and craning my neck, I spy about two dozen people gathered on a lawn far below. They are wearing all white and are clustered in groups, socializing comfortably together. “They do seem nice,” I think to myself, and then wake up. This is one of a handful of dreams I can remember about being born. In others, I squeeze through a tunnel at the bot ..read more

… plus an invitation to make tarot cards with me! I am jealous of all you people who were introduced to tarot cards in college. Why didn’t any of you card-slinging, incense-burning, toenail-painting co-eds ever invite me to your parties? I was hungry to explore tarot-like thought, but without a simple deck to hold, I had to make things up from scratch. Despite my ignorance at the time, I can draw a straight line from my undergraduate studies in Art History and Psychology to my work as a tarot reader today. Read below for the full story, or simply come to my upcoming Tarot Card-Making Workshop ..read more

“I am sick and tired of toxic relationships,“ your client tells you. (Tarot Workouts are short, real-life case studies to help you exercise your tarot-reading muscle. To do this workout, read the question, choose the corresponding cards from your own deck, and then step away from the essay to formulate your own response. Read the end later to see how Yetta’s response compares to your own.)  The Client “Liza,” 42 years of age, has come in for a tarot reading. She explains, “I need to get my life back on track following a string of bad relationships, the most recent being a 5 ..read more

Embracing a movement with the help of Paul Cezanne 20th century post-Impressionist painter, Paul Cezanne, famously said: “With an apple, I will astonish Paris.” Using his paintbrush and a love for color and form, he worked to strip away every assumption he could when painting even the most basic still-life subject: the apple. With his efforts, the story goes, he freed the art world from the tired style of Neoclassical Romanticism and paved the way for Cubism, Abstractionism, and eventually, the whole of Modern Art. Cezanne, in essence, was queering Impressionism. This is the conclusion I draw ..read more

Reflections on two artist-channelers I could sit here all day, surrounded by the strange pastel palette of Hilma af Klint’s paintings. The Tate Modern in London has done a respectful job of honoring the whole of her talent, ultimately crediting her as one of the earliest and most impressive abstract artists of the early 20th century. From the Hilma af Klint exhibit at the Tate Modern, London, September 2023But I’ve come for the juicy part. I want to learn about her Spiritualism, occult Theosophy, and her efforts to translate channeled messages into visual form. She has all this in common with ..read more