Valerie Sylvester and I had such a lot of fun working together on her Guide to Tarot Reading at public venues – Reading Out Loud (even though she actually did almost all of the work…) She really enjoyed reading and responding to your comments, and in doing so had a brainwave and decided to do something a little bit bonkers! Perhaps because she is a bit bonkers, but mostly because she’s just really, really nice.
She has a vast collection of Tarot decks, some unopened and some hardly used; and she thought it would be a great idea to reward the readers of her articles with the gift of one of her own personal Tarot decks! How wonderful is Valerie?!
Up for grabs is a perfect, opened but unused copy of the Faery Wicca Tarot Deck complete with book!
So, all you have to do, dear readers of her work, is share your best, or worst, public Tarot reading with us here in the comments section of this blog to win a copy of the Faery Wicca Tarot deck! How easy is that?! The post and packaging will even be covered by my good self – so it’s a win-win situation for you guys, just share your experiences and you could be in with a chance 
And who said Saturdays were only about sport??
Don’t worry if you’ve already told your horror story, in the comments section in Part One or Two of the Guide, we will be looking at all comments from both posts, and also including this one – see, we have everything covered
We’re looking forward to hearing all your tales, so don’t hold back – let those fingers do the talking!
Warm wishes,
Catherine and Valerie
The Small Print:
Please don’t name any individual, company or venue – the individuals in your entries must remain completely anonymous.
The competition will run from the posting of this announcement to midnight next Friday 23rd October, 2009. The winner will be announced in a separate post next weekend, but will be notified by email first. Should the winner have a blog, website or Twitter account, links to them will be provided in the Winners Post – another win-win situation!
And that’s about it! Get your entries in and let’s have some fun!
The Faery Wicca Tarot Deck is published by Lewellyn
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Hey guys I’ve decided to throw this competition wide open – submit any terrifying, hilarious, or downright unusual tarot experience for a chance to win this awesome – and elemental – tarot deck!!
i don’t have a stroy to share,but i CAN”T wait!!! to read the entries… SO wonderful of both of you! i love give-aways! Thank you for this contest! yipee!!
I loved the post. It really speaks to the varied experience of public readings. I thought I’d go with a best and worst. I hope that does not break the rules.
So the worst for me came at a big corporate Xmass thing. I was the only reader, and spent the night doing 10 minute reads. No problem there. About half way through the night a guy sits down – DRUNK – and asks me “So when I am I going to die?”
Now today, if someone pulled that out in that setting I’d just give them a card and say if you want to talk about what is going for you around this call me and we can do a private session. However, I was pretty green and so I just asked him if he was really sure he wanted to know. He said yes so I flipped a card for him. The Prince of Cups – Thoth deck – I looked at him and said “If you don’t lay off the booze you will be dead way before your time. Go get help you are an alcoholic.” He agreed and went off to get another drink…
It was hard for not just because of the question, but also because it was completely unclear, maybe even unlikely, that this person would go and get help. Not fun. It’s been 6 years and I still think of this night sometimes.
The best party situation happened for a company retreat. They took me with their employees to a cottage on a beautiful lake. I spent the day sitting by the lake eating yummy food and reading for people. If I felt tired i just took a few minutes and enjoyed the view and the breeze. It was like having an extra battery for the whole day.
I look forward to hearing other folks stories.
This is a story about the “Tower” card. Whether we were reading this card or it was reading us is yet to be determined. It started when I was teaching a workshop titled “Tarot Magic and Transformation” at an ATA conference.
In this workshop I had the participants randomly select a Tarot card from my deck for the purpose of exploring a one-card reading for one’s self. The point of this exercise was to show how to work deeply with one card in a transformational way. This is a psycho-spiritual approach that I teach my students.
We went around the room to get different impressions of the cards from the students. One student in particular was disturbed by pulling the Tower card and could not focus on her intuitive impression for the traditional meaning was so overwhelming negative for her.
There is not enough room here to go into all the details of our exchange, but here is a significant part. I told the story of a reading I had conducted years past with a 20-something man who was trying to decide whether to stay in New York City (NYC) as a fireman or move to Los Angeles, California and become a plumber. Using my intuitive style of working with him and the cards, he pulled the Tower card, which for him confirmed that he should stay in NYC. He told me the story of how he had been called to the World Trade Center for the (first) bomb threat and how that was a high point in his life, feeling very proud of his work. So in that reading, the Tower had a positive association for this man, although it was an association with fire and destruction that you or I may not choose to engage in. I trust my client’s process and do not impose my will or interpretation.
This class had been on a Sunday. The next day I flew to New Mexico to visit my mother, who happens to have a television (something I did not have at home). The next morning on 9/11/01, she urgently called me to the television where I watched the smoke from the jet hitting the first World Trade Tower, then the live coverage as the second jet impacted the other tower. My heart went out to the people of NYC, that NYC fireman and his co-workers engaged in their finest and most challenging moment, as well as the sorrow and pure terror that must have been in the atmosphere. I watched people choose to jump out of windows rather than burn in the building. The Tower card was truly coming to life.
Of course we were horrified, as the world was in shock. But my objective mind began to read this event much like I would a Tarot card, bringing in my intuitive impressions and knowledge of the Tower card. What was the card trying to prepare us for in that ATA workshop? What was that participant’s specific relationship with this event? What message is being sent to the collective since the power of the Tower card is being broadcast and felt all over the world?
I then began to revisit the sequence of the Major Arcana of the Tarot and the position of the Tower in that story, the “Hero’s Journey” or what I’ve always called, “The Sacred Journey of Your Soul”? The Tower is often associated with purification, burning away impurities identified by the Devil archetype of attachment that preceded it.
This inquiry lead to what do the World Trade Towers represent? Here we have a center of international trade and business sitting in NYC, the most powerful symbol of commerce, culture and diversity in the US. If the “Hero” on the world level is the US or capitalism or focused on all people of this planet, something of that nature, what needs to be purified? Where are we heading and how is this an important step in our evolution? I began to look into other metaphysical and spiritual systems with their wisdom on these times and the significance. At the top of my list are the Mayan galactic calendar, Hopi prophecy and the Kali Yuga of Hinduism.
There is much that could be written on this subject, but I’d like to leave you with these questions so you can find your own answers. The Tarot is a power tool of self-exploration, but please remember that each of us has our little self while we are all part of a larger Self that is on a transformational journey through life.
Well I’ve been doing readings for my fellows at an artist colony in Virginia. I’m no tarot expert, though I usually have no trouble interpreting my own cards — with a little help. The first night, I used an iPhone tarot deck. Basically, I handed people my iPhone and showed them the app, which made me a sort of tech oracle, and told them to do simple three-card past-present-future spreads. One of my favorite people wound up with the Queen of Swords and now goes around proudly calling herself the Sword Bitch as she cuts through crap and says wise things.
She purchased a real tarot deck for us to play with the next night. But it was a real simple deck with the explanations printed right on the front of the card, and we dubbed it “the mean deck” after one person drew The Moon, and it suggested that bad things were going to happen to her family and friends.
But my best tarot reading was today. I ordered a Fairy Tale tarot and did a past/present/future reading for the character in the novel I’ve just started writing. In the first chapter, the girl in my story meets a soldier returning from Afghanistan on a Trailways bus. The future card I drew today blew me away. It was Four Pentacles, represented in this deck by a story called “The Tinderbox.” The story begins, “Once Upon a time, there was a soldier who was returning home from war….”
Katrina – that is an amazing story about the Tower and 9/11. I wonder what happened to that fireman?
Debbie – When I find myself wondering about the fireman I have two thoughts. One is that he could have ended up in California, which is where I met him doing this reading. Second, if he chose to return to the NYC fire dept. it would be for the very reason of helping with this disaster. I trust the Tao and flow of life and know he is wherever he is needed and send him my blessings and thanks.
A contest? Wonderful! Too bad I can’t officially enter; I haven’t done any public readings yet, since I am still a beginner relatively speaking.
Katrina, I too enjoyed reading about your The Tower being pulled by that man during the reading. It will be interesting to see the comments as they appear throughout the contest.
Great idea Catherine!
- Nicole
Hi Nicole,
Thanks for your comment – though we decided to throw the competition wide open to include any Tarot experience – and I know you have some of those
Hello, everyone … years ago, before I was spiritually awakened by my spiritual mother, I leaned on someone that I thought was a good friend for my spiritual guidance. I didn’t have this strength in myself, as I hadn’t discovered this part of who I was yet, and I did not yet see the Goddess in myself, so I saw it in her. She seemed more than willing to help me (I would find out later that she resented it). I asked her for readings from time to time, and once, when I was struggling with an issue that I no doubt brought on myself, she told me she didn’t need to read my cards to see the obvious. Then, she proceeded to infuse me with fear. She was a frightened person then, and I knew this, but it was part of the crazy dynamic between us. We have both grown up a lot since then and we have since parted ways. Anyhow, this experience … the trust that I placed in her, and the way she viewed it as the burden it was … taught me a lot about the responsibility that comes with offering any kind of spiritual guidance.
When an individual comes to us for spiritual guidance, either through the tarot, clairvoyance or any other type of divination, we should never forget our responsibility to honoring the divinity in them.
D~
http://www.earthshod.com/luvchat.html
Hi Catherine,
my entry is short – Doug thought I should enter it here as I posted it on his blog yesterday. Didn’t realise you were running a competition (sorry – I find it hard to catch up with everything)
Anyway, corporate events at Christmas time can be hard work: merry people, loud music, lots of short readings (you have to be on the ball all the time), so sometimes it’s only natural that you loose it a bit. In fact, I allow myself to give the odd “howler” reading – I can’t be perfect all the time, can I?
So when this youngish bloke came up to me for a reading I drew the Tower card. When I looked at him and the Tower card, I thought of extreme sports, e.g. bungee jumping, rock climbing etc. He just looked the type anyway
It turns out he was a keen surfer and was shortly going to Australia. (He also did a bungee jump in the past!) And true to the drama of the Tower card, I warned him of sharks. I sometimes wonder, if he heeded my advice. Hope he’s ok! 
You can do this sort of thing, when readings are definitely for “entertainment purposes only”.
Hi Christiane – you got here in time, don’t worry
Your reading has been entered like the others – good luck!
I hope I’m in time! I work at the Pagan Picnic in St. Louis every summer. A few years ago, I was reading for a gentleman who was dating a much younger man. I told him that this guy was basically a child, and that he was using the querent for money, clothes, etc. I saw that the querent wanted a deeper relationship and encouraged him to find what he needed.
From behind, I heard, “You bitch!!”. A young man stalked past the table – he’d been standing behind me for the whole reading. The querent tipped me $20 and said it was the easiest break-up he’d ever had.
I had a tragic reading happen when I was 17 years old. I don’t know if you wanted stories this, I don’t know what to call it, sad? Tragic? Scary? But I guess I’ll share anyway. I had just started reading tarot, and my readings appeared to be scary accurate from the very first one I did. My friend had gotten involved with a married man, and we were fighting a lot about the issue. Since we seemed to be at an impass I suggested we do a reading on the situation to find out the outcome.
I did a basic 10 card spread, and all of the cards fell right into place telling the story of the situation past & present. When we got to the 10th card, the ultimate outcome card, my interpretation screamed a child was going to get hurt. Now my friend loves children, so she certainly did not want a child to be hurt. However, she had already known he had a small daughter before they got involved, so this wasn’t news to her. If he left his wife (as she hoped) obviously a child would be hurt. Although unfortunate, it was not unexpected. As such, she kinda blew the whole thing off.
My mistake in the whole situation came from my lack of experience. Yes, my reading was accurate. At least as far as I read into it. What I didn’t do was try to dig deeper for specifics. *sigh* Here is the sad outcome of the story, and the reason I still feel guilt over the matter.
He left his wife. He and my friend stayed in an extended stay hotel for awhile, I guess trying to work out how to handle everything. Although I am sure his daughter was probably hurt and confused by the whole situation, my assumption that she was the person the card was about was incomplete. After he left his wife, his wife found out she wa pregnant. Since he had just left her, and maybe even to punish him for doing so, she had an abortion. He was devestated when he found out. So much so, that he ultimately went back to her. After he went back to his wife, my friend discovered she too was pregnant. She decided not to tell anyone right away. A few weeks later, she miscarried the baby.
Two children died in this situation. Even though it was not my fault, nor was I involved in any of the decisions that lead to this issue, I still feel somewhat responsible. I wonder, if I had dug deeper would I have found the specifics of the situation? Would it have mattered to anyone concerned? Would it have changed things? Or were things meant to work out the way they did, no matter how unpleasant?
Sorry to have to post an experience that is such a downer. It is just that it was such a powerfull experience, one that I learned a lot from, that it seemed to be in line with what you were looking for.
~Sandy