You can review the handout from Episode 26 in 2008 for some of the systems of selecting a Significator. In this episode, I talked with an number of tarot readers about what they have chosen for themselves and why.

Excerpt from the Pictorial Key to the Tarot – an ancient celtic method of divination

This mode of divination is the most suitable for obtaining an answer to a definite question. The Diviner first selects a card to represent the person or, matter about which inquiry is made. This card is called the Significator.

Should he wish to ascertain something in connection with himself he takes the one which corresponds to his personal description.

A Knight should be chosen as the Significator if the subject of inquiry is a man of forty years old and upward; a King should be chosen for any male who is under that age a Queen for a woman who is over forty years and a Page for any female of less age.

Fred West

Fred West has over 30 years of experiences as a Tarot Reader. What first started as a childhood hobby has turned into a lifelong passion. Fred’s knowledge and passion for Tarot is like no other, he has read hundreds of books from various famous tarot authors and possess a variety of decks he uses with his clients during readings. Fred’s clientele ranges from Famous actors in Hollywood to the stay-at-home mom in Oregon.

• FPW Consulting
• The Tarot Demographic Survey

Donnaleigh

Radio podcast personality, professional tarot reader & psychic artist with a gentle reading style.

• Donnaleigh.net
• Beyond Worlds
• Our Educational Tarot Podcast: http://TarotTribe.com
• Fridays with Storm Cestavani at http://StormOnAir.com/

Valerie Sherill

Valerie is the assistant manager for Tarot for Life forum. She became interested in the art of Cartomancy around the age of 14 when her aunt taught her how to read with a regular playing deck. Thirteen years later, she discovered Tarot classes were available at a local metaphysical shop in the town she was living in at that time and immediately enrolled for the course’s extensive five month study. “I had tried to learn Tarot on my own when I was 15,” Val says, “but found it too overwhelming and lost interest. That course I found at The Alhambra Institute in Dearborn, MI, was like a gift from the Universe. Alexia was an incredible teacher – I will never forget her.” With the discovery of online Tarot communities in 2000, Val’s love of Tarot quickly blossomed into passion as she learned more about its rich history and endless avenues of Tarot exploration. It’s an adventure she expects to embark upon for the rest of her life.

Sean Tierseron

Sean is a certified & licensed Rainbow Reiki Professional Practitioner II and Usui/Tibetan Reiki Master Teacher who provides deep physical and emotional healing for your life empowerment. He uses the loving energies of Reiki in union with ”Sound Healing” & Crystal work for a more complete and lasting healing. He has also been working with Tarot for 20 years. Sean enhances your Tarot Reading with Reiki to clairvoyantly tune in to your Spirit Guides, Archangels, Angels, and Spirit Animals. He primarily uses Tarot for readings; Angel and Animal Oracle Cards may be used too. Sean works very closely with the Archangels and is able to channel. His Website is SeanHealswithLight.com

Roger Tobin

Roger Tobin is a Professional Tarot Reader from Portland, Oregon. He was introduced to the Tarot in the late 1980s but started serious study and practice in 2002 after encouragement from his family. He is a member of The American Tarot Association and reads for both of their Networks. Roger is also a Mentor for new readers as well as an active community volunteer. He enjoys both studying and teaching of topics in Tarot, and leads the Portland Tarot Study group. You can find out more about his reading practice at his website Sylvan Creek Tarot.

Ginny Hunt

Ginny Hunt is a Professional Tarot Reader from Maryland. Her interest in the spiritual and metaphysical has been a lifelong passion. She has been a practicing counselor, both professionally with adolescents and para-professionally as a volunteer with abused women. She offers professional reading services through 78 Notes to Self.

Thalassa

Thalassa is the producer of the San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium – the oldest established, permanent floating Tarot Symposium in the world (actually, the longest continuously produced Tarot event) and founder of the Daughters of Divination (DOD). She has been living, working and playing with the Tarot for more than 40 years (she was an infant prodigy).

She is also active in the production of Pagan and Divination events across the country, and her writing has been published in a wide range of publications, including the Llewellyn Tarot Reader almanacs since their inception. She has been involved in standup comedy, choreography, and stage management, and currently teaches improvisation and physical characterization for performers of Renaissance and Victorian festivals.

Her other interests include historical recreation, needlework, and plotting global domination. Thalassa lives in San Francisco with her long-suffering husband, a herd of semi-feral dustbunnies, a sword collection, and more Tarot cards than is safe to assemble in one place. She is working on a book (on Tarot, of all things).

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• Closing Music: Transition Music: Who the Hell Am I by Albert Lee Fitz from Music Alley

Albert Lee Fizz is a Dutch singer/songwriter, influenced by the 1980′s Brit pop. His music is published by No Tie Generation and some songs are now also available on iTunes. Albert Lee Fizz is a licensed busker in the London Underground and raises money for charity (www.justgiving.com/AlbertLeeFizz)

Play or Download the Episode

The Dec 2007 Issue of Tarot Reflections is up and has a couple of articles that feature me & the Tarot Connection.

• An Interview with Leisa ReFalo, the First Lady of Tarot Podcasting
• Tarot Podcasts – The New Wave of Tarot

Difficult Cards with Roger Tobin

What are Good Cards vs. Bad Cards, auspicious vs inauspicious etc.

Popular Tarot Culture would look at certain cards as inherently bearing weight in one direction or another for divination. (Example is face value of Golden Dawn titles).

Spread positions can heighten the effect of what we consider good and bad. (Consider that the Golden Dawn considered nearby cards as having an impact on the card in question)

Reversals can also matter, as can other dignity systems.

What makes a card difficult?

Reaction to the meaning and image, our core values, what we are “afraid” of.

• Are “bad” experiences actually good for us?
• Why is “bad” in the past better and “good” in the future better?
• What does this tell us about what we are willing to think about the lessons of life?

Personal experience with a card over time:

• Difficulty in interpretation
• Real life experience is often totally the opposite of what we thought.
• Comes up often without clear meaning
• Never comes up. . .

Difficult Reading for Paul using the Tarot of The Vampires

Is this a good financial move? Cards: 10 of Knives, 9 of Knives, 3 of Knives

Is it worth doing? Cards: 4 of Knives, 2 of Knives, 3. The Brides (Empress)

Images from The Vampire Tarot by Robert M. Place copyright 2007.

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• Closing Music: Finally by Ion from Future Forever (Magnatune)

Play or Download the Episode

This Podcast Episode has been archived. It is available for purchase at shop.tarotconnection.net in the Year One Archive mp3 DVD.

Roger Tobin discusses reversals in Tarot, which is a topic open to a great amount of interpretation. Going from historical usage through modern interpretations, There are a number of ways to use and look at reversals, coupled with a number of questions for readers to consider in order to develop their own philosophy for using reversals.

Roger Tobin is a Professional Tarot Reader from Portland, Oregon. He was introduced to the Tarot in the late 1980s but started serious study and practice in 2002 after encouragement from his family. He is a member of The American Tarot Association and reads for both of their Networks. Roger is also a Mentor for new readers as well as an active community volunteer. He enjoys both studying and teaching of topics in Tarot, and helps lead the Portland Tarot Study group. You can find out more about his reading practice at his website Sylvan Creek Tarot.

Reversals Class with Teresa Michelsen (Portland, OR 2005)

• Seeing the good, bad, and neutral attributes of every card
• A survey of ways to use reversals, from traditional to modern to highly individual
• Obstacles and challenges
• Unhelpful influences (special discussion of court cards here)
• Hidden, deceptive, and unrealized factors
• Extreme or unbalanced energies
• Internal vs. external Special or assigned meanings
• Entire reversed readings

Teresa Michelsen is a tarot reader and instructor with more than 25 years of experience reading tarot. She is well-known on the tarot e-mail lists under her reading name of Thrysse, and has published many articles on tarot on the worldwide web and in ATA publications. Teresa is the author of Designing Your Own Tarot Spreads and the Complete Tarot Reader.

• Teresa’s Website Tarot Moon
• Reversals Class Information – January 2007
• CompTarot
• CompTarot Yahoo Group

Shake Rattle and Roll by Ginny Hunt

… The main thing about the Tower is it signals the disruption and even destruction of things that you thought were solid. The more comfortable we become in our castles, the more complacent we become, the less connected we are from others and from what is really important in our lives. We begin to believe the illusions of safety and security that we’ve built and start taking some very valuable things for granted. A Tower moment, though rarely welcome, unless it’s happening to someone you dislike very much, brings into sharp and sudden focus those things we thought indestructible and safe, and subsequently presumed too much upon. … Read the Entire Post

Music Credits

• Opening Music: time release by the Droney Tones.
• 78 Notes Music: A Life Worth Living by Royalty Free Music
• Closing Music: Chanter voel par grant amour by Joglaresa from the album Magdalena (www.magnatune.com)

This Podcast Episode has been archived. It is available for purchase at shop.tarotconnection.net in the Year One Archive mp3 DVD.

Join the Portland Tarot Study Group as we study the cards associated with the Sun and the Moon in the Golden Dawn System. The Sun is the Sun and the Moon is the High Priestess. Roger Tobin leads this session.

Music Credits

• Opening and Closing Music by the Droneytones.

This Podcast Episode has been archived. It is available for purchase at shop.tarotconnection.net in the Year One Archive mp3 DVD.

The American Tarot Association is a professional and social organization for Tarot enthusiasts, students, scholars, and readers. It promotes Tarot as a valid and useful tool for personal and spiritual growth and supports the Tarot community through a variety of programs, including the the Free Reading and Free Tarot networks and the monthly newsletter Tarot Reflections.

My Guests are Tracy Hite the Treasurer of the ATA and Manager of both the Free Reading and Free Tarot Networks. And two readers, Roger Tobin and Suzy Moore who share their experiences on the Networks.

Tracy Hite

Tracy began her own Tarot journey while recovering from her first son’s birth on New Year’s Eve, 1996. She tried to study on her own for nearly a year, picking up what she could from books and websites, but she had a lot of trouble piecing everything together. Through membership in the American Tarot Association, she met the contacts and gained the expertise needed to gain her certification as a Certified Tarot Master. Tracy’s LiveJournal

Roger Tobin

Roger Tobin is a Professional Tarot Reader from Portland, Oregon. He was introduced to the Tarot in the late 1980s but started serious study and practice in 2002 after encouragement from his family. He is a member of The American Tarot Association and reads for both of their Networks. Roger is also a Mentor for new readers as well as an active community volunteer. He enjoys both studying and teaching of topics in Tarot, and helps lead the Portland Tarot Study group. You can find out more about his reading practice at his website Sylvan Creek Tarot .

Suzy Moore

Suzy Moore picked up Tarot cards for the first time in 1983, and has had a deck close by ever since. Suzy is a member of The American Tarot Association and reads several times a week for the Free Tarot Network. She is an Assistant Organizer for Living Tarot Meetup, and serves as the Meetup Guide for our live meetings, and am also a member of Tarot Talk Dallas. Suzy also co-teaches both beginner and advanced initiative tarot classes with Ferol Humphrey.

Music Credits

• Opening Music: time release by the Droney Tones.
• Closing Music: Free Me by Cyclop

This Podcast Episode has been archived. It is available for purchase at shop.tarotconnection.net in the Year One Archive mp3 DVD.

3 Parts of a Tarot Reading

Roger Tobin & I discuss the 3 major parts of a Tarot Reading and Roger demonstrates 2 readings with the Robin Wood Tarot .

1. The Question
2. The Spread
3. The Interpretation.

The Robin Wood Tarot by Robin Wood 1991 Llewellyn Worldwide, 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury, MN 55125-2989. All rights reserved, used by permission. Card images are protected intellectual property, and may not be recopied or reused in any manner without written permission from the publisher.

Download the Tarot Spreads File

Roger Tobin is a Professional Tarot Reader from Portland, Oregon. He was introduced to the Tarot in the late 1980s but started serious study and practice in 2002 after encouragement from his family. He is a member of The American Tarot Association and reads for both of their Networks. Roger is also a Mentor for new readers as well as an active community volunteer. He enjoys both studying and teaching of topics in Tarot, and helps lead the Portland Tarot Study group. You can find out more about his reading practice at his website Sylvan Creek Tarot .

Robin Wood Tarot

Bonnie Cehovet and I review the Robin Wood Tarot which is a Pagan interpretation of the Rider-Waite Tarot . You can learn more about the Artist Robin Wood at her Website. You can order a Robin Wood Meditation Set if you want to color your own copy. Robin also has a number of Tarot Articles to read including a few spreads.

Bonnie Cehovet (Washington) is a Tarot Educator, a professional Tarot reader with over ten years experience, a Reiki Master/Teacher and a writer. She currently has articles and reviews appearing in the World Tarot Network newsletter, and reviews appearing on the Meta Arts e-magazine site and on Aeclectic Tarot . Her website is The Crystal Gate – Tarot .

Music Credits

• Opening music by the Droneytones.
• Some of the music provided tonight from the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com
• Closing song is Titania, Wake My Sweet Queen by Mark Gunn. Visit Mark’s site for more music downloads.

This Podcast Episode has been archived. It is available for purchase at shop.tarotconnection.net in the Year One Archive mp3 DVD.

Is there a difference? Roger Tobin and I discuss Fortune Telling and Divination and define terms.

Roger Tobin is a Professional Tarot Reader from Portland, Oregon. He was introduced to the Tarot in the late 1980s but started serious study and practice in 2002 after encouragement from his family. He is a member of The American Tarot Association and reads for both of their Networks. Roger is also a Mentor for new readers as well as an active community volunteer. He enjoys both studying and teaching of topics in Tarot, and helps lead the Portland Tarot Study group. You can find out more about his reading practice at his website Sylvan Creek Tarot.

Portland Psychic Whitney Leigh Harris talks about Mediumship & Psychic readings. Currently, Whitney offers in-depth readings in person, over the phone and via e-mail. Whitney’s website is WordsforWisdom.com

Music Credits

• time release by the Droney Tones.