9^th 10^th October 2015 – London

A glorious sunny day in London, the 12^th UK Tarot is about to begin.  Excited people arrive through the doors, friends who we see on a yearly basis, hugs all round and we are ready to begin.

[wds id=”2″] Susyn Blair Hunt author of the Tarot: Prediction and Divination kicks off the conference looking at Exploring past Lives through the Tarot.   With explanation and readings it was not long before the cards were laid and the past life journey began.  We broke for an hour to be followed by 2 impromptu sessions, one with Cilla Conway talking about the Byzantine Tarot, followed by Betty Jane Ware who hosted a fun session of scrying.

More people arrived through the door for the evening session, and I (mad fool) kicked off the evening with a talk on the Hanged Man, I explained how I had come to dislike this card as it seemed to have so many origins, I could not work out what was right, as none of the history really related to the modern Hanged Man.  I had a presentation which was to be completed by my Hanged Man film, unfortunately Mercury (well that’s my excuse) had other ideas and we could not get the film to play, so we went straight in to the Hanged Man reading,  whilst this was happening there was a lot of huffing and puffing behind the scenes fixing the problem.  We did finally get this to work to close my session. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATy0-0_9g0g&feature=youtu.be

Karen Mahoney followed with an interesting session, how to read with a “literary” deck, basing it around The Alice Tarot.     This is a fascinating insight to reading cards alongside the story book.   You can always tell how much people are enjoying the sessions when the noise levels rise in the room and this session was buzzing.   Karen is an eloquent speaker and so knowledgeable about her subject she was a joy to listen to.

We put our cards away and enjoyed drinks and canapes, followed by our auction hosted by Geraldine Beskin from Atlantis Bookshop.  We raised an amazing £402 which will fund people for next year’s conference as we will help anyone who otherwise would not be able to join us with tickets, hotel or travels costs.  This year 4 people came with the help of last year’s Bursary.

Time for bed, an exhausting day and tomorrow we do it all again plus more!

Saturday

With the stalls set up myself, Atlantis Bookshop, Baba Studio’s Richard Abbot with his books, Cilla Conway with the Byzantine Tarot and Caitlin Matthews with Lenormand decks, the room looked lovely and we were ready to begin.

The event kicked off with Caitlin Matthews: Which way are the cards facing?  Caitlin has been a regular speaker at the conference and she always delivers fresh and new techniques.  Nothing is rehashed, she is a delight to listen to, and her knowledge is world class.  The idea of working with the cards using this technique takes readings to whole new level.   I listened to the chatter at the mid-morning coffee break, people discussing how amazing this session was and that it would definitely be used in future readings.

Our next speaker was to be Wicca Meir Spring who devastatingly had a stroke the week before.  I have worked with Wicca before and she is wonderful, we wish her well and thank the lovely Richard Abbot for standing in at short notice.   I love Richard, he challenges you, makes you feel uncomfortable in a good way, his workshop, Tarot & The Voice of Guidance: How to Stay on your Path when Everything seems to Conspire against you was brilliant, everyone asked for more, so I will be in touch with Richard and see how we can expand on this for another time (maybe the Tarot Festival but I better ask first)!

Sue Merlyn Farebrother came on next sharing the influence of the minor cards, however, she asked people to work with the cards numbered between 4 and 7 which was an interesting technique.  The room was lively and Sue was like a little whirlwind working the room helping with readings.

At lunch time Chloe McCracken hosted the impromptu workshop: Lenormand Magic, unfortunately we did have some technical hitches on and off throughout the day with equipment, but she worked without the prepared slides and really did work magic.

The technical equipment was temperamental throughout the day, for some speakers there were no problems at all and others it just wasn’t playing, still trying to work out why!!

Susyn Blair-Hunt offered advice and interactive readings in her session ‘Let the cards do the talking’, it offered the chance to work with the cards using intuition. Again the energy on the room was high, there was plenty of interaction this year.

Finally, David Wells closed the conference with his session the Tree of Life Experience. We began with a powerful meditation followed by a Tree of Life reading. Some people are familiar with this but many are not, I know the Qabalah influence within tarot scares some people, but David made this session run with ease.  I loved it, but then I do have a bias with David.  Is this a good time to mention he is hosting a workshop for me on the 7^th November in Canterbury, Soul Memories. More about this below.

The Conference came to an end, I thanked everyone and of course gave a huge thank you to Lo Scarabeo, Hay House and Llewellyn who are always so generous in donating items for the goodie bags, Atlantis Bookshop for their support throughout the year, my husband Martin and Diane who anchor me at every event taking off the pressure when I start to get crabby (lol) and of course everyone who attended.  We are Kindred Spirits indeed.

Next year we celebrate Death, diary dates 13^th (eve) 14^th 15^th October 2015 London.  See you there!

David Wells Soul Memories workshop Here: http://psychiccafe.co.uk/event/david-wells-soul-memories/