Join Christiana, Frank, and special guest Arwen Lynch-Poe for Episode 1 of The StaarCast Variety Show. In this episode, you will learn a new tarot spread, play a tarot guessing game, enjoy a review of Dark Wood Tarot, meet StaarCon 2023 presenter Arwen Lynch-Poe, and much more!
Join Christiana, Frank, and special guest Arwen Lynch-Poe for Episode 1 of The StaarCast Variety Show.
In this episode, you will learn a new tarot spread, play a tarot guessing game, enjoy a review of Dark Wood Tarot, meet StaarCon 2023 presenter Arwen Lynch-Poe, and much more!
Timestamps:
Try a new tarot spread: 10:03
Interview with Arwen Lynch-Poe: 20:36
Review of Dark Wood Tarot: 40:43
Play our tarot game: 51:18
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Our guests:
StaarCon Links:
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Christiana: Episode, one of the StaarCast Variety Show is brought to you by Major Arcana Zero, The Fool. Join us on a joyful new journey into the unknown.
Christiana: Hey, Frank.
Frank: Hey, Christiana. What's going on?
Christiana: Well, I think what's going on is we are starting a brand new YouTube show slash podcast. And I think this is our first episode.
Frank: This is crazy. I cannot believe it. If I'm not mistaken, this is called the StaarCast Variety Show. And I want to welcome everybody who is joining us right now to the StaarCast Variety Show. What are we doing with this thing, Christiana?
Christiana: Well, right after StaarCon 2022, you reached out to me and asked for a meeting. I said yes. You sent me a zoom link that said "Frank Pitches an Idea to Christiana" and the idea you pitched was instead of doing just hourlong interviews that we've been doing, our half hour long interviews that we do a tarot and divination based variety show.
Christiana: And you said it had to be really cool.
Frank: And I really hope this is going to be really cool for the people watching. I want to thank everybody who is tuning in right now, watching or listening. That is our goal here for this to be cool and fun. This is a tarot and divination based, variety show. And it is just as it sounds when you tune in to this show, hopefully you won't know what to expect other than fun, tarot, magic and a really good time.
Frank: We're going to do interviews we're going to have fun and games. We're going to do deck reviews. We're going to introduce spreads and much more. Wouldn't you say, Christiana? What am I leaving out here?
Christiana: I'm the only thing I think you're leaving out is that this is all in support of StaarCon. Our Annual Hybrid International Tarot and Divination Conference. The next StaarCon will be StaarCon 2023. It will be January 20th through 22nd in person at a brand new hotel. Now, let me say the hotel itself is not new. It's been around for a while, but it's a new hotel for us and it is nice.
Christiana: It is the Palm Beach Airport Hilton and we will be online as we have been the last two years on the Accelevents Event Management Platform.
Frank: I can't wait for the event Christiana. The last two have been awesome and frankly, I would not have pitched this idea to you if A, I didn't believe in you 2, I didn't believe in StaarCon and 3, I didn't have such a great time at the first two and thank you for allowing me to participate in them and to present at those StaarCons and all the wonderful people I met, fellow presenters, your husband and the technical crew who did a great job putting everything together and all the attendees.
Frank: It's something truly to celebrate. It's something that is being built and getting better and better every year. But we're off to such a great start, and I just felt like this little show that we're doing here is a way to kind of keep that magic going throughout the year. I mean, if the conference is going to be in January once a year, this is just one little way to kind of fill in the gaps throughout the rest of the year and allow us to build this community and have a good time and connect with more of our presenters, both former and future presenters, and the people who love Tarot and are interested in connecting with
Frank: all of us. So, so thank you very much for the opportunity to do this. I'm a huge fan of yours, and I very, very much respect the work that you do. In particular as it's related to StaarCon. So thank you very much, Christiana.
Christiana: Well, thank you. Right back at you. I am also a huge fan of yours. So now this is the StaarCast mutual admiration society. And we.
Christiana: Invite others to join. What we're going to want from you is your submission of video deck reviews spreads that you've made up of fun tarot stories. And you know, one place that we are communicating with each other about what's going on here is on Facebook, the StaarCon community group. So ask to to join that group, and that way you'll get up to date information about what's going on with StaarCon as well.
Christiana: So speaking of that, one of our brand new presenters is Arwen Lynch Poe. And this episode includes an interview with her, which is a lot of fun. Many of us know her tagline Seek Joy, Y'all, and you will learn all about that. And I do have to warn y'all, not only are we seeking joy, but Arwen drops the F-bomb.
Christiana: So if you're listening to this in sensitive company, maybe wait till later. This is not a show that is in any way peppered with vulgarity. But, you know, we are all grown ups here and, and, and, Arwen just cracked open the swear container. And here we are.
Frank: Well, thanks for the warning on that, Christiana. And yes, this is this is not going to be a show that's going to be overly racy or we're not going to go out of our way to be to be obscene. But we're here as ourselves. This is a respond just like tarot. We want to be spontaneous we want to have a good time.
Frank: And yeah, sometimes, you know, sometimes some salty language will come out.
Christiana: It does happen just like it. Well, I don't know. That's a question when you're reading for someone, do you sometimes swear in a reading?
Frank: if it. Yeah, I very rarely like I don't go into it with no filters on whatsoever in terms of like dropping F-bombs. And I think actually that's a word in my readings that I try not to go into. But there are other there are other words that I'll use if if it comes out, if that's what feels right at the time, then so be it.
Christiana: Yeah.
Frank: What about you?
Christiana: Depends. Depends on the vibe, depends on the client, depends on my relationship with the client. Depends on, you know, the funny thing, of course, like when you're doing mediumship which is something that happens for me a lot and tarot readings, I will be bringing in a loved one.
Arwen: And.
Christiana: I'll be like, so did this person sometimes use off color language and, you know, and there it is. And, you know, I can't be responsible for that.
Frank: Yeah, no, no, exactly. We celebrate being in the moment. That is I mean, in my experience, Christiana and I wouldn't doubt it if you were kind of vibing on this, that the best tarot readings are done when we are truly in the present in the moment and we allow for anything to happen. And whether that includes salty language or just about anything else to happen, and that's where the magic is, is in possibilities.
Frank: And so we're hoping for that. I don't want to say hoping for like this is very much and.
Christiana: Welcome for more F-bombs. We're really not.
Frank: Well, let me correct that our intention for this having nothing to do with F-bombs, but having to do with the magic of the moment happening with each of the things that we do here, the fun activities, the interviews, the spreads, the the games that we're going to do, and we're going to be bringing in people from the StaarConn community to contribute to this thing.
Frank: I just wanted to add one thing for those who are submitting proposals or videos to us. Keep in mind we're looking for things that don't run overly long. So for the most part, we want the segments to be about 5 minutes, maybe ten at the very most somewhere around there. And other than that, tarot related have a good time.
Frank: Show us what you got.
Christiana: Perfect. So, Frank, do you want to start us off with a tarot card pulled at random for our first episode?
Frank: Absolutely. And I want to make clear that I, I always this should go without saying, Christiana, but I'm not about to have a car pushed to the side like the wheel of Fortune or the ace of cops or something. Or the ace of Tentacles. Of course, those are cards that I want to see for our first card pull here, but I am just pulling pulling from random, and let's see what happens.
Christiana: All right, I'm ready.
Frank: Here we go. And I'm going to show it to you. Before I show it to myself. What do we have?
Arwen: Oh, we.
Christiana: Have. And I see you're working with one of my favorite decks. Lights. Here's Tarot by Chris-Anne. We have The Hanged Man.
Frank: The Hanged Man. Oh, boy. What would you make of this to start off our our adventure?
Christiana: Well.
Christiana: I kind of love it. It's contemplating it is a different perspective. I think we're doing something that is different from any other sort of tarot offering out there. StaarCon is different from any other tarot conference out there. And the show is certainly different from a lot of the tarot shows. So it is a different perspective. We also are going into this not quite sure about production schedule.
Christiana: How often will you know? We're going to try for a few times a month, but whatever. We're really just letting it happen. And remember that start the concept of StaarCon was born before COVID, but StaarCon itself was born in the middle of the pandemic and The Hanged Man is the perfect card for that. We're man, we just had to deal with what we had to deal with and go how we had to go.
Christiana: And that has shaped us into this really robust hybrid conference that serves a worldwide community in really and I'm saying this as a professional psychic, unpredictable times.
Frank: Boy, that is true. And thank you for that. Christiana, what what was coming up for me as you were talking about that was Tarot is a sacred practice now. We are talking about having a lot of fun with tarot. And this show is going to be a lot of fun. But it does remind me of why I got into tarot in the first place and why I continue to use tarot on a daily basis for myself and those that I read cards for.
Frank: It is a sacred spiritual practice for me, for those who are going through difficult times. And, you know, I don't want to get all droopy and serious here, but I think it is worth pointing out as we get ready for the fun is that a lot of people are going through tough times right now. And I go through tough times, too.
Frank: And Tarot is a respite from that. It is a place where I find the deep wisdom and love that reside within me that I can sometimes forget, and it's a way of reconnecting to that. So The Hanged Man showing up for here is a reminder that as fine as this show is going to be, underneath the surface is always a revered, sacred practice for Tarot.
Frank: And hopefully those who are watching or listening to this show right now will have fun, but also will be spiritually and emotionally uplifted in their tarot practice and by participating in this show.
Christiana: I love it. That's perfect. So I want to remind everyone to get to the StaarCon website that's STAARCON dot com. As of this recording, tickets are not yet available, but they will be really, really soon. So just keep an eye on that. We've got so many great things coming up for you at StaarCon 2023 and also in this show here today and on the StaarCast Variety Show going forward.
Christiana: So let's get this show going.
Frank: Let's do this. Christiana let's get this thing started!
Frank: Hello. This is Frank here. And today I'd like to offer a brand new spread for us to try the name of today's spread is simply called The Sun Spread. I was inspired to create this spread as a way of connecting with our deep source of vitality, energy and inspiration that we have inside of us.
Frank: And these are themes very much that we find on the Sun card. So it's actually the Waite Smith version of the the Sun card that I used as the inspiration for this spread. It is a six card spread with one card inspired by different things that we see on this beautiful. I don't know about you. This is one of my favorite cards in the whole back.
Frank: I love the Waite Smith version of The Sun, and it inspired this spread today. All right. Now to perform the Sun's spread, I recommend taking the Sun out of your pack and placing it at the top of your surface to act as a significator. As you are likely aware, a significator or a signifier of the spread is serves as a placeholder for the intention or theme of the spread.
Frank: Now, the intention and or the theme of this sun spread is to connect better with the Sun energy that we have inside of us. So think of the key words that come to mind the themes of the Sun card, youthful spirit, energy, truth, vitality, passion, all of those things, and much more are themes of the Sun Card.
Frank: And so that's our intention of the spread, and that's why we place the Sun card at the very top. Now shuffle your cards and as you do so, what I like to recommend is looking at the Sun card, connect with these energies, invite them to come into your, to come into the card, to enter your space and now, as I mentioned, the six cards within this spread, each of them are inspired by a specific item that we see on the sun card.
Frank: And I will explain those as we go through. Once you've shuffled your cards, you've got that light energy, that sunlight energy inside of them, then go ahead and cut. I like to do it in three piles like this.
Frank: All right. And now deal like this first card here with the top card just barely touching that Sun. I'll explain why in a moment. Two, three, four, card five, and then finally card six goes across there all right. So here is an explanation of each of the positions of this spread. And we start with card number one. And card number one represents it corresponds to the sun on the Sun card.
Frank: That's why it's at the very top of our spread and so this card represents an ideal or a source of incredible power or energy within you or your life right now.
Frank: Now, I'm doing this spread for myself, but I encourage you to either draw your own cards for yourself or if you like, feel free to connect with this spread as I'm doing it now. And if you are doing this on your own and you happen to get a negative card here at position number one, please don't be discouraged because as you know, self honesty is a prerequisite for effective tarot work.
Frank: And you might consider if this is a dark or negative card for you, how it might be some sort of an ideal or an incredible source of power for you right now. All right. Card number two is is a representative of the sun flowers on the Sun card and now like some flowers, how they turn towards the sun.
Frank: This card shows you how to face or connect to what you've got with card number one. So as I got for my source of ideal or or power for me the High Priestess, this card will help me indicate how to face or connect with the energy of this card.
Frank: Ace of Pentacles card number three is symbolic of the wall on the Sun card. And so when we think about walls, we probably think about barriers right and so card number three represents some kind of barrier that either keeps you from connecting to the ideal of card number one. Or at least has the potential to and the Six of Wands next we have card number four.
Frank: And this card number four represented representative of the big red banner that we see on the Sun card that the child is holding in his little hand there for us. Card number four, we could see representing the way for us to display our vitality or carry greater passion or energy with us.
Frank: And another six card, this time the Six of Swords now we move on to this card here, card number five. And this is inspired by the naked child on the Sun card. And that child is innocent, joyous and free. And so this card represents what the child within us wants to know. In other words, how does it feel to connect to the power and energy of the sun?
Frank: So if card number one is the ideal or source of energy, then this card is what happens when we embody that energy.
Frank: Oh, boy. The World so I have two major arcana here, the ace and two sixes and finally we have card number six. And card number six is symbolic of on the Sun card we have the horse, the child is riding the horse. And so this card represents a powerful support that carries us forward. We could read this card as the support for our inner child.
Frank: If card number five is how it feels to embody the ideal light, then we can rely on this card as something that can support us on the journey and it's the Nine of Wands now I encourage you to click on a link in the description of this video for a copy of this video. For a copy of the spread, rather that you can do on your own time.
Christiana: Arwen Lynch Poe, thank you so much for joining me for five questions in 10 minutes. Are you ready?
Arwen: I am so ready, Christiana. And I got this.
Christiana: I know you do. I know you do. And we are just so excited that you're going to be a presenter at StaarCon 2023.
Arwen: Me too. Okay is it 2023 yet?
Christiana: It will be soon. All right. Question one Your Tarot Origin Story through out like in all my tarot time. There has always been an Arwen Lynch. Where did she come from?
Arwen: I was bored. I was in college. We had a winter six weeks program that you could do between quarters, get a little ahead. And I'd done this and I was in the tower at my college. Not with a gun. I'm sorry, but the girl that read for me, she was my very first tarot reading. She read with the Thoth deck and I was like, mind blown then she bought me the same deck.
Arwen: And I was like, mind not blown do not like. And I discovered I told somebody I didn't like the Thoth deck because it's too dark, got three legal pages back, back in front of why it wasn't a dark deck. And I went back. I said, no the images are dark. They're not brightly colored, wasted all that time. But that's where I started and then I was dedicated into a Wiccan coven in Toledo.
Arwen: And between first and second degree, you need to have a divination system pitch. And I talked to my High Priestess about tarot and she said, Let's go. This just happened to be a psychic fair where they're selling a lot of decks and I picked up the Herbal Tarot by Michael Tierra and Candis Cantin, and I actually still have that deck.
Arwen: So that's the origins. And I started reading for people and went, Oh, this is kind of cool. And this kind of what awakened all the psychic stuff I shut down as a kid.
Arwen: So yeah.
Christiana: Beautiful. Love it. So you have written a lot of accompanying books with decks you have a lot of accomplishments in your résumé. What are some of the ones you're most proud of?
Arwen: Probably the Elle Qui Oracle comes to mind because it's such vivid imagery and it's very strong women. It's not very diverse. And that's one of my biggest issues right now with decks I'm working on. I'm saying we need large people, we need POC, we need handicapped, we need them all. You know, so our challenge I'm so sorry, I use the word handicapped physically challenged in some way.
Arwen: But I really like that deck because it's so evocative to me. And also, I did it right after Secrets of the Mystic Grove, which is a sweet and airy deck. And I open up my images for this deck. And the first one is an African-American woman with a dripping knife you're like, OK, mindset change. And the other would be Field Guide to Garden Dragons, which was just a blast to write.
Arwen: Oh, I've got another field guide coming out.
Christiana: Do you really.
Arwen: Have this wonderful thing with Lisa Hunt. It's going to be Field Guide to the Flower Fae.
Christiana: I love that you have worked with Lisa Hunt. I have so much love and affection for Lisa Hunt. We're both from Connecticut and we both live in South Florida.
Arwen: Know that that you're both from Connecticut.
Christiana: That's cool. Are and from the same I mean, Connecticut, small, but from the same part of Connecticut, right? I know. How weird is that? So I feel a real connection with her and I love her work.
Arwen: Her that was my first deck was Lenormand that I oh, that was the very first deck I ever did.
Christiana: And we just blipped for a minute. What, which deck?
Arwen: The Fairy Tale Lenormand, that's in a tin that I did that with Lisa Hunt very first deck and US Games reached out to me and I was like an opportunity to work with the Lisa Hunt heck yeah.
Arwen: I've been collecting her decks for years.
Christiana: Oh, wow.
Christiana: And that was that was the first guide that you ever wrote.
Arwen: Yep.
Christiana: Now, you know, I know you wrote that, but it hadn't really connected to me that you were a Lenormand reader as well.
Arwen: I'm not.
Christiana: OK, so side question how did you that.
Arwen: I'm a fairy tale person and I have studied fairy tales. I read like Jung and then Maria. Maria Von Franz that's her name, Maria Von Franz. Who did a book about the archetypes of fairy tales and all this. And so because of that and I, I learned the Lenormand system using Donnaleigh's method on Tarot Tribe on YouTube. She's got this great series and so that's how I did.
Arwen: I am somewhere around here. I still have my little flashcards that I made for myself. And even doing that I still think I fix it in the next one. In the first edition, one of the they got, they didn't get swapped but they got part of the Mountain, got put on Letter. Oh, so but nobody's clocked me for it.
Arwen: So I'm like, OK.
Christiana: You know, that's, that's so reassuring because every single thing that we any of us end up writing, there's always going to be some typo something. It drives me nuts. But it's true, isn't it?
Arwen: Yeah. And the Pride Tarot we were given. I did. I worked with the artist from Bianco Nero Tarot. Tarot. Who's Marco Proietto. Sorry, Marco. I know that's wrong, but we got the Queen of Swords and the King of Wands. I wrote the Queen of Swords is a drag queen. And the King of Wands is a butch leather guy with a bike with a motorcycle and I wrote the best King of Pentacles description.
Arwen: You've ever read for The King of Wands. Oh, so I said, he was slow. No, again, nobody clocked me for it. And I read it and I was like, oh, my God, it's totally screwed it up.
Christiana: These are things man. You wake up at 3:00 in the morning and think about those things. Well, all right. So next question. What are you working on now?
Arwen: Field Guide to Flower Fae with Lisa Hunt. I've got another one called A Wild Life, not wild life, but A Wild Life Oracle deck I've pitched and I've got a pretty good response from it. Well, and I'm working with a self-taught watercolorist who's up at Santa Fe, and then she goes home to gosh, I want to say Connecticut, but it might be New Hampshire, but so she flips back and forth depending on the weather.
Arwen: And I've got another one the idea's been accepted. We can't find the right artist yet. So I'm really hunting. And so so is the publisher hunting for the right artists. And I'm pretty excited about the concept, but it's one of those things you don't want to put out there.
Christiana: I understand completely, but we are all waiting with baited breath for it. Most certainly.
Arwen: I've got two books in and various pieces right now.
Christiana: Really, guidebooks or book books.
Arwen: Book books. One is going to be spreads. Mm. And then the other I want to talk about mediumship and tarot and how they work for me. So I will say there's a lot of mediumship out there right now, so I'm not sure that this is the right time, but we'll see.
Christiana: Oh, I'm sure that it's the right time coming from you Arwen I am absolutely sure. OK, so we are here to talk about StaarCon, to talk about this hybrid conference that we have created and you will be doing in 2023. Very excited. But you know the key is tarot conferences, divination conferences are so important, they're so important to us personally, they're important to us professionally, they're important to us as a community and have been for years and years now that we can do them hybrid we can do them online.
Christiana: That adds a whole new layer. I would like you from anywhere in your history in person or online to share a favorite conference memory.
Arwen: I think that was actually easy because it comes from my very first conference, which was NWTS. I never I didn't attend Reader's Studio 'til 2018. That was my first one. But NWTS was a few years back and I got asked to present. So yeah, I'll go I walk into the bar, you know, there's tarot groups split around and over in our corner booth there's this woman with glasses and she's got kind of short curly hair and she's a little bit older than I am.
Arwen: And I looked at her and I thought, Can I cuss on this?
Christiana: Yeah.
Arwen: Mary fucking K. Greer What?
Christiana: Laughing
Arwen: So I got myself a glass of wine. I walked up and I said, you know, is anybody sitting here? And she said, No, I come to the bar so I can actually socialize, and people don't sit down because I said, Yeah, because you're you and I just sat and had a little chat with her, and I had sort of worked with Mary K. Greer when I first began a blog.
Arwen: I'm a salesperson by nature, Christiana. So anybody who's met me, if I want to, if I want to promote something I love, I will. But I my blog, I thought I could interview people, so and I interview people that I kind of knew and, you know, different tarot bloggers and then I said, I'm going to write to Mary K. Greer and Rachel Pollack.
Arwen: All they can say is no. Right? They both said yes. And I nearly passed out because Rachel wanted to do it over the phone. I'm like, I'm going to talk to Rachel Pollack oh, my God. And they were both so lovely. And I think it was at that point that I realized that the tarot community really isn't a hierarchy so much as it is a web.
Christiana: Right.
Arwen: You know, and it just really changed my view on the tarot community as a whole. Could I really wasn't connected with the tarot community until probably about 2007, which is when I ran for office for the American Tarot Association right.
Christiana: And I think that's where you and I first sort of crossed paths originally. Yeah. So do you remember what you and Mary effing K. Greer talked about.
Arwen: I really don't because in my mind, I think my inner tarot reader is running around screaming Mary K. Greer Mary K. Greer. And my out of shock was going to and I have memory issues. I have a cognitive dysfunction is what they're telling me. And so my memory is either nonexistent or flawed. I will retell a story and people who are there are like, that sounds like a lot of fun, but that's not exactly what happened.
Christiana: So I don't know if you know this, but Mary effing K. Greer will be one of our headliners at StaarCon 2023.
Arwen: Yeah, I think I did see that one. I saw something came out. It had four heads and I don't remember who the heads were, but.
Christiana: Yeah, yes, well, she's one of them, so we're excited about that. So thank you for sharing that memory. We're looking forward to making some great memories with you in 2023. And so final question, can you give us a sneak peek at what you will be sharing, what you will be presenting at StaarCon 2023.
Arwen: I was afraid you were going to ask that question and I forgot to look up what I said I was going to do.
Christiana: Mapping the Tarot.
Arwen: Oh, Mapping the Tarot. It is about going into a card. I know I don't have any cards handy. They're all in, they're all the boxes but we're going to look at a card and you identify a few things and then you go out from there and you identify something about the words you pulled out, and then you get a question.
Arwen: And then what you're doing is developing a question from the card. And I've done this with an online class. You know, Jaymi Innowen Elford Jaymi Elford this first, she loved it. She was like, write a book on this. That's actually in the back of my head to what so that's what we're doing. We're letting the cards give us a question, because what this does is kind of helps you tap into like pass your your inner adult.
Arwen: She's going I don't think that's a very good question. And you get past that and get into some of the brainstorming which is what what mind mapping really is. And that's kind of we're using mind mapping. We're using the tarot card as a center and then breaking out from there.
Christiana: I love this. I am so excited for this. One of the things that I think needs to happen more at tarot conferences and that will certainly be happening. It's happening at StaarCon is, you know, more guidance on operational tarot. What do we actually do? We've got the table, we've got the cards, we've got the person in front of us, what do we do?
Christiana: And I think this is really going to help people connect with their cards and give great readings. And that's what we want to do.
Arwen: I hope so, because a part of it is also remember that symbols don't mean the same thing for everybody.
Christiana: Right.
Arwen: And that's a huge thing. As a professional reader, you got to remember, I got smacked in the face with it one time. I have never forgotten it. So but yeah, it's I think you're right. We need to look at hands on stuff that can dive us deeper
Christiana: Very good.
Christiana: So a follow up question. Are you doing readings these days?
Arwen: I am. I'm limited on the reading openings I have. But yeah, I so I love reading. I really do. I love I most professional tarot readers will tell you parties.
Arwen: Bleah.
Arwen: I love doing parties. I like doing gigs for corporations, you know, going out, being the on site reader I like it. It's fun. And I can do down and dirty readings. I don't do those real in-depth. I mean, I like boom, boom, boom. This is this. What do you say next? So people I mean, people get something out of it.
Arwen: I'm not giving them a, you know, skim. I'm I'm just I have Aquarius rising and a Scorpio moon. And so I tend to take the information.
Christiana: Right.
Arwen: You know, and it just works better for me because I will fluff otherwise.
Christiana: I understand. So if people wanted to reach out to you and see if they could get on your calendar, how would they do that?
Arwen: They would go to ChristianaGaudet.com.
Christiana: Get on my calendar.
Arwen: It is it Gaudet because I'm from Louisiana.
Christiana: So yes. And there are a lot of we pronounce it Gaudet. OK, name but there are a lot of Gaudets in Louisiana. Yes.
Arwen: Because I see the ET and I say ay.
Christiana: You know, and we're all related. All Gaudets are ultimately related from Nova Scotia.
Arwen: Nice and Tarot by Arwen dot com and if you Google seek joy y'all you're going to find me.
Christiana: Oh you know and OK I realize we've now had our quota of questions but I just have to ask seek joy y'all what is that?
Arwen: I was in one of the darkest places I've ever been. I'm depressed I've been depressed since probably ten, 11 years old. Ongoing struggle, better living through chemistry,
Christiana: understood.
Arwen: But I had broken up with the one I thought was the love of my life. I had lost my job. I lost the home I was living in. And I went home.
Arwen: I went home to my mama's house. And Mama had passed by this point. But my sister had her house, and mama had a long story short, they had a little guesthouse, and I was staying in the guest house writing and writing. And Tarot reading and writing and writing and not ashamed to say I was this close to saying, yeah, I'm done with this life.
Arwen: I had a few things that stopped me. Like, my, my family and my niece. She was about six at that point, and now I'm not going to do that to the child. She's 20, almost 21 now. But in that I wrote What is my life's purpose was simply to seek joy
Christiana: wow.
Arwen: And it kind of turned things around for me, you know, I had some mystical woo woo stuff happen, but that line and so, you know, I've been going seek joy y'all and seek is an active verb.
Arwen: Mhm. Right. It's not it's not, you know, I don't know, accept joy and seek, go out and look for it and yeah I have a hummingbird feeder out here and I'll see a hummingbird or I'll see even a wasp or a tiny boy and somehow enjoy it slap that idiot through the phone because I work tech support at that point so yeah.
Arwen: Seek joy y'all. It's a, it's a life saving method for me.
Christiana: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. That was beautiful. Really appreciate it. So folks, you got it. Here Arwen will make you laugh. She will make you cry. She will drop the F-bomb and she will help you help you learn how to find the right questions, to find the right answers in your tarot cards. And she'll write some great books while she's at it.
Christiana: Arwen thank you so much. We will see what StaarCon 2023.
Arwen: Can't wait.
Frank: Today I'm going to be reviewing the Dark Wood Tarot by Sasha Graham and Abigail Larson. I had the pleasure of meeting Sasha Graham at last year's StaarCon, and that is exactly where I bought this deck. I've been looking forward to digging into this, and I'm very happy to be sharing it with you. Sasha was just a delight.
Frank: She did a wonderful job, obviously, in presenting at the conference, but this was my first time meeting her, and I'm just really excited to be sharing a review of this deck today. It originally came out in 2020 and what a perfect year for a deck like this to come out. Actually, 2020, we may recall, was a pretty dark year, the pandemic year and and this deck is unique because it is specifically for shadow work.
Frank: It is very much about drawing you into the dark recesses of the psyche so that we can understand ourselves better, face these things and heal these things so that we can live a better life. Let's take a look at the Dark Wood Tarot today.
Frank: All right, let's look at some initial impressions of the Dark Wood Tarot, starting with the packaging comes in one of these large cardboard boxes it's very sturdy, very well designed. We're greeted by the Hermit there on the cover Llewellyn's done a very good job of creating a very attractive package, and it opens with one of these magnetic flips.
Frank: And we see the Ace of Pentacles there, along with a guidebook with the Fool on the cover initial impressions of the book. It is quite large and very beautiful.
Frank: Nicely designed excellent pictures, a lot of words. I'll get into more of the specifics of the book in just a moment, but I really like decks that include nice books as opposed to those little white books that used to come with tarot decks. We're seeing those less often nowadays as we're getting more of these deluxe packaging and I think it's worth the extra money, certainly if they've spent the time and made the effort to make it a quality book.
Frank: So more about that in just a moment. Now, let's look at the cards it's good card stock feels good in the hands. It's glossy and just flipping it in my hands. I can tell already. It's going to be very nice to shuffle and deal. I also really like this size. For me personally, this is an optimal size. I measured it.
Frank: It is let's see, it is four, four and five eighths inches in height and two and three quarter inches in width. And my hands are very big. So this this is a perfect size for me in terms of just being able to handle them well and shuffle them easily. Those are my initial impressions. Let's look into some of the more specifics here.
Frank: The Dark Wood Tarot is consistent with the Rider Waite Smith tradition. All of the names of the Major Arcana are consistent with the Waite Smith Deck and that includes card number eight being Strength and card number 11 being Justice. The names of the suits are all the same as well. Wands, cups, swords and pentacles. And then finally, all of the court card characters are also consistent with the Waite Smith.
Frank: We have pages, knights, queens and kings, the creators of the Dark Wood Tarot have really created a unique atmospheric world within the deck. This world of the Dark Wood Tarot is a dark fairy tale realm. You'll notice that the style of the artwork is very ominous. It's got plenty of images that are spooky or witchy. There we go.
Frank: Or macabre, and one of the deck's clearest strength is its atmosphere and how it reinforces the theme of doing shadow work. I wasn't surprised to learn Abigail Larson has experience working in comics because the imagery does remind me of a dark, horror based comic book, and most of the images are Waite Smith influenced. In some cases, they've taken the Dark Wood theme and just applied it to an image we're very familiar with.
Frank: For example, the The Nine of Swords is something that we're familiar with from the Waite Smith or the Aces. They've kept the idea of hands coming out of clouds and holding a symbol of that particular suit. And then in some cases, what they've done is they've really scaled back what the old Waite Smith image giving you something that is much simpler and more impactful.
Frank: For example, the Chariot is just simply this eagle coming at you or the Emperor is just a powerful ram up on a cliff top. And in some cases they've taken a familiar Waite Smith image and put an interesting spin on it. For example, here we have the Four of Wands and while we see the Four of Wands, it shows a little troll underneath the bridge.
Frank: That's interesting. And of course why they chose these things and what they represent are all explained in the book. Another example here is the Four of Swords where we have the familiar image of somebody who is resting. But there is a there's a man lurking over her. And again, these little twists that they've done with some of the cards, I find some of the more interesting aspects of the deck.
Frank: And they have they they've explained those in the guidebook now, as I mentioned in the introduction, the book for the Dark Wood Tarot is very impressive. It's 300 pages long. It's beautifully designed, and most importantly, it's very well written. Now, in the introduction, Sasha Graham explains a little bit about the idea of shadow work. I think this is very important because it tells us why it's so challenging and what the benefits are of taking on shadow work.
Frank: This gets us bought into the concept of the Dark Wood Tarot itself. Then there are helpful sections early on in the book, things that you would expect to see, including how to read Tarot. Of course, how to ask questions of the deck. There's also a nice little section on of tarot spreads, and then after that there's the spreads.
Frank: And then after that we get to the card descriptions, and I really like how thorough they are. In each case they begin with a picture and just a little simple theme in red at the very top, followed by the detailed description and then ways to interpret the card towards the back, the meanings, and then the shadow element as well.
Frank: And now these shadow elements of the description I find really intriguing because in some cases they contain very thought provoking questions or in some cases even little exercises to help bring the unconscious shadow to light. Certainly one of the strengths of the Dark Wood Tarot is its guide book and so I conclude my review of the Dark Wood Tarot by Sasha Graham and Abigail Larson, published by Llewellyn Books.
Frank: I'm very happy to have this deck in my collection and I recommend it to you as well. And I'm particularly thrilled that I was able to get it from Sasha herself as she was presenting at StaarCon last year. There are a few things that really stand out for me in terms of recommending the Dark Wood Tarot.
Frank: The first thing is the overall quality of the presentation itself the packaging, the cards, the book, the design, all of it is extremely well done. And I do like working with a deck of cards that I feel is of quality, especially when it's accompanied by a book of good quality as well. The second thing that I would recommend this deck is the atmosphere.
Frank: I really like how the spooky fairy tale imagery, the macabre witchiness of the whole thing really ties in nicely with this idea that we're going into an alternative world, a dark fairy tale world where we are comfortable to do our shadow work, where we can look deep within ourselves and heal ourselves by confronting these shadow elements that we all have within our psyche.
Frank: The third thing I would recommend about this deck is the book. I know I've mentioned that already, but it's really well done. It's nice and big. It's well-designed, and most importantly, it's really well written. And the descriptions that Shasha has included of the various cards include these helpful tips for doing shadow work for each of the individual cards that sets this deck apart from other decks that you've seen.
Frank: There are a lot of depth darker decks out there that create kind of a spooky atmosphere, but this one has as a very specific goal doing this shadow work. And so when we put all of these elements together, I definitely recommend this deck. I don't know if I will use it. 365 days out of the year. It's definitely the kind of deck I will take out around Halloween time for sure, or when I'm more specifically looking to do shadow elements.
Frank: Of course, you could make a case. We're always doing shadow work with our tarot, or maybe we should, but here's a deck that says, yes, look deep within, go to those scary places and discover what you'll find there. And for that reason, by all means, pick up the the Dark Wood Tarot. Thank you for watching. I look forward to seeing you next time.
Frank: Bye bye.
Christiana: Friends it's time for a game. Guess the tarot card. What you will see next is a few members of our community giving you their key words for a particular card. Then you will have to guess what's the tarot card?
Arwen: Hello, everyone. This is Maria Hernando.
Christiana: I am a tarot reader and a mentor as well as a director of the World Divination Association.
Arwen: And this are my key words for you. Power Fire Source Desire.
Gary: Hello I am that tarot guy, Gary Karp. I'm a certified tarot master and I've been reading and
Gary: Teaching tarot for 30 years. I'm also a bestselling Amazon author, and my latest e-book, Tarot Reading for Beginners, is now available on Amazon or at my Etsy shop. My keywords are creative force, new opportunities, passion, inspiration, and creation.
Wendee: Hi, I'm Wendee Molano, and I'm a psychic medium.
Wendee: I own Black Moon Tarot and Sorcery. And you can
Wendee: find me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
Wendee: My keywords
Wendee: are creation, passion and growth.
Christiana: If you guessed the Ace of Wands, congratulations. You got the correct answer.
Christiana: Frank. We did it. We got through the very first episode of the StaarCast Variety show.
Frank: Wow. Christiana One episode down and I can't wait for the second one. What did you think? How did we do this week?
Christiana: We did it. That's the important thing. We did it. And we're so grateful to the people who submited their keywords for our keyword game. And of course, to Arwen Lynch Poe, and we're really looking forward to her presentation. At StaarCon. 2023. You're also presenting at StaarCon. 2023. Is that right?
Frank: Yes, I am. I'm looking forward to it. I am not ready to share the details on my presentation just yet, but I will certainly be there. I can't wait.
Christiana: Now, if people want to get in touch with you in the interim for a reading or lessons or anything like that, how do they do that?
Frank: Oh, thanks, Christiana. My website is Tarot Awakenings dot com. Again, that's Tarot Awakenings dot com. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram as well.
Christiana: OK, and just say your first and last name.
Frank: Frank Kwiatkowski. Frank Kwiatkowski.
Christiana: That's how to pronounce it, but I'm still making you do it. And I'm Christiana Gaudet. You can find me at ChristianaGaudet.com. And of course, remember to go to the StaarCon website, which is StaarCon, STAARCON dot com. Join us on Facebook. The StaarCon community group. And if you have a spread or a concept that you want to play with on this show, a tarot deck review, anything like that, keep it short about 5 minutes.
Christiana: Send us a video of horizontal perspective, please and you can email it to me. cgaudet@staarcon.com. We'll see you next time.
Frank: Thanks for watching everybody. See you next time.
Frank: "Bye bye."