Readers Studio 2008

So I have been home since Sunday from the Studio and am just now getting to write. Its actually taking me some time to process, so this is not necessarily a bad thing. Not sure I have processed everything anyway, probably between blogging here and then going over some of the spreads at meetup or teaching will help.

Im not sure how to describe the studio this year, very different from last year, though why that is I am not sure. It was just an entirely different energy and a different experience. This year the studio was bigger, bigger hotel, more people, but I liked both of those things. Last year's studio seemed more intimate though. The hotel was bigger, the rooms were nicer I think. We had more room to do our thing.

So we arrived in Newark Tuesday afternoon and hooked up with Ruth Ann and Wald for dinner. That was really fantastic, and we had a great time. It was the calm before the storm, so to speak. It was a great opportunity for Eric to meet them, as he has only really heard about them and class. I had a great conversation with Wald about the differences between truth and reality, which I really needed to hear and think about it.

Eric and I spent Wednesday in the city, which was a fantastic day. We hit 2 plays, November with Nathan Lane, pass. We also saw Spring Awakening, which won a ton of Tony Awards in 2007, and it was fantastic! We also ate corned beef and humantashen at Roxy Deli and walked 5th Avenue. We ran into Doug Reuschel (hopefully his last name is spelled right) from the Houston Tarot Meetup and his friend Sal, they were both seeing Spring Awakening also and we took the train back to the hotel together that night. Very fun.

Thursday we breakfasted with Paul and Mary Greer joined us. Toward the end of breakfast Ciro Marchetti also joined us and chatted a while. What an interesting guy and his wife is absolutely lovely! We moved into the lobby for more visiting with people starting to arrive and we got to visit more with Mary who shared these amazing pics of these mosaic tarot murals which she found in this chalet in South of France. They were really kewl. Mary is such a giving person, she really is. She even shared some ideas she had and some she had heard for getting the meetup group more lively and active. How kewl is that!

Thursday night we headed into the preconference on Advanced Birth Cards given by Wald. We learned this amazing spread where you take 10 cards, your 2 birth cards and the 8 in between, and superimpose them on the Tree of Life. AMAZING spread! AND.. i discovered that in the order of things, Blysse's birth cards come right before mine and Eric's come right after mine. Superimposed on this spread, Blysse's weaknesses then become my strengths and my weaknesses become Eric's strengths. I thought that was sooo powerful.

The studio officially opened on Friday. Kevin Quigley did the first workshop of the studio. Im not sure about his workshop. First, let me say that he is a great teacher and had a lot to share and all of it was substantial, it wasnt fluffy or flaky, it was a lot of intense info. Unfortunately, i think it would have been better done with a smaller group because it was hard to get enough of the details for the first part of the spread he showed us and I got really frustrated. He was discussing the 4 Kabbalistic worlds and which numbers and suits correspond. So we then had to draw a court card representing ourselves and then an additional card - not sure even what that was for.. but you use it to explore the issues based on the Tree. So I draw the King of Pentacles. But the kings are at the top of the tree, pentacles at the bottom.. and i was not sure which attributes i was to deal with. Because of the larger size, it was hard to ask and get it fully explained..

He then showed us another spread, though, that used the various elements to pull a 10 card spread to explore what kind of readers we are, and i thought that was fantastic, i really loved that. I will be using that spread in our upcoming meetup.

Friday night we attended a cocktail party, which was really great too. We got to schmooze with Johanna Gargiulo-Sherman and Ciro and Mary and David and Paul and many others. It was a lot of fun and some great conversation.

I had a reading with James Wells. The final message - I need to let go of the outcome. Ya, right. LOL

Saturday was a full day of workshopping. Thalassa started us off. She also is fantastic, though with a very different personality and energy than others. I thought she was wildly entertaining and her energy was infectious. Im still walking around telling people.. sssshhhh make like the ocean and shuuuuuush. LOL. Thalassa runs BATS, Bay Area Tarot Symposium. She lives in the San Francisco area. She really plugged us into more of our body language. I liked it, and i liked other ideas she had .. like she passed around this big bag filled with tarot cards from all different decks and we each picked one. Loved that. She also did an amazing 5-card spread, a box spread, that was hugely powerful!

James wrapped up the studio with his workshop on the answer is the question or the question is the answer, or something of that sort. He did an outstanding workshop and was a lot like the workshops we had last year, very hands on, reading a lot of tarot, and i loved the spreads we did.

So that night we went to a great italian restaurant which was .. surreal. It was like a throw back to Old Philly with the older gentleman singing Frank Sinatra so loud it was hard to converse but entertaining nonetheless, and older people dancing. The food was outstanding! Eric and I dined with 2 other ladies we met at the studio and one is a practicing Shaman, and I was riveted, as I have been working with a shaman this year for the first time and I love it. Of course, I had a major gallbladder attack starting at 8 pm due to the stuffed mushrooms, which were stuffed with sausage! So I was sick most of Saturday night.

Eric went to the Sacred Rose workshop that night with Johanna and really had a great time, bonded with a lot of people and really felt great. I loved that.

Sunday morning we slept in and started our trek home. =)

Good Readers Studio things: Loved seeing old friends and also visiting with those not as familiar, i.e. Johanna and Mary. Loved meeting artists like Ciro Marchetti and hearing about his process and how he goes about making his art. I LOVE his Tarot of Dreams and picked that deck up. I loved catching up with Ruth Ann and Wald, my teachers.

I loved the italian restaurant we discovered, even if it did make me sick.. was good while it lasted..LOL. I loved that we got to enjoy some broadway and NY culture.

I love the decks I got - Tarot of Dreams and the Maat Tarot. Ive had my eye on the Maat deck since last year. I love my Readers Studio poster, and I love the wand I got from Garnet. Garnet had some amazing wands she had made. Mine is made of rose quartz and is gorgeous.

Eric had a FANTASTIC experience I think and really found his own footing there, and I think that was amazing. While we sat together, we read separately and he absolutely held his own. I was sooo proud of him - though i knew he could do it! =)

Wow - after writing all that Im not sure that there is a list of things I did not like. Certainly there were issues, like the exhaustion we were constantly fighting. I think the location of the hotel was problematic in that leaving was tough, either it was expensive to go to the city or there was nowhere locally to go, unlike last year where there was a diner for some variety. I think that really affected us a lot.

There was the clique-y thing going on at times which was tough and made me feel funny, though certainly there were plenty of very lovely people to hang out with and get to know and I did.

I have yet to pick up my cards since I have been home though. I experienced that last year too where for a week or two I just did not want to look at tarot. Maybe we got too close this weekend, maybe too familiar.. maybe not close or familiar enough?