Four Things I Learned at the Masters of the Tarot Conference at Omega Institute

I was a presenter at The Masters of the Tarot Conference at Omega Institute this summer. It was opening weekend at Omega, after a year-and-a-half pandemic closure.

Mary K. Greer and Rachel Pollack have led this annual conference for many years. For me, it had been a goal to attend, and a dream to present, for just as long.

One of the perks of presenting at a conference is the ability to attend the classes of your fellow presenters. I could write volumes about everything I experienced and learned over that three-day weekend. For this post I thought it would be fun to share just a single tidbit from each presentation; some inspiration that I will take forward in my own life and tarot practice.

Friday night we gathered for an interactive session with Mary K. Greer. This was an icebreaker which quickly taught deep tarot skills. One thing I learned from this session is the power inherent in simply describing a tarot image.

I am not typically an image-based reader. Some decks read better for me than others, but I do not overthink the art. I often joke that I could easily read with seventy-eight pieces of notebook paper. When Mary had us describing images rather than reading cards as I normally would, I was immediately out of my tarot comfort zone.

As it turned out, I spent much of the weekend pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone. This is why our gatherings and conferences, both in person and online, are so valuable. We never know everything there is to know about tarot, or about ourselves. We must always keep pushing and challenging ourselves to grow.

What I learned about describing a tarot image is this. There is a magic that happens in the connection we make with the image, the words we choose to describe the image, and the spiritual forces that are always available when tarot is present. Of course, I knew this, because I have seen new tarot students look at a card and find wisdom within it time and again. Yet, being forced to verbally describe the image without benefit of classic interpretations and symbolism was surprisingly personal, powerful and insightful.

The next session was Saturday morning. I was excited to present “How Tarot Helps Us Heal”. I will leave it to those who attended to share what they learned; I hope they learned a lot!

That afternoon was Madame Pamita’s turn to present.
Madame Pamita taught a hands-on approach to tarot magick that was as fun as it was enlightening. I learned quite a bit in this class, even though I use and teach tarot magick regularly.

One thing I learned from Madame Pamita that will be helpful as I continue to teach tarot magick is a simple way of talking about tarot magick versus divination. The problem I have encountered is this. When we do divination exercises in class it is common to say, “pick a card,” or “pick two cards to tell you…”. When we do tarot magick exercises we are not picking at random. We look at the cards and cognitively choose cards to serve us in the magickal work we are doing. It has sometimes been very hard for me to communicate this difference effectively. Sometimes, when I ask students to choose a card cognitively, rather than at random, they are confused and do not know what to do.

Madame Pamita shared simple nomenclature for which I am grateful and very excited to adopt. We choose cards either face up or face down. When we choose cards face down, we are choosing at random, and divining. When we choose cards face up, we are selecting the cards whose energy we wish to employ in magick. What could be simpler, or more brilliant?

Saturday evening was Rachel Pollack’s session. I was excited that Rachel asked all the presenters to sit on a panel and discuss issues that we face as professional tarot readers. At the end, Rachel chose a member of the audience for whom to perform a sample reading.

Rachel, like Mary, is a seemingly limitless supply of tarot knowledge. It is thrilling that Mary K. Geer was a headlining presenter at StaarCon 2021, and that Rachel Pollack will be headlining for StaarCon 2022.

One thing that Rachel said during our panel discussion has stuck with me and has caused me to shift the way I speak and think in a very specific way. Rachel was talking about the different sorts of readings we do, and the language readers use to describe their readings. Rachel took exception to readers who say they use tarot to ‘empower people’. This is something we often hear. Never had I heard it the way Rachel hears it.

Rachel said that if we ‘empower someone,’ we have really disempowered them. No one person can empower another. Personal empowerment can only come from within. If we, as readers, try to empower someone, we see ourselves as the keepers of power. That is not empowerment.

Going forward, I will consider that I might use tarot to help people discover their power, utilize their power, or know their power.

I approached our Sunday morning session with Shaheen Miro with that sad end-of-summer-camp feeling. I had no desire for the conference to end, nor to leave Omega.

Shaheen’s workshop provided the biggest challenge of the conference for me. This is because Shaheen’s presentation had us working with art and intuition.

While I am a very creative person, I am not an artist. In fact, I am the one member of my family of origin who cannot draw and paint. This was a source of shame for me as I was growing up. Worse, I was always the one who would spill the paint and make a mess.

I was tempted to shrug off Shaheen’s presentation and enjoy a few hours strolling the lovely Omega campus. It would be easy for me to say that what Shaheen was serving simply wasn’t on my diet.

Yet, over the weekend I had developed a fondness and admiration for Shaheen that would not let me take the cowardly way out.

In that workshop, I did not learn that I have a hidden talent for drawing. I did learn that nothing bad would happen if I experimented with markers and crayons. I learned that I could express my intuitive thoughts through color and shape. For me, that was huge.

We are fortunate to have a tarot and divination community which offers so many opportunities, online and in person, for fellowship and learning. Each conference has its own unique personality. The Masters of the Tarot offered a deep connection to community and tarot, as well as an opportunity for growth and healing. I am delighted to have been a part of it.