The Tarot Room – Georgianna

It’s December … the start of the Holiday Gift-Giving Season!

If you have a Tarot enthusiast in your life, or are looking for a gift to give yourself (I’m sure you deserve it) … here’s a list of rather random gift ideas a Tarot reader might like. Or at least I like them all.

And just to be clear, I don’t have any affiliation with any of the outlets linked so I can’t guarantee anything. This is just a list of ideas ….

1. Tarot Pillows or Rugs … a pillow you can sit on … or just throw onto the couch. And if you’d like a rug … there are biggish ones and small. Or maybe you’d like to create your own design and put it on a pillow or a rug.
2. Tarot Homeware like Clocks, Candles, Card Stands, Coasters, Dishes, Lampshades and Neon Signs … or maybe you’d like a Towel or a Tote?
3. Tarot clothes .. there’s so many options … Tees, Shoes, Scarves, Hats, and Socks too.
4. Tarot Jewlery … I love the Charm Bracelets … but there are so many options … Rings and Pendants, Earrings, and Pins.
5. Tarot Stationary type stuff … like Magnets, Stamps, Stickers, Pouches, iPhone cases, and Air Fresheners.
6. Tarot Cookie Cutters (and Alchemical ones too) and Chocolate Molds (Soap Molds too), and an especially fun Ouija Board Lunch Bag!
7. And of course Tarot decks … but that’s so obvious, I almost didn’t write it. I did, however, come across these shiny foil Rider-Waite-Smith cards while I was searching around. I’ve never seen them before … and there’s a Pink Vintage Glamour RWS deck? Oh my, I think I want these …

These three points become super clear when you regularly read cards for multiple people over the course of a few hours …

1. There seems to be a daily theme, ie. during a particular session, many of the same cards appear in multiple people’s readings no matter how well the cards are shuffled
   
2. People are almost all interested in the same questions … work, health, love
   
3. Everyone is looking for validation and hope

So what would the Tarot lesson be? …

Wherever you are, the people around you are likely facing similar issues to what you’re dealing with, and they’re probably concerned about the same type of questions you are. And finally, whether we appear sure of ourselves or not, all of us can use some hope and validation.

With that in mind, let’s try to be good to each other. We can definitely use each other’s help.

As if Tarot Thursdays at Sweaty Betty’s wasn’t enough … I’ll also be reading at the delightful HamsArt Market this weekend as well!

This Saturday and Sunday from 6:00 to 10:00, you can find me on the patio at 1184 Queen Street West.

Come for a delicious coffee or dessert, peruse the unique goods and gifts from community vendors, and say hi … maybe even get yourself a reading.

If you’re in Toronto – hope to see you there!

Sat Oct 5th and Sun Oct 6th
HamsArt Market
1184 Queen Street West – Toronto
6:00 pm – 10:00 pm

Oh … and I’ll be back at HamsArt Market next Friday, October 11th too! Keep an eye out for more dates soon.

Talk about a Halloween treat … starting tomorrow, Thursday, October 3rd, I’ll be back reading cards at Sweaty Betty’s! I can hardly wait!

Every Thursday in October, Sweaty Betty’s is hosting Tarot Thursdays with me as your resident reader.

If you’re in Toronto, come on down to Ossington’s best dive bar (maybe Toronto’s best). It’s just north of Queen on the East side of the street.

I’ll be there between 6:00 and 10:00 – come have a drink and say hi! Or maybe Boo!

Sweaty Betty’s
13 Ossington Avenue
6:00-10:00 pm

Tangelo, about to do a reading with Morgan’s Tarot … or throw the cards to the ground … just kidding, he did a reading.

It’s been confirmed! I’ll be reading at Sweaty Betty’s 20th Anniversary Bash!

Come on down for a night of fun at this landmark Ossington dive bar.

Celebrate with everyone, and maybe get yourself a reading … or at least drop by and say hi!

Sweaty Betty’s
13 Ossington Avenue – Toronto
Saturday, September 14, 2024
3:00 to 6:00 pm

Having asked myself, “What is Tarot?,” here (in no particular order) are 21 answers that came to mind … and one answer from the cards themselves.

What is Tarot? …

•a way to make the unconscious conscious

•a set of cards, usually 78, with four suits of 14, and one suit of 22

•a set of archetypes expressed in pictures

•a card game not unlike euchre

•an attempt at creating intentional synchronicity

•an interesting way to express and appreciate visual art

•a system of divination developed in the last few centuries by people like Ettelia, Papus, Levi, Wirth, Waite, Crowley, and others

•an obsession of mine

•something like dream interpretation, but with pictures and an interpretive structure

•a more complicated version of flipping a coin

•a technique to let you see your situation from a new perspective … and in pictures

•a relic of the ancient mystery, miracle, and morality plays?

•a tool for artistic inspiration

•a way to explore your hopes, dreams, and fears

•an excellent conversation starter among friends and strangers

•a method to explore multiple options

•a tool for journaling

•a way to organize your thoughts around a topic

•a popular party piece

•a set of Halloween costume ideas

•an activity meant to offer personal guidance and insight

And finally, according to the (RWS) Tarot itself … 3 of Cups: Tarot is fun, good times and sharing with others.

After reading cards now for over thirty years, I’d say that there are three things I especially like about reading for others …

•Getting to help people sort through thoughts and emotions when they’re facing a dilemma or crossroads. When you can help – it’s a real thrill.

•Having sincere, heartfelt conversations with people through the cards – all sorts of different people, with all sorts of different perspectives – friends and strangers, they always teach me something.

•Being reminded through the questions we ask, that we humans are all very similar, with the same hopes, fears, and needs. It helps me love people more.

And of course, I also just really like looking at pictures and talking about what they might mean (which I guess makes it four things I especially like.)

Tarot reading for oneself is fabulous, but Tarot reading for others has its own set of joys.

It looks like a new biopic about Miss Cleo is about to be released, but I just finally watched the last one, Call Me Miss Cleo the other day. It was released by HBO Max back in 2022, but took me a few years to get to.

I had forgotten most of the story surrounding the very shady, at times criminal (or at least civilly actionable) Psychic Readers Network (PRN), but I never forgot Miss Cleo herself … or should I say the character Youree Dell Harris played called Miss Cleo.

And I remember the ads, and how confident Miss Cleo sounded as she (apparently) read for callers in her thick (apparently) Jamaican accent … not that I ever fully believed her. I had started reading cards myself a few years earlier and it felt as if she was doing something completely different than I was.

There was no personal development aspect, no reflections on archetypes, or concepts of spiritual growth, and certainly no nuanced perspectives on any situations being explored … Miss Cleo said it straight (apparently). She was sure who was messing with who, who was cheating, who was good, who thought what and when they thought it, and most importantly, she knew exactly how everything was (apparently) going to turn out.

As it actually turned out, Miss Cleo was just acting (at least in the ads), and PRN had a contract which gave them rights to her image and name (or the Miss Cleo name anyway). For all her notoriety, she didn’t make anything extra from them.

You can watch the film to see what happened to PRN and Youree Dell Harris. Long-story-short though (and a spoiler if you didn’t already know) … Miss Cleo moved on to be a private tarot/psychic reader, and a wedding officiant, she did some other acting work, had a podcast, and became a strong advocate for LGBTQ rights. And it looks like she maintained her Miss Cleo persona until her passing in 2016.

Miss Cleo is definitely a complicated character. On some levels, it seems clear she was a fraud, though I have little doubt that she was a good card reader. But I was also moved by her story, and found her both charismatic and sympathetic, I didn’t actually cry, but I was definitely tearing up towards the end of the film.

All in all, I recommend Call Me Miss Cleo. If you’re interested in this topic, and haven’t had a chance to see it already, take a look.

About 22 years or so ago, when I first opened The Tarot Room, I was looking for ways to advertise. The goal was to try something that wasn’t too expensive, and also not too weird. Ads for Tarot and Psychic readings can be both shady and cringe inducing (though I’m often fond of the graphics and really really want a neon Tarot Reader sign for my window).

But anyway … I decided on bookmarks. Not sure why, other than that I read a lot and always need one myself. They were also fairly cheap. I drew the picture for it myself (a stylized Empress in the RWS vein), and think I spent about $200 to print up 1000 or 2000 copies, I don’t remember exactly. There were a lot. But I liked them, and still had hope.

My next step was to get them distributed around the city. I hired a local postering company to get them into various cafes and bars around town, especially in my neighbourhood. Then I waited.

You’ve probably guessed already … my bookmark idea did not achieve its goals. I got zero business. In fact, I got only one call for all my effort and expense. It was in the middle of the night by some drunk guy (or at least he sounded drunk), asking me if I looked like the woman on the bookmark. I told him that I did not.

There’s no moral to this story, except that maybe bookmarks in bars and cafes are not good advertising tools for Tarot readers, or at least not for me. I’m telling this sad (or is it pathetic) story only because I just came across a dusty box filled with bookmarks … hundreds of them. Anybody want one?