Blog, Conferences

Lessons Learned from The Readers Studio 2012

I’m home and finally had a few minutes to spare between tarot readings and putting the house on the market to post my lessons learned. When I go to a conference, I try and keep a running list of things I have learned. This post represents some thoughts on what I learned over the past 5 days in New York with 180 other tarot enthusiasts at the Readers Studio.

  1. Boundaries are important. Normally when I arrive to a conference or go to a festival, I stay within the area that the event happens in. This year, I had to leave the hotel to head into the city and it broke the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) and my mind. It sucked my energies and sorta threw me for a loop that I wasn’t ready for.
  2. James Wells presented a class on how to handle grief and do grief readings. A lot has happened to me and my PDX community over the past six months, and while I thought I dealt with the grief, this reading taught me otherwise. James gave us a system to deal with grief and not only can I implement it in myself, but I can share it with clients.
  3. There are no silly questions. During a Curveball Spread reading, I learned that the cards will answer to even the silliest of situations. I did a reading on my lost water bottle AND my two broken necklaces and got really silly but straight forward answers. As Thalassa says, “TWS. This stuff works!”
  4. Kindred spirits are awesome. Usually I’m the only bright flame in a room; the energizer bunny; the one who never sleeps. Well this year, I found two kindred spirits in Shari and Shawn. I no longer need to fear my power and feel like i’m the only fiery wacko out there.
  5. Speaking of Shawn Nacol, I learned a lot from his class on The Roots of Tarot. Part elemental working, part alchemy, his class crystallized a lot of the things I’ve been exploring on my own with my alchemy element working over the past year.
  6. James Wanless taught us a whole person profile reading that shows how we can manifest our best lives by examining the parts of our body as a whole. This reading will help me spot what I am missing to bring things into balance, while utilizing my strengths. I look forward to playing with this technique more.
  7. Upon hearing three presentations from three powerful male tarot readers, I was pleasantly surprised at the depth they took us in. Many of my peers engaged in conversations about the differences between an all-male panel, and an all-female panel (which was last year). My insight to this was that last year the women presented topics that we could go home and dive deeply in. But this year, the guys took us deep and sort of bombarded us with awesome info.
  8. Finally, I learned that Shari and I cannot share the same space for longer than a few minutes. Chaotic things happen. Good things. Silly things. It’s a energetic rush, but our crazy is just a bit too much for others. Even the infamous Wald Amberstone feared our combine powers (sorry Wald!).

Thanks for sticking out with all these long posts. I hope you enjoyed attending The Readers Studio vicariously through my writings. In 2013, the Amberstones promise to push the boundaries of tarot and the conference in new and exciting ways. Save your monies now and grab your seat for RS2013. You won’t regret it.