Looking back on 2019, it has been an incredible year of traveling, teaching and research, from Hawai’i and Alaska, down to California and Texas, throughout the Atlantic Northeast, including New York, Montreal and Toronto, then across the pond to London, Glastonbury and the historical sites of Italy that influenced the creation of the early Tarot decks.
This final 2019 Tarot Tour was a 5-week odyssey that was pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle with months of planning, including writing and preparing eight unique presentations, reservations for planes, trains, buses, rental cars, taxis, hotels, Airbnbs, and, finally, yet really special, carving out time to be with Tarot friends and special connections along the way.
Here in Part 1, I wish to highlight the amazing Tarot friends, Tarot events, and cool Tarot bootie I collected, which, of course, will continue throughout this three part series. I would need to write a book to include all the absolutely fabulous details, so please accept my apologies if I left something out. Many Blessings, Katrina
Montreal, QC, Canada
Light & Love Tarot Reading International Festival
Chris-Anne Donnelly, David Lacopo (organizer), Catharine Allan, Mary K. Greer, Tara Green, Katrina Wynne (back row), Tiffany Crosara, Moira Hutchinson, Rachel Pollack, Lori Lytle (not pictured: Beth Seilonen, Jeanne Fiorini)
Weeks before this Montreal event, David Lacopo and Tiffany Crosara produced an online telesummit with many of the teachers, including moi, where I shared a completely new topic, “What does “Energy” have to do with reading Tarot?”
The Amtrak train ride up the Hudson River and past the Adirondack Mountains was spectacular and well worth the time. It gave me a much needed break to review my notes for my presentations.
Rachel, Zoe, Mary, and Tara and I spent the day before the LLTRIF walking around Montreal, visiting galleries and stores, and eating fantastic food. I found the lighting to be enchanting and took the follow portraits of these lovely ladies.
Rachel Pollack
photo by Katrina Wynne
Mary K. Greer
photo by Katrina Wynne
David Lacopo, the visionary who created the LLTRIF in 2018, is such a delightful human with a great passion for bringing Tarot to the foreground as a spiritual tool, something I resonate with completely and a value that permeates this wonderful gathering and the caliber of presentations. I was honored to be invited back and to have taught both years for this special event, especially among such luminaries and Canadian professionals.
What a powerful and amazing experience it was to facilitate my “Awakening Universal Purpose” Tarot ritual for 22 attendees.
The LLTRIF was the perfect venue to offer this blending of vibrations with the 10 dimensions and many of us are still reverberating from this experiential way of connecting with the wisdom of Tarot.
Last, and a special Montreal tradition for me, I spent a day with dear Tarot friend and Orbifold Tarot deck creator, Michael Bridge-Dickson, walking around Old Town in the mist. I got to be a tourist while also doing research for the day as we visited several famous sites, especially the Norte-Dame Basilica. The French bakery where we delighted on their pastries was félicité.
New York City
My favorite thing to do in NYC, besides Tarot research, is going to free classes at the many Apple stores. Working with the “Procreate” art app is something I can’t get enough of and happily stumbled across and attended “Living Paintings with Jose Parla” a NYC graffiti artist who now does giant installations. After a retrospective slide show of his career, he offered us six images from which to create our own Procreate graffiti. Then, big surprise, he shared each of our pieces on the huge screen at the new Fifth Avenue Apple store. Wow!
The frosting on this Big Apple 🍏 cake was spending an afternoon with Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone, organizers/producers of The Tarot School and Readers Studio, the largest Tarot conference in the world, right there in Queens. Such sweet people and dedicated to sharing their love of Tarot and expanding our Tarot community to stretch around the globe…a tireless mission.
New York Tarot Retreat
I had been planning the New York Tarot Retreat for almost a year. Found a lovely, rustic retreat center in Cossayuna, New York, Nature’s Gate, run by Elandara, an energy healer and so much more. Our intimate gathering included a New Moon Ceremony in an inipi (teepee) as well as applying energy awareness to our Tarot card exploration, a personal healing journey. I was thankful for my lovely assistant, Diana Sun, who is so gifted and fun to be with. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event and those who attended were so wonderful and appreciative.
New England
My next adventure is when I rented a car and set off to drive around New England and parts never seen before. I immediately headed for the Catskill Mountains and skirted around the edge taking back roads and getting a feel or this terrain.
My first visit was with Carol Herzer and Dirk Gillabel from the Soul Guidance website, whom I have had the delight of spending time with back during my 2012 Tarot Tour. These two being of light have a lovely home and garden in Woodstock, NY with each room filled with the various makings of their many Tarot and oracle decks and artwork. I have always been enamored with their vision and resonate so purely with the essence they capture in their art style. Dirk’s brother, Guido Gillabel, also has a few unique offerings on their website. Let’s just say I am not only a fan, but a collector as well.
It was so sweet to hear them share their story of how they met, exchanging visionary art overseas via snail mail, before there was an internet, and how it brought them together. I plan to share more about Carol’s visionary work in a future weblog post.
Carol Herzer & Dirk Gillabel – Shared Art & Heart
photo by Katrina Wynne
Original art from Carol’s Chakra Mandala deck
photo by Katrina Wynne
As I proceeded to drive toward the East Coast, I just had to stop by Robert M. Place’s home and to see his studio. As many of you know, he is a consummate artist, researcher and writer. I had been meaning to visit him for years and was so happy the timing was right. It was such a special opportunity to see his card museum collection and buy his new deck, The Tarot of the Alchemical Magnum Opus.
Since I had never been to Rhode Island, New Hampshire, or Maine, I took a little camping trip, exploring the East Coast. Just as I was driving into “Mystic”, Connecticut, Van Morrison’s song, “Into the Mystic” was playing on the radio and took on a completely new meaning.
On my way to Maine was Salem, Massachusetts, which is famous for an episode of “WitchCraze” and the sad happenings around the Salem Witch trials. Now, witchcraft, including Tarot reading, is a hot commodity, especially throughout the month of October…I was right on time, again. Followed a recommendation from Rachel and dropped in on Enchanted, one of the better witchcraft stores.
During my drive from Portland, Maine to Buffalo, New York, next to Niagara Falls, I was stuck with the beauty of the rolling, continuous woods, much different than our landscape here in the Pacific Northwest where our tall trees look like a patchwork quilt due to the abundance of clear cut forests. I made sure I drove through Stowe, Vermont for I once had a friend from there and was curious about this cute little town.
Toronto, ON, Canada
You know how you often hear that it is tougher going through the US Customs than Canadian? Well, I almost didn’t make it into Canada when the customs officer was asking me about the purpose of my visit. Being the honest person that I am, I was completely transparent and told him I was teaching that night and showed him the webpage posting the event. Needless to say, teaching a Tarot class raises a red flag for some folks.
Toronto Tarot Circle Meetup
This was also my second year in a row to visit Toronto, returning to this popular Tarot Meetup group to offer another experiential workshop, this time “Tarot, Magic and Transformation.“ Lori Lytle of Inner Goddess Tarot is the wonderful organizer for this group and so nice to work with. In addition, I enjoyed one of her “Talisman“ private sessions to help me focus on a project close to my heart, my new book….
Introduction to the Energy Codes
It was nice to be able to share my new talents in a private class while in Toronto. Not many of my Tarot friends know that I have expanded my repertoire of skills to embrace the work of Dr. Sue Morter and The Energy Codes. There are significant associations with the Tarot that I hope to expand upon some day.
WITCHfest North
Monica Bodirsky is the heart and soul behind WITCHfest North, a month of magic throughout October in Toronto and last year she invited me to create something special for this year. She has a diverse team of witches who I was excited to meet with, dance with, and share in important gatherings such as “Spirit of Colour” at the Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.
Of all my presentations in 2019, this workshop, “Tarot Magic, Sex Magic & the Power of Women” and the London talk are my favorites for they represent an aspect of the cutting edge of my work these days. Plus, they both came to me in dream states where I was awoken and wrote the guidance I received. This particular workshop went through the most revisions and from what I’ve been told, folks raved about it. It is my hope that by the time they walked out the door from this experience, each woman felt more whole and empowered!
Thank you, Monica, for my own little copy of your “Book of Shadows” oracle deck! And appreciation to Wonderworks for hosting this workshop.
So…this is where I leave the North American continent and head East for the UK…to be continued in Tarot Tour 2019, Parts 2 & 3!
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MY SACRED JOURNEY . . . 