Me painting the 2 of Pentacles for the 1917 Tarot

My name is Katalin Patnaik, both on the forum and in real life. I tried to have different usernames in the past – you know, the fancy kind having heavenly bodies and popular animals in them. Alas, it irritated me when people called me those so I gave up looking for an alias.

I am the current ‘senior’ Co-Chair of TABI. I am an endorsed reader and do free readings whenever I can, and I’m also helping in editing Tracker, TABI’s monthly newsletter. The Card of the Month and the Monthly Spread sections are drying on my soul.

I was born in Hungary but am living in the UK. I’m happily married and have two little boys, one of which I am still staying at home with. Before the kids I was working in the IT industry as a change manager. My hobbies include reading tarot (surprise-surprise!), reading books (not only on tarot), writing stories (I’m currently fighting hostile aliens, muhahaha), painting and drawing, dancing… I’m an arty kind of person.

In Primary school I had a Romani classmate who one day brought in a deck of oracle cards. I was hooked! In secondary grammar school, when I had proper pocket money and enough courage (for some reason I thought reading cards was allowed only for the Romani and the shopkeeper would not entertain me) I went and bought my first tarot deck. It was the Egyptian Tarot by Comte Sain-Germain, a deck with un-scenic pips. I used that exclusively for over ten years, and then joined TABI and the collector bug bit.

The card which describes me best is the Queen of Pentacles! I am kind, caring, loving comfort, living for my family, good at cooking along with other Pentacles-y things, and I am as magical as a unicorn drenched in pixie dust.

I have gained so much from my TABI membership I can’t even start to describe it! I have learned a lot from my fellow readers on the forum, have met some really interesting people and made lots of new friends! Taking TABI’s free course was really a good lesson in many ways, and becoming endorsed was the best decision ever. Sezo, my mentor taught me so much about myself, about how I read the cards, and has helped me greatly in finding my own (English) voice. And volunteering for TABI is a separate category in itself. It is so rewarding, I really am blessed to be working with such a fantastic team! Thank you TABI!

I am very proud of my contribution of some cards to some collaborative decks, one of which was a fund-raiser for the Terry Fox Foundation, which is best known for organising runs all over the world in memory of a brave young cancer sufferer who set off to run across Canada. He didn’t make it, but his name lives on, and you can read a little more here: Tarot versus Cancer, Triumph of Life Tarot. We, the artists were asked the question: “What in this card takes people from a place of loss and suffering to a place of joy and remembrance?” You can read more about my card here: Triumph of Life Tarot, Ten of Cups.

The second was a celebration of my fascination with Russian History. You can read all about here: Centenary of the Russian October Revolution and the 1917 Tarot.

I love writing and my biggest dream is to have a bestseller with my name on the spine. I would like to get published both in tarot and in fiction. These projects have made it seem possible to reach out for this goal; they have taught me it IS possible to get published with a little dedication.

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You can find more from Katalin Patnaik at her WordPress blog.