TABI 20th Anniversary Conference, 2021
Hello and welcome to
TABI’s 2021 summer conference pages!
We will have a TABI online conference Saturday, July 31st, 2021 from 9:30am (Zoom opens) to 6:00 pm UK time. It will take place on Zoom.
Please see the list below for more details on all things conference.
If you have a question, please e-mail us at chairman@tabi.org.uk or secretary@tabi.org.uk and we’ll get back to you just as quickly as we can!
TABI 2021 Conference Team:
Jennifer (Chair)
Gwen / Pengwen (Secretary)
Steve / Jook (Treasurer)
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Booking Your Spot and Terms
Venue – Zoom
Speakers: Caitlin Matthews, Liz Dean, Chloe McCracken, and Mick Frankel
Ticket Prices – £20 for TABI members, £30 for non-members, £10 for TABI volunteers
Payment – Please send your payment via PayPal: treasurer@tabi.org.uk using the reference “TABI@20”. Your PayPal receipt acts as your booking confirmation, and we will be sending out an additional confirmation for new bookings every weekend as we approach the conference.
A few days before the conference, we will email you a link to join the Zoom meeting. If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to email Pengwen at secretary@tabi.org.uk.
Speaker Interviews
Caitlín Matthews
Title: Keepers of the Cosmos: The Four Holy Creatures and the Cardinal Virtues
Time: An hour and a bit.
Description: Tarot began its life as a 15th century game, not as a divinatory vehicle, but certain universal principles were already present within it. Based on the work of her teacher, Gareth Knight, Caitlín will explore the Keepers of the Cosmos who referee the game of life that we call tarot through the powers of the Cardinal Virtues and the Four Holy Creatures who keep shape our own dance of destiny. We will draw upon their inspiration to read more deeply.
What to bring: Your most traditional pre-Rider Waite tarot, if you have one, or a tarot that retains some of those features. However, we will work with what you have.
Bio: Caitlín Matthews is the creator of several tarots, including The Complete Arthurian Tarot and the Da Vinci Enigma Tarot, as well as being the author of Untold Tarot: The Lost Art of Reading Ancient Tarots. She is currently at work on the resurrection of a lost 1930s tarot, Tarot Médiéval: Mysteries of the Initiate’s Path. She lives in Oxford where she has a shamanic practice. www.hallowquest.org.uk
Which card would you choose to describe yourself, and why? (If it is deck-specific, which deck would it be from?)
I have never departed from Judgement – the ancestor card – it describes where most of my work is based, bringing up treasure from the past.
When, how, and why did you start to use the tarot?
In 1969 when I came to London to go to drama school, I bought my first tarot pack (there were none in Portsmouth) the Grimaud Tarot de Marseilles, after desiring one for many years. I started with pips cards and have more or less remained there.
Liz Dean
Title: Nature’s Hidden Oracles: Natural Divination in the Wild
Description: Divining in nature deepens our connection with the earth, and heightens our intuition: the ideal conditions for divination. In this interactive session, discover how our ancestors communed with spirit by casting pebbles, herbs, shells and more, and interpreting patterns in landscape features: water, clouds, and even the shape of a field. Throughout the workshop, you’ll have opportunities to respond to and interpret images that may hold messages for you, and to lay some cards for future guidance.
At the end, I’ll cast my home-made twig oracle to give live mini-readings, if time.
Time: 50 minutes to an hour.
What to bring: Please bring any deck that resonates with you. You may like to bring a nature-themed oracle, for example, as this reflects the workshop content – but it isn’t essential.
Which card would you choose to describe yourself, and why? (If it is deck-specific, which deck would it be from?)
The Nine of Cups from Games of Thrones Tarot is close to my heart for two reasons – artist Craig Coss and I co-created it, and the idea for the card came so naturally. It’s a reminder of our creative partnership. Secondly, I’m a bookworm. We have Samwell Tarly in a similar pose to the RWS figure, but within a library with high, curved shelves. Nine cups are arranged on one shelf. A student at a class I gave in Perth, Australia, interpreted the card as ‘a thirst for knowledge.’ I love that.
When, how, and why did you start to use the tarot?
I began reading in 1989. A Wiccan woman I shared a house with read the Thoth deck. One evening she laid down her cards, and that was it for me. Instantly I wanted to read. I set out to buy my first deck, the Sacred Rose, but it disappeared in the back of a taxi. I took this as a sign to wait: six weeks later I returned to the shop, purchased another Sacred Rose, and it’s still with me to this day – 32 years on. As a child, I’d always been fascinated by card-reading and any kind of divination, really. I loved flowers and herbs, too, and tried to make my own lotions potions when I was nine or 10 (they were all pretty disgusting!) My bedside table was stacked with ghost stories and otherworldly mysteries from the local library.
Bio:
I’m a writer, professional tarot reader and divination teacher. My background is in illustrated book publishing, and I worked as editor in London for many years, commissioning mind, body spirit titles before having my first deck published: The Art of Tarot, recently reissued as The Magic of Tarot, which has been in print for over 20 years. At the time, I didn’t think I’d be writing nineteen more decks and books – every project seems to have evolved organically. There never was a plan.
Through publishing, I met the clairvoyant Jayne Wallace, who invited me to join her team of Psychic Sisters in Selfridges, London. Six years ago, I moved out of the capital with my husband, Michael, to Sunderland in north-east England, very close to where I grew up. We live by the beach and I’m grateful for that every day. I’m a cold water swimmer and spend as much time outdoors as I can. Music is important to me – I used to play the trumpet in a jazz orchestra and Michael is a pianist. I don’t play now because of the practising involved (and happy to save my neighbours the agony!) I love gardening, too, and we have a gorgeous rescue cat called Fern. She arrived one month before lockdown, scared and undernourished. Her coat is shiny now, and she’s getting more settled every day. She’s such a gift.
Two months before lockdown, I started a Tarot Share and Social meet-up, which has continued ever since via Zoom. We meet every two weeks to talk, learn a new spread, laugh, and share readings. I so appreciated our local tarot community.
Chloe McCracken
Title: Rising From The Ashes: A Magical Tarot Talk
Description:
What situation or old pattern would you like to leave behind? Or perhaps you feel called to something new, but don’t know how to get there. In this interactive workshop we’ll explore the history and symbolism of the Judgement card and what it can teach us about how to move forward in life to something better. We’ll also talk about magic, and you’ll create a tarot spell for an area of your life you want to transform. As well as activating the spell during the workshop, you can also try out some other Judgement-inspired spreads.
Time: 1.5 hours
What to bring: At least one tarot deck! Two decks and also a notebook would be even better.
Which card would you choose to describe yourself, and why? (If it is deck-specific, which deck would it be from?):
Although astrologically I’d be a Queen of Swords, I see myself more as a Queen of Wands: dynamic, sometimes impulsive, someone who hopes to inspire others to live their dreams.
When, how, and why did you start to use the tarot?
Living with a witchy mother in the 1970’s I learned to use a pendulum at the tender age of five. Though she had three tarot decks, I wasn’t allowed to touch them, but I did sometimes get to look at the cards she drew or use a pendulum to pick a card. As a teen, my best friend and I started reading the cards for ourselves (mostly about boys), and we still share readings and buy one another decks to this day! Decades later, when I went through a big break up, I turned to the cards again. I took an evening class at Mysteries in Covent Garden in 2005, joined TABI and attended my first Conference (with Rachael Pollack!!) in 2006. I’ve drawn cards pretty much daily ever since 🙂
Bio:
As a double Gemini, I always seem to be doing at least four different things. Currently, that’s a business job, a therapy job (also in fours: hypnotherapy, EFT, Matrix Reimprinting and counselling), reading tarot, and being a mother to two. Past exploits include creating decks, most well-known the Celtic Lenormand. Only three, though, so maybe there’s still one to come…
Mick Frankel
Title: Patterns of Meaning – The Numbers One to Ten
Time: One hour
What to bring: A set of 10 small coins. For example 10 x 1p or 10 x 1 Eurocent and any standard 78-card deck with 4 Aces and pip cards from 2 to 10
Which card would you choose to describe yourself, and why? (If it is deck-specific, which deck would it be from?)
King of Cups. I hope that I’m a mature, caring sort of fellow
When, how, and why did you start to use the tarot?
Around 2000. I love the I Ching and found that people sometimes referenced Tarot cards when talking about the I Ching and I didn’t have a clue what they meant.
Bio:
As well as Tarot I’m interested in the I Ching and astrology. I’m also a Blues musician and lyricist. I love Japanese food, vintage Jazz & Blues and Film Noir. I live by the seaside with my wife.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I’m delighted to be a member of TABI and to be able to give something back to the organisation which has helped me enormously.