TABI's Tarot World

It used to be that any kind of spiritual exploration could only take place, socially and practically, within the bounds of an established religion. In order to follow a proscribed path, you have to accept the whole thing, and faith becomes less about wanting to believe and more about doing what you're told. But the times, they are a-changin. Our options and horizons are broadening, and our guest for Episode 30 of TABI's Tarot World, Mary du Plessis, joins host Victoria to take us on a spiritual walkabout where we explore not just our own winding paths, but look at what it means for everyone to create our own spiritual tradition. Eclecticism is the name of the game, whether you are trying on Wicca or Solitary Witchcraft for size; seeking archetypes in Tarot or Teacher veneration; or looking for oneness in Daoism or Druidry. Why not dip into all six and see what fits. We talk about cultural appropriation -- when is it protective and when performative? -- and whether labels, ritual items, and magical names help or hinder us when we're looking for the common truth that underlies all of creation. Tell us about your spiritual path in the comments. Where did you start, what changed, where are you now, and what advice would you offer to your younger self, when first setting out?Mary du Plessis is an experienced tarot mentor, psychic consultant, and spiritual teacher who operates The Mystic's Parlour, an online esoteric space and publication. She combines professional background experience with her lifelong esoteric practices to provide readings, mentoring, and workshops. She is presenting at WitchCon 2027 at the end of February and at TABI's Midwinter Conference in January. You can find her on Instagram as the.mystics.parlour. Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

After the ecstasy, the laundry. Once the Samhain ritual is completed and the spell for good health is done, back we go to everyday life. But witchcraft isn’t something we only put on for special occasions. In episode 29 of TABI’s Tarot World podcast, your hosts Victoria and Gwen speak to author, deck creator, artist, educator, practising witch and let’s face it, general polymath Monica Bodirsky about what it really means to be a witch. We talk spells and intention, integration, ancestor veneration, and then, yes, the laundry. And yet – Magic settles like dust on things we love, things that are nearby when we’re frightened, and in the special items we ask to help us. Monica keeps us grounded in the here and now while giving us tools to explore the Otherworld, and that includes the Otherworld you carry with you. Shadowland Tarot and the Between the Worlds Bone and Curio Casting Oracle Deck are designed to help us find what it is at the root of our expectations and desires so that we can make the unconscious conscious. We don’t need to call it fate if we can look behind the walls and ask what’s knocking. Monica tells us about her forthcoming book, Nocturnum, a Grimoire of recipes, rituals, and reflections for the modern mystic, which leads us to Icelandic sorcerers’ staves and what it’s like to grow up in a haunted house. Monica reminds us that our space is ours, and in the end, the act of living magic is learning how to walk in the world with everyone else who lives here alongside us.You can find Monica on her website www.monicabodirsky.com on IG as @monicabodirsky and on Facebook as Monica Bodirsky. She offers regular classes on witchcraft on her teaching platform Obsidian Academy of Esoteric Arts, and The Awakening Residency, an annual, earth-based spirituality and arts retreat near Toronto.To find out more about TABI, visit our website: www.tabi.org.uk and if you have any questions about the podcast, you can email Victoria and Gwen at [email protected]

Tarot and Magic go hand in hand. What else are we doing, when we work with the cards to look beyond what we see with our eyes? In Appalachian Folk Magic especially, the bridge to the Beyond is deeply rooted in the physicality of our bodies and the earth, and in Episode 28 of TABI's Tarot World, your hosts Victoria and Gwen talk to Appalachian witch, folklorist, author, and artist Byron Ballard about the intersection of the worlds we experience. Also like the Tarot, Appalachian Folk Magic is an amalgamation of many cultural traditions. Byron takes us from the lowlands of Scotland to the highlands of North Carolina via Child ballads - music being the source of so much magic - where it weaves the traditions of the Cherokee nation and hoodoo into a spirituality that works alongside a solid framework of Protestantism. We talks songs and spells, eggs and butter, waulking and keening, and our society's approach to death ... it's all about healing and making whole. A reader of playing cards since childhood, Byron discusses her approach to reading Tarot and which deck she favours, and then we move on to her own Oracle deck, The Revelator. An entirely hand-drawn deck with quilt squares as the background, The Revelator might be beautiful and evocative in its depiction of Appalachian culture, but don't be fooled -- the deck pulls no punches in its messaging. The first half of the deck is out now (keep an eye on TABI's blog for a review coming soon) and the second half is due out at the end of 2026/start of 2027. Make yourself a cup of tea, set your intention, and listen. There's magic in the making. Find Byron Ballard on her website http://www.myvillagewitch.com, where you can read about her workshops, classes, readings, and her eight books on Appalachian Folk Magic and Goddess worship; she is a co-founder and currently serves as Senior Priestess at the Mother Grove Goddess Temple in Ashevillehttps://mothergrove.org/ Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

Court cards are just that little bit extra. The Pages, Knights, Queens, and Kings lead a double life — simultaneously like and utterly different from the Majors, and looking askance, or is it with covetous eyes at the Minors? It's no wonder they give a lot of tarot readers pause. But fear not. Our guest for episode 27 of TABI's Tarot World, author, Tarot reader, and tutor Alison Cross talks to your hosts Victoria and Gwen about how we can make friends with these courtly fellows. First up, we look at why it is that court cards can be so alarming when they turn up in a Tarot reading. Alison gives us clues to how we can respond when they do, which leads us to a discussion of readings more generally, and the expectations of clients vs reader. We get into a hot button topic for TABI — the third-party readings. How does TABI's policy work in the context of court cards, which by nature relate to people? How can we navigate safely between removing the humanity of the cards on one side and spying on people who have no idea they're the subject of a reading on the other? Alison keeps us right. She gives us some starter tips on her innovative 4H approach — how to break down a court card into sections and associate those sections with elements. In fact, Elements are key: they allow us to step behind the surface layer of 'gender' to see the core of the card. We wrap up with a look at Alison's favourite decks for court cards, and a peek at what she's got coming up. This is an episode not to miss — it's no exaggeration to say that Alison's approach will completely revolutionise your readings. You can find Alison's Court Card blog, Tarot Thrones, here: https://www.tarot-thrones.com/ Send her your questions and it might be the topic of her next post! Explore her books: Tarot Kaizen https://www.tarotkaizen.com/ A Year in the Wildwood https://www.thewildwoodtarotyear.co.uk/ and Tarot Court Card DNA https://tabi.org.uk/2023/12/book-review-tarot-court-card-dna/ You can also find Alison on Wordle as Alison Cross, and on Facebook she hosts the Wildwood Tarot Studies Group. Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

In episode 26 of TABI's Tarot World, your hosts Victoria and Gwen talk to accomplished author, tarot reader, and deck creator Liz Dean about the intuition that leads to healing in a Tarot reading. How does it work? Especially when we're first starting out as Tarot readers and we're grappling with that most stubborn of obstacles, our own self-doubt. So let's start there: how do we overcome imposter syndrome and learn to trust our instincts? Liz gives us some advice about how to get started, and she also tells us about her own practice -- how she incorporates Reiki into her readings for others, and also introduces switchwords, one-word affirmations that help us align with and trust the Universe and life itself. Life including the world around us, whose intimate connection to Tarot Liz highlights in her beautiful new deck, The Heart's Path Tarot. How better to follow our heart's path, our innate understanding, than to get out of our head and into the trees? We look at a few cards in The Heart's Path and Liz very kindly gives us two mini-readings -- and, having been the recipient of one of them, I can tell you that if there's anyone truly in tune with the energies of the world around her, it's Liz. She shares so many wonderful, personal stories about her path and experiences in life -- this really is an episode not to be missed. We know you'll come away as inspired as we were. Liz's website is https://lizdean.info/ where you can contact her to find out about her in-person 'Divination in Nature' workshop on the Isle of Arran in October; you can find details and book your place on her four Heart's Path workshops this autumn on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-hearts-path-tarot-workshops-with-liz-dean-tickets-1587232929419 Liz will be speaking at the UK Tarot Conference in October http://tarotconference.co.uk/booking/ and You can find Liz on Instagram as @lizdeantarot and Facebook as Liz Dean. Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

In the west, we grow up with an abundance of myths, legends, poems, and novels about male characters — stories that express the experience of, and provide a path for becoming a man. But what about becoming a woman? Where are the adventures, the footprints to follow through a feminine life — where are our guides? Your hosts Victoria and Gwen have found one. In episode 25 of TABI's Tarot World, we talk to artist, deck creator, tarot reader, and mystic Lucia Dami about the quest to recover what has been historically pushed aside but was never lost: the Divine Feminine. We explore the path of the Feminine first through Lucia's decks and her artwork. She tells us about her lifelong affinity for the Greek myths and how they informed her first deck — the black, white, and gold Elysian Tarot — and how her work with Tarot, Art, and the Divine Feminine comes full circle in her new deck, The Light in the Dark Oracle. For a more embodied, guided approach, Lucia offers 'Sacred Avatars' (on her website) and also 'The Archetypal Year' (on Patreon), in which we learn to witness and recognise the divine feminine in all her myriad forms. "You are so much more than you think you are," Lucia says, "you don't have to choose a certain [single] identity as a woman." We are large; we contain multitudes. Victoria and Gwen discuss which of the twelve sacred archetypes we feel comfortable with and which we don't, and how they change as we age and grow, and we then dive deeply into the darkness — following the Sumerian goddess Inanna on her Descent into the Underworld to understand why a myth that is 5,000 years old is so important for us today. We finish with news of Lucia's most recent projects, her new podcast, The Mystic Feminine, and an art exhibition in Hampstead. Details on all her work below. Lucia's website is http://www.luciadami.com and you can find her on Instagram as @lucia.dami For her Patreon course on the Feminine Archetypes, look for The Mystic Feminine https://www.patreon.com/cw/LuciaDami which is also the name of her new podcast. Lucia's new exhibition, 'Tarot and the Unseen' opens on June 24th for three weeks at Burgh House in Hampstead. https://www.burghhouse.org.uk/whats-on/whats-on/exhibition/lucia-dami-tarot-the-unseenWant to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

What are the Colour Scales that are used to illustrate Tarot decks? In fact, what are colours? If you look behind the palette chosen by the creator of a tarot deck, is there something there — something more remarkable even than beauty? Maybe a little ... Magick? In episode 24 of TABI's Tarot World, your hosts Victoria and Gwen talk to Heather Jones — professional artist and graphic designer, Qabalist, and founder of esoteric publisher Numinous Press — about how colour magnifies and amplifies the very heart of Tarot. Heather starts us off using the colour wheel to explain how and why The Order of the Golden Dawn established the Colour Scales in the first place. Then we dive even deeper, asking how colours are created — not just what glorious names for colours like 'Reddish Grey Inclined to Mauve' and 'Emerald Flecked Gold' really mean, but what happens in our eyes when certain colours meet out there in the world. We talk Golden Dawn ritual, mapping colours to the Tree of Life, and we look at some specific examples of how Lady Frieda Harris applied the Colour Scales to the Thoth Tarot. Wondering which is the best deck available today for learning about and working with Colour Scales? We got you. It's all in here. And there are of course suggestions for books and decks if you'd like to find out more. You can find Heather on Instagram, Facebook, Substack, and YouTube as @numinouspress. On her website, www.numinouspress.com, you'll find a wealth of materials for esoteric study, including the Great Workbook — Tarot journal, logbook, and activity book. Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

In our first twenty-two episodes, TABI's Tarot World explored the imagery in each of the Major Arcana. It was an amazing journey through so much magickal meaning, and we thank all of our guests for joining us to establish a solid ground of wisdom and understanding. Now we're ready to apply the magick and bring it all to life. For Episode 23 of TABI's Tarot World, your hosts Victoria and Gwen talk to witch, Tarot and Lenormand reader, and astrologer Rebecca Birrell about Tarot for Magick. Rebecca is a practitioner of both High and Low Magick, and we see her vast expertise at play as she explains how to take our inspirations through the Tarot to manifestation. We talk ritual and consecration; using Elements to manifest reality; and how connecting to symbols bypasses the rational mind. Behind it all is the unseen Above and Below, and Rebecca helps us get in the flow — she discusses candle magick; how to create house altars and witch boxes; how (and why) to keep Tarot present in our daily life; and she also explains how (and why) to bring pathworking on the Tree of Life into your magickal practice. And what about the deck itself? Should we have one reserved for magick? How do we maintain the spiritual hygiene to keep our magick clean? Rebecca keeps us right, and we round off with a real-world, step-by-step example of a question we take to the Tarot for advice and actionable steps, then to the magick to help us move forward. You can find Rebecca on her website www.myinnerwitch.com and as @myinnerwitch on Instagram, Facebook, and Tiktok. Her latest publication is the book and card set The Original Petit Eteilla: A Step-by-step Guide to Reading the Tarot of Eteilla, co-authored with Caitlín Matthews. She also has a new free app currently available on Apple and coming to Android very soon — myinnerwitch — which offers courses on Tarot, Astrology, and more. Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

In episode 22 of TABI's Tarot World, our  podcast's namesake, your hosts Victoria and Gwen talk to Jason Cosmos about the twenty-second Trump, The World or The Universe. Old god Saturn is front and centre as the planetary ruler of the card — in the Hebrew letter Tav associated with The World's path on the Tree of Life, and also as the boundary maker inextricably married to the birth and new beginnings of the Great Mother. We talk octopus dreams, otherworldly visions, and clear-eyed intuition, then get down to earth with practical readings: How can we interpret this vastly spiritual card in the context of a practical question? We look at the Tree of Life and what patterns emerge when we plot The World to its path (hint: it connects to Malkuth, Earth), and Jason leads us on a journey with the World dancer through other cards that reflect her role, highlighting their connections to The World itself. Reversals, scents, crystals, and music round us out, with a discussion of our beautiful, confusing, ever-changing (slightly mad) world. You can find Jason on Instagram as @jasonccosmos, on Facebook as @jasondcosmos, and on his website www.octopusofdreams.com Now that we've concluded our first series, Victoria and Gwen would like to thank all of our amazing guests for joining us for TABI's first podcast series. You made our dream come to life! We appreciate your time and have learned so much from your intuition, experience, and expertise. So what happens now that TABI's Tarot World has reached The World? Seneca said every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end, so tune in next month to find out what comes next! Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]

Welcome to the new world! We are getting there, at least ... and for episode 21 of TABI's Tarot World, Jan Tetteroo — Druid, Spiritual Coach, and Tarot reader — joins your hosts Victoria and Gwen to look at how it's happening. We start with the Zombie apocalypse and look at how we get from there to what comes after ... because Crowley wasn't about the ending, or even the levelling-up, but an immediate new beginning, and one we're responsible for. Jan places The Aeon in the context of the progression of the Thoth Tarot, and he explains how  Crowley's vision for the future of humanity all comes together in its imagery. We talk Thelema, the Book of the Law, Divine Will, and we look in detail at the powerful, beautiful illustration of the card, from the lapis lazuli sky goddess Nuit to double-aspected Horus and winged Hadit at the centre of it all. We discuss reversals and ill-dignified placements, how we can The Aeon in a practical reading, and then move on to herbs, plants, scents, and crystals associated with the card. If you've ever wondered what's going on with the Thoth Tarot, Jan has your answer, and it's all here in this podcast! You can find Jan on Instagram as @jantetteroo, on Facebook as Jan Tetteroo, on YouTube as Luna and the Druid, and his website is www.jantetteroo.com. His Druidry website is Grove of Anu: https://groveofanu.com/jan-tetteroo-druid-of-the-grove/Want to find out more about TABI? Visit our website at www.tabi.org.uk Membership is international and only £20 per year. If you'd like to get in touch with Victoria and Gwen, you can email us: [email protected]