This is the time of year when the Veil between the Worlds is thinnest. It's an excellent time to commune with our ancestors but it's also a time when many people leave this earthly plane and move on to what comes next. To put it plainly, they die.

You have probably noticed the large number of celebrity deaths that have been publicized, and there are no doubt hundreds more that weren't. Perhaps you've lost someone close to you in the past month. If so, please accept our deepest condolences.

Wald almost died a week ago. He had a severe heart attack and passed out. He was sitting quietly so it looked like he was just taking a nap but when it came time to get out of the taxi (we'd taken one to the dentist), he was unresponsive for a long time. I don't know if I've ever been so freaked out!

We were lucky this time (thank you, Lakshmi!). He had excellent care and came home from the hospital yesterday. No doubt much of his progress is due to all the spiritual and magical support from the whole tarot community! We are both so grateful! 

Wald is looking forward to teaching and coaching again soon. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, treasure those you love and be sure to tell them often. I usually don't like to tell people what to do, but too bad -- this is important! 
 

The Four Powers in Group Facilitation

©️2026 Cheryl Ryder, Albuquerque Tarot Tribe

Tarot isn’t only something we do with cards.  It’s something we do with people. And anyone who has ever led a tarot circle—whether in person or online—knows that the cards are often the easiest part of the experience.

The real work is holding the space.

• Keeping it moving.                       (Wands – The Power to Act)
• Keeping it balanced.                    (Swords – The Power to Understand)
• Keeping it respectful.                   (Cups) – The Power to Care)
• Keeping it safe for participation.   (Pentacles – The Power to Build &                                                                                                         Sustain)

And doing all of that while honoring the humanity of everyone present.

So how do we do that without becoming rigid… or exhausted?

This is where the Four Powers of Tarot moves from theory into practice.

🟡  The Power to Understand — Recognizing Patterns, Not Personalities

In group settings, we encounter some commonly recurring behaviors:

• The person who always needs “just a little more time”
• The one who redirects the topic to their own situation
• The one who complies… but adds subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, complaint
• The one who becomes reactive when redirected

It’s tempting to interpret these as personality traits and react emotionally.

A more useful approach is to recognize them as patterns.

Often, these behaviors are attempts to meet an important need:

• to be recognized or appreciated
• to feel included in the group
• to feel connected
• to resolve difficulty understanding

When we shift from thinking about “What is wrong with this person?” 

 to “What pattern is showing up here?”  We gain clarity without 

 becoming entangled.

🔵  The Power to Care — Compassion Without Taking Personal Responsibility

As tarot readers and facilitators, many of us are naturally attuned to others.

We sense when someone feels unseen or unheard.

But there is an important distinction:

Compassionate facilitation does not require personal caretaking.

We as moderators and facilitators are not responsible for fulfilling 

each individual’s emotional needs.

What we can offer is:

• respect
• acknowledgment
• a welcoming tone

What we cannot offer—without cost—is unlimited time, 

attention, and emotional processing. Caring for a group 

means ensuring everyone has a fair opportunity to participate.

🟢 The Power to Build — The Container Comes First

A well-held tarot circle is a supporting structure.  It has:

• a time boundary
• a shared focus
• guidelines for participation

When that structure is clear and consistently maintained, 

something important happens:   The group begins to feel safe.

Not because every individual gets everything they want…

…but because everyone understands how the space works.

When one person consistently exceeds those boundaries—

the container begins to weaken. And when the container weakens, 

the group as a whole suffers.

Holding the structure is not a lack of compassion.

It is how compassion is expressed at the group level.

🔴  The Power to Act — Clear, Calm Intervention

This is the part many facilitators struggle with.

• We don’t want to interrupt.
• We don’t want to seem harsh.
• We don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

Yet, without action from us, the space can easily become 

unbalanced and that creates discomfort in the container.

Effective facilitation does not require confrontation.

It requires clarity.

Simple, respectful interventions are often enough:

• “Let’s keep this brief so others can share.”
• “I’m going to bring us back to the topic.”
• “I’m going to pause you there so we can stay within time.”

No debate.
No justification.
Just a gentle return to structure.

When needed, stronger actions—such as muting or redirecting—are not failures.

They are part of maintaining the space, and that is a big part of our duty.

 Bringing It All Together

When the Four Powers work together in facilitation:

• 🟡   Understanding  recognizes patterns without judgment
• 🔵   Caring  offers respect without overextending emotional reach
• 🟢   Building/Sustaining  maintains a structure that supports the entire                                                                                                            group
• 🔴   Acting  ensures that structure is upheld in real time

The result is a space where:

• participation is shared in a safe space
• boundaries are clear
• and the work of tarot can unfold naturally

 A Final Thought

As facilitators, we are not here to manage every individual experience.

We are here to hold the circle.  When the circle is well held, the shape 

of the space becomes clear —what belongs, and what does not. 

Within that clarity, people feel safer to step forward and participate 

more openly and authentically.

What do you think?

Namaste, Cheryl

Credits: Linda V. Berens Ph.D. for sharing her insights about personality differences through personal tutelage and the  “Understanding Yourself and Others” book series, 

www.Interstrength.org, ©1995-2026 and equally to Wald and Ruth Ann Amberstone https://TarotSchool.com whose collective works “Upside and Downside Issues of the Minor Arcana Cards” has provided me the tarot foundation for this exploration of The Four Powers of Tarot.

About Cheryl Ryder:

60-years of tarot use and study, a tarot workshop developer and the leader of the Albuquerque Tarot Tribe Meetup Group for the past 12 years. Cheryl has grown the group from 150 members to over 1200 using innovative and interactive teaching methods.
 

You all know her: a 10-year Readers Studio veteran, 7 years of Coordinating the Tarot Ambassador Team, occasional First-Timer Initiator, Merchant Faire Vendor, and in 2024, the Facilitator of the Sunday morning Tarot Incubator Discussions.
 

Cheryl’s ongoing programs and discussion groups on the Albuquerque Tarot Tribe’s platform (open to anyone interested in tarot globally) continue to inspire people to expand and deepen their learning of tarot and their worlds. 

https://www.meetup.com/the-albuquerque-tarot-meetup-group/

Email: ABQTarotTribe@gmail.com

To submit a question to be answered in a future issue of Tarot Tips, send us an email at tarot@tarotschool.com

Wald's Words of Wisdom

Esoteric Insights
A TAROT CREATION STORY - Part 1

by Wald Amberstone 

I am going to tell you a Tarot Creation Story, which turns tarot into a magical instrument. Even though this story is intense and convincing, detailed and cohesive, you should know that it doesn’t exist anywhere in esoteric literature or tradition. That is because I made it up, combining a whole world of statements, essays, symbols and practices into a very compelling (at least to me) story of how the whole world and everything in it came to be. 

The story begins before the beginning, before time and space, before realty makes its appearance, before any deity speaks to any living thing and tells it how to live. 

Before the beginning there is Nothing Without End, a condition with incomparable power. It is beyond description, inhabited by and filled with a consciousness and a power greater than any deity. 

In a moment of transcendent recklessness, this formless, infinite, eternal consciousness experienced the will to be –– to become many. And so it stepped across the line that separates No-Thing from Some-Thing and became a god. Zero became One. 

In an unmeasurable instant, Above was separated from Below, Darkness from Light, Night from Day, Mystery from Reality. Humanity, as man and woman, was born in the image of a newly formed deity, and became the defining, all-important being in the anthropomorphic universe. Mystery was the encompassing experience surrounding the interval between birth and death.

Infinite, eternal, all-powerful mystery took the shape we’ve come to call Zero. Reality, the total experience of all that takes place between birth and death, became the symbol we call One.

The abstract purity of the symbols of Zero and One acquired a name and a complex identity that describes them both. It was a union of Force and Form made of four unpronounceable letters that came to be known as the Tetragrammaton.

This four-letter name, spoken by the single all-powerful creator, gave rise to the four elements, Fire, Water, Air and Earth, and the four worlds of Emanation, Creation, Formation and Manifestation, and the four symbols of the Wand, the Cup, the Sword and the Pentacle. 

Zero, the defining symbol of mystery, became the deity called by many names. One, the Symbol of Everything, took on every Force and Form in the tangled knot of the Known and Knowable world.

The Known and Knowable were joined by the Unknown and Unknowable as the totality of the four states of human awareness. Human attention divided itself among these four possibilities. 

Some people became artists, bankers, scientists, soldiers; politicians, lawyers, aristocrats. And some became philosophers, shamans, sorcerers and ceremonial magicians. These two groups for the most part treated each other with mutual contempt and dismissal. 

So Zero and One, Mystery and Reality, create an all-encompassing knowledge of opposites and give us the total of human experience. 

That combination of all inclusive symbols has more in store for us...

To be continued.

Mind Your Own Business
JOIN THE CLUB: 

How starting a tarot membership can create community

 By Patti Woods

One of the things I love most about tarot is that it’s a great tool for creating community. We see that here in the Monday night Tarot Salons. While the cards serve as a focal point for discussion, contemplation and awareness, there’s also bonding and connection happening between people who might not otherwise ever talk to each other. Tarot equals community. 
 

One way to create your own tarot group is to start an online membership. As more and more people move away from the big social media platforms, smaller membership-based sites are an attractive option. They allow for connection without the interference of ads and the algorithm. 

There are so many options to choose from: Kajabi, Skool, Teachable, WordPress, Circle … the list goes on and on. And it can be really overwhelming. 

The first place to start is to decide what you want to use your membership for. Will you solely teach classes? Would you like an interactive component like Facebook? Do you want to also sell merch? Getting clear on your goals will help you decide which platforms are best for your needs. 

Then there’s the matter of cost. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, and the same goes for memberships. Some charge a flat rate, some go by number of members, others charge a percentage rate. Often people will ask, “Why wouldn’t I just incorporate a membership into my website?” The answer is two-fold: on a membership platform, you will attract new-to-you members and you free yourself up from having to deal with keeping track of membership and payments. 
 

My membership is on Patreon. I chose this because it felt easy to navigate, was competitively priced and is a known platform. It’s far from perfect; there are things about it that I wish were different. For example, members can’t create their own posts. They can only respond to mine. (Patreon offers Discord for this purpose, but I find that clunky.) But overall, I’ve been happy with my experience there. 
 

Here are my words of advice if you’re considering starting a membership group:

1. Make sure you really have a passion for your topic. If your interest wanes after a month or two, you’ll be faced with the challenge of whether or not to continue. 

2. Be consistent. Let your members know what to expect and when. 

3. Very important: it is better to under promise and over deliver. I heard from the outset, “Don’t offer too much!” and yet, I did. I quickly realized that I needed to cut back on what I was providing. 

4. Lastly, you do have to have somewhat of a thick skin. People will join and leave a month later. Maybe it’s financial, maybe they don’t have time, maybe they just don’t vibe with what you do. It’s totally okay, but it can be unsettling when you see a member leave. 

Creating an online tarot community can be a really fun way to engage with others and get paid to do what you love. You might not become a millionaire, but, as we know from the cards, abundance shows up in myriad ways. If an online community is calling to you, give it a shot! 

About Patti:

Patti Woods is a writer and tarot reader with over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. Having served as an editor for both newspapers and magazines, she transitioned into freelance writing, contributing hundreds of articles to major publications such as The Boston Globe, Business Insider, Wine Spectator, Parade Magazine, The Week, Christian Science Monitor, Vegetarian Times, and Health, among many others.

In addition to her writing career, Patti is the founder of Mind, Body & Tarot, a business featured in Business Insider, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Fodor's Travel, and more.

She is also the author of Lost Restaurants of Fairfield, published by Arcadia/The History Press, and has contributed to several anthologies, including Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Learn more about her services and offerings at www.pattiwoods.com.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/boozytarot
IG: boozy_tarot

Upcoming Events: 



Tarot Salon on Zoom!
7:00 – 9:00 pm EDT

Our popular Monday night classes are held over Zoom so you can attend no matter where you live.

Classes are recorded and all levels of experience are welcome!

OCTOBER 2026:   

Classes are on hiatus while Wald recovers from his heart attack. We will send a notice when we resume and post the new calendar on our website.

Get on the notification list to see what we'll be teaching each week. 

Readings with Ruth Ann

Running The Tarot School with Wald keeps me pretty busy, but I still love giving readings! My specialty is using your Birth Cards and Elemental Array (techniques Wald and I have developed) in conjunction with random draws to give you an extremely personalized and powerful reading. 

If you are familiar with the Tree of Life, you may request a Birth Cards Synastry Reading. I will compare your Birth Cards with those of one or two others to give you a deeper understanding of your relationship with them.

I excel at giving Readings for Readers so if you're always giving readings to others, let me help you with some self-care for a change!