[14:15] Jedburgh Dagger (jedburgh30.dagger): I was asked to handle the introductions for an infirm Klaus. (He's not really here it's an illusion...)
[14:15] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I suspect he's actually busy at this time of year because he's really Santa Klaus.
[14:16] Jedburgh Dagger (jedburgh30.dagger): So without any further ado, please welcome Merry Chase to the Salon stage for a chat on Tarot..
[14:16] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) grins holographically
[14:16] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) applauds
[14:16] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thank you!
[14:16] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn) applauds
[14:16] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta) applauds
[14:16] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn): Miss Discovolante! How wonderful to see you.
[14:16] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Welcome! Thanks for coming, at this busy time of year.
[14:16] Merry Chase (merrytricks): This talk is on Tarot, which I think is a super sweet piece of serendipity because this happens to be the 78th of these talks, and guess how many cards are in a Tarot deck?
[14:17] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) looks pleased at the Jarl's outburst.
[14:17] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Yup.
[14:17] Merry Chase (merrytricks): 78.
[14:17] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Cool, huh? We didn’t plan that, either. I’m a pinch-hitter, ‘cause the scheduled speaker had to cancel.
[14:17] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I’ve been researching tarot’s evolution, so that’s what we’ll talk about mostly, but if we have time we can go into prohibition and theory a little. The history of tarot basically combines the history of two things: divination and playing cards.
[14:17] Merry Chase (merrytricks): The beginnings of divination are lost in the mists of Avalon, or more likely in the Clan of the Cave Bear. Anyhow, so far back I’m not going to try to trace that.
[14:18] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Pretty much for as long as we’ve been human, we’ve been seeking signs and auguries. A dream, cloud shapes, the toss of yarrow sticks or bone dice, the appearance of sheep entrails, you name it, we’ll see meaning in it.
Maybe that’s wrong, to try to see the future, but to err is human, and to divine is human, too.
(Pause for laughter.)
[14:18] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta) chuckles then groans
[14:18] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): :-)
[14:18] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas): Thank you, Jed *smiles and listens attentively to the talk*
[14:18] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) grins
[14:18] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thank you, thank you. But yeah, we seem to compulsively seek signs. So, we had bones, dice, dreams, various oracles. And when paper came along, it seems like it was natural for us to find a way pretty soon to use that for divination, somehow.
[14:18] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas): Oh dear, pun-ishment.
[14:18] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Fond as we are of oracles, we’re also fond of games. It’s impossible to say which we did first with cards -- play games or tell fortunes.
[14:19] Lady Sumoku: And then cookies
[14:19] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Now, for cards, you need writing, printing, and paper.
[14:19] Merry Chase (merrytricks): We invented writing about five thousand years ago, in Sumer, a little after we invented cities and started needing to keep written records. Sumerians also invented the first printing process, about 3000BCE, with the cylindar seals that were rolled to make an impression on clay tablets.
[14:19] Merry Chase (merrytricks): It’s a while before we get around to paper. Of course, we used papyrus in Egypt also around the third millenium BCE, and heiroglyphic writing, but we don’t seem to have got around to making cards until we came up with pulped paper.
[14:19] Merry Chase (merrytricks): It’s a while before we get around to paper. Of course, we used papyrus in Egypt also around the third millenium BCE, and heiroglyphic writing, but we don’t seem to have got around to making cards until we came up with pulped paper.
[14:19] Merry Chase (merrytricks): oops, sorry
[14:19] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Senior moment, repeating myself.
[14:20] Merry Chase (merrytricks): We started making paper in China around 100 CE, and by 200 CE we had wood block printing—also a Chinese invention and also very useful for creating cards--but it’s another 700 years after block printing, before cards show up. By the early 9th century we are at last playing card games.
[14:20] Merry Chase (merrytricks): We have lots of RPGs in Second Life, so it might be interesting to hear that the first card game was evidently a roleplaying game. It was called Game of Leaves, and it involved a book as well as cards.
[14:20] Merry Chase (merrytricks): The history of games is a whole ‘nother fascinating avenue down which we could wander. Every time I check a fact I find myself tempted by intriguing side tracks. But sticking with the idea of the cards, it wasn’t long before another important element evolved, and that was suits.
[14:21] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Card suits that is. I don't know when and where humans invented three-piece suits.
[14:21] Merry Chase (merrytricks): ahem... where were we?
[14:21] Merry Chase (merrytricks): ah yes, China.
[14:21] Merry Chase (merrytricks): China is to credit, again, for suits. There were cards with suits by the 12th century but they were sort of like an outgrowth of dominoes or play money. Like money, the suits were ranked by denomination, as if you were playing with ones, fives, tens, twenties, and hundred-dollar bills.
[14:22] Merry Chase (merrytricks): There's a little blurbage behind me, to your left, showing an early Chinese card and telling more about those suits.
[14:22] Merry Chase (merrytricks): The forebears of our four modern suits, were Mamluk decks. Nobody seems certain whether cards traveled first to India and Persia and then to Arabia, or vice versa, but in one direction or another, the Silk Road carried, along with other treasures, the early decks of playing cards.
[14:23] Merry Chase (merrytricks): And in the Arabian Mamluk dynasty, we get not only 4 suits, but also, although the number of cards wasn’t standardized for a while, we begin to see decks of 52 just like modern playing cards. (Although unlike most modern decks, these were hand-crafted with silver and gilt paint.)
[14:23] Merry Chase (merrytricks): You can see examples of those Mamluk suits up in the air above the Chinese card.
[14:24] Merry Chase (merrytricks): And in the Arabian Mamluk dynasty, we get not only 4 suits, but also, although the number of cards wasn’t standardized for a while, we begin to see decks of 52 just like modern playing cards. (Although unlike most modern decks, these were hand-crafted with silver and gilt paint.)
[14:24] Merry Chase (merrytricks): grr, um, let me try to move forward with my thoughts once more!
[14:24] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Suits, yes.
[14:24] Merry Chase (merrytricks): And divination. You wanted to hear about tarot, not just cards. So....
[14:25] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Also, by now, we know for sure that cards are being used to tell fortunes. Some of the Mamluk cards have fortunes on them in calligraphy --- “I will, as pearls on a string, be lifted in the hands of kings.” “May God give thee prosperity; then thou will already have achieved thy aim.” “With the sword of happiness I shall redeem a beloved who will afterwards take my life.“
And speaking of swords, Swords was one of the early suits, and is one of the modern tarot suits, too. The Mamluk suits were Swords, Polo Sticks, Cups and Coins, and these evolved into our tarot suits and our poker suits, with some interesting variations according to region once they hit Europe.
[14:25] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Up in the air on the right, you can see the evolution of European suits. There are some fun variations on our familiar four.
[14:26] Merry Chase (merrytricks): From Arabia cards entered Spain and thence the rest of Europe. A 1371 Catalan rhyming dictionary defines “naip” as playing card, possibly from the Arabic na-ib, the word for a court card in the Mamluk decks. At that time, Andalusia was still under Muslim rule, so in spreading “into Europe” the cards really only had a few hundred kilometers to travel.
[14:26] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Then we see the nobles of Italian city-states commissioning decks of cards, with family members portrayed as the various images on the court cards. Now, by the end of the 15th century, from the deck of 52, we expand to that serendipitous 78 by adding 22 special cards with allegorical themes, called “trionfi” or “triumphs.”
[14:27] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Trionfi, or triumphs, is also the name of a game played with the cards, and another game is called tarocco, and from there, we get Tarot. In modern fortune-telling decks, those triumphs are called the Major Arcana, while the other 52 cards are referred to as the minor arcana.
[14:27] Merry Chase (merrytricks): So, now here we are in Renaissance Italy with gilt-and-silver cards all the rage among the nobility, but cards require one more thing before they can become widely popular, and that’s affordability. The Tarot of Marseilles brings a new standardization and simplicity to card design, and then, enter the printing press.
[14:27] Wildstar Beaumont waves silently
[14:28] Merry Chase (merrytricks): In the poster at center behind me you can see seven cards, from various eras, and see that evolution from ornate portraiture to simplicity, paint to woodcut to printing press.
[14:29] Merry Chase (merrytricks): The inquiring minds of the Enlightenment studied spiritualism and the occult with as much seriousness as they gave to areas that we still think of as science today, though of course there was plenty of quackery and charlatanism as well. A history of tarot was invented from whole cloth, whence we get a fabricated ancient Egyptian origin for the word “tarot.”
[14:29] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Tarot catches the popular imagination. It appears in stories and poems. Decks of cards can be produced cheaply in assembly-line fashion, from printing to cutting to sorting and packaging, and fortune telling decks are advertised in the London news sheets of the 18th century. Soon, everyone from Napoleon Bonaparte to Wolfgang von Goethe to Lisa Simpson is getting tarot card readings. And it is on The Simpsons that a 79th card is added to the deck. The Happy Squirrel.
[14:30] Merry Chase (merrytricks): On the course of this journey, there have been reawakenings in interest in spiritualism in general, and tarot specifically. During one of these, in 1910, the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck was published, and it has remained one of the most popular decks of all time. Its imagery was drawn the 15th century Sola Busca deck, from the Italian noble era of tarot. You can also see the influence of the Marseilles tarot. And in turn, the Rider-Waite-Smith imagery has continued to be the basis for hundreds of variations of tarot decks.
[14:30] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I couldn't find any statistics on the current popularity of tarot, or sales of tarot decks, in a quick last-minute search. It'd be interesting to know.
[14:31] Merry Chase (merrytricks): But in a nutshell, that's the evolution of tarot cards.
[14:31] Merry Chase (merrytricks): We see on that 7-card poster, the more modern decks, starting with the 4th card, the iconic Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
[14:32] Merry Chase (merrytricks): On the bottom row are more recent decks but there are so many... do a web search for almost anything plus the word tarot and it seems like you'll find a deck.
[14:32] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Goddess Tarot, Heavy Metal Tarot, whatever.
[14:33] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Now, one important aspect of history has been Prohibition.
[14:33] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Both divination and simple game play with cards, as well as gambling, have been prohibited at various times and places.
[14:33] Merry Chase (merrytricks): 1294, China: Not only gamblers, and the owner of the premises, but the block printer who printed the cards, are arrested, whipped, and fined, under laws against gambling.
1376, Florence: A decree outlaws the recently-introduced practice of playing ‘naibbe,’ or card games.
1377, Paris: Card play is forbidden on working days. Through the remainder of the 14th century, card play is prohibited in various municipalities and states of Europe.
[14:34] Merry Chase (merrytricks): 1614, Spain: The Inquisition tortures Margarita de Borja until she confesses to cartomancy. Margarita de Borja confessed to the Spanish Inquisition:
“She would lay five rows of cards on the table, each row containing four cards face up. Then she picked them up and shuffled them while saying: ‘Lady Saint Martha, you are in the church, you listen to the dead and inspire the living: so tell me through these cards what I am asking you about.’ Having the cards coming up in pairs; kings near kings, pages near pages and so on; was a good omen, but having the cards came up in any other configuration indicated a bad omen.”
(And I would ask, was that witchcraft, or prayer and meditation? )
[14:35] Merry Chase (merrytricks): 1966 – 1976, China: The Cultural Revolution bans playing and printing of cards. When cards return, court cards are replaced by numbers 11, 12 and 13.
Card Play Today: Playing cards is forbidden by Islam as it may distract from thoughts of Allah and also lead to gambling, which is forbidden.
[14:35] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Tarot Today: Check your local laws before reading tarot for pay. Professional cartomancy remains banned in many places and though the laws are rarely enforced, most “fortune tellers” safeguard themselves with disclaimers: “For entertainment purposes only.” Reading cards has sometimes been defended as a practice of religious or speech freedom.
[14:36] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Whew. That's a lot of history. I've thrown up a ton of words. But if you'd like, I can throw a few more up about theory and science of tarot.
[14:36] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): You have time, I believe.
[14:36] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): yes please, if you have time
[14:36] Wildstar Beaumont: of course .. please continue
[14:36] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Okay! Good!
[14:36] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Does tarot work, and, if so, why, or how?
[14:37] Merry Chase (merrytricks): In my own practice I’ve found it unsettling that I can read for someone and they will respond to me that my insight was uncanny – although I have absolutely no knowledge of their situation, before or after the reading!
[14:37] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I issue a sort of disclaimer that I have no psychic ability, and that tarot is just a form of meditation. But why do the most relevant cards, for meditating on, seem to turn up time and time again? Out of 78 cards, we choose ten, and I tell you their story. Every ten-card story is different, depending on each card and its position and the relationship between the ten. Somehow, out of the random shuffle of archtypal images, the right story comes up for almost every querant. Not 100%, but nearly every reading, my clients tell me I’m spot on. And I have no idea of the particulars of their lives, and how the tarot story I told them has answered their questions.
[14:38] Merry Chase (merrytricks): This experience clearly isn’t limited to me and my clients. For centuries, tarot decks continue to sell. More new designs are created, and scores of existing designs remain best-sellers.
[14:38] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Famous tarot author Mary K Greer cites Jung and Hawking on her website, in her discussion of this question. Certainly the imagery of tarot is rooted in archetypes that speak to common human experience. There are cards about love, and cards about night terrors, and cards about delusion. Everyone has experienced those things.
[14:38] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Maybe tarot, dream, and other methods of divination, tap into the collective subconscious and circumvent our linear perception of time. We know intellectually that our concept of time as a line or stream is only subjective, so maybe insights into past and future events are delivered because in consulting oracles we step for a moment out of the subjective time stream.
[14:39] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Professional tarot readings go for about $50 to several hundred dollars, US. They’re comparable to psychotherapy sessions, not only in price but in the kind of benefit people derive from them. And another parallel might be that they’re both imprecise sciences, soft sciences, and modalities that work for some people and not for others.
[14:39] Merry Chase (merrytricks): We know so little really, about the human mind, about consciousness and about time. But for more about the directions in which science might pursue this question, including trippy graphs about quantums and stuff, check out Greer’s blog, here:
[14:40] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I will take questions in a moment.
[14:40] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thanks for coming to my talk on the history of tarot. It only skimmed the surface of the subject. If you'd like to delve deeper, I can highly recommend a couple of my research resources:
For the history of playing cards http://www.wopc.co.uk/history/
For tarot history https://marygreer.wordpress.co
I'm sorry I couldn't credit all sources of information and images but I did my best. If there's material included I ought to have credited, please let me know and I will correct that. And please forgive me, remembering this is a presentation given for love and not for profit, to benefit a good cause.
[14:41] Merry Chase (merrytricks): And if you’d like to get a reading from me…
I'm sorry I didn't have time to create a whole Experience for you to walk into, here, today, but I am working on something with Cara Cali at Botanica, where there will be 22 Experiences to walk into. So I hope you'll all come to that. Stay tuned.
And please, if you are able, help my severely disabled daughter, here:
[14:41] Merry Chase (merrytricks): So, any questions about anything from history to theory to...?
[14:41] Merry Chase (merrytricks): eep, doorbell, brb!!!
[14:42] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Heh.
[14:42] Merry Chase (merrytricks): oh wow, sweet, it was kids caroling!
[14:42] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): :-)
[14:42] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I had to run them off though because of my daughter's being sick and asleep.
[14:42] Lady Sumoku: How many were actually named Carol?
[14:42] Merry Chase (merrytricks) feels like a Scrooge.
[14:43] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Excuse me, I'll see if I can catch them and ask which one(s) is/are Carol.
[14:43] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): hehe
[14:43] Merry Chase (merrytricks): so anyway, Tarot? Questions?
[14:44] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): How many decks do you own?
[14:44] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Scottie Melnik!
[14:44] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I own two decks plus maybe four or five automatic tarot tables inworld, and five decks in RL.
[14:44] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): What draws you to your favourites?
[14:45] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, SennaTheSoothsayer Resident!
[14:45] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I prefer reading from Rider-Waite-Smith for others, just because it's familiar to so many people.
[14:45] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Karenza McCullough!
[14:45] Merry Chase (merrytricks): For myself, it depends on my mood largely.
[14:45] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I am very fond of one called Wheel of Change because it's multi-cultural and multi-era, and features images like factory smokestacks, and burning guitars.
[14:45] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Lady Sumoku!
[14:45] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): I like the Rider-Waite-Smith as the pictures are so self-explanatory
[14:46] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Yes, they are, very accessible.
[14:46] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, MurphyFox Manimal!
[14:46] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Some decks speak directly and others take a lot of study.
[14:46] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Otenth Paderborn!
[14:46] Merry Chase (merrytricks): There's some I love for the art but they don't really speak to me.
[14:47] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Some are just fun and funny.
[14:47] Merry Chase (merrytricks): But it can be really valuable reading an accompanying book with a deck, if it's well-written, and finding out all kinds of depths in the variations the creator made, the liberties they took, with the standard images.
[14:48] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn) shuffles through his inventory looking for the 3D tarot images he thinks he bought from Madcow Cosmos
[14:48] Merry Chase (merrytricks): That's another thing I like about Wheel of Change. If there's a garden shed with a broken window there's a reason for it, and it can have startling impact.
[14:49] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Liz Wilner!
[14:49] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Some creators seem to create a deck out of pure asthetic inspiration, and others have more theory in mind.
[14:49] Merry Chase (merrytricks): A 3D deck sounds fascinating, Otenth!
[14:49] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Wildstar Beaumont!
[14:50] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn): It was an art exhibit. He did only some of the major arcana.
[14:50] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Ahh.
[14:50] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I am working on sort of a 3D experience of tarot hsitory, actually the third incarnation of my exhibit.
[14:50] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn): The only thing I can find is a landmark from 2008.
[14:50] Lady Sumoku drags Wulfi back inworld through the power of interpretive dance.
[14:50] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Brava. Well-danced.
[14:51] Liz Wilner smiles
[14:51] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas) hands Smokey the connection glue gun
[14:51] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) chuckles
[14:51] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Any other questions, about decks, about historic moments in tarot, about reading tarot?
[14:51] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Or anything?
[14:51] Merry Chase (merrytricks): The name of my cat?
[14:51] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Moggy?
[14:51] Wildstar Beaumont: Tarot ?
[14:52] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Nope, not at all related. Pure nonsequitor. Hendrix Chainsaw.
[14:52] Liz Wilner: Decks
[14:52] Liz Wilner: oh! lol
[14:52] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Now I have some good names for future cats!
[14:52] Wildstar Beaumont: :)
[14:52] Murphy T. Fox (murphyfox.manimal): Good night everyone
[14:52] Lady Sumoku: I wouldn't have guessed that.
[14:52] Lady Sumoku waves
[14:52] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Oh, how about, how long have I been reading?
[14:52] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Over three decades.
[14:53] Lady Sumoku has been reading over three decades, but not cards.
[14:53] Merry Chase (merrytricks) feels almost as old as her avatar looks!
[14:53] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Oh yeah, I've been reading for about 52 years. Ha. Tarot for 30+
[14:53] Lady Sumoku: You have me beat, but I'm not saying by how much.
[14:54] Wildstar Beaumont: :)
[14:55] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I have to say too that while tarot gives much comfort and guidance, and people say my readings are spot on, tarot never told me my kid was going to be disabled by neuro-immune disease, or the level of disaster of Hurricane Katrina, or that Trump would be elected, or any major horrors I've seen. I never saw them coming via Tarot.
[14:55] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): I find I can never read anything that is about me or which affects me personally with tarot
[14:55] Liz Wilner: so Tarot won't give Powerball numbers, then
[14:55] Lady Sumoku: We wouldn't have been able to duck many of those things anyway.
[14:56] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Zantabraxus Aristocarnas!
[14:56] Merry Chase (merrytricks): But Tarot has given me ways to look at the past and present and hints of things to be prepared for, or ways to influence the future, like Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas to come. Shadows which may yet be, or not.
[14:56] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Yeah, I can only read for myself in a limited way, that's true too.
[14:57] Merry Chase (merrytricks): It's good even if you're a good reader, to have someone else read for you sometimes.
[14:57] Merry Chase (merrytricks): And yes, can't duck what's coming. You can only hope to influence things for the best.
[14:57] Merry Chase (merrytricks): And maybe with these ancient roots and universal archetypes, tarot helps put it all into perspective.
[14:58] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Powerball numbers. Hm. I actually have not tried that so I can't be sure it wouldn't work!
[14:58] Lady Sumoku: I'm kicking myself for not buying one of those 365-day emergency food pallets now. :P
[14:58] Wildstar Beaumont: :)
[14:58] Lady Sumoku doesn't have room for four years' worth
[14:58] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Well, then there's the value of preparedness. I put a whole lot of effort into assembling an emergency supply box, which got stolen from my car!
[14:58] Lady Sumoku: D'oh
[14:59] Merry Chase (merrytricks): yeah
[14:59] Merry Chase (merrytricks): pfft
[14:59] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Did the cat return?
[14:59] Merry Chase (merrytricks): So we can try to divine the future but the gods and other humans will always mess with us anyway.
[14:59] Merry Chase (merrytricks): The cat?
[14:59] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Pfft.
[14:59] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Angry cat, ja?
[15:00] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Oh, maybe my cat is the one who took my emergency box from my car, and has set up a secret bunker somewhere.
[15:00] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta): Cats are devious like that
[15:01] Lady Sumoku: http://www.quickmeme.com/img/9
[15:01] Merry Chase (merrytricks): hahaha
[15:02] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Ermengarde, I wonder, has anyone written Tarot For Your Cat?
[15:02] Merry Chase (merrytricks): That may be a golden concept there.
[15:02] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta): I've seen the Tarot for Cats, which is interesting. Mostly as cats like to sit on things.
[15:02] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Right.
[15:03] Merry Chase (merrytricks): That's all my cat has ever done with my cards.
[15:03] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Drat, it's already been done, though. There goes my retirement plan.
[15:03] Lady Sumoku: I think you can count yourself blessed, then.
[15:03] Merry Chase (merrytricks): ha, true
[15:04] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Are there any other questions?
[15:04] Lady Sumoku: Maybe there's room for Tarot for Hamsters.
[15:04] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I noticed that the entire proceedings will be posted on the website. I hope the person noting things down hasn't crashed and lost their notes.
[15:04] Lady Sumoku: We will collaborate if there are gaps
[15:04] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): We would appreciate copies of your images to include.
[15:04] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Okay, yes!
[15:04] Merry Chase (merrytricks): To whom should I provide those?
[15:05] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta): There will be photos posted in the Flickr group also :)
[15:05] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Also, please touch the sign with the Sun, on the right. It will give you presents.
[15:05] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Ancasta Resident!
[15:05] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas): We are slightly behind on the transcripts, due to the nature of holiday schedules, but hope to be caught up soon.
[15:05] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Danke, the gift is very kind.
[15:06] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Are there any last tips before we reward our speaker appropriately?
[15:06] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I'm very gradually creating a full set of tarot t-shirts. By the time SL5 is out I may be done.
[15:06] Lady Sumoku: We'll probably be on our third lives by then.
[15:06] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta) grins
[15:06] Salon Speaker Tipjar: Thank you for supporting the Aether Salon, Wildstar Beaumont!
[15:07] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thank you all so much for being here, and being interested in this stuff, and for your generosity!
[15:07] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Danke again for your very interesting presentation, and for speaking at the Salon in general.
[15:07] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) applauds
[15:07] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn): Thank you!
[15:07] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta) applauds!
[15:07] Liz Wilner applauds
[15:07] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn) applauds
[15:07] Renza (karenza.mccullough) applauds
[15:07] Lady Sumoku cheers
[15:07] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thanks! I am sorry, again, that I couldn't make it more of a multimedia experience, but do watch for the exhibit at Botanica which will be very much one.
[15:07] Wildstar Beaumont: very interesting ! thank you !
[15:07] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thanks!
[15:07] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): ✯˜*•. ˜*•✯•*˜ .•*˜✯
[15:07] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): ✯˜*•. ˜*•✯•*˜ .•*˜✯
[15:07] Senna (sennathesoothsayer): ✯˜*•. ɊǷǷﺎﻣɊƲՏȻ .•*˜✯
[15:07] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thank you all so much!
[15:08] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta): Its been really interesting, I've learned a few things.
[15:08] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Great! I'm so glad!
[15:09] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I've had a ton of fun researching this, since I created my first exhibit for Decades Festival about 2.5 years ago.
[15:09] Merry Chase (merrytricks): My second exhibit was at Rocca and drew a lot of visitors so I'm excited to be working on v3.
[15:09] Merry Chase (merrytricks): And of course I'll be happy to read for any of you. Just message me.
[15:10] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): You had an aether address for that?
[15:10] Merry Chase (merrytricks): ah yes
[15:10] Merry Chase (merrytricks): merrytricks@gmail.com
[15:11] Merry Chase (merrytricks): or drop me a notecard inworld
[15:11] Liz Wilner: how do you do those remotely?
[15:12] Martini Discovolante: hello Otenth! soz i missed your greeting earlier. pokey day for this little lump of coal!
[15:12] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I I've had successful readings here inworld, or via skype, or email.
[15:12] Lady Sumoku: It's fine weather for pokey days, at least in the northern hemisphere.
[15:12] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn): I just assumed you were off chasing children in some other existence.
[15:12] Merry Chase (merrytricks): It's actually startling -- or maybe not -- for people who know how strangely intimate and present this virtual reality can be.
[15:12] Merry Chase (merrytricks): But it seems startling to me how well remote readings work.
[15:12] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn) nods
[15:13] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn): I like your comment on your website about how SL strips away the "meat world"
[15:13] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Oh and telephone, of course. Mustn't forget that fine invention.
[15:13] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Ha, thanks!
[15:13] Martini Discovolante: i met my quota early.
[15:13] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Exactly.
[15:14] Martini Discovolante: thanks to the state of the edu system, they are none too bright , these new ones.
[15:14] Merry Chase (merrytricks): There's a way we're more present to one another here, than in the flesh.
[15:14] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) smiles at Fraulein Martini and the unexpected knight at his feet
[15:14] Merry Chase (merrytricks): So many nights are not what we expect.
[15:15] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas): My goodness, Hello JJ
[15:15] Martini Discovolante: i hear the knights are longer this time of year in this heisphere
[15:15] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander) groans
[15:15] Merry Chase (merrytricks): For anyone who wanted to hear the tarot talk, it's over but it will be up on the Salon blog and I think I'll put it on my blog as well.
[15:15] Wildstar Beaumont: time to go ... good night everybody and thank you again Miss Chase
[15:16] Lady Sumoku waves
[15:16] Merry Chase (merrytricks): JJ is here at nearly Solstice, so of course is nearly the shortest knight. [Note: My brain must have been in the Southern hemisphere at this point.]
[15:16] Renza (karenza.mccullough): Good night and thank you.
[15:16] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn): Thank you very much.
[15:16] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas) groans
[15:16] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thank you all again, so much!
[15:16] JJ Drinkwater graons
[15:16] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn) waves goodbye and poofs.
[15:16] Liz Wilner: Thank you Merry...and thank you Baron and Baronin for hosting this once-again interesting salon! :)
[15:16] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I know, I should have had more puns in my talk. I'll try to be better prepared net time.
[15:16] Wulfriðe Blitzen (ancasta): Take care everyone
[15:16] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thanks and happy Solstice to all!
[15:16] Otenth Håkon Paderborn (otenth.paderborn) left chat range.
[15:17] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Bitte sehr
[15:17] Liz Wilner waves to all
[15:17] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas) smiles at Liz
[15:17] Merry Chase (merrytricks): I'll be here for a few minutes more, cleaning up my mess.
[15:18] Lady Sumoku is glad she doesn't have to do it.
[15:18] Zantabraxus (zantabraxus.aristocarnas): Merry, thank you so much for the interesting talk, and on such short notice.
[15:18] Baron Klaus Wulfenbach (klauswulfenbach.outlander): Indeed.
[15:18] Merry Chase (merrytricks): Thanks!
