Tarot Dreamers: Make Your Tarot Deck Course 2: The High Priestess and Her Gifts
I’m so proud and pleased to continue to offer Tarot Deck Making classes. The writing and artistic process has been richer than I’d imagined in these classes as we explore how to translate the larger ideas behind each card into a vision card that works for each one of us given our unique histories and unique set of goals we hold dear for our future.
Want to step in and join us? Our process repeats—exploring our relationship to the past, present, and future in relation to our dreams and the cards in writing and through the art mediums of our choice. The assignment of card, our focus of Major and corresponding minor cards, is what changes.
Here’s my in process Ace of Disks, the self poised mid-tree, learning to connect to sun in sky and the core sun in center of the earth through the internal sun or heartline in order to accept the role of body as a filament of sorts. By that I mean a filament or flame inside of a lantern, giving off light for the self to better see where next to step on the path fully grounded, secure, rooted, learning from the trees.
And here’s my Ace of Windmills (Ace for the Suit of Air). It corresponds to the idea that one can stand rooted in all forms of weather, transforming the powerful winds of adversity into alternate forms of energy such as inspiration to create art. Ever since I was a child I have loved standing out in the pre-storm rain and wind and have loved the way wind wakes up the edges of my body.
Each of us explores our own symbol past and present, which we discover gradually as we write to prompts to help us prepare to draw. I love seeing the rich variety of art and symbols appearing for everyone in class–every card is so very different, as unique, of course, as our thumbprints. For me as a lucky guide and perpetual student of the Tarot, that is precisely the feral, thrilling joy of our shared inquiry.
*Note New Start Date:
The next seven-week online course features The High Priestess. We start on January 9th and end on February 24th. By completion of this course, we will have drafted a Major Arcanum vision card for The High Priestess and for her corresponding Minor Mentor cards: the Two of Cups, Two of Disks, Two of Swords, and Two of Wands.
Course Cost is $350. Course communication will take place over a combination of email, Zoom, and private online discussion forum. Prompts, feedback, forum, and Zoom provided; participants are responsible for materials for the art form they choose to practice for the duration of the course. To sign up, visit The Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot Facebook page to message me there.
If you are unable to take courses now but would like to stay in touch about future classes, sign up for my monthly Wheel of Archetypal Selves Newsletter (offers Poetry and Tarot related news and tips) here: Wheel of Archetypal Selves.
Here’s a more detailed description of the Tarot Dreamers Deck Making Series:
Would you like to try your hand at creating your own Tarot-inspired Vision Deck? Whether you have been working with me during prior Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot writing courses or studying the Tarot on your own, I’d like to invite you to join me for a beautiful new adventure online. Tarot enthusiasts and artists at all levels of engagement (beginning to advanced) are invited to join us as we create a card a week to honor our own visions and interpretations of the basic Tarot energies present in the decks we have been handed down through time.
What an exciting time to read, play with, and study the Tarot! Have you noticed the rich proliferation of decks and artists creating their own versions (from Steampunk to Fairies to Cats to Counterculture Tarot of the 60s) and weaving their own chapters along the Tarot Tapestry? Though I learned first on the Motherpeace deck over twenty years ago and have since come to use Rider Waite and Thoth decks as my home decks, the Tarot library I offer my reading clients includes Roots of Asia, Inner Child, Shadow of Oz, Voyager, Daughters of the Moon, Tarot of the Wild decks and many more. The doors of Tarot interpretation stand wide open!
I want this class to be an opportunity for you to create the most personal of all decks, one that speaks to you and draws on your own inner world of symbols…a deck by you, for you. There’s a good chance your finished deck will inspire others, but this course is first and foremost about creating something that enchants and inspires you.
You choose your medium of response and deck creation: sketch, quilt, collage, block print, colored pencil, watercolor, sculpture, photography, song, movement and dance (maybe you wish to choreograph or play with sound or video recordings), or other medium of choice–you name it, claim it, choose it, and try it.
Coursework includes written prompts, conversing and sharing drafts of your Tarot vision cards/interpretations on our private community page and a weekly video conference call.
You will have the opportunity to:
Reflect upon, in writing, each card and its existing associations, connecting it to your own lived experiences up until now.
Dream upon, in writing and medium of your choice, the most compelling, true-to-you version of that particular card as you would like to express it, draft it, and create it as you work towards creating your own Tarot inspired vision deck. Let’s ask, as we create each card: What would I like to welcome into my life with this card?
Play and explore in a community of like-minded and like-hearted Tarot enthusiasts. Whether or not you are new to the Tarot and/or new to expressing yourself through a particular artform, this is an opportunity to give yourself the chance to try a new artform or to hone one you’ve used before; our community thrives on joy, nurturing, and helping one another past barriers of self-judgment that tend to rise during creative enterprises.
Move at a pace that works for you and your life; there’s no pressure to complete a card a week, but you will have the opportunity to journal and draft your way to a deeper relationship to the Tarot and your own symbol world.
I am committed to teaching my way again through the entire Tarot Deck (as I have since 2012 with my prior Minor Mentors of Tarot and Wheel of Archetypal Selves classes). Courses will be offered in consecutive six-week installments (with the usual breaks for holidays and the calendar school year); this first course runs seven weeks to accommodate the Fool.
We will work on one Major Arcanum card at a time while exploring the corresponding Minor Arcana suit cards; each course will afford you the opportunity to create approximately five cards.
*I’m sure I will offer the full series more than once, so please don’t worry if you miss a particular seven-week course.
Related post on my background and Tarot lineage:
Tarot Butterflies 2: Exploring the Minor Mentors of Tarot
A Tarot writing exercise for you to use:
Earth, Air, Fire and Water: Using The Tarot to Inspire Your Writing Practice
Tarot for Two, where I co-blog with Mary Allen:
For an example of the kind of writing these courses produce, see this post by Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus:
Related Tarot Services:
Tarot Consult Services with Writing Prompts
Interviews with Tarot Deck Makers:
Rachel Pollack, The Shining Tribe
Two Sylvias Press, The Poet Tarot
Testimonials from students who have taken Tania’s Wheel of Archetypal Selves Tarot Writing Courses:
- I’ve taken all of Tania Pryputniewicz‘s Tarot classes (and two of her blogging classes) and her course materials are always stimulating and inspiring. I’ve learned to think about the Tarot in a different way thanks to Tania’s writing exercises. Tania always makes very insightful and helpful comments. It’s a great dialogue—we’ve learned together. I’ve learned so much about the Tarot, and about myself through this class. I think some people might be put off by the idea of working with the Tarot, but Tania connects the cards to life and we’ve had such great conversations about life and love and more as we’ve worked through the major arcana. —Mary C., Pine CO
- As a published poet whose writing has plumbed the depths of the symbolic world underpinning the Tarot, and as an illuminating guide and teacher to their archetypal keys, there are few, if any, other mentors of Tania’s calibre whose call to follow the threads of meaning will carry you to the spaces within where you have long yearned to go. I recently took Tania’s class on the Wheel of Archetypal Selves, and was amazed each week not just at Tania’s deeply intuitive responses to my work, but even more so at the places and levels of inner understanding to which she led me. Tania teaches as if she is transporting her students on a magic carpet through the landscape of the Tarot. I cannot recommend her classes highly enough! —Edith O’Nuallain, Ireland
- Tania Pryputniewicz‘s knowledge of the tarot and writing and combining the two is incredible. The exercises she sends and the feedback are always right on target and she provides additional exercises for certain topics (as they arise). I still re-read some of her feedback for inspiration. —Lynn W., Irving TX
- I loved the materials Tania Pryputniewicz presented and the responses she gave to what I managed to write…I LOVED the materials and the instructor. I will come back to them for some time and they will continue to inspire and inform my writing. —Marsha P., Bala Cynwyd PA
*September 10, 2016 Addition: In response to questions I’ve been asked regarding the course, I’ve put together a short Q and A for you below:
Tarot Deck Makers Q and A
Do I have to commit to making an entire Tarot Deck of my own?
You will have the opportunity to begin to create your very own Tarot Inspired Vision Deck—you work at your own pace. We focus on six Tarot cards in this first class: The Fool, The Magician, and the four Aces. The Fool card welcomes us to our deck making adventure. The Magician inspires us to pick up our tools, the Aces. The Ace of Cups invites us to bring forth the chalice of self-love and compassion (heart), The Ace of Swords invites us to bring forth our vision with clarity and focus (mind), The Ace of Disks invites us to stand firmly on the earth and welcome the translation of our vision into a material deck (body), The Ace of Wands invites us to bring our passion to the project as we consider how we would like to next direct our vision-aligned actions as depicted by the images we create for our decks (will).
Each course, no matter where you step in on the “wheel” of the Arcana, is meant to ground your deck making experience and give you the courage to keep creating cards, either in the rest of the series of classes I’ll be offering this year or on your own. Because it is a Tarot Inspired Vision Deck, you may choose to deviate from the Tarot’s structure, but I will be teaching sequentially through the deck to give us a grounding structure upon which to improvise.
Do I have to commit to a particular artform?
This course gives you a chance either to work in a medium you already feel comfortable working with or a chance to try something new—collage, watercolor, photography, you choose. You are also free to draft as many versions of your card as you wish; perhaps you’ll start out with a photograph and then decide to collage the photograph to add other elements or text.
Do I have to have a certain skill level with my artform or the Tarot?
This course is open to all level of student. We will read a variety of Tarot interpretations for each card, journal to connect our lived experiences to the card, and envision in writing and with art to create our own version of the card. The focus of the course is shared exploration as we create our decks.
Tarot Blessings and thank you for your interest!
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