THE standard tarot deck, used to illustrate most general tarot books, the Universal Waite deck, drawn by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909 to illustrate Arthur Edward Waite’s scholarly treatise on the tarot, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, published ever since 1911.

Well, the day finally arrived to test my first version of the numerology course with tarot accents. I prepared ten folders full of handouts, both reference materials and worksheets. I set up my big pocket chart full of the Universal Waite tarot cards, which my brother-in-law had nicely adapted to hang over a bookcase. I stood at the foot of Caritas’s conference room table, facing seven cheerleaders, including my dreaming buddies and astrologer (who replaced me in the dream group).

After months of being a nervous wreck and stressing over how best to present this “easy” workbook, Who Are You in the Tarot, by Mary Greer, when the time finally arrived, I felt relaxed and enthusiastic! I had worked so hard for so long preparing all these handouts, there was nothing else to do. And facing a room full of dear friends cannot feel very intimidating.

The good news was that everyone did seem to have fun. My introduction seemed to flow well, and the timing was about as I expected. Some people resonated with their results. (I’m not sure about the others; the class was intense and my brain drained before I thought to ask.)

The not-so-good news was that the process was more difficult than I expected. Numerology is based on numbers 1 – 9. Tarot is based on numbers 1 – 22, with SOME figures reduced to 1 – 9, but not all of them. My long worksheets were not detailed enough, and my examples were not much help.  The biggest shock to me, a long-time reading tutor, was that most of my adult, avid lifelong-learning students did not realize that the letter Y is often a vowel. A few of them had to redo their name-related calculations because they counted Y as a consonant instead of a vowel.  Sorry, guys.

The GREAT news was that they were all very good sports, cheerful despite some frustration, and gave me many specific, helpful ideas to use for upgrading the handouts and the presentation. I can’t do any work on it for another three weeks, but I took lots of notes and Anand recorded the class for me, so I can listen for ideas I missed later.

It was a wonderful experience. The best part was that I DID it and did not have a heart attack! My friends had a fun afternoon helping me test and improve my first teaching project. (Boy, did I have a lot to learn about teaching it!) They were very understanding and patient with my frustration—not so much with them, but with my own not anticipating some of the complications.  I can’t wait to try out version 2.0 on my Fairbanks neighbors!