sprites by king-lulu-deer
i've been reading tarot for almost ten years, mostly for myself. in the last couple of years i've discovered how much i love reading for other people. most of the time, that's just tipsy shuffling at my favorite bar, but i have recently had the opportunity to do a couple of events. which means, i suppose, that i'm now a professional tarot reader, and that's kinda cool.
to add:
sprites by king-lulu-deer
over the 2024 halloween weekend i hosted two almost back-to-back tarot nights where i read fortunes for dozens of people at a packed college bar. here are some highlights:
i performed as Madam Moth in a costume i made from scratch. i found a blackout curtain at a thrift store and turned it into a wing cape with painted details. obviously it had to have big eyes on the back, so i sewed on a couple of red safety reflectors as the pupils so they could catch the light. the curtain had a white lining so i added some designs with a sharpie - this was the last-secondest addition and i like how it came out but i think i definitely could have done better with a bit more planning.
the headpiece was cobbled together with a headband, battery tea lights, and plumes from a feather duster. the lights are my favorite part. unfortunately it was a really warm couple of days so the cape didn't get much wear while sweating in my booth, but i did get to go out and catch a local band between events and dance around with my wings out, which was fantastic.
everyone was so lovely and sweet! i was a little worried that someone would take offense (this is the Deep South after all) but even the people who were uninterested were politely so. i have no idea how many people came through the booth - it had to have been close to a hundred over both nights. they were flash readings, just three to six cards, but they were a lot of people's first reading ever.
i'm not in the business of giving out bad news based on a deck of cards, so readings this quick and contextless are essentially a mix of motherly encouragement, exuberant hype, and gentle life advice. i pulled eight of pentacles for a lot of people and told them all that i was proud of the hard work they'd been putting in. three of cups was a reminder that they were loved by their friends and so worthy of that love. the magician was a celebration of their competence and the tools at their disposal. some of them really needed to hear it, and told me so. some of them welled up a little and some sat in the booth stunned for a few seconds before rejoining their friends.
the very best customer, though, was a dachshund named Benny, wearing a bear costume and held in his owner's arms like a football. i pulled king of pentacles reversed and told him that he was the little king of everything and he would never even know it.
the venue provided a tablecloth for me on night one, but since night two was an unplanned encore, they didn't hang onto it. i needed something a little more aesthetic than a stained wooden table, so i improvised. since it was too hot for my cape anyway, my wings became my tarot cloth. it wasn't ideal, but i think it was poetic, and there was a lovely gravity to packing up my props at the end of the night, then sweeping the cape off the table and onto my shoulders like a traveling gleeman.
i absolutely want to do this again, certainly next halloween but maybe sometime in between. i have service industry friends in a couple of different bars nearby who might host me. i absolutely want to make another cape regardless - my wings are cozy and warm, and it would be rad as hell to have a handmade, custom decorated cloak for the winter.