Two weeks ago, I taught at my first virtual tarot conference, StaarCon 2021. Based on the East Coast in Florida, hosted by the ever-lovely Christiana Gaudet, this was a special treat to attend. Christiana asked me for a video of me spinning fire, and I obliged. She used it to kick off the 3-day event, and it was a special gift for the community to see the fun hobby I love.
On Saturday, I taught a full chatroom full of eager students in my class, Mix and Match, playing with two decks. I shared with students across all divination styles how they can easily blend and build their readings and styles using more than one technique.
I shared slides of my studies and variants done by talented peers in the community. Then we flexed our muscles on creating ideas of how their two decks could integrate. Then I gave them five other experiments to test—both in reading styles and stand-alone techniques. The feedback was great, and everyone had a good time.
The virtual platform, Accelevents, was also fun to use. Not only did it record many of the classes so we could all take the material others taught, but I felt like I was a streamer hosting a class on Twitch. I even set up two polls to collect some data around what the community thought of using decks. The poll showed me that I hit my target demographic and expanded their creativity and divination muscle.
While I look forward to attending in-person events in the future, I am relatively confident that the new technology coming out for conferences will do its best to mimic the real feel of being together better than any of us thought. There were so many ways to engage with one another in chat and video sessions together and individually; it was like being at the real thing. But all from the comfort of staying at home and being in our comfy pants.