The second annual Minnesota Area Tarot Symposium (MATS) is scheduled for the weekend of August 20-22, 2010, at the Dakota Ridge Hotel in the Twin Cities suburb of Eagan, Minnesota.

Katrina Wynne, a psychotherapist who writes about tarot counseling, will be on Tarot Today Radio, sponsored by The Tarot Guild this Tuesday, August 10th at 6pm (PT). Catch the Tarot Today radio show twice a week—Sundays at 10am (PT) and Tuesdays at 6pm. You’ll find lots of great interviews and discussions at the Tarot Today Radio website. Also, check out Katrina’s blog post on “Tarot Counseling vs. Predictive Readings.”

Mike Hernandez has an intriguing blog post on Prediction versus Forecasting when answering questions about the future.

U.S. Games Systems, Inc. now has a blog, Fool Stop Tarot overseen by Janet, the USGS Social Media Maven, that showcases new decks and also has fun games and interesting articles. My favorite is the “Tarot CSI Case Series” in which you identify the crime based on the evidence of a couple of tarot cards. There’s also a fascinating interview with Stuart Kaplan by Dr. Stephen Winick, Folklore Specialist for the Library of Congress. What will be of great interest to many in the tarot world is Kaplan’s discussion of the controversy over the rights to Waite’s deck. Kaplan explains, “The copyright protection on the Rider-Waite Tarot runs to 2021, which is seventy years after the date of death of the artist [Pamela Colman Smith].” While many will want to argue this—that U.S. copyright places works around the world prior to 1923 in the public domain, or that the art was a “work for hire” and so copyright ends in 2012 (seventy years after the death of Waite)—Kaplan has sued twice and won both cases. The 2021 date and the creative rights of Pamela Colman Smith have yet to be tested in court.

Simon Wintle‘s World of Playing Cards website features a timeline of Early References to Playing Cards and lots of other goodies.

Julia Gordon-Bramer reports that in the original manuscript of Sylvia Plath’s book of poems, Ariel, the poems were ordered according to the Tarot and Qabala. The first twenty-two poems are associated with the Major Arcana and the next ten with the ten pips and sephiroth, followed by the four ranks of the Court, and then the four suits. This ordering is apparent in Ariel: The Restored Edition (2004) as explained in an article by Gordon-Bramer for the journal Plath Profiles. Download a pdf of the article here. Listen to Sylvia Plath read “Daddy” with its tarot reference here.

James Wells created “An Empowerment Tarot Layout” (found at his always inspiring Circle Ways blog) based on the twelve resources for empowerment that I discovered through the life stories of Moina Mathers, Florence Farr, Maud Gonnne and Annie Horniman and explain in my book Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels & Priestesses.

James Ricklef continues his popular “Ask Knighthawk” tarot advice column on his new blog and invites readers to send in a question. “Ask Knighthawk” was the basis of James’ innovative and extremely helpful book Tarot Tells the Tale. Also check out his deck, Tarot of the Masters.

Tero Hynynen from Finland has created his own animoto video on the Book of Thoth. His Tarotpuu blog has articles on Tarot in both Finnish and English.

The latest issue of the Association for Tarot Studies Newsletter features an article on Rudolph Steiner and Tarot by Jean-Michel David.

Tarot Professionals has recently opened Tarosophy Tarot Town, a social networking environment. Membership is currently free. Also check out issue 7 of Tarosophist International. It has some of the best articles I’ve seen in a while: Robert Place: The Often Misunderstood Pamela Colman Smith, Dr. Angela Voss: Divination as Divine Revelation, Dr. Elinor Greenberg: Tarot & Psychotherapy: The Bad Cards, Katrina Wynne:  Tarot & Counselling, Jean-Michel David: Tarot & Certification, Mike Hernandez: Using Multiple Decks, Lucy Setters: Finding Your Intuitive Voice, Tero Hynenen: Tarot Walkabout [an amazing concept!!! mkg] and much, much more.

Donnaleigh and Storm Cestavani host blogtalk radio’s Beyond World’s—Your Tarot Tribe. They recently talked with Enrique Enriques about the Marseille deck, poetry and more. After their summer vacation they’ll return on September 11th with an interview with Robert Place on the Minor Arcana. And don’t forget The Storm Cestavani Show that covers the worlds of spirituality, pop culture, and celebrity via astrology, tarot and psychic insights among other things.

Leisa ReFalo‘s The Tarot Connection podcast has just celebrated its 100th episode with a discussion of tarot’s most controversial issues featuring Donnaleigh, Storm Cestavani, Ginny Hunt, and Thalassa [what a line-up of those-in-the-know!].

I updated my post on Mlle. Lenormand (see end) with the text from a novel about the French Republic by Alexandre Dumas that describes, in depth, Lenormand’s readings for both Josephine and Napoleon. Dumas claims, though, that this part of his book is not fiction: “I can guarantee the truth of this scene, for these details were given me by the friend and pupil of Mademoiselle Lenormand, Madame Moreau, who still lives (1867) at No. 5 Rue du Tournon, in the same rooms as the famous seeress, where she devotes herself to the same art with immense success.” Certainly the card reading itself, for Josephine, has the most detail I’ve ever seen describing a nineteenth century card reading.

Let me know what things I’ve forgotten and I’ll create a new Tarot News Shorts for all the things I’ve missed (& those that haven’t been created yet).