The Tarot Podcast with T. Susan Chang

The Tarot Podcast is sharing the secret sauce this week! it’s the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure spread, my hands-down favorite form of narrative problem-solving.  Choose your starting point and endpoint—and then let Fate handpick three magical tasks to accomplish on your personal heroic journey!

In this week’s bonus post: some tips to help you start and end your journey. Available to all paid Patreon members!

Links for this episode

BONUS POST: How to Start and End Your Tarot Adventure

Episode 09: World’s Simplest Problem-Solution Spread

4 Stories: An Elemental Approach to the Tarot 

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Become a Tarot Podcast member!

Shop for Tarot Podcast MERCH! & cool stuff made by your host!

Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!

Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)

The effervescent Ethony Dawn returns to the show this week! to talk about an energy practice that’s really crucial for tarot readers: grounding. When you work with tarot, you’re reaching out with your subtle senses and making yourself alive to synchronicities and wonders. Groovy!  

But working these delicate antennae in extended client sessions can leave you feeling woozy, faint, and disconnected. In this episode, we talk about how you can reconnect with the Earth and re-anchor yourself in good ol’ reality.

Ethony is an author, tarot reader, tarot teacher, and High Priestess. She’s the author of Become an Exceptional Tarot Reader, Tarot Grimoire, and Your Tarot Court (Llewellyn) and created several decks, including Luminous Flow Tarot, Cosmic Wisdom Tarot, Modern Love Tarot, and Awakened Soul Oracle. As Headmistress of the Tarot Readers Academy, she teaches Tarot worldwide. Ethony is an ’80s child who loves Halloween, Care Bears, and the ocean. 

 

Links for this show:

Episode 58: Tarot Myths with Ethony Dawn

Ethony’s website

Ethony’s YouTube channel

Ethony on Instagram

Ethony on Facebook 

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Become a Tarot Podcast member!

Shop for Tarot Podcast MERCH! & cool stuff made by your host!

Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!

Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)

😊 And...don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, and share!! 😊

This week, the Tarot Podcast brings you one of the best-selling tarot decks of all time: the Wildwood Tarot. Creators Mark Ryan and John Matthews joined me to discuss the roots of this deck in pre-Celtic mythology, earth-based shamanism, and the lore of Sherwood Forest. (Artist Will Worthington was unfortunately unavailable for the interview.).  Anchored to the Wheel of the Year and the earth’s seasonal cycles, the Wildwood Tarot has proven to hold enduring appeal for pagan practitioners and mainstream readers alike.

 

As always, there’s a patron reading using the deck at the end of the episode. If you yourself would like to submit a question for a reading on the Tarot Podcast, sign up as a paid member!  You’ll find out when readings are happening on Patreon or Discord and be able to share your question then!

This week’s Patreon bonus content includes additional readings AND the Bow Spread from the Wildwood guidebook. 

 

 

Mark Ryan (b. 1956) is an English actor, singer, author, and action director whose career spans West End musicals, television, and film. He's best known to mainstream audiences as the voice of Bumblebee, Jetfire, and Lockdown across the Transformers franchise, and for his iconic portrayal of Nasir in Robin of Sherwood and Mr. Gates in Black Sails, alongside work as a swordmaster and fight director on films like King Arthur and First Knight. Before entertainment, he served with British Army Intelligence and Special Forces, later working as a licensed US private investigator (as described in his 2015 autobiography, Hold Fast). Ryan's most enduring contribution to tarot is the Greenwood Tarot, created with artist Chesca Potter, which he later reworked with John Matthews and illustrator Will Worthington into the internationally bestselling Wildwood Tarot, followed by a 2017 companion workbook, Wild Magic. 

John Matthews, dubbed "Oxford's answer to all things mythic," has worked as an independent scholar since 1980, building a lifetime study of Arthurian legend and, more recently, the history of piracy, across a publication list topping 200 titles — among them Pirates, a number-one New York Times bestseller for 22 weeks in 18 languages. He has advised on major films including King Arthur, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Prince of Persia, and won a BAFTA for the King Arthur education DVD. His tarot work began with the Arthurian Tarot, devised with Caitlin Matthews and now some 150,000 copies deep across three editions. He went on to create the best-selling Wildwood Tarot with Mark Ryan, along with The Shaman's Oracle, The Camelot Oracle, The Lost Tarot of Nostradamus, and The Sherlock Holmes Tarot. His latest publications include The Sleeping Beauty Oracle, The Circle of the Sidhe, and Merlin's Mirror Oracle.

 

Links for this show:

The Wildwood Tarot

Sherwood Oracle:

Robin of Sherwood (TV series 1984-86) 

Arthurian Tarot

This week’s bonus content

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Become a Tarot Podcast member! patreon.com/thetarotpodcast

Shop for Tarot Podcast MERCH! & cool stuff made by your host! etsy.com/shop/tarotista

Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!
thetarotpodcast.com

Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)

😊 And...don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, and share!! 😊

Tarot IRL is back, with our very first court card! In this episode, we examine how the energetic and enthusiastic Page of Wands shows up in the lives of ordinary folks.

In her hand, the Page holds the Ace of Wands—our natural force, our initiative, our motivation. As the rank representing beginning in the suit representing beginning, she’s the embodiment of beginner mind. She represents our zest for life, our willingness to try, the latest new thing. What can’t she do?!

When you draw the Page of Wands, look out for the following themes:

People giving and getting announcements

People learning or starting new things

People playing and creating stuff

Young enthusiastic people

People doing earth-of-fire things

People experiencing the sun/heat

✨ To share your stories about the Knight of Wands for the next Tarot in Real Life segment - please join as a Patreon supporter of the Tarot Podcast!  You can also write in to the show at thetarotpodcast.com/about, using the contact form at the bottom of the page.

Links for this episode:

Ep. 60: Intro to Court Cards.

4 Stories: An Elemental Approach to the Tarot (2025)
(Link above is better for creators, but here's an Amazon link if that's easier.)

Shop for cool stuff made by your host! 

Tarot Deciphered: a card-by-card encyclopedia of tarot lore and correspondences.

Become a Tarot Podcast member!

Sign up for readings and explore books and classes! https://tsusanchang.com

Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)

😊 And...don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, and share!! 😊

Animal decks are commonplace in the world of tarot, but to my mind the very finest of them is the Animal Totem Tarot, published in 2016 by author Leeza Robertson and artist Eugene Smith. In our conversation, the creators share the story behind Leeza’s meticulously-conceived animal correspondences and Eugene’s exquisite inkwork, which came together in an unforgettable 78-piece work of art..

As always, there’s a patron reading using the deck, at the end of the episode. If you'd like to see more of the Animal Totem Tarot in action, we have a few more readings in this week's Patreon bonus content. 

(If you’d like to submit a question for a reading on the Tarot Podcast, sign up as a paid member! at https://patreon.com/thetarotpodcast. You’ll find out when readings are happening on Patreon or Discord and be able to share your question then!)

 

Leeza Robertson is an international bestselling author with Llewellyn Worldwide. She is a girl from the Aussie bush living her best life in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her wife. When she is not writing books or creating decks, she is helping other writers bring their dream of publishing into reality.

Eugene Smith is an illustrator born and raised in California now residing in Chicago, IL.  He decided all that time spent doodling in notebooks and scribbling on walls should be put to good use and so he pursued a BFA in painting and drawing from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. His work has appeared in books, editorials, tarot card decks, and educational graphic novels. He lives with his lovely wife, two children, and an odd dog.

Links for this show:

Animal Totem Tarot
(Amazon listing)

Leeza’s website

All of Leeza’s decks and books for Llewellyn 

Eugene’s website

All of Eugene’s decks for Llewellyn

Celestial Unicorn Tarot
(Amazon listing)

_______________________________

Become a Tarot Podcast member! patreon.com/thetarotpodcast

Shop for Tarot Podcast MERCH! & cool stuff made by your host! etsy.com/shop/tarotista

Sign up for readings and explore books and classes!
thetarotpodcast.com

Continue your tarot journey with The Living Tarot book and/or The Living Tarot online class (discount for class available if you purchase the book!)

😊 And...don't forget to like, rate, subscribe, and share!! 😊