How I Created a Community of Tarot Reading Using Living Tarot Cards
Written by Catherine Starr, Life Coach, Speaker, and Tarot Reader
Catherine Starr is a Life Coach, Speaker, and Tarot Reader, bringing transformative experiences to individuals seeking to design and manifest lives that ignite passion and fulfill purpose. Her ritual-theatre piece, Oracles from the Living Tarot, brings Tarot cards to life, providing community and personal insights. Her commitment to mentoring and guiding others is a cornerstone of her work.
Could it be possible to create an experience for a community where Tarot cards were brought to life and were able to provide a true reading for a community? This is how I developed a process and created Oracles from the Living Tarot™.
How did I start this process?
I started working on the concept of bringing a Tarot deck alive for a community reading when I was part of the San Francisco Bay Area theatre company, Magical Acts Ritual Theatre. The company worked to combine ritual and theatre into the productions we did. This seemed like it would be a perfect concept for the company.
I started with a simple question. Could I bring a deck of Tarot cards to life and do a traditional Tarot divination for a community? At the time, this idea seemed simple, and this question became the basis for creating Oracles from the Living Tarot™. Over the years, this has become so much more than a simple answer to my question. It has transformed people’s lives.
What did I use as a framework for a Tarot reading?
The concept is to bring the twenty-two standard Major Arcana cards to “life” before an audience and create a community tarot reading for the year. As part of the ritual-theater piece, the cards are invoked, shuffled, and then chosen to represent different times of the year.
In a traditional Tarot reading, the reader will lay out the cards in a particular pattern. I created a Calendar of the Year layout by using thirteen full moons and the eight seasonal holidays in the Wiccan Wheel of the Year Calendar. This gave me twenty-one card placements for the year plus a final outcome card placement. In this way, I was able to ensure all twenty-two cards in the Major Arcana would be utilized for a reading.
Becoming a living Tarot Card
For the first deck, I enlisted members of the theatre group as well as several friends. The mix of people included actors and magical practitioners who knew how to do trancework. Each person who takes on the role of a living tarot card goes through their own personal discovery about the card they will portray. This includes research into the meanings associated with the card. They decide what oracle they will present to the audience, and how they will present the card. I work with and train participants in both acting and magical practices so they can truly become the card for the production.
How is the actual reading done?
The play itself has four parts. First, there is a theatrical opening that transforms into a ritual to create the sacred space so the cards can be properly invoked. Over the years, this opening has changed. Since I started presenting this piece to audiences in Europe, I have customized the opening based on where we were. In Scotland, I used the first scene from Macbeth with the three hags. In Spain, I used a story about magical caves. Once the sacred space is created, the living tarot cards are invoked. They enter the space and move through the audience to represent the shuffling of the deck, finally ending in front of the audience, ready to be drawn.
The second part is the actual tarot reading. Physical cards are drawn by audience members and then announced. The living tarot card that represents the card that was drawn steps forward to present their oracle, or message for what will be important for the time of the year in which the living tarot card was drawn. After their oracle is presented, the living tarot card goes to sit in the designated space for the time of year. This continues until all twenty-two cards are drawn and the final outcome card has been drawn. By the end of the reading, the audience is surrounded by the living tarot cards. The audience is now sitting within the reading that was done for them.
The third part of this play provides an opportunity for the audience to interact personally with the living tarot cards. Audience members are invited to pull a personal tarot card and then get a one-to-one reading with the living tarot card. Some of the most memorable exchanges have occurred during these one-on-one conversations.
The last section is the closing of the ritual space. Once all the personal readings are complete, the living tarot cards are “picked up” and returned to the area in front of the audience. Then the living tarot cards are returned to a non-magical state. Lastly, the ritual space is closed.
A brief history
The first production of Oracles from the Living Tarot was done in October 1998 in Palo Alto, California. Since then, there has been at least one presentation of this ritual-theatre play every year. Sometimes, instead of a full production, I led a workshop, but these always included a reading. Full productions have been done at the PantheaCon conference in California, starting in 1999 and for several years until the end of this conference. Productions have also been done in San Diego in 2001, Reno in 2002, and Oakland in 2003. In 2016, I did the first workshop in Italy. Since then, there have been productions in various places in Europe and Toronto, Canada. We even did an online version during COVID. In 2026, we will celebrate the tenth year of European productions in Italy.
Did I get my question answered?
But through all of this, did I get my question answered? Did I bring a traditional tarot divination to a community of people through living tarot cards? Over the years, there are many stories of how our readings matched events that happened in the larger community. The best example is from 2019. I produced two community readings that year. The first was in August in Poland and the second was in October in Toronto.
In Poland, the last two cards were Death and the Tower. In Toronto, the last two cards were the Tower and Death, the same two cards, just reversed. So, what happened? Within a few weeks of the Toronto reading, we started to hear about cities in China going into lockdown due to a very contagious virus. This was the beginning of COVID, and the two cards representing death and very sudden changes suggested that something major was going to occur. That we got the same outcomes from two readings done within months of each other and with different audiences indicated to me at the time that there was going to be something very big coming to the entire world. But this is just one example. There are more, including transformational stories about how the personal readings affected people.
The stories I have collected are all part of the book I am in the process of publishing. To get a feel for how a version of Oracles from the Living Tarot looks, here is my blog for the Toronto 2019 production.
If you are interested in doing a production of Oracles from the Living Tarot, contact me.
Read more from Catherine Starr,
Catherine Starr, Life Coach, Speaker, and Tarot Reader
Catherine Starr is a life coach, spiritual leader, hypnotist, speaker, tarot reader, and creatrix of Oracles from the Living Tarot. She has been developing transformative experiences for over three decades. Catherine is the creative force behind the ritual-theatre play, “Oracles from the Living Tarot,” a groundbreaking production that has captivated audiences worldwide since its inception in 1998. This immersive experience is still performed annually around the world, including nine countries, and online during COVID. This production brings Tarot cards to life to give a reading for a community. Those who have embodied a card describe interesting personal experiences and transformation, while audience members have received insight and inspiration from their interaction with the Living Tarot cards. She has served in several interfaith organizations and is a Global Trustee for the United Religions Initiative.
