WHO ARE THESE DAUGHTERS?

Thalassa, Our Esteemed Founder, Executive Director, and Queen of Air and Darkness is the producer of the San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium (SF BATS), the oldest continuously-produced divination event in the country, if not the world. She is the founder of the Daughters of Divination and publisher of the Tarot ‘zine The Belfry. She has been reading, teaching and working with the Tarot for 37 years and is working on an advanced level book on Tarot technique, as well as researching the history of the Tarot.

In addition to her class series taught around the Bay Area, she has presented at the World Tarot Congress, the New York Tarot Festival, the LA Tarot Symposium (LATS), PantheaCon and the Whole Life Expo. Thalassa has been published in several alternative spirituality publications, including the late, lamented Tarot Network News (of which she was the Associate Editor). Her classes are renowned for the unique perspective and breadth of useful information delivered in a lively and entertaining style that makes learning fun.

Thalassa is a third generation native of San Francisco, and still lives in the City with a herd of feral dust bunnies, a sword collection, and more books and Tarot decks than any rational person should have in their possession at any one time.

Miss Patricia, aka Catwomyn, has been fascinated by Tarot for the last 30 years, and by shiny rocks for even longer. She is one of the Founding Members of the DoD, Editrix Emeritus of The Belfry, and heads up the Crackpottery Barn Desk at DoD Central. She has taught classes in Tarot, crystals, and crystal skulls. Catwomyn has been working to correlate the energies of various gemstones and crystals with the energies of the Tarot. Her other hobbies include belly dancing and pendulum dowsing.

Anastasia, Chief Henchwoman, Quasi-Legal Counsel, Web Goddess, and Worthy Matriarch of the WWKD Secret Society first met Thalassa many years ago when playing silly noble games at Renaissance Faire. Her main purpose in DoD is keeping track of things like calendars, paperwork, and the book inventory on Half.com. She is editing copy for the next issue of The Belfry even as we speak. (Well, as you read.) You’ll probably find her running the Millard Fillmore Memorial Spiritualist Temple Garage Sale at events. Anastasia functions as quasi-legal counsel, and really is working on making DoD an honest-to-goodness non-profit corporation. Anastasia also maintains this website, despite having only a nodding familiarity with HTML.

Despite the fact that Anastasia’s first Tarot deck was an Official James Bond Tarot of The Witches, Thalassa allows her to be a Daughter anyway. (See, she grew up in the Midwest, and in 1972 there weren’t a lot of Tarot decks kicking around in that part of the world.) Anastasia now reads with a variety of decks, and has lost track of the James Bond deck during the course of several cross-country and international moves. In her copious spare time, she runs a couple of small businesses and sleeps now and then.

Thena MacArthur (aka Sheree Naija), Shamanism Desk and 32^nd Degree Member of the Thundering Mongolian Horde & Ladies’ Tasseography Society is the founder of IISHA: The Institute of Intercultural Shamanic Healing Arts – a website dedicated to being perpetually under construction while attempting to provide a network of shamanic and alternative healers. She is a regular contributor to the Belfry and a frequent lecturer San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium (SF BATS), LA Tarot Symposium (LATS), and PantheaCon. She teaches irregularly at various California Wellness centers and Oakland’s Ancient Ways.

She counts herself very, very blessed to have studied with various teachers including Ai-Churek (a Tuvan Shaman); Larry Peters (Tibetan/Nepalese Shamanism); Michael Harner (Neo-Shamanism); and Hank Wesselman (Hawaiian Shamanism.) Her studies have focused recently on Himalayan and Central Asian Shamanic Practices. Her divination methods include the use of stones, bones, cards, and her drum.

Thena is also an artist, having provided the covers for the PantheaCon programs for the last five years. Additionally, she has created a new divination deck, called Shamanka: the Oracle of the Shamaness.

A resident of Berkeley (oh, there’s a big surprise!), she lives with her cat Mac, piles of historical costumes, way too many books (if there can be such a thing,) and occasional visits from her Raccoon and Squirrel neighbors (much to the surprise of Mac.)

Rose Red was swimming through the world of religion at a young age and finding no clear answers, and then received a copy of Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon. Eureka! This had some answers that made sense to our young woman. Then she read A.E. Waite’s Pictorial Key to the Tarot, and she was sold! Okay, so she the book was a bit of a bore, but the cards made her skin tingle! Then she went off to have a life with someone who was very supportive, but didn’t get It. She woke up a few years later, found the cards again, and has been reading ever since. She did a turn as the “Vanna White of Tarot” at the Pagan Pride Day 2005 for the DoD and, well, our Vanna didn’t turn letters, she turned cards when the she was asked to read. She has been enjoying her journey ever since.

David Shultz, Nordic Studies Sage and On-the-Scene Correspondent Live from Valhalla (see asatru/seið) can be found obfuscating and elaborating extensively upon simplistic declamatory interrogatives. Often involved in deific intervention during the flowering of equinox-influenced manuscript dictation detailing the subtleties of interactive contemplation. Just remember: Wunjo and Dagaz make for a happy day!

Brian Williams, First Dues-Paying Daughter was a Tarot genius, a dear friend to all in the Tarot community, and the first dues-paying member of DoD. For a full appreciation of Brian, please see In Memoriam.

MORE BIOS TO COME!

(As soon as the Daughters get around to writing them . . . .)

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