Two Hours in the Conference Room

I was in a room just off the main party. The music was going outside and there was a great buzz around the building, but inside the room it was quiet enough for people to settle into a reading and take it seriously. That balance is harder to find at a corporate event than you might expect. You want a bit of atmosphere around you without it drowning out the conversation in front of you.

The costumes added a lot to it. I would be halfway through a reading and look up to see a giant inflatable dinosaur drifting past the window. It sounds like a small thing but it really did make the readings better, because everyone was already in a playful mood and quicker to relax and open up.

The People

There was a great mix in the room. Some people had never had a tarot reading in their life and were not sure what to expect from it. Others had sat with a reader before and a few read the cards themselves or had friends who did. That mixture made the conversations genuinely interesting, because the questions were coming from completely different places. A first timer mostly wants to know what this even is. Someone who already knows the deck wants to go deeper and see how far it will go.

A few people got emotional, which always means a lot to me. It tells me they felt comfortable enough to say something they had not said out loud in a while. Whatever is shared with me in a reading stays with me and that trust is the thing that makes the space work at all. Tarot is entertainment at an event like this and I never pretend otherwise, but it can also be a way for someone to get something off their chest when they need to. When both of those things happen in the same evening, that is the best version of this work.

A Company Where People Seem Happy

I do a lot of corporate events and there is a running joke in my head about what I overhear. At most company readings there is at least one person quietly weighing up a job offer somewhere else. None of that was happening at ARUP. Everyone I met seemed to actually like their job and like the people around them and it showed in the way they talked about their teams and the way they were enjoying each other's company. It is a rarer thing than it should be and I hope they know it.

The Card of the Night: Judgement

Judgement came up more than any other card across the evening. It turned up in reading after reading and when a card keeps arriving like that you sit up and pay attention.

Judgement is not about being judged. It is a call to take stock, to look back at where you have been and recognise how much you have grown along the way. Most of us are so fixed on the next thing that we never stop to count what we have already built. This card asks you to pause and give yourself some credit, because you have come further than you think.

It is not always about moving forward either. Looking back and understanding your own path properly is how you work out where to go next and the Oracle at Delphi summed it up when they said "Know Thyself". That was the thread running through the whole evening.

Samantha and all the team on the Dublin ARUP Social Committee, thank you for having me. It was a lovely way to spend a pre Halloween evening and I would happily come back any time.