Think of Me

“You know,” my client said towards the end of our session, “if you ever get a feeling about how things are going to go for me, don’t hesitate to reach out and let me know.”

I was momentarily silent, even in my head. This is not my normal state of course, rendered speechless even unto inner voices.

I searched for the words to express, in the kindest way possible, that I don’t spend my waking hours with my wireless receiver turned on awaiting news from The Beyond about that client, or any other, in fact. Oh, sometimes I’ll get zapped with anything from a static-electric thought to a meteorite explosion that rattles or sometimes smashes my inner windows. Seriously, though, if I paid attention every buzz around me, I’d be, well, I’d be addle-brained. I’d look like Mrs. Beetlejuice or the Bride of Frankie or something. TMI, that (now probably passé) term for overshare, for a card reader translates to something like sticking a house key in a light socket. Kiddies, don’t try this at home.

I have heard and met some people with what I think of as “Open Channel Distress.” Most of the soothing sounds cooed to those people are urgings to “ground” themselves (still sounds like electricity, doesn’t it?) and then to take steps to “shield” themselves (waxing more into a Star Trek-like image). Personally, I drink a lot of water, do breathing exercises and somehow, the way human beings learn to do with other invasive input all through the day, learn to put the constant stream of input into a category of white noise. Otherwise, it’s like listening to all the radio stations at once and for people who are interested that’s probably a good way to kill me! But, I’d prefer to work things out before it gets to that, if it’s all the same to you.


Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord


Nevertheless, I felt the need to say something kind to this person who is obviously in distress, listens to perhaps one tenth of the good advice anyone gives her and is trying desperately to figure out how to make the world work in her favor. She has real problems, no doubt, and the anxiety often clouds her ability to perform triage on her own life. She wants to know the equivalent of the winning Lotto numbers for her own life so that she can bet on them and make things work. She wants the Instruction Book for Success.

Please! If you too are an experienced reader, please stop gagging or laughing or being disgusted. Don’t be angry at my client. She’s a work in progress in her own life, trying to make the connections that there is more than one way to get what you want, what you need than by having the all the answers. She’s an example of someone who needs help, even if she listens to very little of it, who wants help even if she doesn’t realize that adjusting how she views things, rather adjusting those things, will reduce much of her stress and strife, allowing her to focus clearly on her priorities to get out of the hole she’s in.

And please don’t be angry with me for not booting her in the pants. Trust me, I have several times. She comes to me to talk about herself to herself in the guise of friendship. She will ask how I am with no follow up questions on the answer. She’s just not very good at that. She’s got too much going on with herself, plus a pattern of behavior that keeps her panicked and focused on herself. When she runs short of energy, she seeks that of others to buoy her spirits, entertain her, distract her, make her laugh, but only for a short while. The conversation inevitably goes back to her troubles, her life, her situation, her distress, her anxiety. And she cries over her losses and her anticipated failures. She may ask to borrow money.

Debbie Downer, you say? Probably more like Debbie Drowner, the one who would, if rescue should arrive, pull them under with her.

She’s pretty too.

She and other clients like her are the very reason that psychics, sensitives, readers, intuitives, fortune tellers and plain ol’ card readers need to ground themselves and figure out how to shield themselves. Many readers in the professional community will refuse to see people they perceive to be “chronically self-destructive with consistent collateral damage.” Even the people who charge much more than I do for a reading say the drain isn’t worth it, not for someone who doesn’t understand that the burden for change in their circumstances is on them, not on the world or the reader, not on the cards or their mother. It’s tough psychic love.

There are people in the business who seek out such histrionics, who actively look for people stuck in their own distorted hall of mirrors where they see only themselves and their own distress. They pump them for cash, cash in exchange for the fuel of attention that feeds the never-satisfied monster within them. The people who get the money are called frauds, and should be called that and prosecuted.

The people who come back again and again for the attention are frauds too, fooling themselves. They will not be prosecuted, but their punishment of themselves and others will continue until they make the connection, if ever. So, although I have my limit on how much of this kind of soul-sucking I can take, I have a couple of clients like this. (Nope, not accepting applications for more of this kind of client; full up right now.)

The 3 of Swords typically signifies heartbreak, the kind that doesn’t kill you, the kind that keeps going on and on. Practically everyone experiences it from time to time. There are some exceptions. It’s what you do next that counts. If you don’t do anything next, well, there you are, in perpetual torture. To me, the people who stay in perpetual torture get something out of it, some reward.

A poem and song came to mind while I was thinking about this, the Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott,” set in part to music by Loreena McKennitt. The Lady is cursed to look at the world through a mirror that reflects mostly grays and if she looks away, she will die. But she is tired of looking at the mirror and seeing her world reflected in grays.

"I am half sick of shadows," said

The Lady Of Shalott.

She is distracted by the gleaming Sir Lancelot, who is just passing through on his way home and takes no notice of her. Having looked up, she realizes her fate and her fascination with the world that she cannot have and takes a boat downstream to Camelot. She sings and dies and comes ashore where the people of Camelot find her dead in the water. Lancelot’s comment is that she had a pretty face, a superficial observation expressing his lack of connection to the unfortunate creature.

It sounds so romantic! Fabulous art has been created from this sad ballad, this story of wasted love supposedly based on the story of Lancelot and Elaine, Elaine the girl Lance didn’t love. It’s so pretty; you almost forget she’s dead! It’s one thing to appreciate a sad romance; it’s quite another to pattern your life from it.

What was the flaw? Was it possibly the perception that beauty and happiness are something other than what she was experiencing before she glanced away? Was it that she could not love the life given to her and having left it could not live? Was it that she made herself helpless?

I don’t know who cursed the Lady of Shalott. The poem says she doesn’t know either, or was it that she just did not want to see? I have a feeling that she cursed herself by the reflection of herself and her own life as gray and lifeless, by her refusal to see the possibilities of happiness within herself that needed only a small adjustment of light to reflect a better view, a tilt of the mirror under her own hand.

If she reaches out, even blindly, there may be hope she tilts her world into a better perspective. That's when I will be there.

Best wishes.