Reading for Myself

So many tarot readers say they cannot read for themselves. In fact, in the many Tarot “myths” abounding, one of the more popular ones especially about 40 years ago and persisting today is that a Tarot reader “shouldn’t” or “can’t” read for themselves.

In an effort to bust myths about Tarot, Mary K. Greer wrote a classic called Tarot for Yourself, published in 1984. It’s still available and a good workbook for Tarot readers who want to do the work, the real work of The Hermit’s introspection. There are exercises, meditations; we’re talking homework here. But like some of the other best Tarot exercises, when you can feel those muscles at the end of the workout, you know you’ve learned something. And you probably can read for yourself.

I’ve taken a trip through older books lately, so I can’t really classify Mary’s book with the oldies from the 19^th century, but in the 1980’s, Mary’s book was trailblazing as part of the modern Tarot movement. We give “props” to Mary for this and her many other books and contributions, perhaps not enough props!

I thought I’d draw a few cards for myself about my Tarot experiences over the years.  I drew three cards.

Before we get to those, I should say that I started out first reading regular playing cards as a child to amuse myself. I particularly liked the Queen of Clubs. When I bought my first Tarot decks, like most other people I stuck pretty closely to the little white book that came with the Rider Waite Smith deck and David Palladini’s Aquarian Tarot. It took a while for me to let go of the training wheels. One of the features of most of those earlier Tarot instructions was a large spread called the Celtic Cross.

Even the name sounded like mystical powers! Ten cards in a spread started out, “This card covers you,” signaling the topic of the reading and perhaps noting the quality of the card that could help you; then, “This card crosses you” went on to represent the challenges and hurdles to be overcome.  The Celtic Cross proceeds card-by-card with each position of the spread representing a unique aspect of your situation.

I probably used the Celtic Cross spread for the last time about 30 years ago, maybe more. The items covered in that spread can be a pretty good comprehensive reading but I quickly found that, reading for myself, I may not care to go through each position and ponder, say, the past influences on the current situation, or what other people think about it all in my reading. For instance, if the topic were my cat’s health, I really didn’t care if people thought I was an insane Cat Lady. Bless them all, each and every one, but the topic was what are the best things I can do all around while my cat is ill. Peer pressure had very little to do with that.

I think it’s this comfort zone readers come to when they realize they probably don’t need a 10-card spread to tell them what they need to know. Many professional readers will use 2- to 7-card spreads for just about everything.

There are exceptions of course. My friend Kristine Gorman (catch her weekly radio show Visionary Woman Tarot with Kristie Gorman on Mondays, streaming live on KSVY FM http://sunfmtv.com/) uses variations of the Celtic Cross and 3-card spreads, dealing cards on top of cards as the reading unfolds. She’s a great intuitive reader and someone I go to for readings when I want a second opinion.

Robert Place showed the Readers Studio attendees a mind-blowing spread of three cards per chakra, so do that math there and you’ve got a bunch of cards on the table. While listening to Bob’s explanation and instruction, I realized that this reading could take a good two hours done properly. I wondered if I had the attention span to last through it, let alone one of my clients. But, remember, we can use the Tarot for multiple reasons and a long meditation on chakras and blocks could be just the ticket.

Still, I’m more inclined to use fewer cards now and go more deeply into those fewer cards. One of the temptations of using more cards or a large spread is to ignore the cards that aren’t making sense to you at the time. To me, that’s the Big Signal that I need to Pay Attention in a reading. Glossing over a message is so often what we do in everyday life. I don’t do a reading to get the same perspective that ordinary observation gives me. If it doesn’t make sense right away, it’s like the thing I need to know.

So I pulled three cards: Page of Cups, 3 of Swords, The Emperor.

From David Palladini's Aquarian Tarot

The first two cards made me think of all the experiences I’ve had as an intuitive reader. My earliest experiences so often brought the sense that something bad or difficult was going to happen. The Page of Cups receives messages and learns from the realm of spirit and emotion, the essence of the intuitive reader. The 3 of Swords signals sorrow, actually just one of its interpretations.

I’ve been thinking lately about the way intuitive readers or psychics in the news almost always make the sensational headlines with predictions of big, scary events. I remember a Tuesday night when I was restless and could not settle down. Finally, I drew three cards with the question (poorly worded and certainly not recommended for a good reading), “WHAT???” The cards I drew were eye-poppingly terrible and I realized something really awful was going to happen. I followed up with a question about who is affected and finally got the sense that it was no one I knew personally; a few days later the tsunami hit Japan. Now, this would, of course be a much better story if I had put that reading out in some public forum with a clear date/timestamp. I didn’t. It was, after all, a reading to help me figure out why I was restless.

One of the things I maintain is that Big Bad News is one of the easier things to predict because if you sense the news coming, getting the message that something Big and Bad is going to happen is a lot like saying you could hear someone screaming in your face.

Another thing about sensing difficult events as a professional reader means I feel an obligation to help people through some difficult times. And sometimes some of the reasons just defy logic which actually is another aspect of the 3 of Swords. Logic sometimes fails and must come home to the heart.

Finally, here’s the kicker: The Emperor. So I spent a lot of this talking about the easy part, the intuitive reader senses sorrowful subjects. But what’s the Emperor doing here?

There are plenty of possibilities, but one of them is that I need to remember that while I’m walking other people through difficulties, I’m also one of the resources in my own empire that I need to defend with the setting of boundaries. The Emperor is in charge.

I can take a hint. I was blue today, so I took a luxurious bath with bath salts and lavender. That and some enthusiastic adjustment from my chiropractor made a huge difference. Because no matter what the news is, I’m in charge of the choices I make next.

Best wishes.

June Weddings

We traditionally associate June with weddings and while now it seems tied to college graduations or good vacation weather, there is of course some history behind getting married in June.

A cousin’s son is set to marry next weekend and the family is all in a dither about the joyous occasion. The groom is handsome; the bride, beautiful. We have found the perfect gift within their wedding registry, a handy way to make sure the happy couple does not begin their new life together with seven toasters and no sheets. Lately, I think the trend is to buy the youngsters gasoline credits or contribute towards the perfect honeymoon. No matter. It takes away the sleepless nights wondering if the green salad set you found for them would be donated immediately to Goodwill.

In Tarot, several cards can point to love and marriage. The Hierophant can signal a traditional wedding ceremony performed by the officiator who understands the spiritual bonding special to marriage. The 2 of Cups can mean the shared intimacy between the bride and groom, the bond they have with each other and no one else, the honeymoon. The 4 of Wands can signal marriage and the marriage ceremony, but my sense of it usually is the wedding reception and not the ceremony itself; peace between two houses who come together to create something more, with friends! And, of course, in this year of The Lovers, the joining of two separate individuals, the selection of what completes and complements.

I found a fun collection of wedding “tips” in one of the old books in my collection, Madame Fabia’s The Book of Fortune Telling to share with brides, brides-to-be and brides-averse. These are meant in fun and curiosity and are traditions from a time gone by.

The Luck of Weddings.

We have heard this one most often:

“Something old, something new,

Something borrowed, and something blue.”

 

But of course there is more. For instance, of particular interest to cousin Patti and all those who sew:  “The little sempstress, working on the wonderful wedding dress, takes care to sew a little cutting of her hair into the hem of the dazzling white gown, so that she, too, may soon wear her bridal toilette.” I love the term sempstress. It somehow sounds like the dress is less likely to fall apart; there’s no proverb about avoiding wardrobe accidents on one’s Big Day but I know that was high on my own list of anxieties at the time.

Color, from the familiar saying, makes a difference and not just in celebrity fanzines:

“Married in white, you have chosen all right.

Married in green, ashamed to be seen.

Married in grey, you will go far away.

Married in red, you will wish yourself dead. [a bit extreme, ed.]

Married in blue, he will ever be true.

Married in yellow, ashamed of the fellow.

Married in black, comforts you’ll lack.

Married in pink, your spirits will sink.

Married in brown, you’ll live out of town.

Married in pearl, you’ll live in a whirl.”

 

I rather like the whirl one although it’s not for the faint of heart. You can see the clear preference for white here. You can make some of your own up for new traditions. Married in salmon, you’ll ne’er live in famine. That rather works, I think. Married in off-white, your in-laws will fight. Well, it isn’t always good news, the color thing. I note here that tradition avoided the inevitable issue with finding something to rhyme with orange, although what comes to mind is a prison jumpsuit so perhaps that’s best left alone.

And here’s some advice for family: “If a bride has elder sisters, they should wear something green at her wedding—preferably stockings—or they will never be married themselves.” I’m just waiting to see if older sisters start showing up in green stockings. The book doesn’t specify whether the stockings are lime green, or spider-web fishnet, so there is at least some room for creativity here.

The day of the wedding itself provides extra hazards to watch out for:

·         A bride should never break anything on her wedding day, as it foretells strife.

·         She should not try on her wedding dress or veil on her wedding morn [no consequences provided, however, ed.]

·         She should not forget to feed the cat, as it may spite her by bringing down rain [or perhaps puddling in the bed or throwing up in her shoes, ed.]

·         She must not lose the heel of her shoe, or she will be unable to get on with her husband’s relatives

·         She must not keep back her tears, as it is said she will have wept them all away, and she must not touch rags

·         It is a bad omen if a bride encounters a hare, a dog, a cat, a lizard, a pig or a funeral when going to church, but spiders or frogs foretell happiness and prosperity, and a lamb or a dove are good omens also. A bird singing on the window on the wedding morn is most luck.

·         On driving to church, the bride must sit with her back to the driver. [This would seem to require special transport or violate safety standards, ed.] If she sits on the back seat, she will always occupy second place in her husband’s affections.

·         A bride should not stumble or fall on the threshold [wow! This actually happened to me at my first wedding! Well, I have to say from personal experience, this might actually be good advice, ed.], and she should enter the church with the right foot foremost. She should come out of the church by the same door as she entered by.

·         A bride should not see a pin on the ground as she leaves the church.

·         It is very bad luck to lose the wedding ring. [Nice they include a bit of advice for the groom, who would never hear the end of this one, ed.]

·         For the green stocking set: A piece of wedding cake, drawn three times through a wedding ring, and laid under the pillow, and dreamt on for three nights is sure to induce one to dream prophetic things of one’s future husband or wife. Sometimes three names are written on three slips of paper, and one removed (without peeping) each day. The last is the future husband’s name. [I think the Tooth Fairy got bored with giving money to children and decided on a new business model, ed.]

·         The clergyman should be paid with an odd sum of money.

 

Finally, there is a rhyme for best days of the week to marry:

 

“Monday for wealth,

Tuesday for health,

Wednesday the best day of all.

Thursday for crosses,

Friday for losses,

Saturday no luck at all.”

 

Since most weddings these days occur on Saturdays for the convenience of the workaday world, it is no wonder we wish the happy couple good luck!

And for the parents of the groom this Saturday, we wish all love and good fortune as they shoo their youngest birdie from the nest onto his next Great Adventure! And perhaps we also may wish them something to calm their jangled nerves.

Best wishes to the bride and groom and all of the rest of you!

Spot Treatment

I have been amused going through some of the old books in my collection and want to bring you some of my favorites. It’s popular to have inconvenient spots and moles removed. A friend just had one treated that might be more serious, so be sure to take note of any change in a spot or a mole on your skin.

I'm vigilant myself because my Dad fought with little skin cancers in his later years, so much so that he developed a crush on his admittedly gorgeous dermatologist and because my sister-in-law has had a few rounds with skin cancer. Here’s an SPF rating that you can use for prognostication. And don't forget your sunscreen when you're enjoying summer sun.

My source is Sibley’s The Popular Fortune-Teller. Mary Greer and I did a brief bit of detective work and determined that my edition is approximately 1872-1874 based on the other books that are advertised in the back and the style of ornament on the cover. This adorable little red book which is actually two books in one has a variety of ways to tell things with objects you probably think of for the task, like cards, and then also with things you don’t usually think of.

If you seek your fortune and your future, look no further than your own mirror, in the privacy of your own home of course. May your own spots bring you fortune like the Ace of Pentacles! Yes, finally, you can try this at home. Below is quoted from Sibley.

Prognostications by Moles.

It is necessary to know the size of the mole, its colour, whether round, oblong, or angular; because each will add to or diminish the force of the indication. The larger the mole, the greater the prosperity or adversity of the person; the smaller the mole, the less his good or evil fate. If it is round, it indicates good; if oblong, a moderate share of fortunate events; if angular, a mixture of good and evil; the deeper the colour the more it announces favour or disgrace; the lighter, the less of either. If very hairy, much misfortune; if few long hairs grow upon it, it denotes prosperity.

2.       A mole on the right side of the forehead or right temple signifies sudden wealth and honour.

3.       A mole on the right eyebrow, denotes a speedy marriage with a person with amiable qualities and good fortune.

4.       A mole on the left of either of those three places announces unexpected disappointment.

5.       A mole on the outside corner of either eye denotes a person to be steady, sober and sedate; but liable to a violent death.

6.       A mole on either cheek signifies that the person will never rise above the mediocrity in fortune; though he will never fall into poverty.

7.       A mole on the nose shows that the person will have good success in his undertakings.

8.       A mole on the lip, upper or lower, proves the person to be fond of delicate things, and much given to the pleasures of love, in which he or she will be successful.

9.       A mole on the chin foreshadows great prosperity and high esteem.

10.     A mole on the side of the neck shows that the person will narrowly escape suffocation but will afterwards rise to great consideration by an unexpected legacy or inheritance. [Hmm, still waiting for that rise and unexpected legacy, methinks, ed.]

11.     A mole on the throat denotes that the person shall become rich by marriage.

12.     A mole on the right breast denotes a sudden reverse from comfort to distress by accidents. Most of his children will be girls. [There is no mention of her which may be too delicate a discussion for the 1870’s, ed.]

13.     A mole on the left breast signifies success in undertakings and an amourous disposition. Most of his children will be boys.

14.     A mole on the bosom portends mediocrity of health and fortune. [One must get out one’s dictionary to determine how bosom differed from breast in the 1870’s, ed.]

15.     A mole under the left breast over the heart foreshadows that a man will be of a warm disposition, unsettled in mind, fond of rambling, and light in his conduct. In a lady, sincerity in love, quick conception and easy travail.

16.     A mole on the right side over the ribs denotes a coward and a person of dull understanding.

17.     A mole on the belly denotes sloth, gluttony, selfishness and slovenly in dress.

18.     A mole on either hip denotes many children, and those that survive will be healthful, lusty and patient in all hardships.

19.     A mole on the right thigh denotes wealth and success in marriage.      

20.     A mole on the left thigh denotes much suffering from poverty and want of friends, as also by the enmity and injustice of others.

21.     A mole on the right knee denotes good choice of partner for life and few disappointments.

22.     A mole on the left knee portends that the person will be rash and inconsiderate, but modest when cool, honest and of good behavior.

23.     A mole on either leg shows that the person is indolent, thoughtless and indifferent.

24.     A mole on either ancle [sic.] denotes a man to be inclined to effeminacy and elegancy of dress—a lady, to be courageous, active and industrious, with some spice of the termagant.

Well! Just in case you aren’t familiar with the word termagant, I looked it up (in Wikipedia, of course) and it is not particularly flattering: “a violent, overbearing, turbulent, brawling, quarrelsome woman; a virago, shrew, vixen.”

If you have a particularly unfortunate mole and your doctor agrees, I think removal is the only reasonable choice to protect you from warnings here. Of course, you may be thinking about seeing if you can have one transplanted to your right thigh. I’m not sure that will work, but let me know if it does. I’d love to hear if any of these are “spot on”!

Best wishes!

Astral Numbers

The instant I got home from Readers Studio, I landed right in the middle of a work emergency. One of my co-workers left for other employment and I’ve been up to my Astral Numbers in spreadsheets, something like the 4 of Pentacles. Let’s just say I’ve had it up to here with foot and tick.

So, in honor of all that, I thought I would bring you a little exercise in Astral Numbers from a book copyrighted 1899. Much like the documentation my co-worker left me, some important details may be missing. I leave it to you to fill in the blanks. Oh, and if you decide to use Excel spreadsheets, please don’t tell me about it. Nothing personal, really. It’s just my nerves.

Excerpt from Occultism Simplified or the Mystic Thesaurus, by Willis F. Whitehead, Past Supreme Grand Vizier, Ancient Order of Oriental Magi, copyright 1899 by The Charles T. Powner Co.:

The Astral Number.

Every person has an Astral Number which represents the conditions and culminations of life. It is formed from the Astral Numbers of the day and month of birth, the year born, and the planetary forces operating on the individual, as denoted by personal history and constitutional make-up. Following are the

TABLES OF ASTRAL POWERS.

Powers of the Planets.

Mercury -               994356                 Saturn -                           241056

Venus -                  964224                 Uranus -                          120528

Mars -                    542376                 Neptune -                        60264

Jupiter -                482112

Powers of the Months.

January -               161624                  July -                              491294

February -              266438                 August -                          324839

March -                  334154                 September -                    353675

April -                    499637                 October -                        227963

May -                     597728                  November -                     217433

June -                    593389                  December -                     188192

Powers of the Days.

1 -      157732                   12 -    622348                   23 -    386152

2 -      213136                   13 -    491128                   24 -    468772

3 -      256876                   14 -    361852                   25 -    683584

4 -      358936                   15 -    236464                   26 -    524176

5 -      461968                   16 -    186892                   27 -    362824

6 -      533896                   17 -    169396                   28 -    269512

7 -      616516                   18 -    154816                   29 -    246184

8 -      656368                   19 -    221884                   30 -    198556

9 -      722464                   20 -    233548                   31 -    163564

10 -    881872                   21 -    274372

11 -    719548                   22 -    376432

CENTURY ORDINATES: 19^th, 8331652; 20^th, 8331642; 21^st, 8331632; 22^nd, 8331622. These tables are correct.      

Directions for Casting the Astral Number.

Set down in regular order, under each other, the powers of the planets, etc., as follows:

1.    If a male, set down the power of Mercury.

2.    If a female, the power of Venus.

3.    If single, at present, the power of Mars.

4.    If never married, or a virgin, Uranus power also.

5.    If married now, the power of Jupiter.

6.    If single through divorce, the power of Neptune.

7.    If light complexioned, the power of Venus.

8.    If black hair and eyes, both Mercury and Venus.

9.    If medium complexioned, use no powers.

10. If own father is dead, the power of Jupiter.

11. If own mother is dead, the power of Saturn.

12. Set down power of month of birth.

13. Set down power of day of birth.

14. Set down the year of birth.

Add together. The sum total is the Astral Number.

To test the work, add the four figures of the year of birth together, and their sum, to one final digit. This will also be the “final digit” of the Astral Number.

The Century Ordinate is added to the Astral Number. Analysis is made by means of elaborate books.

When applied to the Zodiac, the operative results of the Astral Number, through analysis, indicate that:

1.    Aries represents a male.

2.    Taurus, a female.

3.    Gemini, a married person.

4.    Cancer, that the mother is dead.

5.    Leo, a dark complexioned person.

6.    Virgo, a virgin of either sex.

7.    Libra, a medium complexioned person.

8.    Scorpio, a widow or widower, or divorced.

9.    Sagittarius, that the father is dead.

10. Capricornus, that the father is alive.

11. Aquarius, a light complexioned person.

12. Pisces, that the mother is alive.

Well, as Mr Whitehead says, “The ideal mystic life must not be relaxed.” So, I’ll be slogging away at the spreadsheets until further notice.

Best wishes.

When Presented With the Choice

Back at another company, years ago, I found I was about to get a new boss. I had liked my old boss and he had liked me. You might think of that as a plus. Ordinarily, when manager and subordinate are high-performing professionals and agree about goals and approaches and other things material to the work environment, it’s a good thing.

I thought so. I had moved to that difficult area from a job I had really liked, felt good about, and received awards many awards for.  Shortly after my old work group had done a group exercise with the official MBTI test, I found out something that did not surprise me, that I was a different Jungian personality type from the rest of my management team.

I had realized that and sought to make that difference the difference. After all, my type is called “results oriented.” To my mind, it was a good fit for a technology director focused on meeting the needs of business. I had a great team of programmers and managers who were tops at churning out projects that worked, that built on the future, that mattered in helping other technology teams meet their project goals. I liked my peers and our differences.

As it turns out, I was the only person on my management team who was comfortable with my results-oriented approach. I liked my job instead of groaning under the tremendous workload. I enjoyed the projects we worked on, enjoyed understanding them, enjoyed working with the programmers about them. I was happy. My team was, for the most part, happy.

My peers and boss in this group, however, were pretty sure I was the puzzle piece who didn’t fit. When it came time to shrink the group a bit, I was the one who was selected to move out. In the shuffle of the reorganization, a miscommunication occurred, however. My boss thought he had placed me in a “great” job in a group called “journaling” which was an accounting area. Unfortunately, the management of that group had placed someone else in that position and I was stuck momentarily without a chair. I was devastated and it was a measurable part of my performance not to show it.

Stripped of my team and without a new position, awkwardly I was asked to stay on as my VP’s special projects person, which is corporate speak for that deadly position indicating you should find another job immediately. I chugged away to create extensive documentation of my area for a quarter which impressed my non-results-oriented VP to no end and he gave me a high rating with shock and surprise, his.

An opening came up that looked good. Well, it looked like the only possibility of an opening in my company. I spent 45 minutes talking to Charlie and knew we were going to get along.

Charlie was from Texas and was about as un-San Franciscan as possible. Politics and the occasional thoughtless joke aside, he was a good, smart guy who would listen to reason and take a chance to develop employees. He sent me to an excellent technology intensive course and helped me learn the ropes. It wasn’t easy, but I latched onto it and gained the respect of people within the group.

I was starting to heal from being booted out of the department that I had helped create from scratch. I was deep into the new position, a nearly impossible job with too many customers who all thought they should be number one on my list and regularly were verbally abusive. One difference I made was not to pass this abuse along to my team, knowing that beating the horsie seldom makes her go faster when you’re using a sledge hammer.

That didn’t mean I didn’t have a standard of performance for the team. So, when one team member had an issue, which Charlie dealt with, fairly, I thought, I had respect for him. Charlie had explained what happened after it was complete without revealing too-personal details. I had agreed with his assessment and decision. We agreed, even on difficult topics. It was a good partnership.

I didn’t realize how important it was to understand how well-regarded your boss is in an organization. As it turns out, Charlie’s boss hated him, hated everything about him. I also had misjudged that she would project that hatred onto me because I worked well with him. She hated the decision he had made, assumed it was made with the wrong reasoning. She brought each person on the team into her office for interrogation about the issue. I gave my honest answer based on the facts as I knew them, allowing for the fact that I was not present at the time of the alleged incident but had spoken with both Charlie and the employee with the issue.

Honesty was not the best policy. Charlie’s boss easily spread her hatred of Charlie to me also and in an instant, although I was aware only of her displeasure at my report, my fate was sealed.

Charlie’s was sealed a lot sooner and within a month he had been fired for not getting along with his boss. And now, I was getting a new boss.

Naturally, with the upheavals I had had in the past three years, I was anxious to know more about my new boss. Following my own quipped advice that it is always best to learn from the mistakes of others, I called a friend who used to work for the new guy. She was an intelligent, outspoken woman and I thought perhaps my own experience might in some ways mirror hers.

“Now that you know him,” I asked her, “what would you do differently?”

She laughed. It was a laugh I came to understand was one of grateful escape.

“With him,” she said evenly, “you constantly must ask yourself with his every word, his every action, ‘Is he evil or stupid?’ In his case, always pick stupid.”

My spirits sunk low. It had been my experience that when presented with the choice in bosses between Evil and Stupid, always pick Evil.

I know it seems counter-intuitive. Evil can be appealed to on some level. You can accomplish great good while justifying your acts to the Evil Boss as something that will advance his position or otherwise appeal to his sense of greed. But, as I constantly warned my friends, the depths of Stupidity have never been plumbed.

I worked for the new guy for about six months. While he was geographically appealing to his boss, the one who fired Charlie, he was much more sexist, arbitrary, capricious, customer-negligent and the epitome of what business people fear in technology professionals: He wanted to spend their money to buy cool new toys, not to deliver business solutions. I did everything I could to remain professional, competent and customer-focused. He was openly skeptical of my abilities, my intelligence, my prospects and my gender.

When the next round of layoffs came, we talked the evening before. He finally loosened up talking to me, saying that he knew he had given me a hard time in the last six months and frankly he was pleased, so pleased with my performance, that the only flaw he could find with me was that I was “too nice.” He said he thought I had all the makings of a vice president, and he wanted to start work on that once all the layoff stuff was over.

I remembered what I knew of him from experience and from advice. I knew what I had read for myself. I told him that if he needed to tell me that I was laid off, please do me the favor of coming for me the very first thing in the morning. He was shocked that I thought that might happen. I smiled. We shook hands and parted.

The next morning at 7:15 am he came to my office, shame-faced and flustered. To this day, I honestly do not think he knew that the conversations he was having with his boss would result in my being let go.

In the Tarot, “stupid” might be represented by The Fool and “evil,” The Devil. If those are your choices, I urge you to draw another card! Neither one makes a good boss. Just don’t be convinced that those are the only two cards in the deck.

Best wishes.

Time, Talent and Treasure

I couldn’t help telling my wonderful chiropractor that I just flew in from New York and, boy, are my arms tired. When those old jokes crop up in unfamiliar places, they get a life of their own again.

But I did go to New York and I did come back home and I was tired all over. Ruth Ann and Wald Amberstone are so good to try to warn people not to attempt to do everything at Readers Studio. This tosses the gauntlet down in front of me and my Aries sun says, in my best Inner Child voice, “I can TOO do everything if I want to!” My Inner Child needs a spanking. But, oh, my, what a good time!

Time – This year’s Readers Studio included a new extra day of Psychology & Tarot with three lecturers with expertise and unique points of view. First, David Van Nuys, PhD, of http://shrinkrapradio.com/ gave his talk on The Power of Story, the Jungian model, the collective unconscious, synchronicity, archetypes, alchemy and amplification. Tossing in a little Joseph Campbell and Dr. Dave easily pointed out that the roots of psychology and Tarot lie in shamanism. Dr. Dave also talked discreetly, for the most part, about some of his own experiences and the evolution of his career. We ended with a little meditation.

And suddenly, I was standing on a rocky shore with a beach below me, looking at the sea and the bright blue sky. I am the 3 of Wands. A seagull cries. OK, break.

Elinor Greenberg’s session was entertaining and informative. What a revelation! Go back to Looney Tunes and notice that the point when Wile E. Coyote falls into the canyon isn’t the instant he leaves the cliff; it’s the moment he notices he is the Fool walking on air. In the spirit of “a bad life makes good art,” we were provided with materials to make our own oracle decks, reducing concepts to a single word or pictograph to trigger the essence of meaning.

Mary K. Greer was a surprise and welcome substitute when the originally scheduled lecturer for the third session called in sick. Her lecture on Intuition and Transference was eye-popping and sparked conversations long after the session was over. She posited some definitions. Intuition was described as personal bias projected onto a situation with its basis in information available within the environment even if not consciously. Intuition differs from being psychic since the psychic arrives at conclusions with no information in the environment. And, from a psychological point of view, tarot works because it is a projection device. Metaphors do not exist in the concrete world. Truth is intersubjective congruence, the story agreed upon with the example given that we would all say the sky is “up” from where we are and, yet, objectively, the sky isn’t really up. You might say the crowd was stirred; for some, these were “fightin’ words.” There are those who must embrace the concrete and nothing else, however, and this was a good reminder of how much of the world views what we do and the ways we get information in a reading or otherwise.

Still, when I read for a client this weekend, I realized their child was “adopted…sort of”, in fact the product of the miracle of in vitro donor egg and donor sperm. I don’t know where I got that information because I don’t know the client at all, but I did see it as a result of the cards. And I met the adorable child, a miracle herself. How interesting are the many ways we seek to understand how that works!

The next day, we started Readers Studio as I have grown used to. My partner for the Foundation Reading was a newbie from India, the delightful Chandni who is a talented young reader.

Our afternoon teacher was Nancy Antenucci. Known to her fans as “Nucc” (say NOOCH), she was our guide to thinking outside ourselves. With grateful thanks to the generosity and energy of wonderful, wise and funny people who could not be there this year, Nucc walked us around the room letting our imaginations take our personas on a short trek to a strange place. When Nucc said, “Now, walk as if the Chosen One is in the room,” I looked up from my feet and there in the streaming ballroom lights was…Paul Nagy. Naturally, I had to tell him about his Chosen Oneness (with profound apologies to James Wells who may have been misinformed).

Favorite Nucc quote of the day: “I found myself too funny there for a minute!”

Lucky me that I was able to attend Carrie Paris’ oracle class in the evening! I dragged my great collection of Junk Oracle toys a/k/a the Choking Hazard Oracle to her class and they were lovely fun to demonstrate. If you see tarot readers with their fingers boxed like a film director, you’ll know we were the ones in Carrie’s class, practicing one of the oldest forms of augury.

My Day Job took my hours from 11 pm to 2 am and interrupted the first half of the next morning’s session with Major Tom Schick. Tom was delightfully “in the now,” something I sometimes call “Be the Dog” since my dog understands “now.” Tom’s point was to approach tarot from a place of love. My favorite statement of his is that Tarot is counter-indicated for narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths because it is a tool for shaping reality.

Our final lecturer for Readers Studio was Ferol Humphrey who brought us her Living Tarot method. We found ourselves blurting the completion of sentences like, “You may embrace…” and turn over the card and blurt. “You may reject…,” turn over the card and blurt. Ferol met her goal of getting us out of our comfort zones!

Talent – I dashed upstairs as quickly as my bad knee and favorite frog cane would take me for a quick costume change. I had to transform into my “altered ego,” the Page of Wands in time for the Readers Studio Banquet and entertainment. I was almost ready when my roomie Beth Seilonen popped in from her table in the Merchants Mall and shrieked with, well, I think it was delight. She made a couple of key suggestions, anchored my tiara in a jaunty pigtail in back, rolled her eyes at the tutu and pink tights and I was ready for show time!

Dinner was delicious but I could barely eat because of the pre-show jitters. I was grateful for the salad and the righteousness of eating just a little of the salmon I had ordered and then, the curtain call!

As the Miscreant of Ceremonies, I was pleased to introduce one of the stars of the tarot world, Ciro Marchetti, who earlier this year announced his retirement from tarot. He presented a video that showed us that Ciro has moves we never even dreamed of and the power of a thrift-shop red jacket. His contributions have influenced the vision and color of tarot forever. I have admired his basilisk lizard-wrangling technique for some time (a lizard took refuge in his kitchen one day and he published photos…Photoshopped? On Facebook) and it was a pleasure to sit next to him for dinner and talk about the future of publishing tarot decks.

For our next act, a musical interlude from a tarot trio: Mike Hernandez on guitar, Jeannette Roth from Tarot Garden and songbird Maribeth Edwards Elliott Pittman sang songs from the Tarot Songbook, the one that isn’t published yet. (Some pipes, there, Maribeth!!)

Our third and final act from our own troupe of Tarot Players of the Tarot Theatre showed us how those really difficult cards in the deck feel when the party hostess says, “Oh, and leave out those scary cards," you know: Death (Rhonda Lund in exquisite skull makeup), the Devil (I maintain Dan Pelletier is typecast) and the Tower (Nancy Antenucci…and that girl can dance). In spite of their costumes having been lost in the mail a couple of times and never actually arriving at Readers Studio, their play was The Thing. I hope I didn’t actually spit coffee on Ciro while I was laughing.

Treasure – Ah, the third of my indulgences at Readers Studio! Where to start? Carrie Paris’ Lenormand Oracle. Beth Seilonen’s decks new for RS13 and a hands on shuffle through her Schiffer-published Dream Raven Tarot coming out later this month. Judy Nathan’s one-of-a-kind deck covers made of antique embroidered silks and other precious materials. Books. I bought books. Lots of books. Decks, oh, I bought decks, all right, thanks to Tarot Garden. I traded for a couple of things at the swap table. Even our extra-curricular bus trip to the East Village was a score when I followed Theresa Reed to Momofuko, a restaurant that makes Ramen noodles like no packaged noodles I’ve ever had, plus a shitake bun, then branched off to nose through shops and find a couple of yummy shawls at the Tibetan shop. All that made up for the bus driver who was lost and the chance encounter by Jeannette and Dan who happened to stumble across our return charter bus. Better to be lucky than good!

I’d like to give a special shout-out to Gina Jean for her mind-blowing perfume creation fresh from Paris, her Oracle Belline. I was the lucky buyer of what will I’m sure be entirely too small a purse spray size of this heavenly scent. Trans-scent-dant, I say, and sure to be an es-scent-tial at future tarot events. I predict this magical perfume will be a future hit!

I loved getting a chance to talk to old friends and make new ones. You'll read more about them in coming episodes. There really wasn’t enough time in the week to talk to everyone but I sneaked a hug in to Donnaleigh de LaRose, Kendra Hurteau and Rachel Pollack, learned that the ever-fascinating Robert Place's friend Phil says that rats taste a lot like squirrel (uh, ewww), met Maralyn Burstein, astrologer extraordinaire, and was thrilled to see SO many first timers at Readers Studio.

Finally, I want to thank someone who could not make it this year. Thalassa Therese, without you, the show would not have been able to go on. On a whim, I packed the red clown nose you gave me. When the theatre troupe’s costumes were lost, that nose became the key element to the Devil’s transformation to a much more user-friendly card!

Oh, yeah. I’m going next year.

Best wishes.

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Photos reprinted by permission from Oliver Puzon Photography.