Couture experience

The other day we watched Dior and I, a documentary about a new chief designer coming to the House of Dior.  There is no part of me that actually wants a couture dress that costs tens of thousands of dollars,  but there is something about owning something that people with extraordinary skills have worked on with such passion and vision,  that's quite appealing..

Then we went and saw a Mozart performance at the Lincoln Center and it gave me the same feeling as the couture dress - it seemed ridiculously luxurious that all these people would practice for hours and audition and train,  all to play actual,  live music to a room full of people.  I felt like I owned a piece of couture at a fraction of the price!  This feeling was strengthened when we went and saw the Goldberg variations being performed at the Armory.  This time the room was bigger,  the audience was smaller and it was only one person sitting by the piano,  performing his magic.  His skill was so sublime,  the music so beautiful,  the situation so unique,  again,  I had the feeling of owning my own piece of couture. 

I will never be able to afford the tens of thousands to buy one dress (nor would I have anywhere to wear it!)  but anyone in New York  can easily give themselves the experience of being in the presence of people with extraordinary skills at the top of their game,  working with passion and vision.   And that makes us very rich indeed.

After every reading

After every reading,  I give you a post card with the cards you drew written down.  I photograph that postcard and if you come and see me again we can see if there is a change or a shift in the cards.  If you come regularly,  we start to see patterns in the cards.   

I have descriptions of every card we discussed in my blog.  If you want to know more about a specific card, just enter it in the upper left hand corner (near the B, blog symbol) and it will come up.

I also encourage people to go on google images or pintrest to find images of certain cards that speak to them,  so if you are riding the Queen of Cups energy, you can find a version that speaks to you and keep it on your phone,  or by your computer,  to let the energy infuse your day.

Looking for a new job

People often come to me when they are considering changing jobs.  I like to know very little about each option - just think about Job A,  or Job B,  I tell them,  don't give me any details,  and then the cards can work their magic.   

 

A woman came to me a while ago,  anxious about interviews,  well who isn't? - and asked me if she would get the job she was thinking of.  She drew 3 pentacles / chariot / magician - excellent cards.  It was going to be a really good job - with creative,  harmonious work,  her strong will power driving it through the interview and then the magician,  she pulls a rabbit out of the hat and gets the job!  We were both happy with those  cards.  And she emailed me afterwards - the interview went better than well and she got the job!

Gratitude

I love Thanksgiving, or at least what the holiday has evolved into for me.  A day to share food with friends and family,  to be consciously grateful.  What better day could you have?  A day that you don't have to be anxious about buying or receiving presents.  I really don't like how sales are encroaching on Thanksgiving,  but I'm lucky - there is nothing I so need that I have to rush up from the table to stand in a draughty line and wait for it.  I would much rather be eating pie!  So I'm grateful for that too.  

My blessing for everyone is as it always is - may we have love and laughter in our homes, may we give the kindness we would like to receive,  may we count our blessings...

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, however you celebrate!

Should I sit in on my friends tarot reading?

Sometimes people contact me and want two readings together.  Then they ask if they should sit in on each other's readings. 

My standard response is if you are very good friends,  then it is better to have your friend sit in on yours (and you sit in on theirs) because you can talk about it afterwards and remember things for each other.  But if you have any secrets or things you don't anyone else to know, then you shouldn't have anyone sit in on the reading, friend or not,  because I can guarantee that the cards will bring it up.  

So acquaintances or work friends,  no,  especially if you are thinking of changing jobs and haven't told them yet!  But best friends,  yes,  because you'll have so much more things to talk about afterwards!

I also encourage everyone to record their tarot readings, as we go through so much it can be hard to take it all in,  and afterwards you can listen to the recording in peace and quiet and hear it once more.  And if you don't want to listen to it again,  then you can just delete it off your phone - so it's a no lose proposition.

New Bad Habit

Twice this week I've replied to  emails as soon as I received them,  and then for some reason didn't press send and they went into my drafts folder.  So I smugly think I'm on top of things and am clearly not!  Even the best technology in the world won't work if you don't use it properly.  Well,  now that I am aware of it,  I'm more careful and hopefully won't do that bad trick again!

Pages and Queens

One of the things I often say in readings is that you are not leaking this information out,  if I were sitting next to you in the subway,  I wouldn't know this about you.  Sometimes the cards are so searing in their observations, people want to make sure that their secrets stay secret!

I did a reading for a woman a while ago (I'm never clear on time, to protect people who might send their friends to this site!)  who was smart,  snarky and tough - just how I like them! But she wasn't drawing any queens,  all her cards were pages.  We discussed this,  she's 36, and should have Queens but she feels that she isn't as established as the other women she knows - she's not flying at work,  merely doing well,  and she's not married or close to it,  and when she asked about children,  the cards said too far away to see.  And that's why she didn't have Queens,  although she had a queenly energy about her.

I said it was time to listen to her intuition more. Stop dating men she knew were not long term potential,  stop listening to so called friends who subtly belittled her,  start listening to her inner voice more.  She had to stop waiting for her ex to return to her - he brought another woman to her birthday party,  she had to take note of that action and accept what it was revealing. She knew could be a Queen but she just wasn't acting like one,  and the cards showed that. 

She sighed and said that the reading had been tough but true,  she was acting like a page and getting those results.  It was time to act like a woman and then start drawing Queen cards.


 

Cold Readings

I read this interesting article recently where the photographer's conceptions of the person they were photographing completely influenced the photos they took - at the end we have 6 great images,  very different from each other,  and it started me thinking about cold readings.

I start every reading with a cold reading - that is,  when I don't know anything about you or your situation and just tell you what the cards tell me.  I love the cold readings,  that's where the magic happens. 

You shuffle 78 pieces of cardboard and then I can tell you some really pertinent things about your life.  Sometimes it just blows people away (wow,  that's exactly what's going on!) sometimes we have to dig a little deeper to get what the cards are trying to tell us.  But I always try to make the reading truly 'cold' and don't let you tell me anything about your situation until I've seen the cards,  so you can get the sense of revelation too.

Regulars

I have a group of regulars,  people I've read for a few times, who come in once every six months or so to see what's going on.  Some of them have since moved from NYC and I read for them via Skype or Face Time.  Some come around their birthdays,  some as the seasons change. 

This week I had two regulars come to tell me how well their lives are going.  One got the new job we were expecting him to get,  and came to tell me that all his predicted outcomes are happening and how happy he was.  The other came to tell me how life has been since the arrival of her second child,  and how much easier it is this time around.  Neither had any serious questions,  they just wanted to touch base and keep me in the loop. 

I was very touched!

Instant Karma

We have a Havanese dog who grew from a tiny 6 pounds to a massive 14 pounds (the average adult is between 8 - 12 pounds)  I have a dog carrier from his puppy days which was sitting in my apartment,  too good to throw away,  but too small for him to use.  

Today,  I took it to my local dog park and offered it to anyone who wanted it.  A small puppy crawled into it and promptly curled up and went to sleep,  and the happy dog owner took her home in it. 

Someone with a bigger dog told me they had a carrier that was bigger but too small for their dog. They walked across to their apartment to collect it. I got a new carrier, frankly better than the one I gave away, which is big enough for Charlie on his subway rides. 

 Instant Karma. Very nice.

Procrastinating

I usually write a post a week and then somehow September slipped by with only one tarot blog post.  I was really not happy about this and began to tell myself off.   I’m a list girl, and started putting my list – ‘write tarot blog’ bumping it higher and higher, and then WRITE TAROT BLOG in caps and colors.  Late at night as I fell asleep, at least 10 good tarot ideas floated through my brain and I went to sleep comforted by the thought that tomorrow I would write a good tarot blog piece.  And yet, and yet…

 

Today I woke up and said to myself that I have to write a piece about procrastination.  And all of a sudden here I am, typing away.   Sometimes we don’t act in our own best self-interest, sometimes we can’t make ourselves to what we want/need to do. But if we address it, then we can start to find the answers.

The lesson here to deal with what is real for you at the moment, and then the energy flows…

Humans of New York is one of my favorite Facebook pages,  I read it daily.  It has uplifting and interesting photos and quotes from everyday New Yorkers, and occasionally Brendan travels and then it's Human of Planet Earth, equally insightful,  showing how interconnected we humans are.   Recently he put up this photo and even without the quote,  I could tell there was a story there -

And here was his quote,  what the man behind the cigar said:
"I don't have anything personally against homeless people. But I try to avoid getting into conversations with them. Because I may be walking later with one of my influential friends, and the homeless person may come up to me and start acting like we're friends. And how's that going to look? You've got to choose who you're seen with. It's a matter of optics."

And of course the comments responding to that quote were strong and flavorful,  but the thing that struck me most was how fearful that confident cigar carrying man had to be. 

One thing that has changed for me,  as I've aged,  is that I no longer care about optics.  I've been reading cards since my twenties but I was not confident enough to be a full time tarot reader then. I was fearful of other people's judgment.   I had to wait till my forties,  till I no longer really cared what people said or thought,  and then I could casually and easily introduce myself as a tarot card reader.   For a while there my family or friends would chip in - but she's also a trained therapist,  she worked in the UK and in Australia in the hospital system,  she was an addiction counsellor. But I don't even need them to do that. I'm quite happy to say tarot card reader and let it rest there. 

That's one of the joys we can give ourselves as we age - as long as something is acceptable to us personally,  then it's acceptable. And if it not acceptable to me,  then how the world feels about it doesn't really matter either.   So this man,  with his cigar and his optics,  he is not there at all.  He's not comfortable in his own skin or with his own decisions.  He could use a tarot reading...

Birthday Treat

I had my third reading with a client, and realized I saw her yearly around this time.  She said that it was actually her birthday and I was her birthday present to herself. 

What a lovely treat,  to be given as a gift to oneself!

Privacy and Secrecy

 

I’ve been reading about the Ashley Maddison hacker scandal – where a website that is designed for married people to meet in order to have affairs - has been hacked and the names and details of its users made public.   Some of my clients have used that website.  Sometimes people come to tell me of affairs they have been having or affairs they wished they had had, or (most common) affairs they suspect their partners of having.  The cards are usually very accurate at finding that truth.

I think there is a big difference between privacy and secrecy.  There are things about my life that I don’t want splashed across the internet,  because they are private,  and I hold them close to me,  but they are not secret – other people in my life know about them and it would not devastate anyone to find them out. 

 

If I meet a couple who has chosen to have an open relationship – they both know that Thursday night they go out separately and have sex with others – then I have no problem with it.  That is their private business. But I often meet couples where one person is going out and having sex with others and flat out lying about it to their partner – and that causes a lot of problems. That is not privacy; that is secrecy – a piece of information that can be devastating if it were to come out.   It has been my experience that secrecy is almost always harmful to relationships.  So by all means keep your privacy,  but beware of keeping secrets…

Making it happen

I have a saying – if you want something done, give it to a busy person.  Sometimes I have something to do and a whole day to do it in, and mysteriously wait to the last five minutes to get it done.  If it’s not urgent, it can take a week (I don’t know if I am meant to confess this in New York, it might get me thrown out!)

But give me something urgent to do,  better yet,  give me 2 urgent and 7 other things to do,  and I just power on through.  I’m a list lover from way back – I create lists, annotate my lists, rearrange them, really they are works of art – and then, I buckle down and get through them.   So if there is something you want to do, start with a list, and give yourself a deadline, even an artificial one, and then watch it happen.

Cranky Day

Disconnected,  by Suhair Sibai

I had a cranky day last week.  I had a person desperate for a time slot that was already booked, so I texted to double check that the original person wanted it and they did.  I hate disappointing people, but sometimes there is nothing you can do.  Then I texted the original person that I had arrived at the café and was waiting, and they replied ok, and then they didn’t come.   Frankly I was annoyed, I could have seen someone else, and what is it with double confirming and not showing?  

So I was walking through my neighborhood, huffing and puffing under my breath.  Then a woman stops me and says, “Liat, do you remember me,” which is a difficult situation for me; I read for so many people and I don’t always recognize them out of context.  But as I looked at her, the details of her reading came back to me, “You work with chocolate,” I said and she smiled. And then she said, “I can’t afford to come right now, but I think of you and your readings all the time.” 

And there it was… I was really touched and my grumpiness just evaporated

 

Virtual Realities

Next time I see a friend put up amazing photos of their lives on Facebook for a few months in a row,  I’m going to pm (private message) them and ask if everything is ok.  Lately I’ve had 3 acquaintances, whose lives I’ve been mainly following on facebook, meet with me and break down and cry about how difficult their marriage/kids/work life is right now.  The disconnect between what they say to me and what they are presenting on fb is just huge, I really thought things were never better for them (of course if I had been seeing their cards, I would have seen things far more clearly!) 

I remember when I was starting therapy and realized that my social, outward face and the feelings I had inside were worlds apart and how much energy it took to keep the façade going.  Nowadays, I always tell a truth – not the truth, not all of it, not everyone needs to hear that – but if I am feeling awful and miserable and hating my life, I won’t say great, or even fine.  I’ll say a truth: I’m tired, which resonates with my bigger truth.  Sometimes people smile and say me too, and go on to humblebrag about how amazing their lives are with all the wonderful things they are doing which tire them out (a real New York sport) and sometimes people respond with something genuine.  But what matters to me is that I am genuine, to others and more importantly, to myself.   Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram - for some people they’ve become the facades that must be kept in perfect order, to cover what hides beneath.  The older I get, the more I value that which is real, even if it is ugly, because reality has a true beauty that these fake representations can never have.

Amazon Sale

Yesterday there was a much trumpeted sale on Amazon.  Not needing anything, but seduced by the endless facebook ads/comments about it, I went on line to browse.  It’s almost impossible for me to browse on line.  I can search for specific things I want and research them, but just mindlessly going into a page full of products, just because they are discounted, well that didn’t quite work for me. 

So I found something I kinda, sorta, maybe wanted.  I scrolled to the bottom to read the reviews as I usually do, and by the time I got back to the top they told me there was none left, but I could go on the waitlist.  I didn’t even need it, but I clicked waitlist. Then a minute later it was now available  and I put it in my cart,  off to ‘browse’ some more but now there was a clock counting down saying I had 10 minutes to check out or it would disappear (presumably it had disappeared from someone else’s cart to be available for mine.)  So I went to the checkout page and paid for it.  But it was a weirdly demanding and unpleasant experience, I felt crowded and jostled, even though I was sitting alone at home.  Everything I was looking at was suddenly 98% gone (and all I was looking at was pet toys!) and by the time I clicked on the page, it was waitlist only.   Amazon wanted me to buy more, but one item in this circumstance was enough, I logged off!

And it got me thinking about sales.  Some people love this vigorous atmosphere, shopping as a competitive sport.  But I found it way too aggressive and stressful. I never go to Black Friday sales, and clearly even cyber sales are too much for me.

I'm really past the point of buying things because they are cheap.  I really only want to own things that I really want...

The Lovers Card

I've been a tarot reader for many years, but I've had other jobs at the same time... I've worked at dating agency and have been a relationship counsellor. I gave a talk about Love and Tarot, and the point that got most people nodding was my one about the Lovers card. 

People come to me all the time and say they want the Lover's card in their reading. But I've been in New York a long time now and I say to them, are you ready for the Lover's card?  It has 2 people, naked, facing each other and an ornate angel hovering over them. Who wouldn't want the Lovers card?  But love is about choice and then commitment. Once you make one choice, there are no other options open to you.  If someone more interesting walks in the room, with a better job, better energy,  better options,  you've chosen the Lovers Card and you can't chose them.  And people that night, as on other nights, kind of flinch, and turn away. 

New York is a city obsessed with choice and options, hesitant to settle on any one idea lest a better one come around.  And that hurts them when it comes to Love, because love is a closing of other options, to deepen and enhance the one you have.  One of my favorite Lovers Cards shows a bride and groom, their backs to us and the audience, forsaking all others.  And when you are ready to do that, ready to commit and make a final choice, that's when the lover's card will appear in your tarot spread.

The Invitation

I first came across this when I was working as a psychotherapist at South Pacific Private Hospital. I loved it then and it hasn't lost its perfume over the years, it's still wild and untamed and joyous...

Enjoy



The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
copyright © 1999 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

Love is always the answer

I just had to note this auspicious day - where all relationships are recognized before the law,  and given rights and dignity.  

It's amazing how far we've come in a relatively short time and I'm so happy for everyone,  for my friends and family who are now allowed to get married and allow themselves and their families all the protections that that entails.

Love wins. We all win.