Soulmates

I was reading an article about a new TV show called Soulmates and it reminded me of many conversations I've had.

People often come to tarot readings to ask about love.  But some people want more than that,  some people want Soul Mates.   I and warn them,  soulmates is not what you think it is,  soulmates teach you a soul life lesson.  It can be a great lesson in trust and affection and faith.  Or it can be a devastating or difficult lesson -  how we fool ourselves, how to see ourselves with true clarity.  

Soulmates connect on a soul level,  but if you are not in touch with your soul's desires,  or if you are actively going against your soul's desires,  then meeting a soulmate can be a difficult life lesson.

I read for so many bright,  attractive,  funny women who tell me there are few men out there (pre covid,  when it was easier to meet them)  And then one day I did a reading for a bright,  sensitive funny man who told me that there are no women out there. And I said,  no,  you're wrong,  I could introduce you to plenty (I have worked at a dating agency,  and once a matchmaker,  always a matchmaker)  But he said,  I'm a middle school teacher on a fixed income of $65,000,  and I knew that many of my bright funny women wanted a man who at least earnt six figures,  and maybe even high six figures,  and would not want to meet him.  

A man earning high six figures (or a woman with a model face and figure) is not a soul mate.  They are fantasy.  And that fantasy can be dangerous.  It can stop you from connecting with love because they don't look like what you expected,  or earn what you would like.  Sometimes your soulmate comes into your life to teach you that you are on the wrong path,  but in the learning of the lesson,  they leave...   

So ask for love,  ask for connection.  But don't ask for fantasies and don't ask for perfection,  because even if you get it,  it may be what you want,  but it won't be what you need... 

Finding A Way

I recently did a reading where a woman sadly noted to me that all her plans of what to do during  her enforced Covid slowdown were not coming to fruition.  She was not setting up her new blog, not reading all the articles she wanted to,  not exercising daily.  Despite the slowdown she was still feeling stressed. 

I know we often have high ideals for ourselves,  but this is a really tough time for a lot of us,  and it's easy  lose initiative.  I reminded her of her strengths and then suggested writing lists and just going through them.  I'm a great list gal,  if it's on my list it will get done, Perhaps not on the first day,  but certainly by the end of the week! 

I also recommended a book that I had read a long time ago but still works for me - Julia Cameron's,  The Artist's Way. 

I found this book when it first came out - I just realized that was in 1992!  But it was huge then and is still helpful now.  So if you are feeling a bit stuck,  It's a book I'm happy to recommend. 

Should I let someone listen in on my reading?

When I do my readings IRL - in real life - people often bring someone - close friend, sibling, parent, lover, to hear the readings with them or to take turns and listen to each other's readings. 

A reading can be a lot of information, and having someone to mull it over with afterwards can be really helpful. And then they also get to see the magic of the cards for each other, as each one gets specific cards that make sense just for them! So if you are considering having a reading with a friend, it can be great to have another pair of ears.  

In the time of Covid,  it has happened less, but a recent reading she was at home in her studio apartment,  so her partner being present was unavoidable.  I told them both that they needed at least an hour a day apart,  and they should go for walks separately to give each other some psychic space.  They both agreed that that was a good idea.  

I also warn people, readings can be very intimate events so make sure they are someone you want to share your secrets with!  Her reading was all about work,  the relationship was good,  even after the intense togetherness! 

Love Kernels

I did a reading a while ago (but still in time of Covid) and a woman was telling me about her relationship with a man who she was not living with and due to the current circumstances could not see.  He would respond to her every third or fourth text,  never initiate but never say no either.  

And I said,  you are living on Love Kernels,  from Crazy Ex Girlfriend.  She didn't know it,  so I sent her this:



Later she wrote to me and said you are so right!  My god I thought I was the only one and here's a whole song about it.  

She's not the only one... 

Searching for Justice

For the past four years I've been doing the majority of my readings on line.  The way I read,  you have to shuffle the cards,  so people use their own decks.   In my recent readings,  with everyone using a separate deck,  so it's not a issue of shuffling,  the Justice card (or Justice Reversed,  even more pertinent) has show up disproportionately. 


The Justice card is often about a sense of fairness.  of things working out justly.  Pulling Justice into today's world  I interpreted as a sense of desiring fairness or justice,  or of things being not fair. Which is completely accurate.  Things are not fair.  Good work is not necessarily being rewarded,  chance encounters can lead to contagion,  life is strange.

In ordinary days when people are searching for fairness,  I warn them that life is not fair.  In fact,  living in the first world,  with running water and electricity,  we are so far ahead in the fairness stakes we are already on the wrong side of that ledger.  So instead of wanting fairness,  I tell people to seek balance.  If life isn't fair,  and you feel powerless,  then the next day you wake up and life is still unfair and what can you do?  But if your life is not balanced - then there you have some power.  You can redress the balances,  give more energy to one section,  take it away from another,  You have the power to allocate how to balance your time and energy and then the burning sense of requiring Justice can ease a little.

One client had three separate readings using three different decks over a three year period. .  As I was looking over his notes,  I realized that in each reading,  he had pulled the Justice card.  So then we had another conversation about what that card means to him personally,  as well as being part of the ether now.  Tarot is both general and deeply personal.  And if you do readings over time,  you can get to deeper insights too.

The Cards know best

Every so often people say to me,  it's not the cards,  it's just you - your judgement, your opinion,  your insight.  And I say no.  Because I'm reading all the time,  I can see it more clearly,  but the cards definitely know more than me about any given situation.  

I can think of hundreds of examples.  The woman who said what's going on in my relationship and the cards said,  he's a good person,  but he's just not there for you. And she said,  I knew it,  on paper he's the one but we're just not connecting and it's a relief to say that after everyone else tells me it should work.  Or the woman who drew the Devil card when discussing her relationship and we both looked at it and she sighed and said he really is the devil for me!  Or the guy who gave me three job options and the cards chose job B,  the secure job with benefits rather than Job A,  the start up (and I'm glad I didn't know which was which,  so he couldn't accuse me of being too conservative!) 

If you ask a question and me and the cards disagree,  I'll always give the cards opinion.  After all,  I'm just a person,  but the cards are reading you,  and if you look clearly,  you do always know best. 

Good days and Bad days

So I've been having good days and bad days.  Good days I genuinely count my blessings of which there are plenty.  But the bad days - they creep up. For five days I needed to buy groceries and couldn't make myself leave the house.   I actually opened the shelf long life milk I had bought early in the pandemic  to tide us over.  (It's weirdly creamy)  

And then,  yesterday,  I got out of bed,  did 3 loads of washing and went shopping for food. There is now milk and eggs in the fridge.  And to my huge relief,  the supermarkets in Sydney are edging back towards normal.  The price of fresh produce has gone up enormously - but that's because of the bush fires late last year impacting us. One thing this year has brought home to me is how connected we are to the land,  and how when we lose connection,  when we disregard the land,  that's when devastation can arise.

So if you are having a bad day,  be kind to yourself,  and if you are having a good day,  do your washing.  I am still writing lists, as I find myself more forgetful than usual,  when the fog as I call it, comes and sits on my head.  

But yesterday I played scrabble with a friend (appropriately socially distanced)  and life felt more ordinary and thus so much better (and she put down an 8 letter word! Hamsters!  84 points!!) 

Same storm, different boats

I didn't write this. I don't usually put up things I haven't written myself, but this really spoke to me and I thought I would share... I found it on the internet, God only knows where from!

We are not in the same boat.....

I heard that we are all in the same boat, but it's not like that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. Your ship could be shipwrecked and mine might not be. Or vice versa.

For some, quarantine is optimal. A moment of reflection, of re-connection, a time to relax with a cocktail or coffee. For others, this is a desperate financial & family crisis.

For some that live alone, they're facing endless loneliness. While for others it is peace, rest & time with their immediate family.

With the $600 weekly increase in unemployment some are bringing in more money to their households than when they were working. Others are working more hours for less money, due to pay cuts or loss in sales.

Some families of 4 just received $3400 from the stimulus, while other families of 4 saw $0.

Some were concerned about their favorite restaurant closing, while others were concerned if there would be enough bread, milk and eggs for the weekend.

Some want to go back to work because they don't qualify for unemployment, and are running out of money. Others want to enforce the quarantine until a cure is found.

Some are home spending 2-3 hours/day helping their child with online schooling, while others are spending 10-12 hours working from home.

Some have experienced the near death of the virus, some have already lost someone from it, and some are not sure if their loved ones are going to make it. Others don't believe the response matches the threat.

So, friends, we are NOT in the same boat. We are going through a time when our perceptions and needs are completely different.

Each of us will emerge, in our own way, from this storm. It is very important to see beyond what is seen at first glance. Not just looking, actually seeing.

We are all on different ships experiencing this storm as a very different journey.

This feels so true to me! Wishing you all calm waters.

Dreaming in a time of Corona

I've been having strange anxiety dreams lately.  I was desperately trying to get a train ticket to Bath (in the UK.)  I was lucky because when the ticket seller told me I'd have to bribe him to get the information I needed,  I said this just doesn't happen! Then in the dream I realized I was dreaming and woke myself up.  Yay for expectations of incorruptibility of British Rail.

But all joking aside,  even if your own life is going well enough,  these are trying times and anxiety can manifest in sneaky ways.  Everyone I speak to is overeating (me too!) Many are stress baking (me too!)  Some of us are exercising with YouTube videos (me occasionally.) 

But I am also consciously listing what I am grateful for.  We were watching the news and the some people devastated by the Australian bush fires late last year don't have a home to shelter in.  Of course,  knowing that people are genuinely worse off than you doesn't always help,  hence dreaming of trying to get to civilized Bath and finding that you can't there for love or money...  

If you are stressing,  remember to be kind to yourself.  And please try to walk outside (maintaining strict distance from others!) to let some wind blow through your hair.  Read, find ways to move,  nurture yourself and those around you.  Be kind and this too shall pass... 

Virtual Readings

I lived in Tribeca for 14 years.  I started Tribeca Tarot Reader in 2008 and this blog in 2009.  When we returned to Sydney 3 years ago,  I switched to virtual readings.  I would skype or facetime you and read for you that way.  But because of the way I read,  I find the magic is in the shuffling - you have to handle the cards,  you have to move and select them,  your energy shifting them one way or the other.  

So most of my readings are for established clients who know the way I work,  and are willing to buy or borrow a deck and shuffle and do the layout for me,  and then we do the reading,  in the quiet and privacy of where you chose. 

It's actually worked out very well,  and my regulars,  who have readings once or twice a year,  or once every two years or so,  find me,  buy a deck - usually the Rider Waite,  but any deck with 78 cards will do,  and have a reading.  And continue being my regulars.

If you are looking for me in these uncertain times,  I'm happy to do a reading for you.  Just get your hands on a deck and we'll find a time and start.  And you don't have to have read with me before - just browse though the blog and you'll get a feel for how I read. 

Also,  to simplify matters,  I start all my readings with a cold reading - where I don't know what's going on in your life,  and just tell you what the cards tell me - in the shape of a Celtic Cross.  I find it helpful to remind people of what that looks like - 

We lay out the 10 cards together and then I start to talk... 

Email me or text me if you like a reading.

Wishing you warmth and safety and health,

Liat

Keeping yourself well

In these difficult times,  it's easy to get agitated and upset.  I've found myself feeling claustrophobic. My own irritation/anxiety levels were rising and deep breathing and chocolate were not enough to bring them down.   I've put on 4 pounds in two weeks.  Always a bad sign!

So I've made a more concerted effort to connect with friends,  both of us drinking coffee and chatting over zoom or skype or facetime.  So many options! 

My gym closed two weeks ago today and I hadn't done any exercise other than walk the dog since then.  I always say in my readings that feelings are energy,  and if you are angry or irritated or worried,  that's also energy.  If you can't defuse it at the source (you can't always shout at your boss/mother/lover/financial worries/ pandemic) you should still try to get rid of it.  I suggest high energy exercise - kick boxing,  running,  zumba.  I can't kick box or run to save my life (or my knees) but I can dance.

So today I went through the internet and found that to create a good zumba class is no simple matter.   There were lots of them that just didn't work for me - too hard,  too easy,  too complicated,  didn't like the music. It's easy to give up.   But after half an hour and a few missteps,  I found a great zumba teacher that I really liked - Ines Araonos.   



So this morning is already better.  I'm sweaty and bouncy and can feel that irritated edgy feeling relax .   I think tomorrow I'll do a barre class.  

Excellent way of doing good

I volunteered for Taste of Tribeca for many years. It was an event I really enjoyed,  food,  community,  supporting local schools. Win/win/win. I'm so glad that they are doing this.  I love this idea!  Please support it if you can. This is all from the Broadsheet - a local Tribeca news letter.   Role Reversal Downtown Food Festival Supports Local Restaurants by Feeding Healthcare Workers

The ever-popular Taste of Tribeca food festival has been cancelled for this year, but the organizers are rallying support to help the now-struggling restaurants that have contributed food for decades, by purchasing meals to donate to hospital workers.

Starting today, up to 100 free meals will be arriving daily at local healthcare facilities, prepared by half a dozen Lower Manhattan restaurants, and paid for with contributions solicited by the Downtown parents who organize the Taste of Tribeca food festival. For the past 25 years, that event has accepted food contributed by dozens of eateries, and sold these “tastes” at a street fair, to raise money for two beloved local public schools: P.S. 234 and P.S. 150. Earlier this month, however, mounting concerns about the pandemic coronavirus forced the first-ever cancellation of the event. Realizing that this tragedy represented an opportunity to repay decades of generosity from local restaurants, at a time when these establishments are facing financial ruin, the organizers established a Taste of Tribeca Community Fund, and created a contribution portal on GoFundMe, which can be found here: https://charity.gofundme.com/o/en/campaign/taste-of-tribeca-community-fund Taste of Tribeca board member Bettina Teodoro explains that, “this is a campaign to help our neighborhood restaurants and the emergency room at New York Presbyterian-Lower Manhattan Hospital, by buying meals from the former to feed entire shifts at the latter.” In just the last three days, 84 donors have contributed over $12,000, which is more than half of the project’s overall goal of $20,000.

“We’d like to do this as often and as much as we can,” Ms. Teodoro adds, “and if means allow we will branch further afield to other hospitals in the City. It’s a work in progress, but our team will do the best we can to help as many people and businesses as we can.” Among the Lower Manhattan restaurants supplying food (and receiving financial support from the Taste of Tribeca Community Fund) are Zuckers Bagels, Paisley, Anejo, City Vineyard, Khe-Yo, Restaurant Marc Forgione, and Maman. “Our aim -- to feed 100 hospital workers at a time, at a cost of $10 per person -- is simple, but the benefits are far-reaching,” Ms. Teodoro reflects. “An order of this size will help to keep open a restaurant that at this time is relying solely on take-out and delivery orders. And the gift of a nourishing, delicious meal will help to refuel our tired and hungry doctors, nurses and medical support staff.” The organizers are reaching out to other hospitals around the City and exploring delivery options. The response has been so overwhelming that the project’s scope has already expanded from to cover emergency staff at Mount Sinai, NYU Langone, and Bellevue Hospital. The team behind the Community Fund emphasizes that no donation is too small, and 100 percent of all contributions (minus a small processing fee) will go directly to the purchase of meals for an entire shift of hospital workers. “The more money we raise, the more shifts we can serve, the more restaurants we can support, and the more we can expand this program to other area hospitals,” Ms. Teodoro observes. Taste of Tribeca is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, all donations are tax-deductible, within the limits prescribed by law. The organizers will send all donors a receipt acknowledging their contribution. Matthew Fenton

Speaking of Poetry

Here is another poem that spoke to me

Pandemic

“What if you thought of it

as the Jews consider the Sabbath—

the most sacred of times?

Cease from travel.

Cease from buying and selling.

Give up, just for now,

on trying to make the world

different than it is.

Sing. Pray. Touch only those

to whom you commit your life.

Center down.

And when your body has become still,

reach out with your heart.

Know that we are connected

in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.

(You could hardly deny it now.)

Know that our lives

are in one another’s hands.

(Surely, that has come clear.)

Do not reach out your hands.

Reach out your heart.

Reach out your words.

Reach out all the tendrils

of compassion that move, invisibly,

where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love–

for better or for worse,

in sickness and in health,

so long as we all shall live.”

– Lynn Ungar 3/11/20

Finding moments of Grace

It's been a difficult few days and they are only going to get harder.  April will be a tough month.  May,  I hope,  will be the epoch,  and after that,  things will get a little easier.  In the meantime, I'm hunkering down.  

I'm also counting my blessings.  That I live in such a physically beautiful place - Little Bay - near the sea,  near the city,  near national park.  That I enjoy spending time with my husband.  We share this new isolation quietly,  contentedly.  I'm cooking all sorts of new recipes,  baking,  using that weird collection of bananas I had in my freezer.



And tonight we watched JoJo Rabbit,  which moved me far more than I thought I would.  It's funny and whimsical and then suddenly,  terrible and real. It ended with some lines from a poem which really spoke to me,  so I'll reprint them here for you (poetry is like wine to me,  I can get drunk on it,  it punches though my intellect and puts me in a world of feeling)

Go to the Limits of Your Longing,  
by Rainer Maria Rilke

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Book of Hours, I 59

Wishing you well in these difficult times.  

The Science of it all

This is a reprint of an old blog post I've written previously - but that was in 2013,  and I doubt any of you are going to go that far back into the archives,  so here it is again

The Science of it all

I had a reading with a young man recently and I started with my usual question – have you had a tarot reading before and he said over a hundred. Well, that’s a lot of readings!  He said that one of the reasons he went to so many psychics was that he was studying physics and was interested in the science of psychic phenomena.  So I gave him my blood transfusion example:

My prediction for psychic phenomena –

Let’s go back in history for a minute. People always saw blood and had theories about blood, but until much later than you would think (1900) they did not know about blood groups. The rudimentary tools for blood transfusion were around in the 1700’s and the first human to human transfusion was recorded in 1818.

When doctors first had the technology, they tried blood transfusions from strong animals to sick humans. (and why not, we eat and digest animals, there was no obvious reason why we wouldn’t be able to take their blood directly) but of course most of the humans died, and those transfusions were soon banned throughout Europe.  Then they tried transfusions from strong people to weak.  Unsurprisingly, most humans died, even after a transfusion, though more mysteriously for the doctors at the time, some did not, and in fact got better…  Because the doctors didn’t know about blood groups, they couldn’t make sense of their results.

There are many, repeated studies, showing that meditation (focused thought) has a real, measurable impact on blood pressure, heart attacks, anxiety (which seems like cheating, because that’s a mental issue to begin with, but it has physical symptoms which meditation can allay) What we think about these automatic systems in our body, can affect those normally unconscious processes.

So my prediction for the years 3010 – so grateful if someone could keep this alive in the internet for that long for me to be vindicated – my prediction is that there will be a strong and solid science for psychic phenomena, and they will have a reasonable explanation as to why sometimes studies worked and sometimes they didn’t.

Perhaps, like blood types, there are psychic groups, and some groups enhance each other and some negate each other and the types of people who become scientists fall more into the group A mental abilities, and the types of people who work on their psychic abilities are group B and Group A and Group B negate each other…

All of which brings me back to Tarot. The theory of Tarot is that while shuffling the cards, the person imbues their energy into them. That energy then affects which card goes where, and then when you read the cards, you see what is going on in that person’s energy.

Doesn’t sound like it makes too much sense, does it? And yet, time and again, I see it. I see people with money worries draw only money cards; people with relationship issues draw cards exactly about their particular relationship. A woman came and saw me and I said, your house card is in disarray and your lover’s card is upside down. And she said, she had just moved, because her husband had an affair and the divorce was just finalized. I promise you that I don’t say that to every person who comes for a reading!

Each time the cards fall into a different pattern, and that pattern reveals something true and real about what is going on in that person’s life. I don’t have the science to explain it, but then again, I don’t need it. I can see the reality in front of me

Seeing the now

Tarot is a way of exploring the present to understand what is going to happen in the future.  It doesn't 'predict' the future,  so much as look at what you are doing now and what that will create.  It looks at your ingredients and says,  this is the cake you are baking...  If you want a different cake,  you need to put different ingredients in! 

It does show you where your energy is strong - sometimes you want love,  but your love energy is weak and your work energy is strong - if you focus on work right now,  your rewards will be greater.  

It's not a way to say on June 15th so and so will happen.  And it's not really great on time - so it says soon,  but as humans,  we want soon to be now and waiting 5 months can feel like not so soon.  

One common question I get is when am I going to meet someone I love.  And if  you draw three cards and one of them is a strong relationship card,  I smile and say soon!  But sometimes you draw one card after another and a dozen cards later there is no relationship card.  Then I say,  you have to shift what you are doing in the present in order to bring that energy into your life.  If you keep doing what you are doing now,  it won't come in the foreseeable future. And then we discuss what else can be done.   

It's not set in stone - I always tell people you can change all of this,  but that requires some conscious action of your part,  which can be hard.   

Even if you draw wonderful cards,  work will be great, life is sunny,  and then you stop working hard,  because the outcome seems assured - that's when it stops.  

So a tarot reading is a way to take your temperature,  give yourself time to look at your life,  your desires,  your goals and what you can do to give yourself the best possible outcome.