Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving, it's my favorite festival - it's about food, friendship and family and being grateful for all that we have. How wonderful that we all take the same 2 days to think about these things!  I have to say I am distressed about the creeping impact that the Friday sales are now having. I wish they didn't start on Thursday night.

But I wish even more, that even if they did start earlier, we would know enough not to go to them. That we truly understood that what is already in the room is more valuable than any stuff you could put in it; that's it people not products that matter.

Lauren Alexander

Of course, if we don't like the people we are with, it's easy to give into our Hunter Gatherer cravings,  and go shopping!  I would strongly encourage people to do the harder work of a) either finding things to like more about the people already in our lives or b) finding new people who we do genuinely like and put them in our lives.

I wish everyone a delicious Thanksgiving and lots of laughter and happy traditions.  To understand that happiness is not getting everything you want, but being truly content with what you have – that is a lifelong blessing I wish for all of us.

The cards are accurate but they are not always clear

sample image

Sometimes people come to me with concrete and important questions.  Nearly a year ago a lovely woman came to me with a question about her green card application – will she get it?  The cards said yes, but with confusion in the middle.  Then she asked if she should change her lawyers, and the cards said yes, definitely. So she left her long time lawyers and went to someone she knew socially and who had been helpful to her. But he was awful!   He didn’t do anything he promised and she was very frustrated.

So she left him and found a third lawyer, and this lawyer solved the case for her.  He found that her original lawyers had made several procedural errors which was why she was in danger of losing the case, and his corrections made all the difference.

Afterwards we discussed it and she said she had been so loyal to her original lawyers, and she would never have taken the risk to simply leave them. But once she had, she could find the lawyer who could solve her problem.

Katya Horner,  chicken amongst the texas bluebells

The cards were right, she did need to leave her original lawyers, but not clear, the second lawyer was not the solution. But she needed to go through him, to find the professional who could help…   Had she stayed with the original lawyers, she would have lost her case.  I was so happy and relieved to hear things had worked out well for her!

Towering thoughts

Rider Waite Version

The tower is one of the most powerful cards in the tarot, and often when people draw it they are scared, something is going to break… change is coming.  

Valentina Plishchina version

 But recently I’ve seen people draw the tower reversed – something should break but it isn’t, people are clinging to relationships, jobs or situations that should have ended months if not years ago. And that always leads to unsatisfactory outcomes.  Sometimes we need things to break, for the new to grow, and if we hunker down in the tower, and refuse to leave, we start living in the rubble, without even noticing it.

Buffy Tarot version

There are lots of versions of the tower out there.  I like the one showing Buffy swaning diving out of her constaints. (I'm a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan)  but my favorite is still Rapunzel – through her story we can see that the woods are scary and there may indeed be wolves there, but that’s still better than the sterility of remaining in the tower. 

Inner child version
 

I do so love that there are so many beautiful versions/interpretations of all the tarot cards on line.

 

Powerless...

Well, what a week it’s been.

Firstly,  I need to apologize to clients who tried to get in touch with me,  but my phone reception was very iffy and I could not access any email/internet.   I realized I had to let go of any expectation of communication and let that stressor go.  

 

Once I decided I was not going to try and live a normal life,  a new kind of normality took place –  by the third day we had a new routine going – my son,  whose school was closed,  and I would go for a walk by the river in the morning (ironically,  the damage at Battery Park City seemed far less than damage further in…)  Day one there were pumps emptying garages and peculiar smells,  long lines for the single Deli serving coffee,  everyone looking a bit lost.  Day two,  we knew where the power was,  who was open and who was not,  and we had bagels for dinner.  Day Three we found that the World Financial Center had loads of powerpoints, we went in a recharged what we could. We started going to the movies (three films in one week,  I haven’t done that since college!)   Then we would bump into loads of people we knew, close friends and bare acquaintances, and have dinner with them wherever was open.  It was actually kind of charming.  And I got lovely texts from all sorts of people, including several clients, checking in that I was okay.  

We had gas and cold water all along, I started the mornings by heating up large pots of water, like an old pioneer woman, and we all were clean and shiny before leaving for brighter, warmer places.  

And then last night at 4 am we woke up because our bedside lamps were shining in our faces – power! 

Now,  4 loads of washing in,  I am showered with blown dry hair and we’ve emptied and partially restocked the fridge.  We are back on track and so is Tribeca Tarot Reader.  If you want a reading, please email me at tribecatarotreader@gmail.com (please don’t phone, reception is still very spotty)

Information

There are no secrets anymore… I can’t tell you how many people come in to me having found out about affairs via  smartphones - looking at texts or phone log history.  As a family we recently updated to the iphone 5, and unbeknownst to me, all the photos I took appeared in the photostream that my husband and son could automatically see, unedited by me (even if I deleted the photo on my phone, it will still be there on the photo stream)

Now it just so happens that my photos are either mundane or work related,  but still,  I felt a bit uneasy that so much was shared without my being aware of it. So this is my public service announcement – if you have a shared family plan, especially on iphones, then the paying party has access to all sorts of information.  And if you buy the new iphone and don’t want all your pictures shared with all the other plan members, then change your settings...

Change on Deck

 

There are many forms of divination but there is something special about tarot cards:- they are visually engaging, they work on a mythic level and they are also tactile, you feel them slip between your fingers, you feel the edges of them on your palms…   The feel of the cards is important and that’s one of the reasons people like old cards – the sense that other people have ruffled them; that they have stories to tell… 

But over a year or so, hundreds of people handle those cards and they start to look ratty, but of even more concern, they start to tear at the sides and I worry that they no longer shuffle cleanly. So that time of year has come again, where I have to change the deck.  I always use the same cards – Radiant Rider Waite, which is like the regular Rider Waite (the most popular deck in the US, and the one most referred to in books) but with brighter colors, so it looks prettier to me.  I’ve shuffled them thoroughly at home, and now a new crisp smooth deck waits for your reading…


If anyone wants the old deck - for collage or personal use - drop me a line and we'll figure out how to get them to you...

Synchronicities

Ruth Schembri,  Synchronicity

The cards are all about synchronicities, seeing the patterns and energies that are going on in your life. But I find odd synchronicity between the readings as well as within them.  In the past two days I saw a Lisa,  Elizabeth and a Liz.  Well, it’s a common name, but I find that names often clump together.  I saw two Heidis in the same day. Last week I got confused when a woman kept emailing the same question but then realized I was dealing with three different Erin’s making inquiries.

Barbara Takenaga,  Abstracts

And then the readings go in themes too.   I rarely hear about unplanned pregnancies and suddenly get 3 in a week.   Even jobs come in patterns, for a while there it seemed like everyone I was seeing was a teacher.  Lately everyone has been designing an ap.  It just fascinates me, seeing the connections everywhere…