The skeptic meets a believer February 5, 2008
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Advice People Give Me, Dating, Family, Friends, Full of resolve, It's a strategy, Men, Single Girl Cliches, Weddings, Women.trackback
So, I realized that I never blogged about having my tarot cards read on New Year’s Eve, out in a famous Square of a city I love. I remembered this evening when I was rooting through my far-too-full Kathy Van Zeeland purse and pulled out a clear glass stone with a white pattern inside of it – the Tarot Card Lady gave it to me to remember my reading. I went with my girlfriends for a party and we decided to mosey on down to the Square to hang out and in the process stumbled upon the Tarot Card Lady.
Now, before people start leaving indignant comments about tarot card readings being complete bull, I will preface the retelling by saying that I did this after loads of peer pressure and with a healthy dose of skepticism. I was the last of the four of us to have a reading, mostly because my curiosity was piqued by my friends’ readings. I’ve been with friends before who had readings in this same Square – I was never willing to part with a few dollars for what I viewed as a glorified guess based on nonverbal cues.
The Tarot Card Lady sat at a small cloth covered table with two folding chairs-in-a-bag. She spread piles of well-worn tarot cards across the table and had me pick from stacks, laying them atop each other in a pattern, asking me questions along the way.
Of course I was most interested in my love life (or lack thereof). This was entirely to be expected. I was with a group of single women (one has a long-term boyfriend, but is unmarried).
Had I written this sooner, I might remember everything that she said. I only remember the high points, and I will give her that many of her comments were spot on. And I can only hope that her predictions ring true.
I do remember the first card she pulled because she said, right off the bat, that I was very smart. I smiled and nodded. She continued that I was very strong, but I was also extremely emotional and closed off.
I figured she was three for three on that one.
She said that my financial situation has improved (it has) and would continue to do so in the coming year. She pulled one card and said I’d built up a Wall to keep people out; that I’ve been hurt in the past and I don’t want to let men in because of this. (Pretty typical fare for a single 28-year-old, no?)
My skepticism permeated the reading. She kept returning to this Wall I’ve built up to protect myself from being emotionally harmed and said I’d need to figure out how to bring down that Wall in order to find happiness.
She said I’ll be a good mother and I, feeling a wee bit exposed having all of my girlfriends and hundreds of people milling around within earshot as she described my shut-in personality, asked cautiously, “So, I will find someone and have a family?”
The Tarot Card Lady looked me straight on in the eye, crooked her eyebrow and said, “Yes, have you not been paying attention?”
“Well, I know, it is just that everyone around me seems to be getting married. And I’m always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” I joked. Self deprecation is a familiar friend and my only life-long companion.
“Stop. Stop right there.”
“What?”
“Don’t say that,” she said. “If you keep saying that it will come true.” She continued that each time I said negative things I was building my Wall, which I needed to dismantle brick-by-painful-brick.
“You will find love. And you will have a good marriage.” she said.
And, yes this really happened, as she laid out the second deck of cards and talked about my love life, a newly married bride and groom entered the Square, walked past us with their photographer and stopped to pose for a portrait. The bride’s roses were bright crimson red – so bright I can see the exact hue in my mind right now.
“Do you see that?” she asked, excitedly motioning to the couple. “That is a very good sign. A very good sign indeed.”
I will find a man to love, she said. But it will not be easy. Because of the Wall I’ve surrounded myself with and because I compare every man to the one who hurt me and immediately find fault. Because I am scared.
And he’s scared too, she said. We will meet, I will know him immediately as my soulmate, but there will be much for us to overcome, as she said he will be emotional too. We will both have to work through our brick Walls together, and it will be hard.
“But, you are lucky,” she said. “Because you will find your soulmate and you will be together forever.”
As she finished I handed her some money and she picked a smooth stone from the table, where she’d laid out stones on many of the cards. She pressed the clear piece of glass in my hand and said it represented true love, beautiful and pure.
I dropped the stone in my purse and left her table with a smile.
Perhaps she is full of it. Maybe she read my cues and told me what I wanted to hear. Of course she picked up on my skepticism and could have judged me as closed off. Regardless, I left with a bit of hope for the future, a foolishly renewed faith in soulmates and silly ideas filling my head.
Later, I told my Mom about the tarot card reading, assuming her religious ways and conservative nature would make her mortified that I’d participated in such a thing.
She just smiled and asked, “Did she say WHEN you’d be meeting this soulmate of yours?”
It seems you found a pretty decent tarot card reader! Yay for hope, especially hope in love.
There is nothing wrong with being told that you will be happy, and that you should have hope. These are things we should tell ourselves, right? Ignore the picky details.
I’m always skeptical about that stuff too…but every once in a while I let myself believe in something that gives me hope that the future will bring what I’d like it to.
nothing wrong with finding some hope for the future, no matter what form it takes… Sometimes we all need someone to tell us its going to be ok… and I find it helps a lot more when its not someone you know very well (cuz then you just feel like they have to say that)! but one things for sure, tarot card reader or not, shes right that unless you open up a little you wont find love… you wont see it… so relax a little, and put yourself out there… might you get hurt? yea, but with out the risk you wont find true love! Good luck finding your soul mate!
This will be a cute story to tell at your rehearsal dinner.
Even if she’s full of it, she gave you hope, and believing something will happen is sometimes all we need to make it come true. Think positive, he’ll come your way.
Who cares if she was full of it? I think she was definitely right about curbing the self-deprecating humor. We create situations for ourselves, and there is nothing wrong with loving what she said and wanting to believe it, and going with it. Enjoy the memory and go forward knowing that what you want will happen for you!
I say good for you. It really matters not whether she’s the real deal, if in fact that exists. If it put a cliched spring in your step and restored faith in what’s to come, I’d keep her on the payroll!
It does seem that everyone is either have a kid, a home, or getting married around my life. All the more conclusion that I will be the last of my group to get married and have a family. Amazing!
I guess it makes sense given the choices I have made. Everyone I know now owns a home and what not, but as for me living in NYC I have nothing to my name. Maybe that is why I do not have a girlfriend!
Congrats on the reading and may you find him soon, or not soon enough because then you will have to change your blog name and that is just a pain in the arse!
unadater.blogspot.com
I need this Tarot reader!
Seriously though, sometimes we need someone to tell us something that we already know in order to believe it. You need to project hope and positiveness to the world and it will come back to you
Ok – that comment filled my optimism quota for the month!
hahaha gotta’ love moms
ey, good signs all around! =)
so, inow t’s up to you to open up a little. Im sending good love karma from Mexico. Kisses!
I think I need that tarot reader as well!! haha…it will be a great story to tell at your wedding indeed!!!
you realize that you’re supposed to know your soulmate right away, so you’ll have to tell your readers when that happens:)
i’ve got a tarot reader across the street…i should check her out!
Gotta love moms. LOL.
I’ve just started to study the tarot, and I find it fascinating. You came across a good reader, and YES she can tell all those things about you from the cards that you drew.
Tarot is an art that takes a lot of study, good intuition and observation too. The good readers are guided by the cards though, and nothing else.
What you must remember is that the cards are potentials… they are not absolutes. Keep working on that wall (we all build them!) and keep thinking positive thoughts and you WILL make that reading real.
All the best, and thanks for sharing such a postive, upbeat experience.
Sue
Sounds to me like this tarot lady is a good people reader, eh?
Charming people always know how to make money, no?
I think the part she hit on is that what we believe about ourselves and our lives become our reality. When you meet your soulmate, don’t keep us in the dark for too long.
Regardless – true or not – taking down your wall is good advice.
Geesh, this could’ve been the same reading I received a few years ago. Glad to know I’m not the only one being told to chip down those bricks. Enjoy your blog, new to it, but catching up.
You’ll find true love
But I’m not sure I buy the idea that you need to tear down that wall. Maybe it’s protecting you from guys that aren’t your Mr. Right, who knows?
great blog – i just happened by.
i’m a fan of tarot cards. the only time i’ve had mine read, it was pretty spot on too.
first time i’ve read your blog. loved this post…what’s the harm in believing that good things are in store for you? if it makes you go through your days with a smile on your face and a sparkle in your eye, then I’d say your chances of meeting “him” have been upped already.
Yes, Hope that is all we need to jump start our own excitement and know that there is hope for our Singleness turning into marriage!
I got similar advice from my best friend when I was home for the holidays. When she asked if I had been dating anyone I replied instinctively with “Not really, all the good ones are taken.” She immediately jumped on me to stop saying things like that. “If you keep telling yourself that,” she said, “you’ll only see the unavailable guy, and not his cute single friend standing next to him.”
So, tarot readers and friends alike know how to dish out universally good advice.
You may live in the city where I did this (small world!). Behind the square on the cross street was a major hang out for fortune tellers and related people.
Anyhow, it was pretty good…though my most accurate (though I’ve only ever done this twice), came from happenstance. I accidently found the lady while looking for another business. I was pretty early, so I decided to hang out and see what she said. It was scary accurate and I went out of my way to not give away information. I hope she is correct.
Hahaha… moms are so predictable. : )
It sounds like this tarot card reading was exactly what you needed, regardless of whether it has any real significance or not. Just take it for what it is – a fun night that gave you some hope and some happiness, and an interesting story to tell your friends. I hope that her predictions come true, of course, but don’t put all your faith in the Tarot Card Lady. When all is said and done, you have to make life happen for yourself.
I had my cards read when I was nineteen and every single thing came true. A decade later, everything she told me had happened.
I wish you the best of luck in the quest to find your true love. My story is very similar to yours… until last year when I finally met “the one.” It’s true what they say. It’s when you least expect it….
I have to ask: to the readers ever give negative readings? I mean, does anyone ever go up to one and the card reader says “Sorry to say, but your life is just gonna suck.” Just curious, as some days I think that’s what they would say for me…
Of course, I know you well enough at this point to say that your reading was pretty much spot-on for a quality woman such as yourself.
Tarot. Oh vey. Any therapeutic method that induces only positive advice ought to be suspect.
Further, I think one of the problems here is the idea of a “soul mate” or one special person. That has to be incredibly complicated on the part of God or fate (if no God) in terms of coordinating these two people who are absolutely and solely ideal for each other. For example, what if your soul mate is actually Sui Kim in South Korea, and there you sit in Chelsea or Queens? Statistically, given the size of the population, isn’t it more likely someone’s soul mate would be Chinese? Or not even American?
Or what if you find your soul mate. And he dies. You will never have a soul mate again? Or will you. If you concede multiple soul mates, then this idea of this one special person you can connect with is absurd. I suspect that there are probably a couple of hundred thousand to a million people we each are capable of finding a special relationship with, but often, we ourselves are in the way.
Maybe we don’t like to date blacks, or that Italian guy’s family was not ideal, or that nerdy man was too fat despite being good with the bills, or you don’t want to give up Christmas to be with your Jewish guy friend, or Nathan over there dresses kind of funny or Tom is not witty 24/7.
I think every woman needs a copy of “Crossing Delancey”. I am thinking of starting a charity that sends a copy of that movie gratis to all the women in the US until the whole man choice dynamic is shifted.
It would be funny if the Tarot reader was quite the literalist, hinting that you will in fact find a stone mason or brick layer, given all the wall building chatter, but no doubt the author is looking at loftier types with wall issues. Lawyers and such.
(As an aside, I am surprised at the mother’s mellow response too, as most people who read the Bible rather closely know there are injunctions against Christians visiting spiritualists and “soothesayers”. It’s akin to ignoring God while chatting up Satan for life advice, theologically speaking. The mom must want those grandkids bad.)
Finn — Did I miss the part of the post where I said, “OHMYGOD Y’ALL, MY SOULMATE IS COMING!” Yes, I admitted that it was fun to hear those things, but I even noted ways that she could have taken cues from me to determine what I wanted to hear. For example, “Perhaps she is full of it. Maybe she read my cues and told me what I wanted to hear. Of course she picked up on my skepticism and could have judged me as closed off.”
I guess I just get annoyed when people go on these judgey tangents. I was happily amused by the idea of a soulmate. It was New Year’s Eve for crying out loud. Everyone’s thinking about fresh starts and a new year. Cut me some slack.
Also, I take issue with the “but no doubt the author is looking at loftier types with wall issues. Lawyers and such.” I’m terribly curious as to how you know this about me (of the single male lawyers I’ve met, I haven’t found too many I’d want to spend any amount of time with), given that we’ve never met … hell, you’re apparently more insightful that a tarot card reader because you can judge me without ever being in the same city or state.
Also … my mom is awesome and no one, but me, is allowed to mock her. Is that clear?
Hey, I didn’t mean to insult your mom. Your comments just kind of reminded me of my own mom (who is both somewhat religious, and surely wanting some additional grandkids). Also, don’t take my comments too seriously. The only reason I even commented is because you in fact seemed well grounded, and with interesting things to say (I was on one of those blog to blog migrations, in a long reading spell).
Again, no judgement intended.