Feeling Places  in the February issue of Tarot Reflections Magazine   By Frances

In the past I have discussed being empathic and drowning in another's feelings but what about feeling places and things? Have you ever walked into a place and wanted to run? Or conversely, walked into a place and never wanted to leave? Everyone has felt this in some form or another. We are born sensitive beings. It seems that as we age we lose sight of our innate abilities. Many people can't seem to get out of their own way most of the time, to process what they feel or they can't be bothered and merely overlook what they feel. They are so busy obsessing over this or that, they completely miss what is happening in the present moment. If they would quiet their minds just a touch and live a more conscious life they would realize how much more texture and spark their lives would have and what energy trace they are leaving.

Everyone senses things differently. Each of us experiences it and interprets it our own way just as people see color differently, they also taste, touch, feel and hear differently, so please bear in mind, these are purely my experiences. When I moved into my first dorm room in college, I felt the sadness in the room. I thought it was because it was a depressing looking cinder block room but now I wonder if I didn't feel the energy of the room and the people that passed through it before me? I was never comfortable in that room. Maybe the people building the room were unhappy and weaved their feelings into the walls or maybe I foresaw my anxiety and homesickness?  I think the place was originally built to be a corrections facility or some type of halfway house and maybe the walls were full of the impending woe. Not sure but I can still recall my feeling in that room. 

When I was buying my first home in NYC, I looked at a ton of places. I ended up buying this one bedroom on the West Side. It was small and that was almost a deal breaker but what struck me and eventually I couldn't shake was the sunny, warm feeling I had when I was in the apartment. It was such a beautiful place. I found out after I moved in, that a woman who loved life and lived to laugh, resided there for decades and actually passed away in the apartment. I couldn't shake the joy I felt there so I overlooked the fact that it was small and bought it. I ended up meeting my husband a month after I moved into my happy little place! Talk about feng shui. :-) We lived there blissfully for five years and brought our baby girl home there. She was truly a miracle on many levels. We were sad to leave it, but we had outgrown it. I wonder.....did I feel the woman who lived there before me, in happiness or did I foresee that this place would be the beginning of a new chapter in my life – partnership, marriage and motherhood with my twin flame? We sold it to a young doctor, 5 years later. I like to think we left the place with even more loving energy than we found it, and that she is flourishing. 

Sometimes a place's energy changes while you are there. I was reading at a lovely place in NYC for a few years. When I first walked into it, I felt it's strong positive energy. In the beginning, I loved reading there but some time in 2009 the energy began to change. The dispiritedness was palpable. It began as a tiny seed of sorrow but as time went on it grew into a bleak pall that was inescapable. No amount of saging and smudging could clear the negativity that beset the place. I felt it from the beginning but since I was so close to the situation I didn't trust myself so I chose to do readings on it. Every time I read on whether I should stay or go I got the most dramatic major arcana cards. The message was clear, this place was changing me, I had evolved and was evolving and it wasn't time for me to leave. When the shop closed abruptly last June, it was a welcome relief! The energy there drained the life force out of me but it had served me well. I had met some brilliant souls that were very important to me and have remained a big part of my life. A new place recently opened around the corner and I am now reading there. It is bright and full of love and light and promises to further my journey.

These feelings and energies are not limited to a place with four walls. As some of you know one of my passions is high speed driving on tracks. I have always had this uncanny ability to find the most dangerous portion of a track, the turn or kink or whatever that has amassed the most incidents. (At the race track you never say accident, just like no one ever dies at a track they are called at the hospital or in the medevack never at the track). Anyway, I call it seeing ghosts but I don't actually see anything, I get this creepy feeling when I come to whatever section it may be and I am put on high alert. I can feel where the cars before me may have slipped up and crashed. Sometimes I feel the pain or the immense fear. This makes me be ubervigilant in this area or when I am instructing, I am extra careful to be sure my student masters this part first. You might say that finding the most dangerous part of a track would be simple but it isn't always obvious. Take Watkins Glen, for example, this is a challenging track that has many spots that should be respected but for me the most frightening part of the track is always the approach into the boot! It freaks me out every time. My hair on the back of my neck stands on end and my stomach does flip flops! Turns out many people have had to be medevacked from incidents there and were called at the hospital.  

Certain whole highways agitate me, certain parts of parkways or interstates chill me to the bone. There is one section of the upper roadway of the 59th Street Bridge that paralyzes me every time I go by it. I can actually feel the death and sadness, the fear, the crash and sudden pain! 

I've learned to respect these feelings and act accordingly. If I find myself in a happy place I soak up the energy and alternatively if I am in a place that upsets me I escape as quickly as I can. I try to live as consciously as I can, which is definitely not as easy as it sounds. I still wonder are these feelings premonitions or residual energies that I am tapping into, I don't know, but I pay attention. I try to also be aware of the mark my soul leaves on a place or thing. When I am creating something whether it be through knitting, beading, drawing, mothering cooking, reading or even writing, I try to imbue it with positive energy that is full of light, love and laughter. I think of who I am creating for and I infuse it with my hopes and wishes for that person. Your intent, your frame of mind, your soul goes into everything you do or make and I believe, everywhere you go. I want my soul's legacy to be a positive uplifting one.

December Issue of Tarot Reflections Magazine

http://www.ata-tarot.com/reflections/12-05-10/what-do-we-do-when-we-read.html

Many people have a strong aversion to the term psychic. They prefer to be simply called readers. But can anyone successfully read without tapping into their intuition or psychic abilities? If so then what is so intimidating about the word psychic? We all have the capacity to be psychic even if some of us never learn how to access that portion of our brain. It is through practice that we can tap into our abilities. Through training and learning how to still the noise and distractions that we are able to see glimpses of our higher self and evolve. Reading is a method of meditation or calming. We may not realize that is what we are doing, but it is. When we read we take the basic elements of the medium and we distill meanings that go beyond ink on paper, tea leaves, coffee grinds, stones or junk on cloth or clouds in the air. This is alchemy, transforming the mundane into something special and isn't that at the heart of being psychic? 

Psychic is a generic term by definition, it means someone who gathers information from outside of the mundane, someone who is acutely sensitive to nonphysical messages. Psychics can be mediums, empaths, clairvoyants, clairaudients, claircognizants, telepaths, sensitives, intuitives, etc. But if psychic means gathering information from somewhere other than the five senses, isn't that what we do when we read? Alchemy is an ancient hermetic art focused on changing common materials into gold.  Through distillation and fermentation the substance is transmuted from prima materia (prime matter) into gold. The more the alchemist practices and trains the more he transmutes not just the material but himself. The basic premise is that everything is gold and just needs to be one with the Divine spirit to achieve this transformation. The magnum opus or great work for the alchemist is self actualization. 

Carl Jung defined our higher self as the combination of our conscious and our unconscious. Most people never go beyond the here and now. They struggle to survive and that takes up their whole world. Our ego wants to keep us grounded and away from our unconscious mostly for self preservation but once we are sufficiently grounded and relatively whole the only place to go is up! It is those of us who can conquer our fears and have the courage and strength to persevere that will be able to see our higher self and access our psychic abilities. This can be achieved through meditation, through exercise, through art or anything creative and absolutely and most easily through reading.

When you are ready to trust in the universe and your gifts, AND you can tame your ego, you will reach a new level in reading. How many of us have had times, when reading for another, when the message we received was counter intuitive? It defied logic and you doubted yourself? This is the real test. Your ego pushes, prods and taunts you into thinking you don't know what you are doing. The key is to not to lose focus. Move beyond the mundane and silence the noise! 

Picture the tarot Moon card  - here is the World Spirit Moon:

The eery windy river that travels past the wild dog and wolf in reflected light. Our ego tries to protect us from the unknown, from falling into that river and facing the wild beasts. What is beyond the horizon? We must draw upon our quiet faith and calm capability to go forward. 

What is ultimately needed is a tower moment, our facades and protective walls need to come crumbling down opening our third eye and silencing the chaos.

When we read we build a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious and we tap into the collective unconscious. We open ourselves to receive messages. The cards or any medium we choose are the prime matter, it is our energy that powers the transmutation creating divinatory gold. We unlock magic. The reader's magnum opus will be when they have reached individuation and can master their ego.

Images are from the World Spirit Tarot by Jessica Sczuka Godino and Lauren O'Leary, and the Aliester Crowley Thoth Deck.

January Issue of Tarot Reflections Magazine 

http://www.ata-tarot.com/reflections/01-05-11/finding-the-light.html

When I read tarot, oracles, people, places or whatever, I stop for a moment after the initial moment and study, still my thoughts and mind, I look for patterns, colors, people, I get lost in the moment, I look for overall feelings, for themes and the story but most importantly I look for the light! The light that shines through the tunnel of darkness. Sometimes it takes me a very, very, very long time to find the light, but find it, I always do! That is my true gift, not the intuitive, psychic, divinatory or empathic senses but being able to find the light in any situation or person. 

When I am reading a person I can see where they have allowed the darkness to fester, who or what hurt them  and what they are holding onto that brings them down like an anchor, and most importantly what they need to do to find the light. I can see the clover that has covered their soul but more importantly I can see how to prune it all away and get them to see the light that will free their soul.

One night I was at a charity function and I had a very impatient young volunteer  trying to speed me along. I volunteered to read at the function and to me this meant I will read for as many as I can and that was that. This young woman had something else in mind and she was glaring at me during my readings and trying to hurry me along. I was new at these type of functions and I allowed her to get the better of me. I was about to throw in the towel and I got up to leave when this other woman approached me wanting a reading. I was overcome by her emotions. She was depressed, desperate and frantic with the thought that I was leaving, I assured her I was just taking a momentary break and I would be back..... 

DAMN! I definitely did not want to do that! When I am uncomfortable I like to FLEE! So I went to the bathroom, splashed a little water on me and came back and sat down with her. I did not need the cards to read her but I shuffled and drew them nonetheless. The darkness! It was all encompassing! I was overcome with her sadness and grief. I began talking, slowly, sweetly, I was soft spoken (definitely not my usual way), I pussyfooted through the beginning of the reading unfolding the story very carefully, very slowly and methodically there were so many land mines that I needed to tread very carefully. I knew what I had, I knew what I saw but I had to be careful. There was so much shame, pain, loss and utter hopelessness. What stunned me was there was NO light in the initial throw and moments. I was momentarily stunned and at a loss but I took a deep breath, undaunted I persevered. I kept drawing cards, more and more until finally I found it. 

The light is always there! Where there is darkness there is light. There are things I just know, and that is one of them. Look at the 5 of Disks in the Thoth. Can you see the light? I can. If you use your mind and persevere you will push the darkness away and get to the light. That is the message of this card to me. I focus on the light! Just like I do when I am awoken in the middle of the night and need to get somewhere. I focus on a sliver of light to follow. 

Back to my sitter. For this woman I had to look long and hard, it wasn't easy! I told her what had happened, and yes it was dark and twisted. I told her enough so she could understand that I knew where she was but then I focused on the light. I didn't sugar coat her situation or lie about the future, (I don't do that), I told her she had a long road ahead of her but if she put in the time and effort, things would turn around. I told her which path to take and what she needed to focus on and how life would be when she was on the other side. I told her how she was supposed to get through this mess. I felt her depression lighten a bit even though she understood the gravity of the situation. We cried, but she held onto that hope and left better than she sat down. That was more than I could hope for and I understood in that moment that she was why I was there! I was sent to be there for her! 

Before I became a reader I frequented many readers. I loved being read. I still do! I love watching the process, I love the mystery, the magic and hope. I have a strong spirit very much so. As much as I loved readings I could see what was true and what was a scam. I know that I am the captain of my ship and I know that I direct it's course. No matter what was said to me I continued MY WAY!!! This is very important! I didn't buy crystals to break curses or candles to lighten me up or give great sums of money to charlatans. I went to so many readers in my youth that I encountered fakes and frauds, amazing psychic and mediocre readers alike, light and dark readers as well. The latter was the most distressing and rattled even my strong spirit. 

I read her when I met her and I knew who she was but I was ever curious and like a young pup eager to find a clue about my future. Her reading was excessively expensive! She was jealous, fierce and caught up with her own demons and she had many! I knew her achilles heel, what motivated her but yet I allowed her to read for me and to say the most heinous, evil things to me. She saw only doom and gloom and literally death and destruction, all of which never came to pass, thank you God! When I left her reading I was broken, crying (not something I do in public), quite shaken and upset. It was awful! Thank goodness I have strong guides and angels around me that push and prod me, the second I took a step outside and took a breath of fresh air, I remembered who I was and where my light was and I followed it and released her reading into the ether and never looked back. 

I feel badly for people who feed on darkness and sadness. They are true psychic vampires, I find them weak and evil. This person was fueled by hurting me. She reveled in it! I am naïve to that kind of darkness unfortunately. She and I are polar opposites, I am empowered by healing and helping. It hurts me physically if I inadvertently hurt someone. 

Remember something, a reading is merely a snapshot of the situation at the moment you are read, providing the person is being true and truly has gifts. You have the power to alter the outcome of your future anytime you wish to do so. 

NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER give your power away to anyone! Readings should be used as a tool to give you a better understanding of a situation, to guide or encourage you, to explore things that may not have occurred to you, to find the light that you may have lost or for you to understand more than you do about what is going on in your life so that you have more power over your destiny. Don't ever allow any reader or reading take your power away from you! 

When you read for someone please look for the light! Even in the darkest of situations our angels shine a light for us,  you just need to sit still a moment and find it. Give the gift of light to your clients and shine yourself!