Cards, Signs and Numbers

As it says in my profile, along with being a writer and a music freak, I am also a tarot card reader, astrologer and numerologist, so I thought I'd take a little time and write about these things.

It's funny, I believe in these metaphysical sciences, and my own intuition when using them. I feel I have a pretty keen psychic sensibility (really, I think everyone does, to varying degrees), and have used these vehicles to harness that potential. There are times I know things beyond the basics of what a card or birth chart might indicate. In fact, especially with tarot, which I feel is my strongest of the three modes, I'd say that pretty much always happens. I get a sense of something beyond just the card, or because of the cards, I feel something in my own emotional field that is more than just the picture on the six of wands, for example. Also with tarot, the cards can be interpreted differently in different situations, so I feel there is something else at work there, some gut instinct, along with knowing the cards really wel.

Actually, one time, when "applying" to work at a metaphysical shop doing readings, the owner asked me to give her a reading using marbles, which I had never done before. So I was without my cards and signs and couldn't rely on their meanings, so I really had to go with absolute gut instinct, the images that came to mind and the feelings they evoked. And it worked. It was a great revelation to me, because the self-critical part of me always thinks that maybe there's no magic and no intuition, that all I'm really good at is memorizing meanings of cards. The marble experience pushed me to go beyond that, and I hope I will someday have more experiences to help further my intuition and my reliance on it.

That's the right-brain part of me. The left brain part of me is a complete skeptic that any of this works. In fact, I think my skepticism is why I like astrology. It's metaphysical, but it involves a lot of math, with degrees, angles, aspects. I always liked math. BUt yeah, I'm skeptical and cynical about the same thing, which makes it nice when I do readings and people tell me how much it fits their life, or when people come up to me months later and say that everything from their reading came true. It always surprises me because that more science-minded part of me just doesn't fully trust that cards and signs mean anything. But, I think they do.

I also think they don't preclude free will. I think all these things show tendencies, patterns, the way the wind is blowing, rather than inescapable absolutes. My personal beliefs lie somewhere between predestination and free will (a topic I love dissecting and discussing to no end), and that the two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

In all of these areas, though I have been working with them for awhile now, I am still learning. Every time I give a reading, I learn something new. And I love that. I feel like I'm constantly honing and deepening my skill and understanding. Then there are things in these disciplines that bug me or that I wonder about, and I'm sure I'll be blogging more about it all.

Anyone, on to a brief description of my own relationship to the the three tools (or toys, as I sometimes like to call them):

Currently Listening:
"Famous Blue Raincoat" - Tori Amos
(Leonard Cohen cover)