New Blog I Actually Write Stuff On

Apparently I occasionally get a hit still on this thing, but I don’t update it anymore. This is clearly a waste of valuable bits and bytes. Click on the Dubious Teamwork link to your right, or for those DIYers enter http://www.dubiousteamwork.wordpress.com into your address bar at the top of your browser. Hope to see you over at Dubious.

People read this thing?

Really? So you see a vague and undefined future ahead of me?

So Friday night a friend of my roommate Brenda came over (whom I’ve apparently met several times). Shockingly enough she had somehow been duped into reading this thing, and further more wanted her cards read. Now I’ve set myself several guidelines for determining success in the fast-paced world of internet hobby tarot reading and they are as follows:

1. Instant Name Recognition
2. Get Paid Upfront
3. Get Paid Afterwards
4. Barter people’s futures for cool stuff
5. Don’t Get attacked by your marks

Now, so far, I haven’t been doing so well, that is… until Friday night. I both had a reader whom I didn’t specifically direct towards the website recognize me (ok lets put aside the fact we had met before). I read her cards and she DIDN’T attack me. As far as #4 is concerned she did take us to a party where we go free beer, however it was mostly Budweiser so I’m not sure if you call this a win or a loss.

I think the hardest part about giving a reading (aside from the absolutely massive amounts of memorization required to do it without a book in your hand) is developing the confidence to tell people specifics. There are things you want to say and the cards seem to be indicating but I get nervous that if I say that I will be exposed for the fraud that right now you only suspect me of being. In that vein I tried to a little in this reading but that was probably imperceptible to all but myself. The thing about being a budding tarot medium is that you want to ask the client about your reading as much as they wanted to know what the cards meant, but that would appear unprofessional!

I’ll have to refrain from writing about the results and specifics of the actual reading however… you see there is a strict and unwritten code of medium-mark confidentiality, a code I have been, so far, unpaid to break.

Brenda and the Celtic Cross

Brenda Kills the Messenger

Ok, as it turns out there is a lot too this tarot thing. I’ve been hard at work reading and memorizing my tarot book. But I’ve also found that its a lot easier to retain card meanings when actually giving readings because it starts to have some coherency. So, in order to help myself get better, and for my more noble goal of enlightening those around me I gave my roomate Brenda a reading, my 2nd.

It went very well I think (no i KNOW). I got to predict the types of advice and mindset she will need to overcome impending problems. Sometimes the cards don’t seem to fit very well with the question (maybe i just need to have an even more liberal imagination) but other times they eerily lock right into place. Most of Brenda’s locked in and were directly relevent while at the same time being very obscure. I also learned to ask for money before reading someones cards, cause afterwards they show their true colors, lying cheating bastards will demand the very future from you and then leave you high and dry when it comes to fair compensation. Fortunately for them i’m learning tarot and not voodoo (perhaps another month, and then they’ll learn!).

Conor also remindedme that I need to work on my patter… that is to say, my salesmanship. Personally I think the secrets of the future sell themselves, but not everyone feels this way, maybe a little glitter could go a long way.

Project: Learn Tarot (or the PLT as we say around here) is going pretty well, and apparently the writer of the tarot book isn’t so hot with the cards cause I am WAY ahead of the 3-week rule.

my first reading

Shock and Awe

Ok, the book says that “within three weeks you will be ready to give your first reading!” as though that were some sort of fast-track program for soothsayers. I suppose knowing that in 3 weeks i can begin to understand the fabric of the inter-connected universe and peoples futures is pretty good, but still requires more patience then I have just now.

So I skipped ahead, after an hour or two of skimming about how to read the tarot I dove in, giving a reading to my roommate Conor. It took a long time, and i don’t mean that there was such a depth of knowledge hidden within me that I couldn’t contain my reading into one convenient 15 minute increment, but that I had to flip between a lot of pages. I am beginning to think that 3 weeks may be a bit ambitious to give a reading not heavily aided by my trusty book of answers.

I did learn one very important fact, get the quirant (or “mark”) to give you his/her question. It makes directing relevant answers significantly easier. So, while I don’t know that Conor learned any deep spiritual answers, I certainly learned something about what is required to do this successfully. Also, it was very interesting to see the many ways that what is said could be relevant to your life, and if nothing else get you thinking about your own problems and habits (which are generally speaking just problems we have internalized and accepted).

I think this is going to be interesting, really.

A hobby enthusiast am I.

Its Magic

All my adult life this one query has come at me time and time again when meeting new people.. What are you into? How do you spend your free time? What are your hobbies? I almost fumble for an answer as I try not to appear to dull “well you know, i umm, well i read a lot of news, and I like to travel!” Yeah maybe I like to travel but I’m not jet-setting around the world on a weekly basis, hell I can’t even use summer and winter as verbs (someday, someday). So what are my hobbies? After recently moving in with some friends with very defined hobbies (from brewing beer to knitting) I realized that I don’t have any, not one.

With this realization came another, I don’t have the attention span or dedication for a hobby, I mean a real enthusiast, they really care about their chosen hobby/obsession/interest, and I guess I’m just too jaded to commit myself that much, however I do want to have an answer to that reoccurring question.

Faced with this most unfortunate predicament I’ve made, what seems to me, to be the only sensible response, I’m gonna try them all. Every hobby that comes my way I’m gonna pick up (one at a time, probably anyway). Every month I am going to adopt a new hobby and spend a month living as though this is my calling. Maybe something will stick and I’ll continue with it, but just as likely not. I do not know.

For my inaugural foray into the world of hobbies I have chosen, for the month, to be a Tarot enthusiast. I will learn how to use Tarot cards, their background, and hopefully not only have my cards read by an expert but also give readings to friends and strangers. I have purchased the Thoth Tarot deck and “How To Read the Tarot” by Sylvia Abraham.

Today I embark on my journey to unlock the secrets of my past, present, and future, as well as, for the first time, the world of the hobbyist.