✨ Crisis of Conscience ✨

Unless you grew up with an intuitive relative or with Gypsies or Witches, the tarot may be somewhat uncharted territory. Many religions see the tarot as a way to connect to evil spirits of even Satan himself. The first thing you should do before picking up the tarot deck for the first time is ask yourself, how do I feel about tarot?

I grew up in an Irish Catholic family. We had 2 priest and one sister in our family. Every holiday, we had mass around our dinner table before a meal. My mother’s aunts and uncles were very devoted Roman Catholic Church members. Two aunts in particular, Ida and Marion, spent a lot of time when I was very young telling me about God, and Jesus. And I listen and believed every word. I went to Catholic Schools up until I graduated from High School. But somehow, I knew even from a young age, my connection to God was not dependent on any religion. Still, this didn’t stop me from having to go through years of ups and downs as to if the tarot was good or evil.

In 1996, I picked up the tarot for one reason and one reason only, to communicate with something that was with me my whole life that was constantly trying to communicate with me. That was months after I stopped drinking. Trying to figure out how to live a life without alcohol was very challenging. I needed all the help I could get! And tarot was one way I looked to, to achieve this communication.

I picked up my first deck, started spreading them out and looking up the definitions. Right away I saw things that came true. I did a reading on my love interest at the time, and sure enough, I saw myself becoming a bigger part of his life. I ended up marrying him. He, however, was a Jehovah’s witness. Strongly opposing the tarot. So, I struggled with my desire to do the tarot and his constant reminders that the Bible says not to do tarot.

But does it?? The Bible obviously was written before A.D. time. Tarot was not created until 1800’s. So how could the specifically be telling me what the purpose of the tarot was and who I was connecting to with them. It was a battle for many, many years. A few times I have taken several decks of cards and thrown them right into the dumpster. Inevitable, I would come back to them. So many decks that would be worth so much money right now had I held on to them. I don’t think I have ever asked what is this trying to communicate to me. I never thought about if it was good or bad. I just knew it was guiding me and many times had guided me to great things. It was not until after my Kundalini spiritual awakening that it was revealed to me that this was my higher self. The part of me that goes way beyond this body. The part of me that is connected to everyone else. The part of me that is God/Source energy/Holy Spirit.

Since having this revelation, I am never swayed by the opinion of any written word or opinion of others. I am 100% firm in what I am doing, who I am talking to and why. These cards give me so much insight to myself. Help me see things that I was not able to see without them. Show me who I am and who others are around me. I use them for meditation. To open my mind to ideas and possibilities I would have never seen with out them. And yes, they have more often than not told me exactly what will happen in a situation. For me and for others that I read for.

I believe that with our human mind and ego, there is only so much we can imagine. If we came up with the best possible outcome for a situation, we would be selling ourselves short. I know that my higher self, my inner being, knows the plan and the reasons as to why I came to this earth. It sees way beyond anything I can see. Into what will really make me happy and what other people’s intentions are. I give my life over to this higher-self daily to the best of my ability. But I also try to communicate with it and get as much insight as to what its plan is for me. In Alcoholic’s anonymous the 12th step is “Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out”. This is my main purpose for using tarot for myself and when reading for others.

Now that I know this purpose, and pretty much have a mission statement, I am no longer going back and forth with my conscience. I do not see myself ever throwing these cards away again thinking they are the devil. My spirit has revealed itself to me in these cards. It is very important to have a conviction like this when reading especially if you are thinking of becoming a professional tarot card reader. If you have clients that depend on you, that look to you for guidance, it is not fair to put yourself out there only to one day have them turn to you but you cannot help because you are having a crisis of conscious about doing what you agreed to do for them. It is also one of the reasons if you are turning to a tarot reader, you want to be sure they are experienced and dedicated to their skill. That there will be not ups and downs for them personally that you will be affected by.

Who are you connecting to with Tarot?

For many years, I never thought about my intention, or who I was connecting with when I purchased my first deck of cards. There was no fear, or doubt, that whatever it was had my best interest at heart. And to date, that gut feeling has never been proven wrong. I was however aware that I frequently talked to my self in a plural sense. Where do we want to go? What do we want to do? When I started my first business, I set up an entire retail store with biker apparel by myself. People would ask how I did it and I would say “my angels helped me”. That’s how I explained it in the beginning. My angels were helping me.

My first spiritual intuitive teacher, Sonia Choquette taught me that we have about 36 angels around us at all times. And they all had different specialties. If you needed help building something, ask an angel with that specialty. If you needed help with money, ask for an angel with financial expertise, etc. So for many years I figured that is who was helping me. When I started reading professionally online again, I would ask my angels to give me messages. There were many witnesses to the fact that these angels were a little silly. Giving me the same card over and over again. Giving me silly answers to questions but in a way that was playful, not mean. Just always had a way of making the reading a little more funny.

I did also always know I had “The Voice” with me. Its just a voice in my head that sometimes told me things that I didn’t know. Always in analogies. I can remember being single in my first apartment and having this voice give me guidance about how to live alone. For a second I might have thought where is this coming from, but it quickly passed as I just appreciated it was there at all. It was with me loud during the time I spent in detox. Times when I really needed this guidance it was given to me. Barely questioned where it came from. I kind of knew it was me, but how I knew these things, I never questioned much.

In 2018, my dad was sick in the hospital. Nothing serious, or so I thought at the time. I went to visit him even though we had been somewhat estranged for years. We had a pretty good visit, and I planned on visiting more. He kept talking to people who were not there and seeing trees everywhere and wondering why I could not see them. It was so frustrating to him to be so aware of his mind going and there was nothing he could do about it. He was so aware that there was an issue with what he was seeing. I bent down to kiss him on the head and the most amazing feeling of love was coming out of the top of his head. A few days later, I was in my bathroom (for some reason, I get a lot of messages in my bathroom. I wonder if its something to do with the combination of water and mirrors or something). But the voice said to me my father was suffering. He was suffering in a way that my friend Rocky was so afraid of suffering. Rocky at the age of 51 committed suicide. This was just a couple months before my father became ill. I spoke with Rocky on the phone for 5 hours. He told me he looked into his future and saw nothing good. Both of these men were abusers of substances. The voice told me what Rocky saw in his future was exactly what my father was going through. That helped me understand. And then the voice said, but your father doesn’t have to go through this. It took me a few minutes to realize the voice was telling me that it could spare my father’s mental suffering by ending his life. I said out loud “You can do that?”. The moment passed. But within weeks, my father’s life was over. They said there was cancer all throughout his body that somehow was missed in the 2 months he spent in the hospital. I knew that conversation with Spirit was real. That I had somehow given permission for my father’s life to be ended so that he wouldn’t have to watch his brain deteriorate before his very eyes. And neither did the people who loved him.

I decided that voice was the one I needed to connect with. One time when I was online in a chatroom pulling cards for people, someone came in while I was summoning my angels for guidance and they said “do you ever call on Spirit?”. I had a negative connotation with that word. Spirit could be something evil. Something unknown. Dark spirits. But I soon realized this is the Holy Spirit. My higher self. The guidance that was promised to us in the Bible when Jesus said “I will send another after me” before he ascended into heaven. This is my understanding and my intention as to who I am connecting with. I have never doubted it since.

 

It is very important that you know who you are connecting with. And it can be whoever or whatever you want. It can also change. But know who you are speaking with whenever you take out your cards, Intention is everything.

 

Some people will tell you that you are opening the door to evil spirits! If you believe in evil spirits, you will always have a door open to them. I do not believe in evil spirits, so I have never had an experience with evil spirits. If you do believe in evil spirits, we will talk about later how you can protect yourself from evil spirits. But honestly it is only something you do to make yourself not believe in evil spirits. It’s better to just know that even if there are evil spirits, you are protected from them. (Romans 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The most important first step in learning or connecting to tarot is to determine who you are connecting with and why. What is your intention? In the spiritual world they say “Intention is everything”. So, to know what your intention is and making it clear as a reader, to yourself, and anyone else you come cross will make you a more stable and reliable reader.