Read Part One and Part Two here.
A dramatic story of a way to learn Tarot.
So after giving my first reading to Brian, a professional Tarot Reader I had run to the toilet.
I was sitting on the toilet seat deep breathing. What should I do? Should I stay or should I leave? Should I leave the weekend Body Mind Spirit show and call it all a bad dream?
After what felt like a lifetime, I decided I would try.
I would try to read Tarot Cards for people today. Then I could decide what to do about the rest of the weekend. I would either drown or swim, but I would try. Perhaps it would help me learn Tarot.
It was now after 9am and the doors to the biggest BodyMindSpirit show of the year in Dublin, Ireland had started and people were pouring in. All the New Age Hippies were going to walk past Joes stand soon…(I am obviously one of those myself)
I returned to my mentor Joes stand. Joe was holding a cup of tea. (Joe at the time was a serious drinker of tea. 20 cups of tea a day was his liquid sustenance).
‘Well?’ he asked looking through his bifocal glasses at me.
“Well, what?’ I snapped. Even though I was standing in the middle of a huge ‘Love and Light’ weekend exhibition I was not feeling particularly full of pink love right at that moment.
Joe ignored me and pointed to a piece of paper on the deck. ‘I have this page here and people can write down their names. I’ll give you 15 minutes for each reading. That ok?’
‘Are you asking me or telling me Joe?’ I said, my voice full of icicles.
Joe stared and me, shrugged his shoulders and took a sip of his tea. I could tell he was trying not to laugh because his face kept twitching. I clenched my fists.
I am SO going to kill this man at the end of the day. What a nerve to put me in the deep end like this!
People were now walking all around us so it was probably not a good time to swear at him or claw him with my nails. We were in Hippy Heaven. The world of meditation, chackras, aura cleansing and whale healing. It would not look good if I turned into a shrieking harpy! I was not appreciating his method to help me learn Tarot.
I took a deep breath and gave Joe an extra sharp dagger look.
‘Hello?’ said a woman’s voice. I turned around. A blonde haired, middle aged woman was looking at me, ‘Can I have a Tarot reading?’
‘Sure’ I said with a big smile showing uber confidence that I did not possess, and pointed to the seat beside the little round Tarot table, ‘Take a seat’.
I sat down and this woman (let’s call her Amy) immediately started telling me about her Soul Mate – or should I say – a lack of one.
I nodded and handed her the Tarot pack. ‘Why don’t you shuffle the cards while you are talking,’ I suggested, ‘that way your energy will be in the cards’.
Amy took the cards and shuffled rather badly (not a shuffle expert like Brian the professional reader I had just finished with).
“I just want to find my Soul Mate”, Amy explained. “I’m lookin, lookin, lookin and I can’t find him anywhere”.
I nodded.
I instructed Amy to spread the cards, close her eyes, take some deep breaths, open her eyes and then pull 6 cards.
Why 6 cards? No idea. Remember I knew nothing at the time.
I turned the cards one by one. I didn’t know anything about the meanings in the Tarot cards but I remember even now that all the cards were Cups cards and The Lovers card. I didn’t know what Cup cards were at the time but everyone in the cards looked happy, blissful and smiling.
‘I think any minute now’, was my answer.
Amy squealed, ‘eeeeeeeeeee’.
Joe, standing in the background jumped!
‘Yes, your Soul Mate will appear very soon’ I confirmed with confidence. I did honestly feel that at the time.
Amy was ecstatic and asked a few more questions and the 15 minutes was up.
(15 minutes goes SUPER FAST when you are reading tarot).
Amy jumped up full of glee and went to explore the other stands at the show after dutifully paying Joe five Irish pounds (the days long before Ireland switched to the Euro).
There were two people standing waiting and the day continued. When you give readings for 5 pounds and everybody else is charging 15/20 pounds you can guess who is going to be busier!
Me!
I didn’t have much time to breathe let alone eat or pee. Joe gracefully created an hour break for me at lunchtime but by the time I finished my morning list of clients I only had half an hour. I went off to the toilet and after that to the gluten free, sugar free, lactose free, not very tasty hippy stand for a salad. I was already fully booked for the rest of the day and I even had a few bookings for tomorrow. I wasn’t sure if I would come back the next day but I didn’t say that to Joe.
I was dazed and totally out of it as I stood in the queue to order my salad. Those were the early days of my explorations into spirituality. I didn’t understand psychic protection, grounding or any of that stuff that comes in handy when you are reading Tarot cards.
‘Eeeeee’ someone squealed behind me. I jumped and turned around. It was Amy – her energy was on fire.
‘I met him, I met my Soul Mate, you won’t believe it, I went outside and was having a fag* and I couldn’t find me matches and this man came over and lit my fag for me and we got chatting and he is so lovely and so cute and then we chatted some more and he asked me did I want coffee and I said yes and we chatted more and he bought me cake and then we went outside and had another fag and he asked me out on a date tonight. Oh My God – I think he is my Soul Mate. You were right – any moment now you said but Holy God I didn’t think it would be that fast. You are such a great reader – I’m telling everybody about ya all morning. Eeeeeeeeeeeee’
Everything Amy said came out in one gush without a breath. It took me a moment to catch up.
‘Eh….Amy that’s great!’
‘EEEEEeEeeeeeee’ she replied, jumping on the spot and gave me a massive hug.
I didn’t know what to say so I said nothing and just smiled as Amy ran off (probably to have another fag).
I looked at my watch. Crap it was time to go back. I didn’t even get time to order a tasteless salad. I grabbed a chocolate Mars Bar instead.
At the end of that first day I was exhausted but exhilarated at the same time.
You know that feeling when you are totally terrified of something and you do it anyway. I was feeling that feeling.
Ah hell, I silently thought to myself, I might as well stay for the next two days.
Joe and I worked till 9pm at the show and then we went to a local restaurant afterwards where I devoured a serious amount of food.
I no longer wanted to kill Joe. Perhaps his crazy mentoring technique worked. I was no longer frightened of the Tarot cards and had many happy customers to prove I was doing something right. Maybe I could do this Tarot thing!
I could share more stories about that crazy weekend but perhaps another time…
Crazy stories…
Strange stories…
How on day 2 my eccentric friend Daniel arrived, told me I was floating off into space, took me outdoors and proceeded to fill my Doc Martin boots with mud so I would ‘get grounded’. I squelched back into the show but it didn’t work. I was left with sticky toes.
Or the story about the man that asked me would I beat him up after the show was over because I looked like a strong woman. Seems he was into BDSM!
Or the women who couldn’t decide if buying a Christmas tree for her sister for her wedding present was a good idea or not.
You meet all sorts of people when you learn Tarot and read for others. Never a dull moment.
One thing is for sure. I didn’t drown that weekend and it launched me into the world rather dramatically as a professional Tarot reader.
In hindsight, I have to say…thanks Joe.
If anybody is interested in Joes mentoring style you can actually contact him at www.anamspirit.com.
You can definitely learn Tarot super fast with Joes random techniques!
Joe mentors, trains, heals and guides in the areas of Shamanism, Tantra, Dowsing, Angels, Tarot, Ritual and Land/Space clearing.
He has authored a few books and is well known in Ireland as ‘the man who gets rid of things that go bump in the night’.
In short, Joe is an Irish shaman! His methods work.
On that note, I will say goodbye and remind you that nothing is too hard to try, especially if you feel manipulated into doing it and your ego decides to prove them wrong.
It is one way to Learn Tarot – the Irish way…
* A fag is an Irish word for cigarette. ‘Im goin for a fag’ means a person is about to light a cigarette. They may not actually be ‘goin’ anywhere in fact.
Photo Credits
All pictures are from Joe Mulallys website (anamspirit.com) or creative commons for commercial use by Pixabay.com
The Lovers Major Arcana Card: By Pamela Coleman Smith – a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley (http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/) for the public domain, and retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot (see note on that page regarding source of images), PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31022146
Irish 5 Pounds: By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3206784