Within the last two weeks I've come to realize a few things. One, that paying for school out of pocket, even for one, online class, it's expensive for someone who makes less than twenty-thousand dollars a year, especially when your out put is more than your input as far as checks and bills are concerned. Two, that I really enjoy reading Tarot cards. Not just for myself, but for others, and I've now had the privilege of putting this to the test a few times. In person and online.
Prior to Sunday I had announced for a few days over my Instagram that I would be giving away free Tarot readings. While I don't have a large following (which in this case was probably a good thing), I did get to read for a few people online, and Sunday was the day I sat down to pull cards, and jot down notes (in my lovely Snow White notebook while listening to classical music like Chopin).
Here's the thing about Tarot, and, at least for me, writing in general, it's Exhausting! It really does take a lot of mental focus and I prefer writing everything by hand. Yes, keyboards are nice, but the internet is distracting whether you can put a time limit on a block for it or not. I find that I switch through songs a lot less on my phone using iHeart Radio than I would if I had YouTube up on my computer. Plus, classical music songs, some anyways, have a tendency to be a lot longer than a three-and-a-half minute hit.
The exhausting bit isn't just mental though, it's something more. Tarot cards involve interpretation and intuition to unlock and understand, but when I got caught up writing a piece for my story at work the other day, I realized that investing yourself into characters, unlocking their minds and dipping into how they think takes quite a bit of mental work too.
I was actually impressed when my characters popped into my head Thursday night, and I had to focus between running my machine at work and getting everything down between a woman called Dirk, a man she calls Quinn and the doom that is the AI they're trying to take down, but that's a matter for another time.
Everything change for me in that span of time, with her thoughts and his reactions and what such imminent doom might spell for them in what could be their last moments. Perhaps I wasn't so much impressed with myself as I was with the resulting feelings after. I was tired and empty. Drained might be a more appropriate term.
When I had sat down to do the Tarot pulls, I was ready to do them all, write them down, type them up, except, I forgot that there is a strain on the mind, and that after I took care of the first one, I had to slow down a bit, writing them out turned into jotting notes and to give each person their reading to the best of my abilities, I had to type them up over the span of a few days. By no means am I sorry about this. There is a trust being built with a client and their reader and the last thing I want to do is rush that and do a piss-poor job, especially if I plan on offering readings as a service, and as a way to help pay for school.
Paying for school, this is a ball game I lost miserably the first time a few years ago, and I'm trying to do things a little differently, okay, a lot differently this time around.
Without going into to many useless details, things turned out to be much more expensive than originally known, where what I thought was going to be the price of three classes, turned out to be the price of once class. So, it's a bit of a set back as I'm only taking one class now, and I was initially upset, it showed me that I need to do more in other ways to get where I need to be, and the one thing that I really have at my disposal right now is Tarot cards.
I have learned a lot this week reading for people, and I know I still have a lot to learn, but there is a point where reading isn't enough and you have to learn by doing. In this process I do hope to be able to open an online store, perhaps Etsy, to offer a few readings at affordable prices. If it comes to the point where this happens to be successful (one reading will count as a success I think) I plan on using every penny to help pay for future classes. That's not to say I'm not pinching pennies elsewhere, but again, every little thing helps and I cannot rely on anyone without helping myself first.
This is one of those huge-small victories for me! I'm tired of hanging on the past and I don't think I've ever wanted to move and keep pushing forward as much as I do now. Anything and everything I do anymore, no matter how small, is in the hopes that I attain my goals. Goals such as furthering my writing career, one day being able to travel and hopefully not be stuck in such a bottomless pit.
