Tarot Aftermath

 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. 

Bold Curiosity

  Or, a Shattered Heart? Those were the two ideas (if you want to call them them that) that I had for a title, and in this occasion, my latest blog post.

    I don't know what it is, or why, that I tend to throw myself into something so heavily, just to abruptly stop. This goes not just for my Tarot cards, but for writing and painting as well.

     Painting never really was my thing I suppose, however, it had come to me at an interesting, but not very much so, point where I would spend hours screwing around with it, and now my room is littered with paint brushes and solo cups, and they too are something I haven't touched in months. Writing, perhaps, I haven't gone that long without doing, sometimes I wake up and I have to get out a dream, or I'll be in the shower and have this crazy thought... Reading tarot cards though, I date everything, at least I try to and I'm pretty sure nothing happened since the beginning of February, thus, the reason I'm writing this post now.

     I'd gotten to the point where I didn't even want to be a witch anymore and was debating selling off things like my crystals and cards (I'm sure the extra money would have helped out somewhere). At the same time though, I knew it belonged. I knew it would feel empty and as much as I'm not some sort of witch, I am.

     When I was a kid I always thought I'd be some sort of secret Necromancer, protecting the dead, and helping others cross over. I don't think being a witch is so far off.

     A shattered heart, the three of swords, a card that seems to scare the hell out of people whenever they pull it... I pulled it and it didn't even register it was that card until I looked it up, and while it is very much appropriate in the set of cards I pulled, I believe it is referring to the triggering events that have led up until now. To the point that I need my cards and their guidance, that I need to write, and unleash bits of my soul (what I believe remains of it) once more.

     While it's not the prettiest picture, it's my first pull in awhile. Pulled Monday night after debating it at work, after debating if I should start writing my blog again, so here we are, cards and writing and a new post for the blog.

     These last few months have been hard, and while it's still early in the year, things are moving quickly, even if my battle with depression doesn't want it to be so. Things have been rocky at home, work is rough and the scares dad has given alone have been enough to make me go crazy. One would think I'd have all kinds of reasons to write then, but picking up a pen and putting it to paper apparently requires quite a bit of motivation as well.

     Between the Six of Coins and The Devil, I cannot help but think, for now, that I can keep the darkness at bay. Well, the darkness that keeps me down, not the kind I look too (yes I believe there are different versions of 'the darkness'). Darkness that I embrace. People see themselves as light workers, but again, referring back to that bit about being a necromancer, I think some of us thrive better from said darkness. 

    Sometimes I think the monsters under my bed would make better friends anyways.

    I'm not really sure how to wrap all this up with a nice bow, I don't think it really needs to be. Yes, it's a bit of a mess, and yes, I'm quite scatterbrained but I have to start, well restart somewhere, and eventually, perhaps, pieces will start falling back nicely into place, and if they don't, they don't. At some point I do have to stop trying to impress everyone, and it will not be the first or the last time I've been described as an organized mess. One can always keep up with all the latest tarot readings via my Instagram.

The Middle and the Poor Class

    While it may sound like the title to some heated debate, I promise I'm not going there. It is more like I'm trying to figure it out for myself, or I'm just mad because I work a dead-end job, have skills that won't be of use anywhere else, and would much rather be writing from home, or at least doing something a little less tedious and a lot more soul-moving if that makes any sense.

    I'm sure the last thing anyone wants to hear is someone who can't get anywhere complain, which yes, is sort of what I'm doing, but I'm trying to fix it too. I have no problem owning up to my own mistakes, my own faults, and while it isn't the easiest trying to do something about it, I'm not completely discouraged.

    It was a post on Twitter that has me writing this, even if it is later useless. It was a post for a job to write for an online community with things that deal with pop culture. Some of the requirements that it wanted were already have a large follower base across multiple social media platforms, and the time to write three to five articles a week. Talk about time being a faster killer than usual... The not so funny thing is that I'm writing this as I count down the seconds until i have to get ready and leave for work.

     Please don't get me wrong though, the fact i even have a job means more than anything. I might complain, I  might hate it a lot of the time, but it DOES pay the bills, it lets me purchase things on my own no one in their right mind would buy for me (eighty crystals, and twenty more Funko Pops please), and when I have some extra I can help out other people as well. They say you the more money you have the more greedy you become, at least, that's what it seems like, and sure there are people who donate a good portion of it, but lets me real, how many are doing it for tax write offs? 

    Okay, enough of that, I said I wasn't going to get into it. 

    Anyways, it's just one of those things where I'd like to believe I'd try to do good by others. 

    The whole point to this is that I am only twenty five and I've watched the world change so much. I know the kinds of responses people think towards this... yes, I know I haven't seen war, or fought for the right to vote, or was held against my will because my race is full of assholes... But I've seen gas shoot up so high that minimum wage barely covered it, I learned how to live from paycheck to paycheck because that's what my parents did, what they do. No one knew how to help me get into college because no one had ever been there themselves, and when I finally made it in, I didn't know anyone to have and sort of 'IN' to land myself a job, even when I was promised work-study benefits. Should I have tried harder? Probably. Was I eighteen and clueless. Hell yes.

     Even now, my last few jobs I had were attained with the help of someone I knew that already worked there. Resumes are words on paper, those tests you take after you fill out an application, they are fake, terrible representations of you. I cannot tell you the anxiety I get when I have to take a test, let alone to give someone what they want to hear and have the test come back with something along the lines of 'you should not hire this person, ever. Do not even consider them.' 

    So yes, while I greatly dislike my job, and it pays the bills, it's also the hardest thing to find another, because stress, anxiety, depression, they're killers too, and right now, I just work my ass off in the hopes of raises and being able to afford to go back to school. There's a reason I don't live on my own anymore, perhaps a few of them and I'm sure they're not hard to figure out. I also know I'm not the only one in such a situation, that there are lots of us out there, and plenty of us worse off. I have so much love and respect for those who fight, who keep going; For those who do have it together and are making it, making something of themselves, and while I'm sure I probably don't have much right to write about any of this, I too am going to keep fighting, and firmly believe that none of us are alone, and we all need one another.

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

"All That is Gold Does Not Glitter"
J. R. R. Tolkien