Of course I've been neglecting my magickal/tarot blog.

In between both houses, now, and my main desktop is in one, my laptop follows me back and forth to work. My desk is a lap tray on the air mattress.

But, in spite of my radio silence, shit has been taking off.

I moved back into Atlantic Highlands, well, you know, the business.  I'm at 68 1st Ave, now instead of 76.  It's my own place, and I pay rent and everything...and I'm sustaining it. I'll write more about it, but the longer I do it, the better I'm getting.  I feel my web reaching and touching people that need the kind of wisdom the cards offer.  It's happening.  When I think of my "job" I feel suffused with a warm golden light, that just warms me, and I hope others around me, like the sun on a June morning.  Of course I'm barely turning a profit.  It sustains itself, and gives me a little monetary validation that I'm on the right track.  It feels good, it feels correct.

I'm finding, though, sort of a collateral thing that's happening being an established tarot card reader, more spiritual people are seeking me out, and I am really engaging with people on a magickal level.  I met a really cool woman at a party on Saturday, and within like the first hour we were talking about past life regression, and hypnotism, and how I do that through the cards.  As we were leaving the party, I was like "I meet the COOLEST people" and my mom was like "wow, she was a flake."  I looked at her and said, "yeah, that's what they say about people like us."  Like attracts like, I guess.  But what's happening is, as I meet people and become closer friends, I find us all talking about...Ain Soph Aur, and past lives, the collective unconscious, true will, higher purpose, all that.  I'm finding cool people hanging around the shop, and me grabbing books and showing my friends things...and my friends going out and buying books and showing me things...

Um, don't look now, but it feels like a garage band version of a "coven".  In fact, my most devoted magical chum (besides Luiz) would cringe and rebel like fuck at that term.  She's not a joiner. Neither am I.  I have always skipped past the group magic stuff in the books.  But, we're not joiners together.  And, there are kind of a bunch of us 'non joiners' and we find ourselves sitting around my table, late into the night drinking wine and discussing the stars.

Since Hurricane Sandy, everything in my life has been dulled, repressed, shelved,and sidelined, except tarot.  Except magick.  And now that we're going home and I feel finally able to flourish, it's all coming together.  I've started ritual magick again.  My first summoning in ages, literal ages.  . I'm flourishing magickally.  I've gone back into the garden, a little.  My poor salt soaked dead garden, the rue still grows.  Of course it does, it was Babcia's and there's nothing tougher.  My home is a magickal home, and now that I'm back in the walls and practicing home again, I found that all my time away has made me better. Sharper.  All my small kitchen witchery over the past few years, getting energy to do parties and huge carnival events, brewing teas and tisanes to help people have prophetic dreams, incense to attract business to first 76, and now 68, all that has given me something to do, and keeping me in it.  And now that I'm reuinted with my herbs, stones, and library....  I feel witchier/wizardier/flakier than ever, and business is picking up as a result.  

A friend of mine, a dyed in the wool atheist, who I've read cards for dozens of times, he asked if it was real.  I was like, "look dude. I make money being a witch.  I'm a witch, and I sit in my shop all day being witch and doing witchy things, and there are even wands and potions and shit....and I make a living at it.  Witches don't exist, we're supposed to be fairy tale villains or a fantasy trope,  and here I am buying groceries and repairing my roof with straight up witch money.  I don't have hours, I wake up whenever I want, I stay up till dawn, I have told customers to fuck off, I dress how I like, and come and go as I please...I do fucking party tricks with cards, and I have managed to make a career of it.  Now, you tell me if it's real."

So, the shop is closed.  It went out like woosh, rather than an explosion.  The beginning of the end...was the beginning, honestly.

The hoarding was bad enough, and all that comes with it, like control and trust, envy and greed.  That was hard, but the electricity went, and was only semi repaired, that was a problem.  Because of the electricity, I suddenly couldn't use the air conditioner, the toilet went four months broken, only to be repaired and re-broken twice within days.  The heater's pilot light mysteriously went out, and couldn't be repaired...I knew I couldn't fight.

Actually, I fought through all of that.  When four of my customers come back to me in short order saying "did I do something?  I feel like she hates me.", that's when it was time.  Four very different people, both new customers and old regulars, at four very different times.  The resentment became palpable.  So, I left.

It took less time than I thought to pack up.  I didn't have merchandise.  I had my library and cards, office supplies and furniture, craft stuff, art.

I still have customers, and I'm not "closed" for business.  The season is just slow.




My new years resolution:  strain my brain.  I've been getting soft with the cards.  I learned the Lenormand this year, but I still only have a shaky grip.  I want to memorize and really grasp both the Lenormand and Morgan decks.  I plan on journaling them extensively, definitely on paper, and maybe here too.

More research, harder.  I'm back together with my books now, no excuses.

I will have a firm grasp on astrology.  Enough to flip through the Wheel of the Year reading without sweating, enough to talk conversationally about it (because as a tarot reader, it always comes up, and I always feel very herpderp in those moments), enough to learn more, obviously and get better at tarot.

I feel sometimes stagnant.  I use the same deck over and over, my customers ask me the same things over and over.  It feels mushy.  I feel soft.  I need to toughen up.  Started tonight with the biggest wheel reading ever.  The 12 astrological houses, with a Lenormand, a Morgan, and 3 normal tarot cards.  I thought about throwing a Thoth card in there too for funsies, but I'm glad I didn't.  It's enough trying to wrangle the three very distinct voices into some sort of harmonious message.  At first glance, I will be having the most healthy and active year to date OR I will have absurdly poor health and maybe even die...so obviously, I have more work to do.  So far it looks like Len is setting the tone of the question, Morgan is the cosmic message, and tarot is how manifests in the mundane.  I got halfway through, before I had to quit, my head was spinning.  I'll get back to it later, when the house quiets down.

I will have a shop soon.  All my energy is for the house right now.  I am wounded and exhausted, and burned out, but I have a direction, and Will.