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.

So here's a moment.

I've had a customer for over a year.  When she came to me, she had a (rather poorly constructed) first draft of a memoir and nothing.  Just a sheaf of papers in a binder clip.   No idea what to do, no hopes at publishing, no connections in the literary world.  It's a damn good story though.  Poorly written, but fascinating.

I read a sample, then we pulled cards.  In spite of my actual opinion on the writing, the cards saw, last June, that this is going to happen.  She's going to get published, and make a sustainable amount of money to become an author.

Um.  Her book.  It's on Amazon right now, preorders are rolling in.  I'm working her book launch party in two weeks.

Holy fuck.  Even I didn't trust the cards on this one.

Opening the shop has become a ritual, and I realize I've been doing it the same for a long time, and when I stick to the formula, success.  Both mundane and magickal have been woven together into sort of a spell.

I walk in the door, greet Meredith, and immediately put my sign outside.  It's a huge sandwich board, so I do this mindfully.  When I come in, and skip or delay the sign thing, I know I'm not 'on' and I'm just in house for my own reasons.  Then I head to the back and flick on every light and source of energy that I have.  Now the shop is 'on' and so am I.  I go around lighting candles, and then I light the incense.  I pound and blend my own based on whatever I need the most, or what I want to communicate to my clients.  I have a few select shop blends, that provoke love, clarity, peace, harmony, and vigorous commerce...this is a business after all.  While the charcoal is coming to temperature, I tidy and clean, select music for the day, make fresh incense if I'm running out.

When I put the incense on the charcoal, I do it with ceremony.  There's a whole thing that happens here, where I push energy into the smoke, into the web that connects us, into the air, the atmosphere, space.  I push love, openness, care, to everyone that needs me, as far as every horizon in every direction.  It's huge, and if I'm not in the right headspace, I can't muster it.

I keep the incense going, carry the smoke to every corner of the room, trail it downstairs, and across the whole store, then I place it on the windowsill to be carried into the atmosphere.

Then I'm ready.

I felt what it is to age, today.  I felt age.  It's moving further and further away from the wellspring of life itself, the cooling, the distance.  I felt it come back immediately, I captured it, in that moment when I was lying in the yard feeling the sun move across the sky, in between the two boughs of the oak tree till it was shining squarely on my whole body, then the cooling again as it continued to travel.  I will never be able to capture it in words, but I can remember that moment by writing about it.  As we grow older, we move away from that heat, that spark.  It burns brightest in us when we're young, and then as we move, like planets away from the sun, we turn from it, we cool, and we yearn for that warmth again.  It's the seasons.  It's the coolness of night, and the warmth of sunrise, it's our life cycle.  I had this moment when I realized it, and felt it, and exactly where I am along my own path.  I felt my age.  I felt my exact distance from that spark.  Just like, in feeling the sun crossing my face, I felt our exact planetary spot, in relation to our sun.

I also learned something of fours today.  Four dreams with this entity.  Four different rooms in the dream.  4 different men.  4 different paths.  4 walls.  4 pillars. 4 of Disks.

4+2+9+2+0+1+5=23   2+3=5  Today is a 5.  Of course it is.  I have a job to do, now.

I want it all, and I want it now!

A tale of when that works, and when it doesn't.  Names WAY changed.


Charlotte has gracefully come through a period in her life where she extracted herself out of an abusive marriage, came to terms with the death of her father (her idol, her mentor), and navigated a strange old/new budding romance.  She wrote a memoir.  She's about to be published.  This romance is what I'm addressing here.  It's tricky.  He's high profile (like, if I said his name, 90% of you would go "oh shit...that guy?" ) and they were close friends before fame.  She turned him down 30 years ago, romantically.  He went on to have painfully loveless marriage.  She is the heart in his life, they reconnected after her father died, and many years later, the chemistry is strong.  She wrote the book for herself, about her life, incidentally mentioning this whole thing.  It's going to come out soon, and she's not doing it to be sordid, she just wanted to write her story.  She's completely guile-less. I know what you're thinking, that she's doing it for attention/money/any number of self aggrandizing reasons.  Nope.  She wrote her memoir, focusing on her journey and three prominent men in her life, her husband her father and this guy.  She loves him. The communicate often, and it's very sweet, like high school romantic, even though they're both pushing 60.  They're slowly coming together, with this book being a catalyst.  He's married, but it's publically loveless.  It's a known thing.  His wife hates him, but loves the society life.  His wife knows about this, but doesn't give a fuck.  It's really fascinating, I've known Charlotte for about 7 months, reading for her quite frequently.  I know pretty much everything about her life, her family, her motivations, her dreams and fears.  She's in love, he's in love with her, and the divines shine upon it. It's the kind of uplifting love that will better everyone involved, and it's for the greater good.  Like, art will stem from this romance.  It already has.  She's going for it, with blessings from the universe.


Danielle is her sister.  She's in love with a higher up at work, a classic office crush.  She's very much in love with this man, we'll call him Cole.  He's also super married, with old money involved, lots of family almost an arranged marriage situation, young children.  She's so in love.  The guy is a good guy, moral, great job, stable, intelligent, witty, handsome, I mean a real genuinely caring and good man.  Also married.  And, being a good man, he's not at all willing to cheat on his wife.  Danielle is so in love with him.  She's been infatuated for over a year.  He has told her, point blank "please don't text me, unless it has to do with the job" and things like "I know what you want, and I can't give you what you want." I've been reading for her for 7 months, too.  But, you know what?  I don't know a ton about her.  I know about her infatuation with Cole, because even though we spend at least an hour a week together on average, it's not so much about her life, hopes, dreams, but Cole Cole Cole.  What's he thinking? Why did he go to Mexico this week? Is he with his wife? Is he having fun in Mexico?  Is he thinking of me?  He likes blondes, is he flirting with that new girl Lauren?  I have told her before that she needs to maybe focus on herself, and stop chasing this whole thing.  Like, if it were meant to be, it would happen.  For her to find her interests again, because like her sister, she's intelligent, well rounded, great conversationalist, lots of cool interests...but for the past year, she's become less of herself because of this infatuation.  It's like, "honey, when was the last time you went for a swim, or pulled out your watercolors?"  Hardly ever, because she's hanging around Cole's after work watering holes, hoping for a sighting.  Working insane overtime, just to be close to him.   She feels like this whole thing was Meant To Be.  That he is The One. Mr. Right. Mr. Forever. Guided by the arrows of Cupid, absolutely destined, her guardian angels all agree.   I genuinely care for her.  I pulled cards today, and had to look her in the eye and tell her point blank that this isn't love anymore, it's a flat out obsession, and that she's trying to validate it with all this high moral shit, but it's just straight up her desire.  I want him and I don't care, I want him I want him I want him *stomp foot*.  This is lust for results.  This is trying to have all your needs met, regardless of any other parties involved.  She's going for it, with no real love involved.  No love for herself (why would you throw yourself at a brick wall for so long?  That's fucking torture) and no real love for Cole, because if she loved him, she'd know him, recognize that he's happy and not going anywhere.  I mean, I never met the guy, but I have him figured out better, because my vision isn't clouded by lust.  She's going for it, and it's costing her so much.

So, it's Valentine's day, blah.  I'm coping with a medical issue.  I feel like shit.  Irv had to go into work before I got home from work, so our whole day was reduced to a rushed sandwich lunch, and promises to spend time together tomorrow or Monday.  I might have to cancel my reservations for dim sum tomorrow. It's snowing, it's shitty, and it's cold. The toilet at the shop seems broken again, and the heat has been broken all winter.  It was about 40 degrees in my space when I got there.  I had appointments today. Total day to bitch about.  Every year, Valentine's Day fucks me. I suppose it's because I spent years hating on it.

I dragged my ass in feeling like shit, and in a bad mood. Luiz drove me there which was nice.  I love his company, I love not having to be responsible for driving. I could spend the whole car ride putting myself in the proper headspace.  The first thing I got to hear about was Meredith meeting a man.... oh here we go, the usual drama...but wait... He likes her. That's good. We pulled cards, and he's surprisingly not a scumbag. She was positively buoyant.  My day turned around instantly.

Then, emboldened by a bracing mixture of prednisone, oxycontin, and xanax, I did a spontaneous Petit Lenormand Grand Tableau for a perfect stranger, my first sitting with this customer.  Just jumped up and laid out 36 cards.  Then had this "what the fuck was I just thinking? Because now I have to explain this to a total stranger..." I almost choked.   It went...well.  I saw everything very well, but I sort of had to bullshit my way through some of it, but I'd say I got 90% of the truth.  I also pulled a couple dozen tarot cards to fill in what I was BSing.

Then, and this is going to be an ongoing series, I think, I got to experience love through my customers.  Neighbor couple popped in today.  They always pay me $20, and then some choice strains of cannabis, and generally they'll bring a bottle of something fancy to drink.  Normally, I'll have a polite smoke and cordial glass, and read for them.  It's normally cool, we talk like friends, and I help them sort out life issues.

Luiz drove me in, because of the aforementioned pill cocktail, so tonight when they showed up with their usual mobile party, I partied right with them.  Tonight was special too, because I did a romantic past life spread for them, showcasing what they mean to each other now, and what they meant to each other in an influential past life.  I could see it really strengthening their bond, and reminding them why they're together.  I sense that they fight, hell, they fight right in my shop.  But they're a great couple, and very loving.  I sent them home feeling so happy for their relationship.  Their lives are a little fucked up, it's not perfect, they struggle to make ends meet, they struggle for stability.  They are always home, when they have each other, and that's something rare and great.

Finding love in your life isn't just about finding it for yourself.  I think there's something really important about being able to recognize it in other people, too.  Like, you are in love.  You are loving.  You love each other very much.

I have some more great and tragic love stories from my first year at 76 First Ave.  I'll share them soon, I think.  Before the memories get dull.

I haven't written in awhile, so let's talk about the state of affairs over here at Miss Lisa's traveling tarot dog and pony show.

I've been spending more time out of the "office" here on 76 1st Ave, and more time doing phone readings.  Good weeks have me working 7 days, and doing a reading or two every day, over the phone.  I've been out of the shop because I threw out my back, and have been a lot of pain for most of the month.  So, this weekend, I've come back in definitively, and things feel...better.

The energy isn't all over the place. Meredith seems...renewed.  She's going through a giant transformation, and I feel like all the help and support I've been providing both behind the scenes, and up front has been taking hold.  I harbored a lot of anger and resentment, throughout the late summer-into fall. but I sense such a change here, with her, and with the energy in the shop, that it has become a place of serenity for me again, like it was last winter.

I don't technically even have to be here, right now, I get most of my business doing house calls, phone, and internet readings, but damn does it feel good to have a base of operations that isn't my bedroom.  It feels good again, to show up here, light all my candles, pound out some incense and just "go to work"  I needed a break, Meredith needed a break from me.  As of today, all is well here, and I feel like we're on the path to bigger and better things.  

Tarot itself became a little tired for me.  Using the same decks and repeating the same things, it becomes a little stale.  Around the new year, I picked up the Lenormand system, and it fits like a glove.  This feels like a natural progression, that enhances what I do.  I'm still using the books and studying the cards, but it definitely feels natural and I'm taking to very well.  Already, for my personal questions, I'm turning more towards the Lenormand than tarot.  

I think, this year, I really want to pick up astrology too. A customer-friend is interested in starting to learn it, and I bought her a great book for Christmas.  Luiz also has that book, and I just might poach it, and tackle astrology head on once and for all.  

Pop Tart

Every so often I have a customer that tests my ability to keep a straight face. I love laughing with my customers, I love making them laugh and laughing with them, but I definitely cannot laugh AT them.

Let's call her Pop Tart.  In fact, Meredith was calling her that before I even got in today.  She's a young girl, wants to film a music video, and was consulting with the director on my couch when I got in today.  Already, that's weird, but hey "weird" as I always say, is my meat and potatoes.  After checking out my space and keeping me downstairs for the first hour I was here, they went off around town to find some more locations, and I thought that was the end of it.  But, right before taking off, Pop Tart needed a reading.  She got a $5, and in a nutshell, asked if a Major Pop Star from a Huge Boy Band will notice her video, and if he will like it.  I didn't laugh.  My eyebrows raised so far up on my head, though, I think they may have moved up a few millimeters permanently.

I saw some personal drama surrounding it, and that people will criticize her, but if she stays cool, she'll be successful.  She asked "you mean like his fans?  Because they're really harsh on women in his life, like girls he's dating".  Oh.  Oh honey.  In that moment, a cartoon plane crashed into a cartoon mountainside, and spiraled out into little cartoon burning chunks in my brain.  Sometimes, the imagery is so fucking crisp, and so hilarious, I almost burst out laughing right there, not so much at this very nice girl, but more like at what images this reading is throwing up on my screen.

But, every customer is my most important customer.  So, I took her in very much earnest, and read cards for her like I do for any one.  I sincerely wish her well.

Also, my fucking shop is about to be used for a backdrop for this video?  That's interesting.  I can't wait to show all my friends.

Things have been difficult lately.  I constantly second guess my role here, or the decisions that led me to where I am now.  This wasn't the right year, for starting a business, for starters.  I feel misled, the person who owns the shop I work out of started out being my friend, but she's not the person I thought she was, to say the least.  This is a toxic environment, honestly.  My space within the shop is sweet, and good, and inviting.  It's just a Herculean effort getting to this space, both physically and metaphorically speaking.

Reading cards isn't easy.  Reading cards in this store isn't at ALL easy.  Sitting here for 6-8 hours and NOT reading cards is somehow even harder, knowing that I could be packing, cleaning, reviewing documents pertinent to the House Situation, etc etc.

I'm sticking with it, though.  Here's why.  When I get into work, I have a whole opening ritual, where I go around my own shop cleaning, dusting, setting things up to be pretty.  I put temple bells on, over the speaker, or singing bowls, or cave chimes, and light a certain blend of incense that's designed to be attractive to folks, and give everyone that breathes it a sense of overall well being and mental good health.  I cast out a metaphorical net, calling people in who need me today.  I push my energy out as far as I can, in a blanket, hoping to touch someone that really just needs to talk.  And, every day that I do this, I get at least one person that *really* needed a reading.

I do it for them.

Last weekend was purely horrific, but I went in Sunday and wiped the slate clean, did my usual regimen, and I saw the people that needed me.  I read for a woman battling breast cancer, and I could see the end of it for her.  I saw that her body was rebuilding itself and strong.  I read for a woman who's abusive ex turned her adult children away from her for over 20 years, I saw that her eldest boy, the one she really thought was lost, was thinking about her and about to begin the process of rebuilding things with her.

When I'm sitting in the house, debating if it would be worth it to come in, I think of my customers.  If I can help give one struggling human some peace of mind, then the rest of the bullshit falls away, and the day becomes a Good Day.  Whether I make $20 or $200 that day, if I get one hug, one teary smile, one person that says "thank you, I feel so much better"  Then, it really is all worth it.  That's the joy that keeps me coming here every day, in spite of the toxicity that I have to fight. Or in spite of my own bad feelings.

It's rough.  If I don't blast music and occupy myself singing along, on the car ride here, I tend to do a lot of thinking.  Thinking is always bad these days.  There's nothing comforting, there's not really a light at the end of some proverbial tunnel, Life is in constant tumult.  If I get really thinking, then I start to break down, and my compartmentalization falls apart, and I become overwhelmed.  It happened today as I was driving in.  Thinking of my customers kept my car facing in the right direction, and kept me pushing to come in.

I know it sounds corny, but this is my calling.  It's not about the money, it's about who comes to me, who I can reach, who I can help.  It's a gift that I have, and I feel selfish just keeping it to myself.

I haven't written in awhile, here or anywhere, I'm verging on rusty.  This blog is fast becoming "observations on reading professionally" and since that's where I'm at, I guess, that's what it's about.

My space is complete, and gorgeous.  The downstairs of VV is its usual disgusting mess, and my room is this precious little treasure chest upstairs.  Joy loaned me her couch, which is this sweeping baroque sectional that curves halfway around my room...a total conversation piece, and a real looker.  Leah was kind enough to hook me up with her mother in law, who is moving and downsizing, and I netted some wonderful pieces of furniture, including a writing desk, a half-round glass table, and some other gorgeous pieces.  I'm furnished.  I'll never fill my place with stuff to sell, I've had a few nominal objects, like incense burners, herbs and stones, and no one seems interested in buying anything.

I do get customers, though.  My ideal amount of customers per day, I worked it out, is about 8, with a mix of small and larger readings, it would be financially perfect, and right in line with my energy level.  So far, I'm averaging about four a day.  Which makes it worth it to come in, but not quite profitable, yet.

Some things:  I love "seasoned" sitters, the women that come in already decked in stones, positivily radiating...something, some energy.  They're open, honest, and they know how to work with me for the best results.

I have one regular, she's a teenager, comes in for five dollar readings frequently.  She sits there tight lipped and enigmatic.  When the reading is over, I ask, as always, is everything clear? Does that make sense?  She nods, and takes off in a hurry.  Then she comes back.  The first time I read for her, I was thinking, ok, she was a curious person, one and done. I do a lot of $5 quickies like that, or kids or couples that are in to shop, then I never see them again.  But she came back, and back, and she asks a very vague question...like today it was "Family" and I read and saw some things, and she nods, tight lipped, giving me nothing, and then takes off.  I like her, she's a challenge.  As long as she keeps coming in, (and bringing friends, which sometimes happens), I'll know she's satisfied.  Today, the family question...3 cards $5, and it pulled a LOT of shit out.  I hate when that happens, because really, for five bucks, we're not going deep. But when something huge comes up there, I automatically want to help, and dig deeper.  I have to really restrain myself.

I've been meeting so many excellent people, mostly women, of every walk of life, and it's completely fascinating.  I love helping people.  I love that they trust me enough to dig into their huge life things, through my cards.  I earnestly want to befriend, and help every person that walks through my door.  I've only had very few encounters that felt stiff or odd, or off.

Some other things about doing this for a living.  I practice every day.  I crush herbs and resins, and make incense for my shop every single day.  I find myself devouring herbals and obscure books, just to learn more about everything.  I do magic, literally, every day.  I've become,  I feel, pretty goddamned good at glyphs, and I'm mastering blending incense, so that not only is it really effective...now I'm getting things to smell good too...a real departure for me.  Sure I can make an incense to purify and protect my place, but can I make it smell good?  That was the challenge, making a powerful blend that doesn't smell like burning socks.  I find myself with time to study schools that I never really looked at, like Hoodoo, and Vodun and all those Caribbean and South American traditions...good stuff...and palm reading. I keep trying to pick that up, too.  I feel like if I master that, it'll throw open more opportunities.

I'm settling in nicely here.  I've found something of a routine, and I'm working out the kinks in my schedule.  I think I'm finally even over the anxiety that all the downstairs VV drama brings me.

But, I feel like no matter what, no matter where I am, this is my calling.  Having this opportunity here at VV, maybe it's a giant hassle in some ways, but it's definitely shown me in a very short time that there's nothing in the world I'd rather do.  If these four walls are temporary, my being a professional tarot reader is definitely my calling, and I'll move mountains to keep pursuing it, here or anywhere.

Some quick observations about reading tarot professionally.

I was joking to Luiz about how at least 30% of reading for the public is showmanship.  There's a whole art, I've come to realize about delivery.  How you package the message.  I can look at the cards, and in an instant, I'm like "mmhmm. got it."  That's all I need.  For *you*, I've got to bring that "mmhm" into language.  I have to soften the blow of hard news, and deliver it as a warning instead of some kind of dire fate.  If the reading is boring, I have to play it up and make it more-ish.  Today, I had a lady come in for a 3 card spread and she asked me about finances, the cards literally told her to stop being a miser. Full stop. That one required a little showmanship to get through.  I can't build a business on one sentence outcomes.  The cards, though, they don't give a flying fuck about my business.  I'm at their mercy.  I do love online readings for that.  I don't need to act or play anything up, it becomes very natural to communicate in print.

Showmanship on all levels.  Lately, my tarot space has been under huge change.  I'm getting all of Meri's crap out of my loft, and trying to claim it, paint, and set up some inventory.  So, while I'm closed, I go into VV wearing my torn up working clothes, because there's a lot of vintage dirt in VV.  Then my regular customers come in for a reading, and instead of wearing a dress and jewelry, I'm wearing a tee shirt with holes in it and dirty jeans.  I'm comfy, but I feel like I'm not giving them my best.  I need a hair cut and a manicure, too.  I want my space to be beautiful and artistic, and I need to be that too.

It's happening.  I'm doing this for real. With four walls, a roof, and a following.  With a paycheck, and a place to go every day, and I'm doing exactly what I love.  If you had told me it would happen six months ago, I would have died laughing.

So, I apparently have an apprentice.  A casual sort of apprentice.  Alden's friend expressed GREAT interest in Tarot.  He bugs me every time he comes over to do readings for him, and of course, I do, because I love reading, and love reading for people who love to be read.  So, for Christmas, I got him his own deck, and Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom, for starters.  I like having someone to teach, his exuberance gets me going, too.  I feel like I've done him a bit of a disservice, though.  When he first approached me for readings, I did single card question/answer flips.  I mean, it's what I do when a kid comes and bugs me while I'm cooking dinner. Fast, casual.  Unfortunately, it seems like he's treating tarot like that in general.  He's read most of the book, and applies the texbook meaning to the cards right off the bat.  Without really looking at them or spending time with them. He'll flip, and answer the question immediately.  Like "Oh, six of wands, that means I'll have a victory."

 I cautioned him to spend more time with the cards, and really focus on the imagery, the numerical value, the colors that jump out, and all the minor details.  He's strongly intuitive, but he glazes over all that.  I think he was trying to speed through stuff to impress me, or maybe because he felt like he was bothering me, and needed to hurry.  Anyway. I'd like to sit him down in less of a rushed way, and maybe have him do more readings in front of me, and then make him write stuff down, while I'm there.

Here's my "lessons" for the day.  I told him to do a daily 3 card reading.  Journal the results.  Read more about the history and symbolism.  Practice "spreads" and the art of reading between the cards.  But really the kid needs to start with the journaling.  I told him, it's work. I didn't just fall into cards and become naturally good at them.  I took my measure of natural intuition, and my natural quest for all things occult, and added years upon years of study and hard work, so that I have this powerful tool.  So that I can casually turn cards while I'm stirring a pot of soup.  So that I can tap into my intuition and read toothpicks and sugar packets.  This is not how I started.

Magic isn't "magic".  Magic means always having your face buried in some book, studying what's come before, so we can innovate, invent, and maybe write our own book.

Basic Elemental Balancing For Luiz

Or, Not your Uncle Al's LBRP.


Be somewhere quiet.  I do this often, in the bathroom during shower time, or outside especially in the morning, or in my bedroom.

Starting with your favorite element, I always start with the North, Earth, you salute the element, acknowledge its presence in your life, address it in some way.  Then coalesce its essence in front of you, all around you.  Feel the Earth.  With this element in particular, my chest feels heavy and it's harder to breathe. I feel chilled and cooler than I did.  If it helps, visualize it as a color, or a tangible thing.  Then breathe it all into your pores/lungs/self, taking in all the essence into yourself.  Fill yourself with this element that you materialized.  Something un-writable happens, where you become it, it becomes you.  I'll do the best to describe it.  With Earth, my limbs feel heavy and dense. I feel strong and grounded and rooted.  While it's within me, I am able to contemplate and examine its role in my life, tweaking it as I need. If I've been particularly stodgy lately, stubborn, un-budging, I'll perhaps seek to lighten the Earth element in myself. Maybe changing it from heavy clay and rock to light and airy leaves and wood and branches and reeds, growing things, living things with movement.  Plants are all Earth, too.  Once I've "mastered" it, within myself, for the time being, I exhale it, pushing it back into the Universe, where it can do some good.  I expel it through my pores, lungs, everything.

Then I repeat the process with water, fire, and air.  I finish with air, then close with a dedication to spirit.  Where I stand grounded and push my, um, life energy, my chi into the ground to stay rooted, and then summon every bit of soul energy I can, starting with my solar plexus, and then it's a warming sensation, where I feel like/visualize a ball of white light.  I pull it up and out, through the crown of my skull to connect with the fifth and most important element, my way of connecting to...it. The collective unconscious, the dream sea, spirituality, divinity, Clive Barker calls it Quiddity, while keeping my feet and chi rooted solidly to reality.  When I read cards, I do a little of this, too.

That's my "LBRP" I don't fool around with names of things that might represent elements. If I need Earth, I call earth.  If I need fire, I will collect fire energy from around me in the world, and tap directly into it, like plugging into some kind of socket, where I and the element become one.

This page is becoming a magickal diary of sorts.  No one reads it anyway, so it works out fine.  I'm so conditioned to the age, I definitely communicate better with a keyboard than any other medium.  I should definitely work on that.

Anyway, the House Cleaning happened.

I'm not going to invite Luiz in on any more of my spellworkings for a long time. Maybe indefinitely.  He undermined and questioned at crucial parts, he had doubt. He didn't enter my circle with perfect love and perfect trust.  He doesn't take my approach seriously on any level.  He denigrates my methods.  He denies it, but I see his heart. I saw that this would happen when I read cards last night, but I went ahead. The spell happened in spite of his bullshit that he brought, and it mostly worked. There's one part I have to go over again, so next new moon, I'm going to do it all over again, just so it sticks.  And I'm doing it *alone*.

He said "You did all the work, you did all the stuff. I didn't feel magickal at all."

Which left me sputtering. Well then, why the fuck were you going through the motions?

I know it's my fault for assuming so much.  His ego won't let him come into my working as a supplicant, with the perfect love and trust in place in his head, heart, soul, actions.  I thought we were good, though. We talk so much magick, and we have success reading together and practicing sex magick, that I assume we're both on the same page.  I will never make any assumptions of the sort, again.

Part of me wants to think that there was some overall reason that this happened, like some lesson to be learned. I guess I did learn a lesson. I won't presume to imagine what he may or may not have learned.

At this juncture, I am leaving him to his OTO and his "High" ceremonial magic.  I think it's 80% bullshit that caters to the ego of people that like to think they're high magicians, and I'm probably wrong, but I'm looking at it from not only a spectator's angle, but also through Luiz, who *is* of that mentality.  I'll continue on my path, and I'll do it the way I always have. Alone. With the one person I can trust to be in the circle with me, in perfect love and perfect trust.  Myself.  And my familiar, Harmony.  She brings more to the table magickally than any human.

Tomorrow's the big day.  Just to recap, tomorrow is the big house cleaning, the House Cleaning.  I've got all my stuff together, and everyone's in the right mindset. We're getting up at 7 am, and cleaning the house spotless, then setting to.  Then, I'll cook everyone a huge belated breakfast.  This is Phase One.  Phase Two comes on the full moon.

It'll be good. I'm excited.  Haven't done anything on this major of a scale in awhile.

So, all week I've been reading, and just spending all my spare time reading cards, reading books, reading my own diaries and writings.  Not just for this working, but for magick's sake.  I'm already seeing the benefits.  More begets more, and my channels are wide open.  I've got my first public-festival style reading event scheduled for October 19, now.  It just popped up, and along with it, a steady gig reading in a funky shop, over in the Atlantic Highlands.  I'll be meeting with the proprietor of the store to discuss details on Thursday.  So, success and magick begets success and magick.

It's been extremely satisfying.  I'm bursting with energy and will.

I feel so overwhelmed by a new discovery.  Well.  Not new, I mean I've known about Chaos Magick since I was a kid, but I never looked into it back then.  I forgot all about it, till yesterday.  I went on Amazon after my last blog entry, just to replace some of my lost books.  I found a LOT of them, and I basically spent my entire paycheck on books.  But not just old ones...I found one called Practical Sigil Magic that jumped out at me.  I bought it, and discovered that it was the author's interpretation on Austin Osman Sphere's sigil methodology.  Blown away. I am blown away. That was my first encounter with A.O. Sphere and his teachings.  In a nutshell, it's the missing link between what *I* am, where I fit into the occult universe, and where I've left off with Crowley's teachings.  Like, this is my thing.  I've always eschewed the idea of the OTO or A.A. as a fulfilling path for myself.  I've always said "If an organization or order or church doesn't 100% represent your personal spiritual ideas, then it'll hold you back"  While I'm a self-initiated Thelemite, dedicated for life, I am not 100% in line with what the organization represents.  I'm not for ceremonial magic. I'm not all about big Hermetic rituals.  Fuck systems.  

I wrote this deceleration on the topic two years ago.  It holds true now, more than ever.  I've been feeling in a rut, because when you kick "systems" and their respective dogmas out of your life...it sort of leaves you pinwheeling out there in the ether. I realize, now it's not a flat-out rejection of systems, its more of a flat-out rejection of commitment to any one of them.  I am reading cards again, of course I am. Doing better with it now than I ever have in my whole life.  I am still a practicing magician, witch, whatever, and I feel at my most powerful.  I'm kinda out of stuff to study, though.  I went on Amazon last night thinking "there really is nothing new out there for me to tackle, the closest I have is the OTO and Crowley and cabbalistic teachings."  I mean, that's nice and all...  Then I found that sigil book, which led me to other books, which led me to googling Chaos Magick, which led me to discovering the IoT.  Which...fuck.  Mindblowing.  I was up all night reading. I caught fire again.  I haven't been this charged up about a new thing in maybe six or seven years.  It's everything I've done my whole life unofficially...but official.  
Luiz puts it best when he says "I'm so happy for you! You found your magickal heritage!"  FINALLY.  I now have people that I can read, and maybe eventually  join with, and talk to who have been doing it the way I do it since before I was born.

The key tenant of Chaos Magic is "Nothing is True".

I'm going to quote Phil Hine directly here, this comes right out of Condensed Chaos.

1. The avoidance of Dogmatism. Chaos Magicians strive to
avoid falling into dogmatism (unless expressing dogmatism
is part of a temporary belief system they have entered).
Discordians use ‘Catmas’ such as “Us Discordians must stick
apart!” Thus Chaos Magicians feel entitled to change their
minds, contradict themselves and come up with arguments that
are alternatively plausible and implausible. It has been pointed
out that we invest a lot of time and energy in being right. What’s
wrong with being wrong occasionally?


2.  Personal Experience is paramount. In other words, don’t
take my word that such-and-such is the case, check it out for
yourself. Magick has suffered extensively from ‘armchair
theorists’ who have perpetuated myths and out-of-date
information purely due to laziness of one kind or another.
Sometimes it’s interesting to ask awkward questions just to
see what the selfappointed experts come out with. Some will
emit a stream of verbal diahorrea rather than admit to not
knowing the answer, whereas a true adept will probably say “I
haven’t a f*****g clue.” Quite early on, Chaos magicians came
to the startling discovery that once you strip away the layers of
dogma, personal beliefs, attitudes and anecdotes around any
particular technique of practical magick, it can be quite simply
described.

3. Technical Excellence. One of the early misconceptions about
Chaos Magick was that it gave practitioners carte blanche to
do whatever they liked, and so become sloppy (or worse, soggy)
in their attitudes to self-assessment, analysis, etc. Not so. The
Chaos approach has always advocated rigorous self-assessment
and analysis, emphasised practice at what techniques you’re
experimenting with until you get the results that you desire.
Learning to ‘do’ magick requires that you develop a set of
skills and abilities and if you’re going to get involved in all
this weird stuff, why not do it to the best of your ability?

4. Deconditioning. The Chaos paradigm proposes that one of
the primary tasks of the aspiring magician is to thoroughly
decondition hirself from the mesh of beliefs, attitudes and
fictions about self, society, and the world. Our ego is a fiction
of stable self-hood which maintains itself by perpetuating the
distinctions of ‘what I am/what I am not, what I like/what I
don’t like’, beliefs about ones politics, religion, gender
preference, degree of free will, race, subculture etc all help
maintain a stable sense of self, whilst the little ways in which
we pull against this very stability allows us to feel as though
we are unique individuals. Using deconditioning exercises,
we can start to widen the cracks in our consensual reality which
hopefully, enables us to become less attached to our beliefs
and egofictions, and thus able to discard or modify them when
appropriate.

5. Diverse Approaches. As mentioned earlier, ‘traditional’
approaches to magick involve choosing one particular system
and sticking to it. The Chaos perspective, if nothing else,
encourages an eclectic approach to development, and Chaos
Magicians are free to choose from any available magical
system, themes from literature, television, religions, cults,
parapsychology, etc. This approach means that if you approach
two chaos magicians and ask ‘em what they’re doing at any
one moment, you’re rarely likely to find much of a consensus
of approach. This makes Chaos difficult to pin down as one
thing or another, which again tends to worry those who need
approaches to magick to be neatly labelled and clear.

6.  Gnosis. One of the keys to magical ability is the ability to
enter Altered States of Consciousness at will. We tend to draw
a distinct line between ‘ordinary consciousness’ and ‘altered
states’, where in fact we move between different states of
consciousness - such as daydreams, ‘autopilot’ (where we carry
out actions without cognition) and varying degrees of attention,
all the time. However, as far as magick is concerned, the willed
entry into intense altered states can be divided into two poles
of ‘Physiological Gnosis’ - Inhibitory states, and Excitatory
states. The former includes physically ‘passive’ techniques
such as meditation, yoga, scrying, contemplation and sensory
deprivation while the latter includes chanting, drumming,
dance, emotional and sexual arousal.



So, that's what Phil Hine has to say on the matter.  I say...that is SO FUCKING ME.  Compare what I wrote in 2011 to what I just found last night...I've been looking for this for a long time.

Alright. Enough writing. I have way more reading to do.

So, I opened the packet of "red sandalwood" that I got at Earth Spirits.  It's sawdust. It's generic wood powder that literally smells like burning sawdust.  I'm disappointed. I looked high and low for actual red sandalwood or any kind of sandalwood incense. 

Turns out, it's endangered. 

Fuck.

Looks like I'll be leaving that ingredient out of my magickal incenses.  

Fuck.

Got a lot done today, magickally speaking.  We went to Red Bank for the final stuff I needed, basically just red sandalwood since Mountain Rose didn't have it, for whatever reason.  I also picked up a few new stones, an opaque blue stone the color of an October sky.  It's called angelite, which sounds hokey to me, but everything in Earth Spirits comes with a faint air of hokey, till I get it home, wash it, and make it mine.  Anyway, it just sang "purification" so, I scooped it right up.  I also picked up a new bloodstone, thinking it would be nice to have one...but when I went through my stones, I noticed I had like seven of them already.  What can I say, I really love bloodstone.  Seeing them all in the palm of my hand looked downright medicinal.  Maybe when I'm done working on the current project, I'll do a healing something.  I found an old empty gris gris bag, with the runes still seared into the leather, and still smelling faintly of dusty herbs.  I remember that one. It was designed for psychic power. To help the Sight.  It worked. I'm doing one for healing, I think, or just to stay healthy. They're very satisfying to put together, and unlike regular spells, when it's all said and done, you have this little locus of energy, this little power nugget to concentrate on.  Fucking cool.  Very hands-on too.

So, bringing these new stones home made me feel wistful and weird that my stones aren't in a special place anymore, just all thrown in a dishpan when we had to take the furniture out of the living room.  I haven't restored my Space since Sandy. All my tarot cards are stashed in the card catalog, but my altar fixtures were kind of scattered to the four winds. They still are a little, but it's better.  After Red Bank, we cleaned up my side of the bedroom, dusted and dedicated not only a sacred altar space, but we cleaned off my vanity and made a place for all my stones, and a small space for Luiz, too.  It felt good to do that. I'm still feeling a little euphoric, working in such close proximity to all my stones and objects of power.  I really wish I could find my athame, though. It got put somewhere when the flood hit.  It's eluding me, and that's bothering me.

A week from yesterday, is the time of the first ritual.  I've got everything ready now, except the athame.

This summer has been interesting.  Not the good kind of interesting, either. Lots of fighting and strife in the household, lots of weird and bad feelings permeating our otherwise extremely happy home.  I blame a lot of things. Sandy, for starters. This house was literally full of shit and water for a brief time, and while we bleached the fuck out of the physical, I'm sure it left some metaphysical grossness laying around.  Plus, every time we fight, we spin a tapestry of bullshit negativity and it has a way of collecting.  You've walked into places and felt this, everyone has. A foreboding, a nasty vibe, a "get me the hell out of here" kinda thing.  Conversely, my house has always been a warm, welcoming, inviting environment, where people are greeted with love.  I want it to stay that way, and lately, I feel like it's been slipping off into weird territory.

Time for a cleansing/banishing.  And not just any ordinary sage and drums cleansing either.  I'm talking like a mega house douching, the likes of which these walls haven't seen since just after we bought the property, back in 2003.  A giant high colonic for the oogy nasty vibes.  Cleaning on a mundane level, bleaching and sanitizing, then going through and doing it on a spiritual level.  That'll be on the next new moon.

Thirteen days later, on the full moon, we're renewing the protections.  Again, it's been a long time. Last time I did something on this magnitude was when the Witnesses were hassling me.  Not Luiz, but me.  He came along later, and I sort of slapdashed some more protection for him, but nothing of this scale.

I've got to shop for it, plan for it, make lists for it, think about it, build energy and store it, and make ready from now till then.  I've already spent a great deal of time and energy reading cards about it.  I want to make sure my intentions are pure, and I'm not trying to control any one person or element, but do something for the greater good of this house and all our loved ones that live here or pass through here.  It's exhilarating to undertake this. I just went upstairs through all my old herbs and materials, and cleaned out half of the ones that have gone to dust.  I found some really wonderful nostalgic items, left over from when I was a baby witch, in the 90s.  I sniffed all the resins and incenses, and along with the spellwork, I'm getting my shit organized again.  Everyone in the house is on board and into it, which makes it even more satisfying.  I need a few dozen certain kind of candles, and Irv volunteered "hey, wanna run to the candle factory in the Poconos on Sunday?"  I am over the moon.

Shopping for this stuff has never been easier. I got most of my herbs in one fell swoop from Mountain Rose Herbs, except red sandalwood.  This mystifies me, because they have fucking random hard to find stuff like agrimony, boneset, henbane, dong quai...but no sandalwood?  Not even listed on their site.  I'm going to have to bite the bullet on that one and go to Earth Spirits in Red Bank, and I loathe that place.  Well, that's not fair, it's been good to me, but I hate those new-agey emporiums, and I'm not fond of the dude the runs the show.

Either way, this is exciting.  I'm loving the process. I'll be even happier with the results.