Someday I'm Gonna Learn

Probably 99.999 percent of the time, I have no problem with delivering the message that the cards reveal. I can be quite tactful while being truthful. Sometimes, issues arise that any Southern girl worth her iced tea doesn’t want to…ahem…mention. Like jail time. Jail time in the rural South is as common as dirt—jail time or time spent in juvie—but these things aren’t brought up in polite company. So when the 8 of Swords comes up with supporting cards, that’s the first place my mind goes.

My heart dropped as that message came through loud and clear with the sweet young person sitting across from me. She was quite uncommunicative. Understandable, as it was her first reading. I don’t know why I didn’t ask about incarceration. She was young and sweet and looked frail. The reading flopped. She walked away without paying and that was fine with me. I felt like I failed her. We never managed to connect with her message. Later, her friend came through and paid for her reading. To assuage my guilt for taking his money, I gave him a free reading. He was very open to the cards and it came out that his friend had indeed been incarcerated. I’m still kicking myself.

Many times the cards will challenge the reader as much as the client. I know in this day and age that it is ridiculous to squirm about bringing up challenging topics. But this time my inner belle just clutched her pearls and felt a vapor coming on at the thought of being indelicate—especially to this young person. The mama in me got all protective. I have to think, though, that bringing up that topic with her would have shocked her out of her complacency about the reading.It would have brought her to the table. She would have listened intently to everything else the cards had to say.

My lesson: I cannot under any circumstances censor the cards. It’s not a pick and choose situation. How easy would it have been to ask, “Have you or anyone you know been incarcerated in the recent past?” Done. Easy. I let my own sense of social restrictions hold me back. The cards were telling me she had been in jail. My reaction to that information skewed her reading and prevented a powerful message from being delivered.

Sometimes the readings we give others are our readings too. For me, the message was to never, ever hold back information. This rarely happens, but when it does, it haunts me—and you are apt to get a blog entry. And this young lady can have a free reading if I ever run into her again.