It’s my birthday and Alice gives me a gift voucher for the crystal healing shop.
“I told them it was for a card reading for a friend of mine. They said you’d probably prefer a massage,” she says.
“I actually prefer the card reading, thanks Alice.”
The shop owner beckons me to the rear. He holds open a curtain for me to squeeze past into a cubicle where the card reader sits, replete like Buddha. Her face is highlighted with Elizabeth Taylor makeup and flows seamlessly into an ample body dressed in embroidered robes of blue and silver. She gestures for me to take a chair alongside a little table covered with a cloth threadbare from many years of use and decorated with astrological motifs.
“What is your question for me?” she asks, pursing her mouth.
“Love,” I say.
She probably thinks my question is about finding “the one”, the person whose love will make my life complete. But it’s not that.
She shuffles a Tarot pack and draws five cards. She explains their meaning.
“Which of these five cards do you resonate most with?”
“The Queen of Cups, for her emotional wisdom and intuition.”
“The Knight of Swords, for knowing the goal and moving swiftly towards it.”
“The World, for confirming that my desires are in alignment with the gods.”
Cuddling up to a warm body in the morning, running my hands through her long hair, caressing her smooth thighs, kissing her naked belly, mouthing and pleasuring her – all desires in alignment with the gods.
Desires are not needs, however. If she leaves my bed for another, then I rejoice for her being with the other. For my love for her does not come from a place of need. And where there is no need, there is no jealousy.
She shuffles the second deck of Tarot cards and hands them to me for a final shuffle. My fingers feel like cockatoo feet compared with hers. She retrieves the pack and divides it into three.
“Hold your hand over each stack in turn and tell me which one makes your hand feel warm.”
“The left stack,” I say.
She reassembles the pack and lays a ten-card pattern alongside the previous three cards, chanting a little ditty as she does so:
“This covers you, this crosses you;
This is above you, this is beneath you;
This is the past, this is the future;
This is the answer, this explains it;
This represents you.”
My past lovers have wanted me to need them, though. There’s the rub.
She scans the two cards on the left.
“These two cards are about the Past; they say you have been looking for stability and your own space.”
She addresses the two-card overlay at the centre of the Celtic Cross.
“These are about the Present. The Tower says you’re fighting against change. The Four of Pentacles says you should let go of a way of relating that does not suit you.”
It’s as if a beautiful bird visits their bedroom window each day and sings lovely songs to them. It feels good when the bird sings to them. So good that their love for themselves comes to depend upon the bird visiting them every day. This is their first mistake.
Their second mistake is wanting to cage the bird. This is to keep it sheltered from the weather and safe from cats, so they tell themselves. But secretly they want to future-proof the bird’s love for them and hence future-proof their love for themselves.
When they can resist the urge no longer, they bring out the cage. The bird flees.
They call out their window but the bird doesn’t come back. Their heart is stricken, like a log cleaved with an axe. They think the bird doesn’t love them anymore. They don’t realise the bird loves them, desires them, wants them more than ever. They have conflated need with love. The bird has unbounded love but only one need, the need to remain free. And this is paramount.
She continues working her way through the card spread.
“The Ace of Cauldrons, this is great joy and love coming to you.”
What if I meet someone like myself? A kindred spirit who loves out of the sheer joy and generosity of loving. Someone who doesn’t mind me dropping everything and accompanying a friend on a snowboarding trip, like what happened last week.
What if I meet someone where I can continue to swim, surf, fly my plane, write, look at the stars, camp and dance around the fire? And where they feel equally free to do all the things they love, knowing there is no possessiveness, no need, no jealousy in my love for them. But what if I never meet someone like that, is there another way?
“Your short-term outlook is the Ace of Pentacles, meaning new opportunity beckons you.”
“This is The Empress saying you have an endless capacity for nurturing others with your love and wisdom. This card is crucial to the rest of your life since it represents your hidden future.”
What if women could hire me but not own me, where I could love women yet stay free? It might be good for a while until the harsh reality sets in. I might catch an inconvenient disease. I might be accosted by a jealous partner.
“Your future influencer is the Ten of Swords. This means pain and disappointment if you continue complying with the ideas of other people.”
What would my friends say? What about my grown-up offspring?
What about my parents? Do I wait until they die before I set myself free?
“You have to follow your own path, regardless of what others think.”
“Finally we come to the two outcome cards. First, the Eight of Cauldrons which is saying you are moving towards something higher in your life. Now here is The Sun, the apex card of this reading. It is the most joyous card in the deck. Think of a little kid running through the sprinkler on a hot day. Think of the absolute joy they radiate, spirit soaring!”
Like at my first festival where I danced under a sprinkler with a woman, both of us naked and giggling with child-like joy.
” You are happiest when you are encouraging others. You’re a kind person. A loving person.”
The card reader looks up from the cards, her face transcendent.
“If you really embrace your truth, you will truly fly.”
A Leonard Cohen song is playing in the front of the shop as I find my way out. Hallelujah. It’s my birthday. It’s the birth of something.