Life
This Is The Big Relationship Change I'm Making After I Went To A Psychic For My Love Life
I've always found fall to be a good time to experiment with what I want in my relationships. Maybe it's falling victim to "cuffing season" — or maybe it's just because I've come to associate autumn with life changes. But whatever the reason, these chillier months always have me feeling like I need to start trying something new. I studied abroad in London from September through December two years ago. While I was there, I had a psychic reading done in Greenwich Market. The man delved right in, and told me that my next adventure in ~love~ would be with a Virgo who has a quirky personality. I was also supposed to have already met this person, but they weren't a constant in my life.
Last October, I tried making a love potion with a friend of mine, who, quite frankly, perfectly fit the bill that the psychic described. By November, our relationship had changed and wasn't as platonic as I originally thought it was. While it inevitably didn't work out and we just went back to being friends, I could never stop thinking about what the soothsayer had predicted. So, this year I decided to have my tarot cards read once again in hopes that it might change my perspective on dating and relationships.
The Reader
In order to start this process, I needed to find the best person for the job. That ended up being Donna Henes, an intuitive tarot reader, ritual consultant, and author who's more affectionately known as Mama Donna to her clients.
She invited me to her apartment in Brooklyn. When I got to the brownstone-lined street, I found my final destination: a beautiful old converted hospital building that was positively witchy. After I was buzzed in and made my way to the correct floor, I was greeted by a small dog in the hallway that led me exactly to where I needed to be. Mama Donna was waiting by the door, and invited me to sit on her pink floral couch in front of a wicker table. Her pup, Poppy, hopped onto my lap and we began the reading.
The Reading
"Just listen to your gut and stop when you feel the cards are ready." I shuffled the deck a few times, with some cards individually being taken out and placed meticulously somewhere else. When I finished a few moments later, Mama Donna laughed and said, "That was decisive."
She came and sat next to me, before blessing my third eye with an amethyst oil. Afterwards, Mama Donna went on to explain how each suit in the deck corresponds to an element and either the mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual side of us.
The first card, called the Indicator, stood for the part of me that the cards address in this one reading. Mama Donna flipped over the "Man of Cups" which symbolized how I handle emotions superficially without ever truly diving into them and understanding them on a deeper level.
She then turned over another two cards that were meant to be situations I was currently dealing with. They both ended up being cups ("You've got three of the four. I've never seen that!") with one being the Sage and the other being the Child. If I came for a reading that focused on my emotions and relationships, I got way more than I could've expected. The Sage card is about feeling confident about your knowledge and beliefs. "If there's some dry place in your emotional spectrum, water it. Give yourself what you need and don't necessarily expect someone else to do that." She explained the child card, saying that it's meant to tell me to allow myself to acknowledge my emotions and truly let myself feel them, even if they're not always the most pleasant.
She continued to flip cards, and I continued to get more royal and major arcana cards. "The major arcana cards is all of the above. So those are weightier. I can't say they're more important, but they affect more of your being than just one card or another." The card meant to symbolize my "past" was the Sun, which was meant to show I've previously had to learn the lesson that I need to accept love and find happiness in even the darkest of times. Mama Donna then brought the reading back to my current situation cards, telling me that they're the new lessons I need to tackle.
Mama Donna kept analyzing my tarot cards, and flipped one over that shows a perfect diamond on the top half, and broken crystals on the bottom half.
"What it's saying is concentrate on the diamond that you've become so far and the diamond that you aspire to be someday," she said. "These broken thoughts are things that would hold you from doing that."
The "Love Card"
The card meant to symbolize my hopes and my fears turned out to be the "Love" card, which shook me a bit, seeing as how I went on this quest in the hopes that I would learn more about how I can change my perspective on the love in my life. "There's nothing in this reading that would accentuate the fear and lots that would support the love. It's playful, it's feeding yourself, it's artistic, it's listening to the signs and your gut. Everything is supporting the hope. Unless you let these stupid thoughts run wild, you've got it."
My outcome card was another crystals card that told me what I'm looking for at the end of this journey is balance. "You want to have a balanced mind, you want to have balanced emotions."
The Result
Initially following my reading, I felt as if I was surrounded by so much love. It was like I had confirmation that everyone important to me genuinely cares for me as well. I'm not sure I ever fully doubted that, but I tend to overanalyze my interactions with others and do sometimes worry that how I feel isn't actually being reciprocated. It's exactly what the diamond card said. I needed to stop focusing on any self-deprecating thoughts I might have and focus on the positivity that I know surrounds me.
"I thought this reading might make me want to seek out new relationships and focus more on any possible romantic love in my life, but it didn't quite do that."
I've tried to figure out what I truly want for myself and my relationships in the weeks following the reading. I haven't started going out of my way to meet people and form new connections, but I have been focusing more intently on my existing friendships. I also still occasionally worry that my loved ones aren't as invested as I am, but I know from my reading that this concern stems from letting my insecurities and self-doubt take over.
When I started this process, I thought this reading might make me want to seek out new relationships and focus more on any possible romantic love in my life, but it didn't quite do that. Instead, it gave me the perspective that I need to nourish all of the existing love in my life be that with myself, my friends, or my family. This was an eye-opening experience to see how each card was placed into each specific position to build a narrative I could see playing out in my own life, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in getting a little perspective.
