My mystical journey - Tarot readings. What is the 411?! What I experienced

YOU GUYS! Just a couple weeks ago I did something crazy. HAHA jk no not crazy, but it was out of my element for me even if I have a spiritual side. Since I promised myself to connect more in 2018 and just do life this year I decided to get a reading done with a lovely woman who also had a heavy background in astrology, which made my reading that much more incredible!! She was seriously amazing! I appreciated the entire session so much and it truly opened up my eyes to even more in my life. This whole path of my life lately just blows my mind. I feel like I am watching everything unfold day by day in the coolest way. I feel very in sync with myself and the world around me. I am just SO excited to see where this journey takes me and for once i'm letting myself be and whatever happens happens. I think I was such a nut case before trying to plan my life out and to be honest I still kind of am :P BUT I am learning to be a little more chill on where I should be and when. I am learning to trust the process and keep my work ethic strong. Mostly I need to believe in myself and my dreams more too. Anyways.... this was my experience with the tarot.

As I am sure many of you who are reading along on this blogging journey of mine are realizing I am going through a major growth and change phase of my life. I think you just hit a point where your life sort of just flips you upside down in the best of ways to make you see and realize that you needed a little push and wake up call to follow your heart and truth. Well ever since I was a young girl I have been so into energy work, astrology, the moon cycles, and tarot. I have gone through some major shifts in my life in the last year and I feel like I am currently at a very pivotal point of where I am going, at least it feels that way. I have sort of been forced to truly turn inward and figure myself out. Not so much in a way that I am unsure of who I am, but more like facing all parts of who I am and accepting it all. Which if any of you have gone down this path it isn’t necessarily easy, it certainly isn’t always fun, but it is so necessary. It’s honestly what is propelling me forward in the most beautiful of ways. It’s allowing me to grow and really step into who I am and not be afraid of that power. I am learning to trust my decisions whole heartedly and really be with myself in the now, not in the future, not in the past, very much in the now. I know for a very long time I was very much in the future and shut out my past which for my present life wasn’t the most balanced for me. I think I did a hell of a job doing what I needed to do for that time frame of my life, but as anything in life the past catches up to you and you can’t shut it out and the future is so uncontrolled that you can’t live there. I was forced to be in the now and face it all. It’s like the flood gates of who I needed to be for myself really came to fruition and allowed space for me to be free from everything I held in. I am still very much in that process and I am learning new things everyday and I genuinely believe most everything in life happens for a reason, which brings me to the way I even came to discover Erin! 

Rewind to a few weeks ago where this all came to be. There is a girl I follow on instagram, I absolutely loved her page and I found it because of one of my favorite wellness bloggers (The Balanced Blonde) follows her and because of the suggestions page I stumbled across it. Check her out her insta name is @julielauferofficial. Anywho, I had reached out because she actually lives in the Bay too and I loved her page and thought it'd be awesome to connect sometime. She also happens to know one of the other barre teachers at my studio and all I could think was damn small world lol. So fast forward a few months later of being social media friends she posted on how she won a giveaway and did a reading with an old connection of hers and how it really resonated with her. She mentioned that this girl was in the Bay area for a few weeks and had some spots open for readings if anyone was interested to reach out. Crazy no?! Well if this wasn’t fate, I had exactly one night off during the time she was in town and if you know me my work schedule can be wonky and evenings off rarely happens during the week for me. She so happened to have time to do a reading with me the one night I did have off too!!! AHHH! It was nuts. I knew that it was time and I had been wanting to get one for at least a year now, but for one reason or another it just never happened. I also don’t think I was in the right head space to do it yet to be honest and this time around I just went for it.

Well I met this wonderful human, her name is Erin in the Mission district of SF on a random Monday to do this reading in the most random spot. I never knew any of this area of the Mission existed in SF to be honest lol. She was an absolute light though! What I loved about how she approaches tarot is she speaks to you in a way that makes sense if you literally have no idea what this area of spirituality is, & y’all I don’t know like anything so don’t feel like you have to if you want one of your own. I know that a lot of this world resonates with me and I am very open minded about it. I know it was something I have wanted to experience for myself because I think the practice is fascinating and can really provide you insight in a different way. Erin really made me feel comfortable in her own practice of tarot and I recommend doing it for yourself if any part of you wants to see the world from a different lens as she put it. I really do think everything she said to me was stuff I had already known on the forefront of my mind, but she helped me tap into an energy of each part of my path that I had questions to. By the way though because I know many people find the tarot to be a stigma in one way or another, none of it was a predict the future this is what your life is or isn’t or this is what you need to be doing. Which I know a decent amount of people think tarot is some sort of psychic way of predicting the future or bad things that will happen. It’s totally not that at all. In my experience the energy from myself with Erin allowed the cards to represent a spread of my life as an in the now picture painted through the cards with energy forces based off astrology and my personal energetic frequency, and what my life’s path is going through, and then what it could potentially be. She said it best you shape your future so just because a card brings something up doesn't mean that is your path by any means. Which I know we all know, but sometimes wouldn't it be easier to know? ha. It helped me see things to be mindful of throughout my whole process though. She certainly didn’t tell me anything that was like you’re full of BS, but everything she did tell me was something like woah I know that is what is happening to me right now and that totally makes sense as to why I was struggling in certain parts of my life or allowed me to see everything as a whole from a clear perspective. Also, for most of my reading I was pretty much silent and let her talk and just try to take in everything she was saying. She spoke from a place of what her “gut feeling” was with each card for me personally based off my own energy and birth chart, but she never took what I said (which was very little) to be my reading at all. Which is something I know I was afraid of when I wanted to get a reading because I know people can definitely just talk out of their ass and only use what you told them as a means of doing a reading. I 100% absolutely did not feel this way at all with her. It was simply a very much an open conversation of what the cards expressed. It was really special how comfortable I was and how everything she said was just so spot on. I appreciated her lightheartedness and gentleness too when explaining some pieces that might be difficult to me.

So the reading itself....this was my card spread - there is A LOT of entities to what this spread brought up and I am only going to touch upon a few that really resonated with me. If you want to know more always feel free to reach out :) 

The way she had me start was having me choose a card within the fire sign because I was a Leo. There were 4 choices. I had my eye on two. I ended up choosing the Mother of Wands which essentially acted as the base for my whole reading. This card represented a birth of my passion and you think of it however you want. I instantly thought of this blog and myself as a whole to be honest when she said that. On the card you see this snake wrapped around her eggs, think mothers who protect their children fiercely. Very passionate of what they gave birth too. This could be anything in relation to your life. The background are these steady lines illuminated by the color red representing a balanced energy from that fire sign of Leo. She gave me the analogy of a bonfire with this card. You think of the Leo sign in the element of fire and with that circular motion a bonfire of the snake. Bonfires can go two ways, think warmth, laughter, joy, and place where people gather to enjoy a moment together, but when that fire is uncontrolled think too much heat, things burn, chaos. She told me to be the bonfire. Be that warmth, the joy, the laughter, to everything in my life and step into that balanced power. It really resonated with me for a lot of reasons. For one I am far from the person who thinks of herself as a powerful being. I know I should, actually we all should! BUT I am learning to use my voice more in so many ways lately in my life that I know I need to. I needed to learn boundaries for my energy. I give a lot and I am so willing to give and give because I believe in the people around me and I can see so much goodness for everyone I encounter, but then I forget you can't give so freely. You have to set a boundary for yourself to protect yourself and you need to find that balance. That is certainly where I am at. So I am going to be that balanced bonfire and bring people together and live in as much warmth and joy that I can! I encourage you all to do that too, but remember it's not always easy but never give up on that feeling and know it's 100% possible to get there. 

The second card pulled was the Five of Cups which is the suit of emotion and because it was the second card pulled it was sort of the opposing factor to the situation at hand for me. This card represented a time of purification with these five empty cups at the top faced up where the rain was pouring in which was symbolic that during this purification it gave the opportunity to refill those cups however I wanted. This card for me really resonated because last year and sort of into the start of this year I went through a period where it truly felt like I lost a lot for many reasons. I had just ended a relationship with someone I was with for a better part of my 20's, my family felt so far away, I thought friendships felt unbalanced, I was so up and down with everything happening around me I honestly don't know how I did any of it looking back because I felt broken and empty. I didn't want to live where I was and I didn't like who I was. If you didn't see my post on how I went to therapy I revealed a lot there on what was happening internally for me. Check it out here. Basically my life went through a whole revamp is how I see it and that it truly did. Today I can tell you I am still working through things everyday, but I am happy and I feel very at peace with my life and everything that has happened to this point. To say that I think that in itself is such an accomplishment. One that I know if you're willing to work on yourself you WILL get there. 

Next card was The World from the Major Arcana part of this tarot deck. It represented the root cause of the situation at hand because it was the third card pulled for me in my spread. Meaning for me a sense of wholeness. Which makes sense because for a good while I felt like I was missing something. I honestly think I was just missing my true self because I was dealing with a lot of past issues with my family that I refused to acknowledge. It would show up in the form of anger for me. I was always in a mood and very tense a lot until I finally had to face it all because I didn't like who I was becoming and how I felt. Not only that, I felt like I was holding on to things in my life that really weren't working for me emotionally, but because change and loss is scary I kept trying to convince myself it would get better. It didn't, honestly everything just sort of blew up in my life and I had to take each part and really reflect on who I wanted to be, what I wanted my life to look like. I realize loss is a good thing now and sometimes very necessary for your well being. So I am learning to cut out what doesn't feel right to me and at the very least create a boundary with everything else. 

So now that you kind of get the tone of what the first few cards of my spread represented, the next card that I want to talk about is the Justice card another part of the Major Arcana in this deck. This one really hit home when she started to talk about it. This card represented my mind, decision making, and my karmic path. If you look at this card closely there are two cats, black and white, intertwined at the tail, and then a sword shooting straight down the middle as to cut them apart. So symbolism like crazy here, buttttt the cats are intertwined even though they're trying to be cut apart, essentially it represented my thoughts and decisions. Right from wrong. This or that. She explained to me that life is obviously about decisions but it's not so black and white. There is a huge grey area and people forget that it's okay to be there. It is okay to choose wrong it doesn't make you wrong it was just not the path for you. That every decision made from another person also doesn't have to be right or wrong. She was like when you are faced with something the world responds in three ways: hell yes, yes but not right now, or hell no. We all experience life differently and see things differently and that it's okay and that is right for you whether we see it or not. Basically I need to practice non-attachment is what it came down to. That everything does not need to be tied to an emotion that everything can be taken just as it is represented to me and then float on. Knowing myself at this point I know that though I may not seem it am a very emotional being. I process things internally a lot and when I am triggered by something I over analyze and play a situation out in a way that is totally not good for me. I haven't done that in a very long time, but I know it was something that would eat away at me before. Lately in my life it's been about my thoughts of what should be, which we all know can also be destructive. So I am practicing that non-attachment and allowing myself to move through my life by what works for me, what is true for me, and what is right for me right now without the notion of what is considered "right" or "wrong." Let me tell ya it ain't easy, but I think in the long run is going to be great to my overall well being.  

Next is the Eight of Pentacles card. This one was another that really was like woah for me. Where it landed in the spread was the hopes and fears card. The pentacles represent the worldly possession in our life. So it could be career, money, homes, etc. On the card you see a beautiful spider web with intricate detail and the spider there in the center of it. When she explained this card to me she explained that the spider is a master and meticulous at it's craft of building that silk web. It creates beauty from itself and is very particular about it but when you see the finished product in the sun it's not perfect, it's a beautiful mess that creates something to see. So when she explained this I spoke out because I am a very detail oriented person, I like things a certain way, I am type A in many aspects of my life because I envision what I want it to be. However, I have learned that being that controlling in some parts of my life have actually not been helpful to me and what I want to accomplish because it was a very limiting perspective. So this card really was like ah dang I realize that I need to let up some control (to an extent that feels right) so that I can allow things to come to me (with hard work of course). I needed to allow myself the energetic space to create my own beautiful mess and not worry so much about the placement of things in my life because the way it's supposed to be will be. I also need to not be so harsh on myself when it doesn't work the way I wanted it to or throw a fit. Like the spider's web at any point in time it can be wiped away and despite that the spider will rebuild another beautiful web. *totally thought I snapped a pic of this one, but I didn't, sorry! but it's googable ;P*

The final card I want to highlight it the Devil card. When I first posted this on my insta-story some people were like shit what does that mean. It actually represented passion. In the deck it explains that there is an urgent message to be received. A way of cutting the cord to free yourself of what is holding you back. Erin told me a story that went along with this card and the point at hand. The story was about a little orphan girl who was given materials to make herself shoes and she made herself these red shoes. She was super proud of them and showed them off to the world. One day she was taken in by an old woman who bathed her and ended up throwing her red shoes away because they were worn. The little girl was saddened by this because it was something she had worked really hard on and she was proud of those shoes. They were her red shoes. So the old woman told her we will get you new shoes and you can pick out whatever you want that's better. The little girl saw nothing at the shoe maker she enjoyed but in the corner of her eye saw a pretty pair of red shoes, but the woman said she could not have those because they weren't right for her. She picked out another pair of shoes and the shoe maker secretly gave the little girl the red shoes and it made her really happy. One day when the old woman was so hard of seeing the little girl decided to put on those red shoes and went to church with them on. Everyone around her kept saying she needed to take them off but the little girl kept them on and danced. She couldn't stop dancing and she was so happy in her red shoes. When she got them on she just kept dancing and dancing, she couldn't stop. She danced all through the town and kept going. Eventually the old woman had passed and things were changing rapidly in her life. She didn't know how to stop dancing but decided that she was just going to have the shoes chopped from her feet. So she had a butcher man do just that and lived her life as a cripple.

Okay so not the happiest of ending and I hope you may have received the moral of the story, but in case you didn't.... the red shoes represented something the little girl was passionate and proud of. The old woman took that away from and her and the world told her it was something she could not have. So point blank don't let someone take your passion away from you because they don't see it and don't believe in it. You are so capable remember that. For me I need to remember that too. I know there are things I wanted to pursue in life but because someone would doubt it was a realistic option I would doubt it was doable. So I am at a crossroads where I know what I want so I am going for it and working hard. Yes there will be bumps and maybe it doesn't work out, but maybe it does and I am in a place where I should not be afraid to go for it and make what I envision happen. Also in the story the little girl was unbalanced when she refused to put those shoes down and eventually had it taken from her and she was no longer able to keep dancing. So in the reverse don't over do it. There is a balance in the process and we all need to find that. BUT in the end just don't be afraid of the passion but don't lose yourself in it either whatever it is. 

The rest of my spread really was just about being kind to myself and open to the gentleness of the world around me. Which really ties in the big parts of the entire spread if you ask me. It was truly a moving experience and I think if any part of you is curious go do it! It's fun and Erin is now another person I got to connect with on this path. She might also very well be moving out here and I can't wait to connect with her again. If you guys want to work with her though she is in NY currently, always traveling though she said sooo you might be able to cross paths with her so try!  This is her instagram handle @etshipley and her website is www.tackhealingarts.com WOOHOO! Check it out. She's a gem but hey you can get a reading from anyone that resonates with you. Go do it!! 

So my final words to you here is just live life knowing it is right whatever path you are on it as long as it feels right to you. Be the damn bonfire you guys!! Don't be afraid to be that powerful person in whatever way you choose to show up. 

Sending lots of LOVE to all you souls. I hope you enjoyed this! If you want to get the deck yourself it's linked here. It's a really beautiful set! 

Xo,
Shay