YouandTheTarot

  "I have a job. But I am late on rent and credit cards payments." Usually that poignant tale is told to me during a tarot reading by a person over-50 who can't make ends meet. That's even though they're working full-time. Most have lived their lives in locations which have become HCOL (high cost of living). One day, they're making it. Then they're not. Their fear is this: becoming homeless. That's currently realistic. One in four of the homeless is age 55 or older.  In 2024, homelessness surged 18% . A radical solution but it is a solution is to pull up roots and relocate to a LCOL (low cost of living) area.  As I lay out in this article in "O'Dwyer's Public Relations," there is a broad range of LCOL options.  They range from Tucson, Arizona where a studio apartment runs about $800 to neighborhoods in Birmingham, Alabama where the monthly nut is only about $400. In Youngstown, Ohio a large one-bedroom could go for under $700. Abroa...

  The 2017 television series in Spain, "Money Heist" again triggers the age-old question: Who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? In that saga of robbers who take hostages at the Royal Mint of Spain the Inspector Raquel Murillo handling the negotiations comes to ask that herself. Aren't those ex-cons really a kind of Robin Hood? A year after the successful caper Murillo goes join them in their lux hideaway.  That series is now streaming on Netflix as more and more designate alleged killer of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson Luigi Mangione not only a kind of folk hero but a saint. In Americana it takes a high-profile event like that murder to change things. Maybe how health insurance companies process claims will now be more compassionate to those who could die or go bankrupt from unreimbursed medical bills.  In my tarot readings I am bearing witness to that same ambivalence about right and wrong. So many clients are confused and even confused by that confusi...

  So much of the suffering I bear witness to as a tarot reader is this: human beings' regrets about mistakes they have made, missed opportunities and hurting others. In the tarot that is symbolized by the Five of Cups, sometimes called the Spilled Milk card. The problem with that is not only the pain it involves. Those caught in that force field also can't see the possibilities in the future. In the card those are indicated by the structure in the distance, beyond the turbulent water. Water in the tarot represents emotion. That's why the example of Jimmy Carter in putting together a comeback through humanitarianism is so needed, especially today. During these chaotic times too many are tumbling into some kind of abyss. Maybe it is a layoff that was never expected. A divorce we should have expected since we really weren't there. Or all that money we wasted in our youth.  Carter showed that, yes, we can pick yourself up, no matter how great the loss and the humiliation. A...

Luigi Mangione is no pioneer. He isn't the first to navigate the issue of allegedly killing in the name of an abstract concept.  Student Rodion Raskolnikov also went about exploring what it would be like to end the life of what he assessed as a useless old woman. That is in the novel "Crime and Punishment" by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Of course, Harvard graduate Ted Kaczynski also had plenty of ideas about who should die to impede the spread of technology. As we know, he implemented them. But what Mangione has done is make this serious matter of taking a life a popular - and acceptable - topic of conversation. In my tarot readings clients have begun talking about their regret about not offing their parents when they were abused children. The musings even get granular as in: "I was a juvenile so what the hell, I would have done a few years and lived the rest of my life knowing I had done the right thing."  So much of this type of reflection has taken place in tarot sess...

Getting a tarot reading isn't about finding peace. If you're determined to not only survive but thrive in this volatile era - in everything from careers to intimate relationships - you come to a tarot reading seeking insight and strength. There are no absolute answers. What you need is putting together the best answers for you.  The odds are that you are in the midst of or should be entering a phase of transformation. Of course, that's uncomfortable.  The past, with all its certainty, has to be shaken off. Nostalgia, which used to be reassuring, has become a liability. Don't tell us "how it used to be done." Don't indulge in sweet memories.  On "Mad Men," Don Draper's nostalgia pitch for Kodak might have sold products. But today it could get you knocked out of the box on a job search. Employers are after just-in-time solutions.  In the chaos there might not be any yet to be put-together  "it" to hold on to.  At once-invincible Go...

I frame the recommendation gently. But essentially it is: A little less spirituality and a lot more focus on the approach of your job search and how you are creating your resumes, cover letters and LinkedIn profile. That's what I tell clients for my tarot services. In this chaotic time for employment it would be a disservice to clients not to be pragmatic. During 2024 there has been a significant shift from calls for relationship guidance to requests for insight about employment security.  The outlook for getting, holding and moving on to better jobs keeps bifurcating. In 2025 I anticipate a continuation of the trend, documented by MSN, that hiring in the six-figure job category will be stagnant. In contrast, it will be okay or even growing in the lower-earning slots.  That trend is showing up in my tarot readings. For example, the Eight of Cups (Walking Away) card frequently appears. The clients and I then probe the implications.  For example, should they downsize thei...

Over the decades how much have we ponied up for baby showers. For many of us those were the days when couples, married and unmarried, were still having several children. So, the funds flowing out of our assets were too much.  Therefore, I deeply appreciate and would have welcomed as a close friend Jesus' mom Mary. She didn't burden the finances of anyone with a pre-birth baby-shower stuff. After the birth, she graciously accepted the gifts that came in, without her asking for them. How good it must have felt to the shepherds and wise men to have given from their hearts, not from social obligation. In addition, I can thank Mary for not "honoring" me with the request that I be her maid of honor. How many dresses I had to invest in.  Also, Mary wasn't a kvetcher. Okay, she and Joseph couldn't find the accommodations they anticipated. Too often we have traveled with those when reservations fell through and all they did was complain and complain. That was even thou...

  "Godfather III" has Michael Corleone tormented by his decision to have brother Fredo murdered. He even confesses the "sin" to a Roman Catholic priest. Today, that scripting might have been way different. After all, Fredo had put a hit on Michael, in his own bed with his pregnant wife next to him.  The Emerson College poll found that 40% of young people assess the murder of healthcare insurance executive Brian Thompson as "acceptable." Unreimbursed medical bills are the major cause of personal bankruptcies. Obviously, in current social norms there is no longer "absolute morality." That shift is shaping discussions in tarot readings. For instance, forget the commandment to not covet thy neighbor's wife. More to the point, is this issue: If that relationship will bring you what you need. Morality has almost become a transactional business case study. Here are variables A, B and C. Is the ROI you derive worth dealing with those factors?  Much ...

  "But I don't want to do any volunteer stuff. Yeah, my career is over but there's still money to be made from working." That client for a tarot reading was essentially asking me for "permission" to bypass the "ought" of being a volunteer once you're not working full-time. Meanwhile it is standard for someone to come for a tarot reading to ask "permission" for some other kind of decision. How could a society come to this inability to take charge of their lives? After all, our Founding Fathers the Puritans didn't take crap from anyone. They were wonderful misfits who did their own thing. A byproduct of that was that they created what had been the most successful global economy. The way back to not taking crap, including not complying with oughts, is to accept how flawed we human beings are. William Shakespeare wrote all about that. We will make so many mistakes, be so self-indulgent in our choices and how much to regret. In the tar...

  During The Great Depression Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were folk heroes .  There is widespread hope that three who escaped from the grim federal pen Alcatraz managed to survive. They were Clarence Anglin, John Anglin and Frank Morris.  And here we have in these inflationary times with those good white-collar jobs going poof and medical bills the number-one cause for personal bankruptcy . There is massive support for the man who allegedly murdered health insurance CEO Brian Thompson. The headline in The Wall Street Journal reads: "Manhunt for UnitedHealthcare CEO Killer Meets Unexpected Obstacle: Sympathy for the Gunman" The mystical tarot is about right living. So, it's coming up in tarot readings a kind of plea for "permission" to not condemn the alleged killer. Clients share with me their reluctance to "turn him in," if they ever encounter him. Well, as we know, the American legal system, among the best in the world, is not necessarily about ...

Traditional religions like Roman Catholicism try to keep us moral in this life by warnings of eternal damnation for our sins once we die.  Well, in philosophies which are based on karma - the concept that our thoughts and actions shape our destiny in this life and the next - there is also the "threat" that we better be right-living since we will face the consequences of how we went about our lives in the next ones. Yes, that is plural. The period of time in which we work on some of our flaws is known as reincarnation. And there can be any number of rounds of that. In this evidence-based era many have derided notions of reincarnation. After all, there didn't seem to be any proof. But, it turns out, there has been.  The media reports: "A study conducted by US Army Intelligence has suggested that reincarnation is real because consciousness 'never dies.' [That's] entitled 'Analysis and Assessment of The Gateway Process ...",'  That research was ...

  "Business has been, well, slow." That's what psychics I have been talking with tell me. Here in Sierra Vista, Arizona two centers had closed down. Two more aren't getting the traffic they had been. Meanwhile, on some phone lines there can be a long wait before a client calls. The businessperson I am sizes this up as another case of a sector peaking and then on a downward trajectory. Meanwhile there is a glut of those trying to make a living or at least respectable revenue from providing readings.  The good news is that it is possible to turn this around through rebranding. On an upward trajectory is everything associated with wellness. Management consulting firm McKinsey  reports: "Wellness is about more than feeling good. It’s a thriving business that is poised to keep growing." More good news is that wellness has many aspects. It wouldn't take much to retrofit a psychic service to one or more of those aspects. In the US the wellness market is growin...

  "The abuse. It went on for four years. I want justice." That is the common and tearful opening of a tarot session.  The victim of the abuse had put her hope in the legal system. I usually have a hunch she was going to be disappointed. The US legal system, among the best in the world, is not about justice. It's about the law. The law can be interpreted in myriad ways. Also it provides ways to circumvent what would have been perceived by many to have been a "just" ruling. Of course, I do not discourage taking legal action. That is, unless it goes well beyond the victim's ability to take on that expense. However, I point out how a legal system operates. In addition, I introduce our belief in karma as the ultimate judge and jury.  Over and over again I have witnessed abusers being taken down in life by severe illness. Frequently it lodges in the stomach. There could be a reversal of fortune in earning power. The next abuse victim could murder them. They could ...