Let Me Introduce Myself

A lot of people ask me about how I got started reading tarot cards and tea leaves. It’s something that happened so long ago that the details are a bit fuzzy, but in case you also have this question for me, here is my story:

I’ve always been into the supernatural and especially into the idea of magic and witches. I used to pretend I was a witch with magic powers (like Samantha from “Bewitched”). At some point, my parents brought me to Salem, Massachusetts (when I was around 7 years old) and I was hooked. And that was just from going to the Witch Museum, which at the time was just a wax-figure retelling of the Salem Witch Trials.

Then, when I was around 12 (another age in which my parents took me to Salem), I found a deck of Tarot cards in the clearance section of a bookstore, and much to my mother’s chagrin, I bought them. This deck, Pomo Tarot (postmodern art), was how I taught myself to read. Looking back, this was not a beginner’s deck, but I picked up on how to use the cards right away and was good at it. 

Here’s where things get fuzzy though, because at some point I bought another deck and another and I have no idea exactly when my tarot collection started to take shape. At some point in college maybe? I definitely started reading tea leaves around this time, too. Why? I don’t remember, but it must have sounded cool and so I just figured it out from whatever information I had at my disposal (no Google yet).

By the time college was over, I had several decks of cards, and my friends and I would take turns reading cards and tea leaves for each other. Occasionally, I also had friends request readings. At the birthday party of a high school friend this happened and I ended up reading for strangers for the first time. It’s not easy telling a stranger, who also happens to be the friend of a good friend, that she is going to be betrayed, but that’s what the cards told me and she actually had some work friends betray her soon after. And so I dabbled continuously through the years, reading cards by using the meanings in the little book that comes with the deck, reading tea leaves less and less, and buying tarot cards every time I went to Salem and then some.

And then, at an especially difficult time in my life I got a second chance to reacquaint myself with divination in a way that reminded me of the first time I ever used tarot cards. It was 2018 (or maybe 2017, but it was definitely November) and I was in Salem, again, with a friend from college. We each got a reading and I wasn’t satisfied with the one I got - it left me with more questions, so I went into a store on Pickering Wharf and purchased another reading from a different psychic. While waiting for my reading, the clerk mentioned that there were 2 open spots left in a beginner’s tea leaf reading class that night. I hemmed and hawed about whether or not to stay (Salem isn’t exactly the safest place to be wandering around at night) and finally decided that I would, even though my friend had to go home. The class happened to be with the same psychic who did my 2nd reading that day.

The class truly was for beginners and I knew that I was more advanced than everyone in that room, but it had been several years since I read tea leaves so it was nice to get back to basics. Needless to say I really enjoyed the class and felt more confident in my ability to read tea leaves than I ever had in the past. 

A month later I signed up for an online tarot class from this same psychic. I was excited to study tarot and be held accountable. Now I had an excuse to start memorizing the meanings of each card and to really delve into the tarot. The course was designed to be 1 year long, with 1 new lesson every month. I won’t go into specifics, but there were only 10 classes. On purpose or not, this psychic ripped us off. I tried to get her to send the lessons and she said something about not being able to find them in her email (look, at this time I was an actual teacher, so I personally believe that she got busy and never bothered to write the lessons and that’s why she couldn’t find them - they never existed. I also believe that I was the only one who wasn’t her friend taking the class and that’s why no one else seemed to notice or care). So, my education was incomplete, but I was motivated more than ever to continue on my spiritual tarot journey.

And then I saw a Facebook ad for a tarot journal from Biddy Tarot that ended up saving my life. This is only a slight exaggeration. I bought it in late 2019 for 2020 (tarot planners were the only kind to buy that year as it turns out). What it is, is a planner in which you pull one tarot card for yourself every day and record that and a reflection for the day that helps you learn more about yourself while practicing tarot. I needed this. I was going through a personal crisis with my career and home life and needed out. Using tarot cards to guide me during this time was helpful in a way that I never realized it could be. I would pull the Tower card over and over and it just helped me solidify for myself that a big change was coming and that it would shake my world - something I desperately needed.

Tarot cards pulled on a daily basis weren’t predicting my future, so much as validating how I was feeling while giving helpful suggestions for how to go about making my world better. As I applied for jobs, having this daily practice really helped me and then I got a job in another state that forced me (thankfully) to quit the job that was killing me slowly and to move out of my then living situation, which was not doing me any favors. And so I moved and continued to pull cards.

And then the pandemic happened, which for me didn’t change much as I had already drastically altered my life. But what it did do was give me more time to continue my tarot journey. And that’s when I discovered that Biddy Tarot didn’t just make planners and journals. No no, there were also classes. That year I took an online tarot course that changed how I read tarot for the better (and I got to actually finish that class). This past year I took a 2nd Biddy Tarot class as well, while continuing to practice reading tea leaves.

When I look back at my journey it’s so obvious that I was meant to help people with my divination skills. Tarot, especially, really helped me become more confident in so many ways and really helped me find clarity in one of my darkest hours. I am here to share my gifts and help others the way I helped myself.

My journey isn’t over, but now it involves more people.