Ive never had much interest in the mystic arts.
I dont even read my horoscope while Im at the hair salon. Some syndicated crackpot thinks they know whats best for me based on my birthday?
Yeah, right.
Chinese astrology always struck me as a bit more intriguing, for the sole reason that the year I was born makes me a tiger one of the coolest, most attractive and most badass animals in the jungle. Had I been born a rat, then forget it. No offence to all you rats out there.
Theres also the fact that Chinese Zodiac literature usually ambushes me at very vulnerable moments. When youre that hungry youll read anything thats in front of you. Once the springrolls arrive all interest in the mystic placemat typically dissolves.
For years Ive disregarded tarot and tea leaves, ESP and palmistry, crystals and clairvoyants with a shrug and a frank "good for them," never considering whether any of it would be "good for me."
Not to confuse disinterest with condemnation. My view of the non-syndicated mystic arts has always lied with the former. My intents were never malicious, just non-existent, until recently.
Learning of the events surrounding this coming weekends Celebration of Psyche and Soul in Whistler roused my curiosity, breaking down the wall of disinterest that had long separated me from the world of the séance.
A partnership between Tourism Whistler and the North Vancouver-based West Coast Institute of Mystic Arts, Psyche and Soul is placing local and visiting psychics in a variety of host cafes, restaurants and other retail outlets throughout the village over the long weekend.
In addition to the visible practitioner presence Psyche and Soul features a free workshop and lecture series by various institute teachers running all day Saturday at MY (Millennium) Place. On Sunday at the Farmers Market there will be a booth where local dogs can get their paws read by animal spirit communicators.
With the exception of the dog thing ("I see a trip to the vet in your future, this matted piece of fur between your toenails indicates your reproductive organs are at risk...") I decided I could no longer brush this off.
Mystic arts practitioners dont dwell on the lunatic fringe. Theyre an integral part of this and pretty much every community. From alternative medicine healers to psychics, theyre as easy to track down as a local hockey rink. If an organization as conservative as Tourism Whistler was willing to join hands with the West Coast Institute of Mystic Arts to promote the resort, the appeal was even broader than I had thought. My mind was opening. It was time to discover what Id been missing.
My choice of art to pop my psychic cherry was a tarot card reading.
Ive always been very visual and the idea of having vibrant cards to pore over appealed to me more than having some earnest stranger stare at my hand. Ive been biting my nails a lot lately and my left middle finger is crooked. I have hangnails. Im not all that stoked to find out what that says about me.
I called up Kara-Leah Grant, a local tarot card reader and fellow writer whom I greatly respect a necessary pre-requisite to kill my penchant to confront the unfamiliar with sarcasm. If I was going to do this, I was damn well going to do it right and enlisting someone whom I was going to have to face again in this town socially would force me to take things seriously.
The reading took place in K-Ls cozy living room. She offered me coffee or tea, and I chose green tea. It seemed to fit the mood. Sitting on pillows on the floor facing each other over a coffee table, K-L introduced her Osho Zen deck, a lushly illustrated series with descriptions updated into contemporary language. Within it are the major arcana cards, marked with those typical symbols of tarot such as The Master, The Outsider and The Fool, and the numbered minor arcana cards, divided into suits representing the four elements.
Like a new board game it was difficult to fully understand how it worked until I had seen it enacted. Sensing this, K-L took action and shuffled the cards. I cut the deck. She laid the cards face down on the table and I began my foray into the mystic arts by selecting 10 to be read in the Celtic cross formation. Centred around one major Arcana card, its a reading that one informational Web site deemed a cosmic "snapshot," effective for showing who you are, who you were, and where youre headed at a particular moment in time.
The cards have an interesting duality designated meanings that are gateways to deep pools of interpretation. Considering the cards invokes intense self-examination, which inevitably leads to self-discovery. The known is reinforced, the unknown, revealed.
More guide than authority, K-L offered traditional explanations for the various cards significance in relation to each other and gently encouraged me to relate them to my current situation and emotional state. When I commented on her style she explained that there are many ways to conduct a reading and that she prefers to use the cards as more of a counselling tool than an authoritative "fortune telling" system.
Whatever she was doing, it was working for me.
Mid reading I asked Grant about how she came to tarot. She replied she was unaware of her psychic abilities until she moved to Whistler from New Zealand six years ago. In the early days a couch-surfer at her house declared that he sensed shed be astute with the cards.
She took him up on it and took it upon herself to develop her abilities until eventually the self-taught psychic felt prepared to read for friends and acquaintances.
Shes just now moving into the public sphere. Although she offered readings at last months Wild Life of Burning Man exhibit opening gala at MY Place her inclusion on the Celebration of Psyche and Soul roster is essentially her official debut as a Whistler psychic. Following the weekend, shell be offering readings via the Oracle in Nesters Plaza, run by West Coast Institute of Mystic Arts founder and Psyche and Soul organizer Kelly Oswald.
Tarot is great for people that love going off on tangents. Lets get back to my reading.
After the Celtic Cross, K-L had me draw seven new cards for a Star reading, which was followed by a timeline reading. Perhaps I was being thrown a cosmic bone on my first time out but all three formations had a remarkable continuity and I found all to have significance to my current state of being.
The session was capped off with a pendulum reading, a method of divination whereby a chain with a small charm at the end is held above the cards. Questions are answered "yes" or "no" if the pendulum spins clockwise or anti-clockwise. If it remains static your question is too much for even the earths energy to deal with. Sorry. Theres the sarcasm thing I was talking about earlier.
Still in awe over the card readings I just couldnt put my heart into the pendulum.
But that was just me on that particular afternoon; dont expect much from a beginner with a swirling brain. Another day, another reading, it might have made all the difference.
Gossip hounds hoping for some dirt on me are going to be disappointed. This is no B-list celebrity tell-all so the personal issues that came out of the reading will remain between me, myself and my psychic.
What I will say, however, is that I found the experience to be extremely uplifting. True self reflection, however it comes about, is healthy and I walked out inspired to continue with the things that had been revealed as beneficial to my life and to take action to change the things that were bringing me down.
My introduction to tarot had been, for lack of a better word, therapeutic. Dredging your soul cant be trivialized as "fun." Instead, Ill ladle out the highest compliment I can think of for K-L and say that her reading had contributed to my wellbeing. Hopefully it was as worthy of her time, as it was mine.
I cant exactly say when Ill go for another reading. It wont be right away, but I am confident there will be a next time. That is, if shell have me back.
If not, Id better book a manicure.
Interested in finding out more about tarot? Check out www.tarot.com. You can even get an online reading.
For more information on this weekends Celebration of Psyche and Soul drop by Tourism Whistlers Information and Activity Centre or go to www.mywhistler.com to download a complete schedule of events.