Guess what? We’re back at it again here at Oddball Era and we’ve got a real Tarot To-Go treat for you today — it’s my birthday! Cue the confetti. That’s right, surprising absolutely nobody, I’m a Leo. SO! In true Queen of the Jungle fashion I’m going to make this post all about me.
For birthdays and at New Year’s Eve parties, I like to offer my friends The Full Year Spread in which we pull a card for every month of the upcoming year, plus one for the overall theme of the next 365 days. I’ve gotten accolades such as this one:
That’s why I’ve decided that for our glorious return to weekly installments of Tarot To-Go, I will share with you my own personal Full Year reading. Honestly? I kinda feel like this might be a huge mistake, making my future available for the entire Internet to read. But I suppose it’s a practice in vulnerability. Gah! I feel like Miley Cyrus in the video for Wrecking Ball.
Let’s do it.
Lately, I’ve been toying with the idea of building a business around tarot and other magical skills. The problem here is one quick YouTube search turns up a seemingly endless string of readers trying to do the exact same thing; the market is saturated. So saturated, in fact, that some people take to Twitter to complain about the pervasiveness of social media card readers, like the following exchange that caught my eye
The original tweet is a complaint about the amount of people who learn tarot and try to turn it into a business — they are NOT here for it. And it’s that saturation of card readers that makes me take a step back and say, “y’know, I want to build a business out of these gifts but should I?”
Annabel Gat, who you may recognize as the astrologer behind the daily horoscopes on Vice, disagrees. She seems to think businesses based in magical skills are only going to grow as Pluto heads into Aquarius — a transit that will last from 2024 until 2044! She also suggests that we may see a change in what kinds of magical services are being offered once Neptune enters Aries in 2025. So, what does this mean for me? It means it’s time for me to hone my other skills.
I’ve been reading tarot for about five years now. That’s not very long at all in the grand scheme of things, honestly. But it’s not my only skill! I’m a budding astrologer. I’ve been interpreting dream symbolism with shocking accuracy since I was as young as nine. I also have advice and coaching skills and possess an exorbitant amount of knowledge regarding the Twin Flame craze that’s sweeping the spiritual and metaphysical realms of the Internet. Could these be skills I can mold into a magically based business?
According to my birthday reading today? Yes! THE CRANE BAG lets me know that September is a good month for gathering all the tools I need before setting off on the next stage of my life. Since I’ve been in a transitional phase for a number of years, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve collected a lot of things — both physical and not — and it can’t all come with me. It’ll weigh me down too much and anyone whose gone trail hiking knows a heavy pack will only slow you down. That isn’t an option for me, so. September is a time to take stock of what I have, keep that which I need, and let go of all that I don’t.
It’s time to sift through my research and take notes, clear out my old bookmarks on Chrome, journal a lot to determine if my current trajectory matches my truth, and more. I’ve got to do a deep dive into my soul. Reassess. Who am I? What do I want? How do I want my days to look? What are my values? What skills do I already have? What skills do I need to acquire? What friends can I reach out to for support? What should stay in the year I was 28 and what should come with me as I turn 29?
In short? It’s time to get my shit together.
As the holiday season approaches, it’ll be a good time for me to tap into my SISTERHOOD. This could represent womankind as a whole or my group of gal pals I’ve had since sixth grade. Except! There are three mermaids on the card and my family has three girls (my little sister, our adopted sister who is actually our cousin, and myself). Aren’t we cute? Look at how cute we are as mermaids on that oracle card.
Why do I think this is about my literal sisterhood and not the greater metaphorical sisterhood of women? Because October is our favorite month! In Florida where we live, the weather is perfect. But more importantly — we’re all obsessed with Halloween.
It’s been our favorite holiday since childhood and our annual costume bash is always a big hit. We’re talking Martha Stewart level decorations and snacks. I’m not even kidding when I say our party makes Pinterest and Instagram cry and that’s not just because we never take any pictures on a count of being too busy enjoying the moment. We spend a whole month putting things together and it’s great quality sister time that we don’t usually get.
This year, it’s hyped up even more because our Cousin-Sister is moving in just a few doors away from us. This fall will be rife with sisterly lovin’ as we help her and her partner get their new home settled. Plus, we’ll be getting used to a whole new dynamic of having her within walking distance — a chance for us to lean into our bond and let it grow in new and exciting ways. I have a chance to take the shit I gathered up in September and use it to foster my growth from within the safe cocoon of my sisterhood in October.
When I was pulling the cards for November, we had a fight. The deck and I, I mean. I didn’t like the card that flew out so I put it back in and asked for a different one. But lo and behold, out popped the same card again. Still not satisfied, I asked another time for a new card and reshuffled only for the exact same card to come shooting out a third time. Argh!
Now I was getting cranky so I got aggressive and demanded not this one! Two cards stuck together came flying out onto the table with such force it was as if to say fine, here! And when I flipped them over, the deck got sassy with me.
An ENERGY FIELD ADJUSTMENT is due for someone who thinks they know better than the Universe. Whoops! I apologized to the deck and brought my attention back to a space of gratitude. LEMURIA RETURNS, though? What’s that?
Lemuria is another hypothetical lost city, like Atlantis, that was supposedly incredibly advanced before it was washed into the sea and their culture and technologies were tragically lost forever. It’s a popular myth that has even made its way into some occult practices, all beyond the scope of my current understanding. So what does this card mean for me?
I think it speaks to a return of something lost. This can be literal, like maybe I’ll find the necklace I misplaced or the crush I let get away might finally find his way back into my life. But I think it’s talking about finding a piece of myself I’ve been missing or neglecting. Maybe through a cleansing of my aura, I can finally get back into the swing of the more outgoing and boisterous personality I used to have and my recently dimmed sparkle might shimmer once more.
Why do I think this? Mostly because of the card I didn’t like that kept flying out at the beginning. It was Falling in Love — with Yourself. And it seems like, as sassy as it could, the deck gave me the same answer but with a different card. Just like I demanded (hey, it is my birthday).
A lot of people say The Holiday Season is a big headache. Looming over them like the ominous, dark, cloud-of-smoke monster in this card. Not me, though. That’s my time to shine, babies. So what kind of big, scary EXPERIMENTS could I be getting into this December? I think it’s an experiment of behavior change.
See, I’m from an Italian background. On my mom’s side at least. But the thing about that Italian-American lifestyle is once you marry into it, it swallows up whatever other ethnicities you might have had in you and dominates. You’d have no idea, based on how he acts, that my father’s grandparents were from Poland and not Italy.
In keeping with the stereotype, we’ve got a huge family on my mom’s side. Lots of cousins who keep multiplying to make more cousins. At the last big wedding, our side alone was close to three hundred people. At Christmas, we pack more than fifty people into one home (and everybody takes a turn on Santa’s lap! Poor Santa). So how will I be experimenting?
I moved down here halfway through high-school so that by the time I settled into the Florida family, I felt a lot like an outcast. My brother and sisters and I didn’t get any of the inside jokes the other cousins had and they were particularly cliquey.
We didn’t quite fit in with them and they had a tendency to tease us really hard. Sometimes they got downright mean! When I think back on childhood bullies, some of my worst memories involve my cousins. It felt like every time I tried to reach out and connect with them it only got met with rejection or taunts. I started to dull my sparkle around them to fit in better but was still met with rejection. I started to put up walls, kept to my siblings and select cousins only. But somehow, I still grew to dread family gatherings.
I hate that. I really do.
Last year, I was in retail and had to work for most of December. Now, I love The Holiday Season and it was breaking my heart to be scheduled. Last minute shoppers would see me stocking shelves and shout, “I can’t believe they make you work on Thanksgiving!” or whatever holiday it was as if they weren’t the reason I was even needed. I found myself missing that packed house of crazy loud Italians.
This year, I’m going to experiment with being myself out loud again. Stop dulling my sparkle. I’ll talk about aliens and UFOs. I’ll offer to do a tarot reading for one of my 85 year old aunts. I’ll ask my cousin if he wants to start making music together again after all these years of not. I’ll be the know-it-all that I am and drop some knowledge that might accidentally make someone look a little dumb to the rest of the table. I’ll go in with an open heart instead of my protective armor — an experiment in vulnerability. Just like this post.
Speaking of this post — I’d say that about wraps it up for Part I of my Full Year Birthday Reading Extravaganza! I hope this foray into my potential future is proving as fun for you as it is for me. What will the beginning of 2020 bring me?! I want to know, do you want to know? Check back next Tuesday to find out!
✺ Website ✺ Twitter ✺ Instagram ✺
★ Follow on Instagram @oddballera ✚ on Bloglovin' to keep up with this blog ★
