KTtarotsolutions.com Consultations with Katie-Ellen Tarot Reader, Advisor & Writer Perceptive, Personal, Professional |
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Becoming a Tarot Reader Being receptive is key, but the word 'psychic' simply means 'soul knowledge.' There are many ways in which psychic ability may be expressed in an individual: clairvoyance (clear seeing) clairaudience (clear hearing), clairsentience (clear sensation). Many if not al of us possess intuitive or psychic ability. Someone like me has perhaps become more aware of it and worked to train it. I have had one or two clairvoyant and a few clairaudient experiences. Mainly, for me, psychic expression has been through dreams. Prior to my studies of theTarot, I had been aware for a long time that I sometimes had dreams of precognition, later validated by experience. I also had poltergeist experiences at times, caused by stray psychic energy. Occasionally these things were unsettling - a precognition of terminal illness in a family friend, for example. Rarely, I have had precognitions of 'public events': I noted in my diary a nightmare three days before a bridge disaster in Minneapolis in 2007 in which seven people died, and on 20 February 2008, I dreamt of an earthquake shaking the seafront where I live. It was so vivid, I spent some unsettled days. Some of you may have felt the tremors that came a week later, on 27 Feb, from Market Rasen in Lincolnshire. The dream, happily, had greatly exaggerated its severity. (At its strongest it measured 5.3 on the Richter scale, the highest seismic disturbance in the UK for 25 years) I thought the dream was probably metaphorical - (dreams often use visual puns to speak to us) I interpreted it as a warning that my foundations were about to be unsettled and I felt a need to check that all family members were all right. I had not expected the forecast to be literal - but this is part of the trouble with prediction - the message may get through but be misunderstood. Before encountering the Tarot I had spent many years wondering what, if anything, one could usefully do with this kind of sensitivity. Bad luck brought an answer. In my thirties I became unwell with rheumatoid arthritis in consequence of which I am partially disabled - I am still able to walk, but only for very short distances. There came a point where, with great reluctance, but feeling too ill to argue any more, I finally took medical advice and stopped going out to work. (I was teaching in Further Education, at the time.) This set me on a new path but first there were some difficult years. My focus was on caring for my family, and not allowing myself, or them to become swamped by the tyranny, not to mention the tedium and restriction, of chronic illness. But it was also during this time I discovered that dreams could provide practical insights about health and treatments, which when checked out - for instance, by asking for certain tests to be done, proved valid. It was an electrifying realisation, that information from the unconscious mind could find and flag up facts that were meaningful, relevant and even verifiable. (It seems to me that our bodies themselves possess 'intelligence,' and it is true that we can 'give out' colours: I've occasionally seen 'auras' round people's heads) Knowing or sensing things does not always mean they can be mended. Tarot is used by some in magic or occult practices which seek to influence events but that is another 'department.' Tarot readers and others of their kind are ordinary, fallible people. This is not to denigrate the efforts of those doctors who care and who are prepared to wrestle to help patients with stubborn, partially understood conditions. But as a patient, I have liked to remain as self-reliant as possible. What this insight gave me was a measure of understanding and acceptance - a 'handle' on my situation, that has made it easier for me to make choices when it comes to treatments etc. Now I may use the cards to help me make medication choices, when I've talked to doctors, done factual research but still feel undecided. For some years I was laid up, barely able to move and in constant pain. But the mind munched on. I read a lot, started writing short fiction and then one day I was given a pack of tarot cards. (an original Rider-Waite deck) I began studying the cards, seizing on them as a way of learning how to train my intuition speak to me when I wanted it to - rather than relying on dreams or other bolt-from-the-blue experiences which did not come to order. I discovered the power of distraction. The tarot and also my writing activities, involved me so intensely, I was distracted from the pain of arthritis. I could let myself out of the trap of physical restriction and go off exploring and hunting. With time, study and usage came skill and confidence and as with many other professional readers, I served an 'apprenticeship' by reading for family, then friends, then friends of friends. From this my service developed. Someone once said to me that fiction wasn't 'real' so reading it was a waste of time. But all stories, true or 'fictional' contain real facts and essential human truths, and we are the heroes in our own stories. The Tarot is a picture book; in fact it is a whole library, and by paying close attention, I have found it will tell me a story of you. Perhaps
there isn't really any such thing as fiction. |
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Tonto Books published a short story I wrote called 'Joe's Ark.' I performed a reading of this at the Durham Literary Festival in 2007. |