Blogging About a Blogger Blogging About Tarot
Blogging has become so casual, even bloggers on trusted news sites often fail to see the need for complete sentences.
While I appreciate poetic license as much as the next writer, I still believe a sentence should have a subject, a predicate, and full stop punctuation at the end. I fear I am becoming a dinosaur.
That was my first reaction to the August 31st blog post by Carrie Olson in the Daily Freeman Journal. The Daily Freeman Journal is a print newspaper with an expanded website from Webster City, Iowa.
The reason I stumbled upon this website is I received a Google alert when Carrie Olson mentioned one of my chosen alert words; tarot.
Why did Carrie Olson, blogger from Webster City, Iowa, mention tarot?
Her post is entitled “A Fortune Cookie Kind of Life.” While it is poorly structured and somewhat rambling, her tone is friendly and engaging. Obviously, I enjoyed it enough to write about it.
She starts off speaking about astrology. She is a Libra. Apparently her scales have tipped, for some reason she doesn’t mention. She has gone from being proud of her sun sign and interested in her daily horoscope, to saying, flatly and without explanation, that she has been “rudely awakened to the fact that it is completely false”.
What in the world does she mean? Could it be that in Iowa they have only just received the memo that some astrologers are now using an adjusted zodiac, causing some people’s signs to shift? While those of us who study metaphysics have been aware of this possibility for decades, it made national headlines last January, more than six months ago.
If this is indeed her worry, she obviously missed journalism class, along with basic grammar class. She just didn’t do her research, and therefore doesn’t understand what the shift means, and what it doesn’t. She also has no clue about the difference between a full astrological chart, and a fluff horoscope in the daily paper. Again, Carrie, some of us consider research a prerequisite to good writing.
Perhaps, though, she is referring to something else, something more esoteric.
She goes on to speak of fortune cookies, and how she secretly takes the message baked within the cookie to heart, even though she feels silly about doing it.
As a fulltime psychic professional, I enjoy fortune cookies, too. My adult daughter taught me to read each fortune aloud, and add the words “in bed” at the end. Chinese restaurants were never more fun than they are now I have learned this deliciously risqué game!
Olson begins a paragraph by saying that ”It's hard not to get sucked up into the whole world of fortune cookies, tarot cards and astrology when you are going through major decision processes. . .”
Wow - um, fortune cookies are a gimmicky dessert. Astrology is based on the movement of stars and planets in conjunction with an individual’s location in space and time. Tarot is a book of spiritual wisdom in picture form. Perhaps she would like to lump the Holy Bible with Archie comics while she’s at it? They are, after all, both books that contain words.
Would she expect to receive a fortune cookie at a visit to my tarot office, I wonder? I worked hard for years to receive the certification of Tarot Grandmaster. It is the highest level of certification available in my field. Is there a certification for fortune cookies? I think not.
She then goes on to tell a story of visiting a psychic with her friends. They are doing it just for fun, as so many of my clients do – the first visit, anyway.
She chickens out, afraid of what the reader may tell her.
It is hard for me to discern what point Olson is making. On one hand, she seems to say that she believes too much in the mystical, and not enough in herself. She chides herself for having faith to the point of fear.
On the other hand, she ends by saying, quite rightly, that using mystical methods can help her come to a deeper level of helpful self-reflection.
Maybe, then, Libran Olsen has found exactly the right balance after all. Mystical tools and mystics (like me) who wield them can be used for entertainment, and for self reflection. Fear should never enter into it.
Of course, there are storefront Gypsies with neon signs who scare their clients into forking over big bucks to avert dire consequences. Smart people know the difference between that kind of chicanery and legitimate, gifted professionals who provide perspective and insight.
A good psychic reading should empower a person to make brilliant choices, and to face the future boldly, as a grand adventure. A good fortune cookie should be crisp and sweet . . . in bed.
