We recently added a
book to the list of books we love titled The Tarot Handbook. A deck of
tarot cards are used as a divination tool. The intention is to ask the unseen,
that which is here to help and guide us, for information-for help in
understanding a situation in life. We are going to discuss our spiritual
beliefs and we are not attempting to convert anyone. We are fully aware of how
contentious a role spiritual and religious beliefs can play in life. Our
journey to Vilcabamba is truly an adventure of the spirit, a journey into the
unknown and the tarot has played an integral part in how we met, how we arrived
here in Vilcabamba as well as helping us with many decisions we have made over
the last 12 years. We will be discussing how we arrived at exploring the tarot
by first giving a brief description of our spiritual upbringings and
backgrounds.
Christelle was
raised Protestant and began attending Sunday school at the age of 5. She found
the stories in the bible interesting but was unable to retain all the
information and found it confusing, plus she was not allowed to sleep in on
Sunday mornings. Christelle attended Sunday school until the age of 10 and
began attending church at the age of 14 with her father and stepmother. One of
the prayers every week was to “forgive us for our sins” and there was a lot of
emphasis on guilt. Christelle was racking her brain every Sunday trying to find
something she was guilty of during the last week and could not come up with
anything. The pastor was a nice person, but she felt the sermons were for
older, more mature people. She did not understand the sermons except she was
supposedly a sinner and needed to apologize every week. When her father passed
away a few years later, Christelle stopped attending Church, never went back
and did not give religion another thought. She does not believe she is or ever
was a sinner.
During Christmas break in 1997 at the age of 37 Christelle and her family went on a trip to the Sinai Desert with a group of 15 other hikers from France. She met a woman named Claire and at one point during the trip Christelle, Claire, Christelle’s sons Hadrien and Gabriel and another young woman plus a French guide decided to ride camels instead of hiking. After a couple of hours on the camels the Berber guides told everybody to get off the camels and wait until the rest of the party showed up. The guides departed, trotting briskly away and the rest of the party never showed up. This is not a busy intersection but rather a desolate spot in the middle of the desert with a few barren, rocky hills dotted here and there, and no people as far as the eye could see. After a couple of hours of fruitless waiting, the sun had dropped below the horizon taking the mercury with it. Everybody was wearing t-shirts and shorts and there was a general feeling of insecurity - they had been dumped and forgotten. Nobody had water so the decision was made to follow the footprints of the camels which led them to a four wheel drive path and fortunately it was not windy. By then it was completely dark and after walking on the trail for a while they could see a campfire off in the distance. It was a Berber camp and a French photographer, who was staying with them, was able to translate the situation to the Berbers. The Berbers knew where the rest of Christelle’s party was camped, loaned them some warmer clothes that were to be donated to some locals, and guided them there. It took 2 hours to find the camp in the dark and all was well.
In January of 1998, after arriving back in France, Claire came over to Christelle’s home and told her she was going to give Christelle a reading using a deck of tarot cards. Christelle had no beliefs in the divination powers of the tarot, but something was telling her to let Claire do it so she politely acquiesced. Claire first had Christelle pull a card from the deck concerning Christelle’s self - employment. According to Claire the card was the best card in the deck. Claire looked surprised, possibly because she could not believe Christelle could have such a good job, and had Christelle pull a card again concerning her work. After shuffling Christelle pulled the same card again, and she was surprised also plus very interested. Then Claire pulled more cards and said that a radical change was coming with no turning back and Christelle’s work will be at the top to help facilitate this radical change. The change will happen in about a year and a half. Somewhere during the beginning of the reading Christelle went from a disbeliever to a believer in the tarot. It is hard to define how it happened, she just knew it was true - it was a sense of knowing within herself that could not be denied. Claire next pulled cards on Christelle’s health and said she would have a health problem, but it would be cured with the help of a trustworthy man. That was the extent of the reading.
In June of that year Christelle awoke with a rock hard, distended belly as if she had swallowed a watermelon, and was later diagnosed with a huge fibroid on the uterus. The local doctors said the only course of action was a hysterectomy. Instead she went to a surgeon who happened to be a good childhood friend and he said he would do his best to save the uterus. After successful surgery the surgeon told Christelle, “You can still have kids if you want.” Christelle shrugged her shoulders to that statement firmly believing she was done having kids at her age and current point in her life.
In November of 1999 while getting a haircut at Lemonhead in Durango, Christelle learned from the hair stylist about a tarot reader located outside of Durango. She was interested; the first reading made a total believer out of her. Christelle contacted Trish who lived in the Ticolote area about 15 minutes east. Christelle eventually saw Trish for a few of readings. Trish talked about how Christelle would not return to France, that she would have a new job some years in the future that would bring a lot of fun and money. Much more money than she was currently earning doing translations. A very big business. She then pulled the Lovers card; two lovers with the lower body extremities sunk deep into the earth appearing as intertwined roots of two trees. Trish stated the divine would intervene to assist Christelle with meeting her soulmate and he would come in the form of a man who would speak French to her.
Christelle was in disbelief about not returning to France. In March of 2000, the week after Mardi Gras, she went to New Orleans by herself while her mother, who was visiting from France, stayed with the boys. It was like a vacation from everything. Her interest in visiting Louisiana was vague - she was interested in going yet could not give a definite reason as to why. She had read that getting a tarot reading is a must if you visit the French Quarter. She was convinced that “someone will tell me the truth.” One night while strolling through the main plaza in the French Quarter, a tarot reader steps in front of Christelle and tells her he has to give her a reading. He was an older fellow with a big, white beard. He looked like a cross between a sage and Santa Claus.
The reader told Christelle she would stay in the U.S. a long time which was a shock to her again because she had no such plans. He told her other personal details about herself that she knew to be very accurate. Christelle was in disbelief about permanently staying in the U.S. because she did not see how it could happen. The visa extension was set to expire in August with a remote possibility of extending it 6 months more. She was already making tentative plans to visit another country, possibly Brazil, when her time in the U.S. ran out.
Christelle purposefully strode down the line of readers and spontaneously chose another. (Maybe this one will tell me the truth, what I want to hear and what the mind will accept). He told her all the same information about staying in the U.S. and that she would meet her soulmate. Back at the hotel that night anxiety was creeping in because all this new information was not a part of Christelle’s plan and she resolved to see one more reader the next day so that she could finally get the truth.
The following day in the French Quarter, Christelle saw a voodoo shop with all kinds of skulls and witchcraft paraphernalia that advertised a tarot reader in the back. This seemed like the appropriate place to ask for important information about one’s life. The reader was in his mid 30’s, very effeminate and said he had done a lot of readings for famous artists in Hollywood. His reading was practically a recording from the day before. He went on about her soulmate saying “you have met him already”, almost getting angry and shouting “Can’t you see it’s him?! It’s him!” He told Christelle that her soulmate had suffered a lot and was still suffering, plus other personal details about this man. Christelle left and thought about the man she was dating at the time and could not see how he could be her soulmate and decided that the reader must be wrong.
In September of 2000 after extending the visas and squeeking past the border officials at the airport, Christelle met with Trish for a third time. Trish said she should have met her soulmate by now and that something was blocking her. She thought it might be a messy closet (a messy closet?) in Christelle’s house and recommended attending a feng shui class. She said a messy house can impede the flow of energy in one’s life experience.
Less than a month later, after Christelle attended the feng shui class and made all the necessary adjustments to her living space, a man showed up at her door inquiring about the apple tree in her yard. Doug was temporarily staying with me as a roommate and eventually introduced Christelle and I, and yes he did speak a little French. Apparently, cleaning up all that clutter in the closet was important.
Peter was raised by agnostic parents that he interpreted as atheists. Like wearing someone else’s clothes, he accepted his parents hand-me-down beliefs and unquestioningly considered himself an atheist during childhood and young adulthood. Despite having a profound mystical experience at the age of 13 after a near death experience followed closely by a prophetic dream that he would not begin to understand for 35 years, he stubbornly stuck to his beliefs after throwing a blanket over that other unexplainable weird stuff. It was not until his early 30’s that Peter began to question himself as to why he was gravitating more and more towards relationships with people who had firm spiritual beliefs. Then one day the woman Peter was living with told him that she had missed her menstrual cycle and was going to talk to a tarot reader about it. Peter thought that was a different tack when the grocery store has cheap over the counter pregnancy tests, but ok what the heck. While at work later that day, Peter had an experience that was not clairvoyant or clairaudient, but was of very clear thought. He knew what was transpiring between his girlfriend and the reader. He also knew she would show up at work and tell him all about it and he even knew what outfit she would be wearing.
When his girlfriend
showed up at his workplace, life took on a surreal hue-to begin with she was
wearing the clothes he had envisioned. They walked out the back door of the
shop into an open space away from the building. The green of the pinon and
juniper were contrasting sharply with the red earth and even though very dark,
threatening clouds were rolling in there was a quietness, a stillness in the
air and all around them-like the calm before a storm. She told Peter that the
reader was able to communicate with him during the reading and that
fertilization had occurred but the spirit had not entered the fetus yet. There
were unborn spirits following them around hoping they would have a child
because they want them as their parents, and that if they did not want this
child they could do a ceremony and explain it all to the “child spirit.”
This did not fit
with Peter’s life plan at all and in fact this whole day he felt like the
family dog whose leash had been tied to his master’s car bumper, promptly
forgotten while his reality tooled around town doing errands, he being jerked
and dragged along skipping off the pavement unable to keep pace. His beliefs
and his reality were colliding, and feeling a little shaken up he humbly agreed
to leave work immediately and go back to the trailer and do some kind of
“ceremony” whatever that meant.
The ceremony for
Peter began with his mind screaming that it was all a bunch of crap but
progressed into a deeply personal, emotionally moving event and the next day
Peter’s girlfriend had her period. Beliefs, like clothes, are often outgrown.
Feeling bare, Peter came to the sober realization that the spiritual beliefs he
borrowed from his parents no longer fit.
Five years later
about a week before Christmas of 2000, as Peter was having lunch with a close
friend, she began to tell him about a spiritual reading she had recently and
what a dramatic effect it had on her life. As she was describing it, to Peter’s
perception, the din of the room quieted down to the point where he could see
his friend’s mouth moving but was not quite hearing the words. As if stuck
between radio stations one clear thought emerged-Peter had to see this reader.
He immediately got the reader’s card from his friend and using his friend’s
cell phone called the woman on the spot. Peter explained he was leaving town
and moving to Palm Springs, CA the coming weekend and asked if the reader could
fit an appointment into her schedule. The woman replied that someone had just
canceled and there was an opening in two days.
Peter and
Christelle had met by this time and he had cajoled her into going out for
coffee or a bite to eat almost every day the last week before he moved. On the
day of the reading, he explained that he had to leave town and head back home
by such-and-such a time because he had an appointment with a reader. To his
surprise, Christelle was very interested in this spiritual stuff, so tentative
plans were made to call later on in the day about maybe getting together that
evening.
This reader’s gift
did not entail using tarot cards, but instead she was a clairvoyant that
specialized in communicating a person’s spiritual contract in their present
lifetime, and what karmic event occurred in a previous lifetime that had the
most influence on the current life cycle. Information about reincarnation of
the soul was given as well as work with the chakras. She did not mention
anything about a soulmate to Peter. After it was over Peter sat around stunned,
in a daze, for a couple of hours then called Christelle and set up a time to
meet up at her apartment. The reader provided a cassette recording of the
session and Christelle had a player. It is interesting that the courtship had
just begun and yet Peter felt very comfortable in sharing the taped session
with Christelle and likewise Christelle was completely open to hearing it.
Deeply personal topics can arise during readings and information about a
person’s soul is expressed only truthfully. The only question that comes into
play is how accurate the reader is. Yes, there are charlatans out there ready
to take your money for useless or vague information. One stumbling block that
readers come upon frequently, even very good ones, is the subject of time-when
the event they are discussing is going to happen.
Peter left Durango
for Palm Springs the day after Christmas in 2000, but kept in contact with
Christelle. A few weeks later Christelle drove to Palm Springs to visit and we
have been together ever since. We took some classes learning about the tarot
and have been pulling cards and doing our own readings. We love it. We have used
the tarot for information about every major decision we have ever made and also
for questions about simple mundane queries if we so desire. Months may pass
with us not pulling a single card. That which is here to help us truly knows
just how hard life can be in the physical reality, how powerful the illusion of
separateness from source is and “it” or “they” or whatever you want to call
that which accompanies us here on the earth plane really wants to help. It is
required that a person speaks up and asks for assistance whether it be with
cards or words or whatever.
Another wonderful
book on our list of books we love is “Animal Speak” by Ted Andrews. We have
come to realize that life, our reality, bombards all of us with helpful
information all the time and often animals, birds and/or insects in nature are
there to provide us with clues about ourselves, our life experiences and our
life situations. Nature, including wildlife, is a pure expression of spirit.
The more a person believes in and looks for help, the more information that
person will begin to notice. This does not mean that if a person does not hold
these beliefs that life will not try to help them with understanding.
So, of course, we
have used tarot cards continually during the decision to take this trip,
including the planning stage, and all through our journey. Christelle came up
with the idea for a photo of the map with some cards spread out on it. Peter
pulled out the Fool because it accurately describes our journey, leaving the
known and venturing off into the unknown, then just tried to fan out all the
rest in a nice spread. The cards spread out all herky-jerky and he was going to
try again but Christelle said it was fine let’s just get it over with. Later,
upon further examination, we realize that the few cards we see in the photo are
actually an accurate reading for what energy is presently being expressed in
our life.
The hanged man is
one who is willing to turn oneself upside down in order to get a new
perspective on repetitive patterns or “hang ups”. It is also preparation for
change or metamorphosis like the cocoon stage of man insects. This accurately
describes our current life situation-just look at where we are and how we got
here. The queen of disks is a card that Christelle receives a lot in readings
and this card represents a concern for good exercise, healthy food and a
natural environment. The hermit is where Peter is now-the meditator that can
only have significant relationships. This card represents Virgo-completion, perfection
and introspection. The pleasure card says exactly what is happening-we are
enjoying our journey and our simple life together with our kids. It also
signifies a healing process of the emotional nature-being renewed and
regenerated. Valour is the deepening of character from life’s experience,
movement forward from a place of courage, willing to take important risks,
strong sense of one’s values. This card is associated with the Kundalini
energy, having backbone, the rise of spiritual energy.
And there you have
it. We know that it was important for us to take this trip. While skyping with
a close friend last month, Peter enthusiastically talked about day-to-day life
and his buddy came back with “so I should sell all my stuff and move to some
other country, huh?” We are not saying we know what other people should do with
their lives. We don’t. We have enough fun deciding what we do with ourselves
and this is working for us at the present moment and we really enjoy it.
This is in our magical backyard. Hello to all!
