Regrets for those you let down...

*Sigh*

You may or may not know me by one of my alternative names.

I'd like to talk about those readings where for one reason or another it all just feels unsatisfactory. Those readings where you feel like you let the client down.

There must of been 10 of them. All of them were adolescent boys. Come to think of it they were all wearing hoodies, some of those hoods were up. The leader marched into the tent. He said, "What's goin on here?"

I said, "I'm reading tarot cards.".

"What's that then? Like telling your fortune?"

Not exactly.

What's it cost then?

For you a pound.

Here's twenty p.

Keep your money. Pick a card. He chose the two of swords.

I said, "this represents a difficult choice."

He said, "What you mean between stealing a car or robbing a bank?"

I really lost it then. I said, "Do you want to get caught?" And where I really lost it was persueing that line.

He ended calling me a charleton and stalking away. He didn't know I used to call myself a scalawag.

I should have spoke about the choice between making the world a better place by helping others or making it worse by hurting them. About the choice between getting an education or leaving it. About the choice between making the world a better place or a worse place.

These are lessons you learn when you start to read tarot for other people.

All ten of those boys picked cards. I only read two. The other boy picked Justice.

I said, "You'll all get what you deserve." The other eight boys kept the cards they picked.

He knew what I was talking about.

The thing I love most about reading tarot for people is I'm always learning more.

dedicated to a moon shadow, a volcanic maid and my eclectic daughter. Oh don't forget a chrome toaster who buzzes like a fly and a certain toad.

WOW... I have had a similar expirience like that before. Well, its their lose. Not ours.

Golden Moon said:

WOW... I have had a similar expirience like that before. Well, its their lose. Not ours.

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I have a furry demon on my lap who wants to absolutely refute what you've said. Not that you've had a similar experience, but that it was their loss. I feel like I failed because I did.

Major Tom said:

The thing I love most about reading tarot for people is I'm always learning more.

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YES! Always.

I had one guy walk in... scray dude... major issues going on... he wanted to know if he was going to be caught... he jumped bail! I lived in NYC for a long time not much usually flaps me - you just have to laugh!

I don't remember the cards... I remember him! I remember his nervousness... and clearly drugged up state... I told him what he didn't want to know but he listened and I knew I hit my mark. Not my agenda but the mark I was supposed to hit!

I am always learning and the other thing is I never know who is going to walk in and with what issue.... it is never boring!

I've had a few. I'm sure anyone that's been reading for others for an amount of time have. Maybe the best way of coping is to remember all those readings that have made a difference. You don't lose them all, so lament, then let it go. I'm sure you are, and writing it here is part of it. I can commiserate.

When I was in my twenties and super-fit, I had my first serious knee injury. I was on crutches for months, and because of the nature orf the injury I couldn't drive. So one afternoon I was hobbling home from teh local shop. a plastic bag with a loaf of bread or milk or something dangling from the cross-bar of one of hte crutches, finding it hard-going across teh park near my place.

Some kids of probably about ten or eleven came rampaging along on skateboards, cutting really close to me, obviously trying to panic me and make me fall over without actually touching me.

I made direct eye-contact with the ringleader. Without even knowing what I was doing or saying but speaking out of deep truth, I said to him and to only him: "One day you'll know what this feels like." And although I never kept in touch or even knew who he was, I know eventually he did, and he would have remembered my saying so.

I didn't have a Tarot deck with me, but every so often I feel a bit guilty. Did I do a bit of non-Tarot predicting at the time? Or did I *curse* him?

It could have been either - I know the feel of magic, and I knew I wasn't talking in ordinary reality but in a swirl of magic. If I'm going to be guilty about something, perhaps it should be about the possibility that I may have cursed him rather than foretold an injury. As to times where I might have stuffed up (as you seem to think you've done), the most you can do is learn from it and move on.

Forgive yourself, Tom. They'll survive. It won't scar them for life. Of course, it won't teach them any positive lessons, either, but they'll get other chances - life is generous like that.

And the ones who hung onto the cards ... well, they'll have a living reminder on their bedroom floors or their dressers for a long time to come. And who knows what their subconscious will pick up from it? Doesn't ameliorate the emotions of watching a deck get broken in front of your eyes, though.

Major Tom said:

...

He chose the two of swords.

I said, "this represents a difficult choice."

He said, "What you mean between stealing a car or robbing a bank?"

I really lost it then. I said, "Do you want to get caught?"

....

I should have spoke about the choice between making the world a better place by helping others or making it worse by hurting them. About the choice between getting an education or leaving it. About the choice between making the world a better place or a worse place.

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No. You didn't fail, and it's just as well you did not say those things.

I think you did more than you think to help.

The 2 swords card showed you a difficult choice. "Do you want to get caught?" is your intuition in reading the card, and an excellent question.

The rest is your grown-up voice talking to a punk who wouldn't have listened. It's you wishing you could give him advice he'd follow. It's not the tarot talking.

He'll know what his own actual difficult choice really is, soon enough, if he doesn't already, and thanks to you, he'll recognize it for a choice.

Major Tom said:

I have a furry demon on my lap who wants to absolutely refute what you've said. Not that you've had a similar experience, but that it was their loss. I feel like I failed because I did.

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Don't you think for a minute that young man didn't get your point, or your message,,,it was simply something he didn't want to face. THAT'S why he reacted the way he did.

You need to learn that once you've taken something on board, and you obviously have - it's OK to let go of the guilt, shame and that weird feeling of self-diminishment that comes with an experience like yours. Hey - I don't think you need to feel those things - it was a reading, and one day that lad may well look back and understand. But - since you obviously do feel like this - you need to learn to be as gentle with yourself as you are with most of your sitters.....

Nisaba - knowing and saying isn't causing. We are as everywhen as we are everywhere - who know from which when your voice came and gave a young man a chance to change. A gift you gave him - a chance to change his path... not your fault if he didn't...

Wendywu said:

Nisaba - knowing and saying isn't causing.

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Yep, that's prophesy. However, cursing is causing. I spoke calmly, distinctly and with inner force from a place of complete authority: I had no idea then, and I have no idea now, whether I was cursing-and-causing, or knowing-and-saying. I also know without a shadow of a doubt that later on, that kid would have known what a trashed knee feels like.