fifth year reading at the eagle lake pow wow

[HOLMES]

hard to believe it is my fifth year now..

this year I went to the pow wow meeting and arranged it ahead of time.
so we went down last night and set up the gazebo where we were going to be..

today started off sunny in the afternoon yet I didnt' even get fully set up before the first big rain came and soaked me up. after we got up the sunscreen I was mostly ready to go.

this year there was a lot of one card readings and I was surpised that lots of peeps were willing to take the one card reading. there was 2 people who took the 40 dollar reading.

I think the hardest thing is to try to get a good question out of the client so i can give them a good reading.
there was one reading that started off on career but quickly turned into a romance question and the client said they were thinking of that most but was worried about it.

I think the best reading i did today was for a female client who asked about if she will have a child.. and there was a lot of hits. it was like the best reading that make you feel good for learning to read the tarot as it left the client with a lot to think about and i felt she got her forty dollars. also some of the hits just felt like validation for the day.

at the end of the day i made 305 ! and left me looking forward to tomorrow, especially since i did good for such a rainy, windy day.
also as i passed by the pow wow dancing i was surpised to see so many people dancing on a windy day that if it was a hot sunny day it would of really been a spectular day.

one person though in retrospect asked if I ever had feedback, and i said yes i had people come up to once in a while and tell me i was good and asked if i ever had bad feedback.
I said "well not to my face" which was true. that was kind of funny come to think of it.
he came back 2 times before getting his reading so i understood it was a big step for him.

edited to add
then I came back and see my cousin or someone left my bitwine taskbar on and I missed chat for a possible reading
/facepalm

 

[Chiriku]

Great updates, Holmes; I always enjoy your posts.

You know, as much as I prefer larger spreads because they are more enjoyable for me as a reader, there's no denying that those one-carders can be very powerful indeed.

Interesting that a question some readers dread--fertility-related ones--turned out to be your favorite reading of the day.

I hope your customers were gratified and spread the good word of mouth about you.

 

[Grizabella]

Good going, Holmes! I'm so glad it went so well for you. And it sure doesn't seem like it's been five years. I remember when you first started doing it.

 

[HOLMES]

today was a very good day

it wasn't hot and it wasn't that cold, so much that after I was reading the cards for the day, I was able to sit there and not feel any mosquitoes. I was happily sitting there watching the dancing and didnt' even realize that It was midnight as i was sitting there watching the dancers.

this time before I get to the actual reading that stood out,, here is some random stuff

the grand entry for the evening which is always big was spectular seeing the men,, the women,, the fancy dancers,, and at the end you see , here comes the future generation..
the little girls dancers who come after the teenagers and the little boy dancers.
in particular my nephew who is 14 was grass dancer which for me was a first time, my 9 year old neice was wearing a jingle dress. and I various friends and family (which is natural of course for I am from here ) but for me it was special seeing them dance.

after I was done reading the tarot,, i went and sat there and they were doing the honorium dances (where the youth dance then get their honorioum, and then the jingle dresses). hmm before I go on,,I look at honourium as a little something to help out with gas ,, for the youth i was 20 dollars I dont' know about the adults.

then it was the ladies jingle dress and they were lined up to get their honorium and one of them started the call so half the jingle dress dancers has to go dance again,, the arena director came over and told the payers,, "stop paying them it is a ladies call ".

then it was the men,, and i kept sitting there waiting to see calls and i was sitting there expecting the mom to come back and my step dad came and said "you ready to go ?, mom is staying at the camp"

so the end result is 700 we estimate (i kept giving him money over time during the day so i didnt' loose it).
the differnece was that we had a sun/windbreaker and after it got dark we had a lantern that ran from battery and it was really bright..
so besides where my tarot signs were I held up the lantern and pretended i was the hermit once or twice eheh.
then i put it on the ground beside my tarot signs and sat there and ended up increasing the yearly estimate by 100 i figure.

ok now to the readings.

I had a 3 time repeater who was amazed.
i had some youths who came and got one card readings and they were impressed and got their freinds,, and sometimes even I was impressed for it seemed to went to the heart of the matter, then 2 of the youths came and got 7 card readings for a discount as there was so many of them.

the reading that stood out for me wasn't even a tarot reading.. (though the second one was)
a woman came and asked if i could read/try to get a message from her dead mother and her dead brother. so she picked the archangels oracle
i went through the ritual and as i tried to tune i asked if "i am getting flowers does that make sense to you,, like did you plant flowers together, had a garden "?
(not every mother does flowers with her daughter after all )
she said "yes my mom loved flowers " so after that I went with the cards
the first card was vision which i relied that she has seen her mom in dreams and she is doubting that she had.
and the soul message was "you got it " and i said to her eureka and your mom said she finally got the message.

so she picked a tarot and I was trying to tune in,, it was a little harder for i didn't know what or how he passed,, i was getting late 28ish,, muscles,, ,
i asked "he passed later then the mom eh " (as i didn't know if they passed in a car accident " and finally I had to ask what age he was when he passed which was 27..
so i didnt' want to say "hockey" as after all we are canadians, and native so most native guys love hockey. but i said it anyways.
"yes he loved hockey he didn't play it but he loved it " so i went with that.

the first card was stalemate and I thought to myself that he was in limbo,, but no i realized he was up there in the light trying to figue out what he wants to do next..

and i cant' for the life of me remember the second card,, but it was something like he found it hard to share,, or he had to share a lot..
whichever it was,, she said yes and smiled to herself thinking of it..
then the reading took on a differnt energy.

i said he says you relationship has been hard,, and that even though now it is stalemate in the sense it is peaceful, the thing about a stalemate is that eventually it will end and he says how do you want the relationship to be. ?.

she said yes that made sense and i felt like she felt for a brief moment like he was there giving advice..
then she left and i had to think about what went down.

i guess now the readings are turning into to a blur,, the last reading i did was a 10 card reading for a discount as it was late..
she picked the native american tarot and the general inner child spread that is the hipscotch spread.
every card was a hit and it felt great to end it on a high note,, the soul message was the journey card,, and they said "we just moved here and we are still on a journey"
so she had a deck and we talked about it at some length and passed them onto the tarot forum, i hope she finds it.

so now i have to go cut the chords and go and rest up.. but it was a good day, very good day.

 

[Chiriku]

I see your point about not wanting to go with information that could be construed as obvious or stereotypical (the hockey thing) as it could trigger a concern in some suspicious types of "cold reading" (in the sense of a person who uses intellect and five earthly senses to make educated guesses that he or she pretends came from extra-sensory or divinatory means). But if that's really the impression you got, you had to be honest and go with it.

Thanks for the description of the dancing. The jingle dancers are my favorite to watch, especially (here in the U.S.) the classic Ojibwa style. I think that dance originate in the Great Lakes area after all, didn't it?

So, you use the Gonzales Native American? As an ethnic minority myself who's attuned to the appropriation/misrepresentation issues that plague a lot of art and media including tarot, I'm ambivalent about using the "multicultural" decks for querents from those particular minority groups. Most tarot decks are created by non-members of the groups depicted in the cards, and it can be a touchy issue.

And another thing is that many of my minority ethnicity querents have chosen the ancient British Druid Craft and other equally all-Euro decks over the more diverse decks I put on offer. People go with the art they are attracted to, I suppose. Or maybe they associate tarot with European kings and queens and so forth (and rightly so, given its historical roots) and thus want a deck that reflects this on some level. A deck that's 'real tarot.'

 

[HOLMES]

yes

I was laying there thinking of the readings over the weekend even I cut the chords and was thinking about the mediumship reading in particular.
I forgot to mention that when I was starting to do the reading,, I didnt' set out to contact with the spirit of the mom like that,, though I read enough books and pratice once or twice that I should of. oh i also made sure to call in both our door keepers for that excerise.
so when i was shuffling the cards that is when i had the flowers come to me.
so when i was shufffling for the brother,, I figured try it and see what I get.

for the tarots that I have based on the native american spirituality or canadian as it is being ojbiwe canadian.. there are some natives who wish for a native deck.
the ones i got currently are
native american
tarot of the southwest tribes
the vision quest tarot which I use.
the ones I have that i dont' use are
questor (I didn't study it so i dont know what suits is the buffalos)
the sweat lodge cards,, it isnt' a tarot system
the medicine cards, for i didnt' learn the animal system though i had it for a long time.
the sacred path cards, same for i didnt' study the cards
the four winds cards, made by great lakes ojbiwe i think , it was a complicated system.
if I did spend time learning the other systems i am sure i would do ok with them..

but yeah, personally for me i didnt' see a problem with it as I know there are many tribes and many reserves in those tribes, so it would be very hard to make an apache tarot deck for example.
now if i saw a fellow native who saw it as a bastardization of our traditions,, I would respect his or her beliefs as i am sure there are some who feel that way.
yet in that case ,, it would be tend to be traditional people who are staying true to the old ways and wouldnt' hardly come for a tarot reading.

the thing to take heart though is the men who danced this year were some youngs ones who didnt' dance before,, and all the youngs one who came at the bottom of the line , there was lots of children, if half of them continue on the traditions down the line , perhaps there is hope for the people after all.
--
in truth i never thought about how europureans druids might think of having their beliefs, distilled into an oracle or tarot, i wonder how a one does feel, as I haven't spoken to any.
--
oh chiriku,

for me i just simply kept the decks in a bag and asked them to pick the bag that appealed to them,, it was rare that anyone picked up the decks and looked through it.
which was amazing for previously they would pick up all the decks and find 2 or 3 and tryt to narrow it down.
if you have a lot of coloured bags,, that could be something to try.