A Fortune-teller Told Me

ONE FOOT INTO THE FUTURE AS THE YEAR COMES TO AN END

photo credit: jose-antonio-gallego-vazquez-1UD3QX92V6o-unsplash & digital edit, Rhaine...

With the holidays in full swing for much of the world, I am finding it hard to pull together a letter that is authentic, yet remains upbeat when I’m not feeling it. I’ve kept my shopping and gift-giving to a minimum, my kids are far away, most of my family are gone (deceased) and I’m trying to find the joy in small moments. Usually about now, I’m ready for it to be over and move into the new year. The Holidays are rough, and I realized I wasn’t alone - the only human feeling this way - when I was doing 12-step work a few decades ago.

I love the idea of a new year, a place to begin again, to turn the page and not look behind but instead of what’s ahead. Which brings about the idea of the future. Even though I am building a practice of mindfulness, there are times looking backward AND into the future are practical, healing, and maybe - even - necessary.

Have you ever been to a fortune-teller? A psychic? A diviner? I have – a few times. I like the sound of fortune-teller best. The sound of it conjures another era, a walk into the unknown, a mystical, magical space where that of the liminal and reality dance. Most have done it at least once, have gone to a professional who has expertise in the art of divination; whether it’s palmistry, numerology, tea leaf readings, booking a session with a Tarot Master, seeing a psychic, or an I Ching oracle – and I’m sure there are other divination artforms that have escaped me.

It was during the 80’s, the decade before cell phones and the internet, that a buzz was in the air about a psychic that came to town every couple of months. She lived a few hours away and would drive over, renting the downstairs floor of an old Victorian abode and gave readings to the fortune-seekers that came to see her. Her name was Greta Alexander and she had become a national figure working with police departments solving missing persons and murder cases. She also would do phone readings, readings over the radio, and in person. A woman I worked with told me she was coming to town. She gave me a phone number scratched on a scrap of paper and instructed me to start calling the number on Wednesday at 9:00 a.m. My friend went on to tell me, “Greta will only schedule a certain amount of clients and when her capacity is reached, she won’t take any more names and you’ll have to wait until the next time, which could be two months from now!” I began calling promptly at 9:00 and was greeted with a busy signal. I would wait a minute or two and dial again, hanging up, dialing again but persistence paid off. I got my appointment. I was instructed by her assistant that I could not bring any type of recording device, but I could take notes if I wanted. The reading would be 30 minutes in length and would cost $45.

The day arrived for my appointment and Greata greeted me at the door. She was a very large woman, part pleasantry and part business with BIG hair. She looked like something from the pages of a 1960s Life Magazine. She got right to it, inked my hand and pushed my blackened palm onto a clean, white sheet of copy paper. We sat across from one another at a small wooden table. There were brief introductions. She clipped the stark piece of paper with a blackened hand to an upright stand at the side of the table. I could tell it was no longer mine. Then she cupped my hand, attached to my body, with both of hers and studied it intently. She peered into my face and searched across my youth. Tears welled up in her eyes and began streaming down her cheeks. She shook her head from side to side, slowly, gently, as if she was motioning “no” and said, “Oh child, I see terrible, terrible headaches and so sick. You will not be with him – this marriage”. Then the wetness on her face became skin again and she said, “but I can tell you that you will be known across the world. You will travel from one side of the globe to the other. You have the gift of word, the gift of art, the gift of speech. Yes, this I see.” The half hour sped by. 30 minutes evaporated and the session was over. I left clutching the small notebook scribbled with notes that I had brought. She told me many other things but those three themes were seared into my heart and bones.

Could she see into my future? Perhaps. Within the next ten years my marriage was on its death bed finally ending in divorce. I became very sick with symptoms that presented like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and I had the onset of C-PTSD but hadn’t received a clinical diagnoses yet. Within a few years I also began having devastating headaches and migraines. And the “gift of word, the gift of art, the gift of speech?” I’m working on it.

I do hope this season brings to you time to rest, to regenerate, to reflect and that you may find magic and perhaps some joy going into the new year.

I’ll leave the light on.