Sage Sips / TaoCraft Tarot

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I’ve been enjoying Threads lately.

It’s where I do a LOT of void screaming and rage re-posting. It’s fun. It’s another tool in the old stress-reduction toolkit. Blame it on the old Myers-Briggs personality thing. I’m INTP enough to thrive in an idea driven environment.

One of the many good and helpful things about Tarot is that is an environment of ideas, too. The suits of swords and pentacles resonate with that pragmatic, cognitive side of the human psyche. But, importantly, that is balanced by the Cups and Wands, the emotional, philosophical parts. Between the four suits and the major arcana, there are both comfort zones and challenge / balances for pretty much everybody. It helps those of us who are too much in our head to feel the feels when needs be, and it helps people in the middle of big emotions see a way through it all.

That being said, I stumbled across an interesting mini-conversation on Threads about “should professional readers get readings from other professional readers?” Not much was being said about it, so I thought I’d put my long format two cents worth here.

Actually, I put my long format two cents worth here 14 years ago when I originally wrote a blog post “Parallax”(re-printed below from the Modern Oracle Tarot archives)

Long story short, my answer is a qualified yes. It’s important for anyone to use their instincts and find a reader who resonates with them. Chemistry matters. In any Tarot or psychic reading it is important to find someone you instinctively trust, someone whose energy is comfortable, and ideally someone you feel good being around. And yes, all of those things come through email and video too.

Test that theory: surf the web or scroll social media and pay attention to your gut reflex response to a post or a website. What is it that makes you feel that way? Colors? Layout? Well edited vs raw? Pure instinct? The same applies to real world readings with real people. What about them puts you at ease or puts you on edge?

As important as these things are for everyone, it’s multiplied for a professional. We want to be at our psychological and emotional best in order to do good work for our clients – much as a good therapist would. Therapists are a good example of why professional psychics can benefit from readings from another professional. Seeing a process from the inside as well as the outside builds empathy, a good thing for both professions.

Should professional psychic readers get professional readings? Yes but only occasionally and with great focus and purpose from a known, vetted and trusted colleague.

Why occasionally? If a person needs a great deal of guidance, they may not be in a good emotional or cognitive space to be guiding others, at least for a time. Finding a reader who sets boundaries and takes care of themselves is a good sign that they can offer good advice to you.

One of the arguments against pro readers getting pro readings is the self-care aspect turned dark. Instead of an act of self-care so a pro can do their best for you, some people seemed to have the perception that it was a sign of poor quality. If a reader was any good, that they could read for themselves.

We do! All the freaking time.

But like I said in “Parallax” – sometimes two heads really are better than one.

Everything is connected. It takes two eyes to see with depth perception.

Try the “camera 1, camera 2” experiment from the movie “Wayne’s World”. We’ve all done this as kids, I think.

Here is how to experience parallax: Close one eye. Hold up a pencil (or your finger) at arms length. Using only one eye, line the pencil with a distant object – the corner of the room or a tree outside of the window for example.

Now switch eyes. The pencil isn’t lined up with the distant object anymore. A different point of view changes everything.

When you look with both eyes together, things shift again.

Should readers get readings? Yes – for all of the same reasons anyone would want a reading and with all of the same cautions and considerations anyone else would have.

And now here is Parallax from the 2019 update:

“Camera 1, Camera 2, Camera 1, Camera 2” ~ Wayne’s World 2

Ever play with that trick of eyesight? Close one eye, and hold up a pencil so it lines up with an object in the distance. Then switch eyes and the pencil seems to jump to one side. Things don’t line up the same way.

In astronomy, this is called parallax. In anatomy, this phenomenon where the brain combines two slightly different views from two slightly different viewpoint gives us depth perception…it allows us to see distance. Two eyes lets us live in three dimensions. It helps us to not walk into objects and learn our environment the literal hard way.

A similar idea is true in Tarot and psychic work. Getting a reading isn’t predicting the future…it is getting a second look, a separate viewpoint to combine with our own that lets us see with greater clarity and understanding. It helps us be a bit more perceptive, and not have to learn every lesson the hard way.

Two third-eyes are better than one, in other words.

Even those of us who do readings professionally will sometimes GET one to improve our understanding and fill in any blind spots. 

I like to think that when psychics read for themselves or consult a fellow psychic, it works like binocular vision. Two readings from two people gives two views that can be fused together into a higher quality, more useful vision.

Another example is the VLA, “very large array” of radio telescopes. It is made of 27 or so radio antennae all linked together to work together like one big dish, one configuration is over 20 miles across. Working together, the telescopes have capabilities magnetudes more than any individual telescope. If we combine our logic, know-how, and life experience to work together with oracle tools (tarot, runes, palm lines, what-have-you) and other intuitives, we can increase our understanding and spiritual growth by magnitudes.

If one eye is closed, then depth perception doesn’t work. If one telescope is down, the array doesn’t work as well. We each bring our part to a reading. The sitter (learner, seeker, client) has a part to play too. When we do a Tarot reading, we work together. I translate spirit, but it is up to you to understand and apply the message. We work together like the telescopes in the VLA or two eyes together to see farther. Working together, we see with more clarity.

Together we are clairvoyant.