The Push to Something More

With the recent cycle of eclipses happening in my personal 10th House—zone of career—and my business’s 1st House—the face (brand) and identity, it’s no surprise that I’ve been hyper focused on how I do the work that I do with Hermit’s Mirror. I looked to the Moon and discovered the Star.

Introductory doesn’t have to mean basic

Back when I was teaching introductory film and popular culture courses at a moderately large private university (more than a decade ago now), this was my favorite piece of feedback: 

“You ask a lot of your students. And they deliver.” 

My teaching mentor had just finished observing a session, and she was surprised—in a good way—at the intensity of the analysis and engagement of the discussion. “I can’t believe what you were able to pull out of them for a 100-level class.”

For that session, we were interpreting the movie Foxy Brown, which was the viewing for that week’s topic of blaxploitation, sexploitation, and cult audiences. We were analyzing the movie in conjunction with readings on the use of hair as a sign of the protagonist’s agency and the importance of Angela Davis, in and out of the Black Panthers, as a cultural referent for the film. As you can imagine, it was not a discussion in which most of the 18- and 19-year-old, predominantly white students would have expected to engage, especially in the “intro to film” class many of them hoped would be an easy A.

Dare to Dream from the Threads of Fate is not a card I liked for a long time, but it’s become so relevant to me in refining my missionn.

Sure, some of them were probably a little overwhelmed because they’d never been challenged to think critically in such specific ways. And some were probably disengaged, even if my teaching mentor couldn’t see it in a scan of faces. But all of them were invited and encouraged to push themselves to do more than they otherwise thought they could. That’s my M.O. as a teacher and as a coach, regardless of the subject or arena. I dare you to do more, to dream more and then to achieve more. 

And I love when you do. Hearing from a student about their first encounter with an ancestor while taking part in Reading the River of Time fills me with joy and excitement. It’s a same feeling I get when I help someone climb over a wall or up a rope for the first time. One is deeply spiritual and the other physical and psychological (fear is often a bigger obstacle than lack of strength). But in both cases, we are invited to wonder what else you can do after that first hurdle is cleared. Once you’ve done what you thought was impossible for you, there’s a whole new world of possibility that you get to explore.

I run specialty courses for experienced diviners, such as Reading the River of Time and Awaken the Court Cards, but introductory courses don’t have to be basic. There was no prerequisite for my 100-level film course, but we got intense and we got specific. And I laid that out plainly. Plenty of students opted out, “self-selecting” as we call it. But others stepped up and were writing more insightful analyses than some grad students I knew. The same goes for my intensive introductory course, Read Tarot like a Nerd. It’s a course that helps new and experienced tarot readers develop (or reinforce) a solid foundation in tarot reading so that everything they go on to learn can find its place. But it’s not for everyone. Self-selection happens here too.

Not everyone is primed to stretch

It used to make me sad that I don’t appeal to everyone. I genuinely like most people once I get to know them, and I hope that they like me as well. But experiencing another person’s pleasantness, energetic connection, and mutual respect is very different from having one’s work appeal to them. Those things won’t always go hand in hand. It’s a lesson that took me some time to learn, so if it’s news to you, I hope that it helps you to hear it.

I knew my course materials were good and my exercises powerful, and I knew that even very talented readers who worked with me were learning new things and doing old things in new ways. And compared to some classes I’d taken, I knew it was great value for the money. So I couldn’t understand why I didn’t have more people clamoring for my classes. It took me years and years to learn all the techniques I help people unlock for themselves in weeks. With a little push in the right direction, a reader could skip all that heartache.

Suspension (Hanged Man) from the Next World Tarot by Cristy C. Road.

But then I realized that not everyone wants to be pushed. That’s not a dig. Most people don’t want to be pushed. Why would we? It’s uncomfortable, and so much of life is already uncomfortable for so many folx. Why would someone want to make things harder for themself? Why would they go beyond what they are already comfortable knowing and doing?

Call me a masochist, but to me that’s the whole point of tarot (or any form of divination). I might not always want to be pushed. But I didn’t find my way to tarot and use it to do nothing. If I wanted to stay within the small box of what I already know and do, I wouldn’t try to tap into the unknown with my intuition and a deck of cards. I wouldn’t look to something bigger than myself to find answers to questions I haven’t even thought of asking. That’s the kind of tarot I want people to be able to do. 

Yes, you can use tarot in everyday ways. You should! How else will you calibrate your readings or see how tarot impacts your everyday if you stay lost in the ether? And if you want to use tarot to transform your life, you need actionable intelligence related to your lived reality. But that’s asking a lot of people. The timing has to be right. You have to be at the right stage of your self-reflection or spiritual journey or professional development to stretch. If you go into a stretching exercise completely cold, you could hurt yourself. You have to ease into these things. It helps to have warmed up first.

Leading people through that effective warm-up phase requires skills and a calling that just aren’t for me. Of course I could create something simple that would layer in a few techniques without getting too deep—I’ve done it for many other kinds of classes—but I don’t really want to. And I know that it may come off as conceited that I appeal to an intermediate/advanced audience and a select few self-starters who have already completed the basics. But it’s much more arrogant to think that the world needs me to teach a basic tarot class. There are so many out there that will get you started. It’s a huge market with enormous revenue potential, but it’s not what the Universe has in store for me.

Now, when you’re looking for something more, I’m the something more.

Something more

Okay, I recognize that that may come across as conceited. That’s valid. I accept that. But it’s also a theme that I’ve heard time and again. When someone who is into their practice is looking to expand or deepen their practice, when they’re looking to get into the nitty gritty or get abstractly magical, I am there with a class or a book or a divination challenge. And when they want to leverage their tarot insights for personal transformation, I am so there. That is where I shine. I own it.

So as Hermit’s Mirror continues to grow and evolve both as a business and as an ever-greater part of my everyday life—I am still fully employed by someone else after all—the work that I do will also narrow and streamline. I would love to be there for everyone to do all the things, but a sharpened focus will allow me to not just be the Hermit someone stumbles into while lost in the psychic wilderness, but also the Star that helps guide those who already know their path but want to push on into the unknown. Constancy and focused guidance in the darkness? I can give you that.

That means that my reading services and some of my course offerings will change next year. I may even stop selling some decks and work on developing new ones. But I’m giving it time. I’m consulting with other tarot professionals—even a professional reader and coach benefits from getting a reading and coaching—and I’ll be planning the timing of it all in concert with my own year-ahead Portals of Being reading. 

May it help us all shine.