“And you know ‘Stardust’ used to be ‘our song’ when Ben and I were married. It was our first dance at our wedding, in fact. And now the purple dusk of twilight time…” she sang softly. “Purple dusk…mnh…when I first heard ‘Stardust’ as a girl, I fell in love with the song and wore dusky purple clothing from then on.”
Faith had experienced another breakthrough in this session; she had not launched herself on a single unrelated tangent in forty-five minutes. As I walked over to unlock the room, I debated whether to mention this, and decided it might be more effective for our work if I didn’t raise the subject.
MALA SONIA STRIKES AGAIN
When I opened the door, Mala Sonia was standing before me, decked out in a yellow ruffled blouse, skintight jeans, and a pair of ostentatiously glitzy evening sandals that could have come from one of those fancy European designers or else been a knockoff from Payless; I wouldn’t have known the difference. Her hand was poised in midair as if she had been preparing to knock. She looked pained. “I need to speak with you,” she said, lowering her voice when she saw Faith sitting on the couch. “Privately, if possible. I have had powerful vision that I must give you a reading.” I stepped aside and Mala Sonia entered the laundry room. “I wake up in the middle of the night and feel something very important going on.” She brought her hand to her heart and fingered the ostentatious crucifix that dangled between her heavy breasts. “I feel in here something that concerns you. I toss and turn until this morning wondering whether I should speak to you about these bad feelings, because I know you are an unbeliever.” Mala Sonia wrung her hands in consternation, the consummate actress.
“If by ‘unbeliever’ you mean that I wouldn’t conduct my life based upon a tarot reading any more than I would from my daily horoscope in the newspaper, then I suppose you’re right. If you think I don’t believe in God, you’re wrong.”
“Okay, then, I’ll ask you another way. You believe in such a thing as women’s intuition?”
“Well…yes. Absolutely,” I admitted.
“Well, I have had an intuition, let us say. Let me say, I mean. An intuition that something is very important and I must give you a reading. You will not be sorry, I promise.”
I hesitated. I didn’t need to be down at the women’s health center until that afternoon, so I wasn’t in a rush. Still, I had plenty of constructive uses for the time, like writing up progress notes or vacuuming the apartment. “I’m not paying you twenty dollars,” I told her curtly.
“I’m not asking.”
That was a surprise. “And Faith stays—if she wants to.” We both turned to look at Faith. I suppose I wanted a witness. For what, I couldn’t even say. “Would you? Could you?” I asked her.
“It would be my pleasure. Where do you want me to sit?”
Mala Sonia and I both pointed to the couch. “Stay there,” said the Gypsy. She removed a candle from her purse, the kind you’d find in a fish restaurant: nestled in a thick red goblet covered with plastic netting. “Overhead lights no good for reading today. I want to tell you something first about the cards,” said Mala Sonia earnestly. “Something you may not know. Maybe it will make you more of a believer in their strength. Sit.” She motioned to one of the ratty dinette chairs, and I dragged it to the center table. Mala Sonia removed the tarot deck from her purse and spread the cards faceup on the table in a disorderly mess. “You see that there are four suits, just like in a deck of playing cards, yes?” I nodded, curious as to where she was headed. After all, I encourage my clients to take risks and broaden their horizons, and I would be a hypocrite if I was myself unwilling to go where I prodded them.
“Four suits: Pentacles or Coins, Cups, Swords, and Wands. Fifty-six of those cards: the Minor Arcana. With numbers and face cards for royalty just like in poker deck, yes?” Yes, I nodded again. “Then we have twenty-two cards with Roman numerals. We have, for instance, the Lovers, the Devil, the Magician, the Fool, and so forth. Yes? These cards are called the Major Arcana. And this is where I think you, as a psychologist, will recognize that there is something more than mumbo-jumbo, as you like to say, in the tarot. Many people believe that the twenty-two Major Arcana cards correspond to Carl Jung’s archetypes.”
I did in fact find that information intriguing. Human beings actually do tend to fit or force, even stereotype, individuals or entities into an archetype: Jung termed it a “preconscious psychic disposition.” And although I am not a Jungian therapist any more than I am a Freudian one (preferring to employ a “Chinese menu” of methodology depending on the client and their presenting complaints), I certainly give credence to Carl Jung.
Okay, part of me was still inclined to believe that this tarot stuff was total b.s., but the explorer in me, the risk-taker, sought to open myself to the intersection of Gypsy lore with the tenets of one of the largest-looming and most seminal voices in the realm of psychotherapy. Jung describes a Shadow Archetype, where we project our dark side onto others and interpret them as enemies or as exotic presences in our lives that both repel and fascinate us. Have I been projecting this shadow onto Mala Sonia?
“Here is more information for a skeptical person, or for a person of science who likes to know the sources of things. Tarot is even older than playing cards. Every card from tarot deck is a piece of a story. The placement of a card, whether right-side up or upside down—which is also called reversed or inverted—changes its meaning. The placement of a card, meaning which other cards it is next to, can affect its meaning as well. Here is also information for you: in any reading, an abundance of Minor Arcana cards can mean that the story they tell applies to the short term. So if the story contains unpleasing elements, you can rest happier knowing that your situation will change in not too much time. If more cards from the Major Arcana instead, the reading will be stronger; more archetypes means situation will continue to exist for some time into the future.”
Mala Sonia began to gather the jumbled cards into an orderly stack, to the jangling accompaniment of her numerous bangle bracelets. She had certainly dressed the part of the Gypsy this morning. “And I tell you another thing that will interest you, Susan, as an unbeliever, as a woman who thinks tarot is nothing but occult hocus pocus: one hundred and fifty years ago there was a Jewish man who linked the numbers on the Major Arcana—your archetype cards—to the letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Interesting, no?”
“No,” I echoed. “I mean, yes. It is interesting.” Clearly, it was very important for Mala Sonia to sell tarot’s legitimacy, appealing to me as a woman of science and as a Jew, and she was working inordinately hard to get me to buy it, figuratively speaking.
“I do the ten-card reading for you,” Mala Sonia said, lighting the candle. “Full Celtic Cross.” She switched off the overhead fluorescents and locked the door. “Not the twenty-dollar six-card reading. Don’t worry,” she added, assessing my dubious expression, “I told you no charge. This I must do. For me—to obey the vision I had last night—as much as for you. Are you comfortable?”
I felt very nervous, for some reason. Very anxious. “As comfortable as I can be under the circumstances, I suppose.”
“Now,” said Mala Sonia, “my vision told me that something has been troubling you, but that you are not able to put a finger on what it is; so you can’t begin to deal with the problem because it has no face for you, no name. It is a feeling you have inside that something is somehow wrong.”
“Are you asking my question for me?” I said. “I’m very puzzled here. I thought I’m the one who is supposed to ask you the question.”
“In your therapy sessions you don’t always work exactly the same way with every client, yes?” I accepted the truth of her statement. “Think of this as the same thing. So if it makes you feel better to be the one asking the question, ask me why you feel out of balance in your life, out of sorts; saying that you have felt that way for some time now, but can’t explain why, and you want to know what is the trouble in your life and will you overcome it?”
“Very good question!” Mala Sonia smiled. “You are good student.” She shuffled and cut the cards, then dealt ten of them from the top of the deck, rather than asking me to select them from a fanned spread as she had done with Amy’s and Alice’s readings. She glanced at the entire layout, then for several moments examined the cards individually, as if absorbing each one’s relevance to the whole. I tried to analyze her facial expressions. At times she appeared studious, then reflective, then anxious, and at one point I thought I saw a flicker or two of fear. Naturally, this did not put me at ease, particularly since I felt that I was being force-fed this reading.
“I will explain as we go, bearing in mind your question.”
“Your question, really,” I added, correcting her.
“The question. The question that comes to me in my vision last night, that keeps me awake and troubled with such bad feelings. The question that surrounds your aura.”
The ten-card configuration consisted of a cross within a cross and four cards arranged in a vertical line to its right. Mala Sonia tapped the lower card of the inner cross. “See this? Card one: the Empress. First card represents your present position; who you are or who you have been up till now, and which is the basis of your situation. A Major Arcana card. So, Susan, we imagine you right now as her.”
“Okay…”
“And who is the Empress? She is archetype of the nurturing female. She is Woman. She is Wife. She is Mother. She is Marriage. Think of Demeter in the Greek mythology, yes? This card in this position would direct us like a road map to your home life as the center of the dark trouble surrounding you. The Empress can also represent the motivating force behind a successful partnership. So we are looking at you, Susan, in your home, as the motivating force in your relationship with your husband, with your children. In your life, the personal and the professional often become blended, because you conduct your therapy sessions in the same building as your home, so we can also say that each of your clients is a partner, and as their therapist you are the motivating force behind these marriages as well. You are the one encouraging them to succeed; not the other way around. You are with me so far, yes?”
“Yes,” I said, immediately trying to analyze how the symbols reflected by the Empress card applied to me. Damn, I was sucked into buying into this tarot gimmick already. I was angry with myself for being so gullible.
“I think we are really looking at home, rather than work, as the core here. While work is related, you will agree that signs really indicate that home and hearth is where we must look for source of your troubled aura.”
“If you say so,” I sighed.
Mala Sonia tapped the horizontally laid card in the center cross. “Card number two indicates where you are now and the immediate influences of your situation on who and where you are. We have here the Page of Cups. Where you are now? Here is answer,” she said, poking the card more forcefully. “You are a reflective and loyal person, Susan. You like to be of service to others, helping them achieve a specific goal, and you are also a very trustworthy person too. So this is good.”
“This is eerie,” I said, already congratulating myself for embodying the best traits of a therapist, as represented by the Page of Cups. Was I the same way as a wife and mother, I wondered, since that was the sphere we were dealing with? I’ve tried to raise my children with the goal of becoming good citizens with strong values. I am certainly a loyal wife; infidelity has never once been on my radar screen.
“Ready for third card?” I nodded and Mala Sonia pointed to the Magician, the card placed directly above the inner cross.
“Card number three represents your goal or your destiny, as well as your hopes or fears. Another Major Arcana card, the Magician. A very powerful card. The Magician embodies the positive traits of self-reliance, willpower, and self-confidence, as well as spontaneity and dexterity. But he can also connote trickery and sleight of hand; so you are fearing that perhaps you are in some ways fooling people that you are competent and all-wise and in control, when in fact you are pulling the wool over their eyes.”
She made me begin to wonder whether I was just going through the superficial motions of being a good wife and mother, saving the Magician’s positive traits for my clients. Or perhaps I feared I was kidding them in some ways too. Coming across to them as the all-powerful, mentally healthy, and emotionally stable one with all the answers, when in fact I am just as dysfunctional as they are. “I’m not sure I understand how these things relate to my destiny,” I said to Mala Sonia. I could have kicked myself for getting so quickly caught in her web; she was quite the seductress.
“The way I interpret what cards say, you must use your greatest powers of self-reliance, as well as your gifts of ingenuity and dexterity, to see you through to a resolution. Your self-confidence—also represented by the Magician—will aid you on your journey, as long as you are strong enough to maintain it. The Magician emphasizes change: something new. Imagine him pulling the rabbit out of a hat or lifting up a bright red scarf to reveal a dove. It is ‘Presto! Abra-cadabra!’ So part of your destiny is a big and surprising change.”
“You’re talking about a big and surprising change on the home front, right?”
“The domestic sphere. Home and hearth. Yes. Do you have any questions?”
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“So, Susan, now we come to card number four. The card in the fourth position represents the foundation of the situation in your distant past, as well as the way the situation existed in your recent past. This card also represents long-term blocks or influences. Though its effect may still be felt now—in your present life and also perhaps your very near future—its influence is passing and moving out of importance in your life. So we are referring to something that has been a huge part of your home life for several years in a very important way, and which remains a major fixture, but which is in the process of transiting out of your life.”
Mala Sonia shook her head dolefully. “This will be very difficult for you to hear, but your fourth card, Major Arcana card Roman numeral three—the Emperor—represents stability; it represents father; it represents husband.”
I allowed Mala Sonia’s words to sink in, resuming my analysis of the interpretation as it might pertain to the facts of my life. Okay, maybe I was getting too carried away with all this, because my thoughts were tumbling down, down, down, to a dark and ugly place. The unthinkable pushed its way to the forefront of my mind, until I regurgitated the words like poison.
“Mala Sonia, are you trying to tell me that Eli is having an affair?”
15
Mala Sonia flinched. “You know I just interpret cards,” she insisted, with trepidation in her voice.
“But is…is what I just said your interpretation?” I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to hear her reply.
“You are an intuitive woman, Susan. You make your living analyzing people’s personal situations and interpreting them…as do I.”
Well, that was indirect. Clearly she didn’t want to come down on one side or another. Do Gypsy “psychics” ever get sued for malpractice when a prediction or reading turns out to be phony? I do acknowledge, from my own work, that analyzing an issue is like looking through a prism; there are more ways than one to approach and interpret it.
“I tell you a little more about who is the Emperor, Susan. The Emperor, of course, is head of his household. He is enthusiastic; he is creative. He can love fun, which makes him an irresistible man. But he can also act like baby. He can also feel trapped by his responsibilities, which can make him bored and restless, even discontent.”
This too-apt description of Eli was feeding my worst fears. “Let’s just get on with the reading,” I said shakily, trying to mask my anxiety by assuming what I hoped was a clinically curious countenance. Somehow I was sure
that Mala Sonia was able to create doubts in my mind and then prey insidiously upon them with the same “radar” that draws sharks to blood. If she sensed weakness, she would undoubtedly exploit it.
Mala Sonia pointed to the card placed just below the center cross. “We are up to card number five, yes? Fifth card signifies recent past events in your life and the forces either for or against you. Whatever card is in this position plays a major role in determining the outcome of the reading.”
“And why is that?” Curiosity killed the cat, Susan.
“Card represents the core or crux of all the preceding events that pertain to your question. What we have here is first Minor Arcana card in your spread: the Nine of Pentacles. This card too, when we apply it to the sphere of the home, indicates safety, material well-being, and a sheltered environment. In this card we see a woman tending her garden. She is not an adventuress. She is more of a cautious explorer, as well as a nurturer, and through her accomplishments her garden has blossomed. She has been dwelling in comfort and safety.”
“Dwelling in comfort and safety until now, you mean,” I interrupted. I felt my body growing tense. “You said this card stands for everything that has preceded my question—which is supposed to have something to do with trouble at home or in my marriage.”
“Yes, you are right,” Mala Sonia said glumly. “Until now. Until now—or up until recent past—everything has been, like the garden, rosy. Now? Not so good, I hate to tell you. Which brings us to the sixth card. This position represents your near future and its influence. This card indicates how you have emerged from your recent past, as well as any new factors that have come into being. Your sixth card is the Two of Pentacles; so what you have before you—I feel terrible to say to you, but this is what the card indicates—is difficult situations arising, new troubles, embarrassment, worry, and a change which must be faced with equanimity. You will have a lot to juggle up ahead. Including with your financial situation.”
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