Strolling down Chartes street, in New Orleans, I spotted a painted sign with a tea cup and saucer hanging above a shop door. Like a moth to a flame, I flitted in that direction.
As I approached it, I read the name “Bottom of the Cup”. Then, in smaller lettering just below the saucer, it said this.
Psychic Readings
The moment I comprehended those words, I predicted I would have my tea leaves read during our vacation. I do Tarot and palm readings as party tricks. So, as a consummate tea drinker, the thought of finding inspiration in spent leaves instantly engaged my imagination. I knew I had to learn more.
Spoiler alert! I am not psychic. I can’t predict the future for myself or anyone else. I also don’t believe that anyone else can predict my future. However, I do believe that the world is a place of patterns that like to repeat themselves (which is why even hideous things come back in style).
Focusing on the archetypal images in a spread of colorful cards (and a person’s reactions to them) or studying a person’s palm lines can offer insight into the patterns at work in their lives. And sometimes having an outsider call attention to those patterns is just what the querant needs to find their own way forward.
Tarot
Tarot is particularly useful for discerning a person’s present patterns. For example, as I flip over the hanged man, people who have a habit of being overly self-critical, or those who are actively doing something they believe is wrong, will show immediate signs of discomfort.
Their reaction prompts me to say something like “this card tells me there’s something you feel guilty about right now.” If they’ve done something genuinely wrong, they will overreact and confirm their sense of guilt. If they’ve just been beating themselves up over a minor mistakes, they will look confused.
For the former response, I’ll say the “This card is a warning that you should think carefully about the choices you are making before you continue down the path you are on. Ask yourself – is whatever you feel guilty about worth the risk or possible pain it might cause others?”
For the latter, I’ll clarify. “It’s probably mild guilt, like perhaps you made a mistake or feel like you could have done better at something. This card is a sign that you have punished yourself enough.”
People with a tendency to judge and blame others harshly will often react with an air smugness when faced with the hanged man. They interpret the card as a sign that someone who has wronged them will be justly punished.
In that case, I might say “This card suggests you feel like someone in your life has wronged you. This card is a sign that you might gain insight into resolving the situation if you consider how your actions could have contributed to the problem.”
Frankly, this is such broad advice that even if I miss the mark entirely, the querant usually finds some situation to apply the reading to. And the meaning they attach to the reading is actually what matters most.
Ultimately it’s our personal interpretations, of the very generic insights revealed in the cards, that provide perspective to deal with whatever made us desire a reading in the first place.
Palm Reading
Palm reading offers a deeper look into a person’s past than Tarot. For example, you can always identify the adventurous and active people because their hands are more deeply and densely lined than sedentary querants.
So, to the person with plenty of deep lines on their hands, I might say, “You have lived a life rich in powerful experiences that have left their mark on you. You probably have a lot of hobbies and enjoy new adventures.” That usually prompts some kind of confirmation or leads to dialogue that gives me more clues about a person’s interests.
From there, I might discern that they’ve been stuck on an adventure treadmill and aren’t finding it so exciting anymore. That might prompt a suggestion that sometimes the adventure we need now is time to digest and dwell on our past experiences.
Alternatively, I might discover it’s been a while since they did anything they consider exciting or engaged in new learning. So, that might prompt me to suggest it’s time to try something new or do something frivolous and fun.
You can also tell if someone uses a pen or pencil often by the flat spot on their center finger. So, then I might guess that they are creative and probably enjoy writing or drawing. That leads to conversation about whether those mediums are currently satisfying and possible ways to reinvigorate their usefulness.
Meanwhile, people who do a lot of smartphone typing tend to have agile thumbs that move readily when I examine their hands. So, I might guess that they have vibrant online lives either at work or in their personal lives.
When you combine the condition of a person’s hands, with other revealing mannerisms (like the mobile-addicted person looks at their phone every 3 minutes), it becomes easier to guess at what general advice might resonate for the querant.
For the phone obsessed person, I might see that their head line is looking a little shallow. I might then encourage a deeper connection with nature or some other sustained offline activity that requires uninterrupted focus.
I never know what’s going to come up in a reading which is why it’s also an adventure for me to read palms and Tarot. But the goal is always to get a glimpse into present patterns to help the querant read into their own future.
It’s also impossible for me escape being biased by my personal situation when doing a reading. So quite often, I end up giving querants the kind of encouragement I’d like to hear if I were on the other side of a reading.
Still, since many of us are grappling with variations of the same concerns and themes, most querents find enough value in my “sage” advice to engage with the patterns of repetition that have them temporarily stuck in a rut.
Tasseography
Now, that I have revealed my non-psychic approach to giving “psychic” readings, you might be wondering why I’d spend $35 for a 10 minute psychic tea leaf reading.
At the outset, I told myself I wanted to learn a new form of entertainment for tea parties. However by the end of my reading, I knew I just needed to be on the other side of the table to see my present patterns from a new perspective.
Tea Leaf Reading
My tea leaf reader was a young black man who looked more like a wrestler than a mystic, until he spoke. Then his feminine sing-song voice, and utter avoidance of eye contact, made clear that he was less grounded in the physical world than his stalky mass implied.
He led me to a private closet-sized room, one of four, and sat me across a desk from him. We introduced ourselves. He told me he would be looking for signs about my next three months in the general areas of health, family, relationships, and work. Then he asked me to swirl a white diner-style coffee cup, topped with a paper towel and a coffee plate, and flip it over when I felt ready.
As I picked up the cup, I noticed there wasn’t enough liquid in the leaves to get them to swirl. Their stodgy weight sat heavily on the handle side of the cup.
I did dutifully swirl as instructed. But then I shook the cup vigorously side to side trying for more even distribution.
If I were reading for someone else, observing the fact that my querant tried to control the outcome of the reading would’ve made me find a sign in the cup I could use to encourage the querant to be open to spontaneous experiences.
When I flipped the cup over, onto the paper towel, most of the leaves remained stubbornly situated on the handle side of the cup. However, a large lump of leaves mounded at the center, looking ominously like a freshly covered grave.
I immediately interpreted it as the tea leaf version of the Death card in a Tarot deck. Then I thought of my recent forays — to Tremé for a funeral procession, peering through the gates of Lafayette Cemetery and standing in front of deceased author Anne Rice’s New Orleans house — and a painful morning message letting us know a dear friend passed overnight.
A moment later, I remembered the reader’s job is never to focus on the literal meanings of the images in a reading. A death card never warns of death and it never references a recent death. Instead, it’s a harbinger of change or the need to change. It’s a transition card.
Buried Truths
My tasseomancer didn’t see death at all. He interpreted that lump of leaves as there being something at the center of my life that was an unreconciled burden. He thought it was most likely a person I had unresolved feelings over or unresolved issues with.
As he said this, I thought of my dad and of the purgatory that has been his last 7+ years of living in a state of global aphasia with a complete inability to store new memories. Then I thought of myself and how I’d also been sharing his life sentence in some ways.
Adventure
In addition to this lump, a fine streak of tea leaves circled the rim zone of the dumped leaves. It was the only notable evidence of my absurd effort to shape the outcome of my reading.
My reader giggled as he told me that wild streak meant I had some adventures coming. And I thought, “Please let him be right!”
After grounding the reading in the dumped formations, my reader then turned his attention to the leaf residue still in the cup. “Your reading is like a starry night sky. There are so many options in here, it’s hard to decide which to focus on.”
This struck me as incredibly applicable as I’ve been searching for something new to focus on now that I feel settled back in to legal management. There seem to be so many possibilities. But none have had the gravity to hold my interest yet.
Love
On the topic of love, there was a hammer, a dog, and a dragon. Their pattern suggested to my reader that I would need to infuse my long-time relationship with more excitement and put in more work to keep it healthy.
When I shared this part of the reading with Matt he protested. Yet, like the starry sky reference, this rang true too.
Matt and I have been together 13 wonderful years. However for almost eight of them, I’ve been bound by caring for my dad. We’ve put so many adventures on hold that the undone things are stopped up like an over-carbonated Champagne bottle at risk for bursting into a broken mess.
Our recent trips to the Chapel Hill area and New Orleans have eased us back toward the path we put on hold. They’ve helped me remember how important it is to create common stories (we can look back on together) and to connect to each other in new landscapes and intellectual spheres.
Yet, these brief excursions have also made me aware of how rigid I’ve become as a caretaker of someone who requires a very limited scope of experience for safety. I have such an established pattern of controlling conditions that I’ve become the kind of person who worries about tea leaf distribution in a psychic reading.
Meeting new places in my current state of mind won’t be enough to make me the adventure partner Matt deserves. I have to use that hammer in my reading to actively tear down some of the limiting behavior patterns I’ve fallen into so I can fully embrace shared experiences.
Health
The most exciting symbol in my reading (according to my reader) was a Genie’s lamp in the center of my cup. My reader said he only saw that symbol in one other reading before. To him, it meant that I had the power to make a wish for someone in my family and it would come true.
My first thoughts were for my mom and step Dad, then my dad. If only I could wish them renewed youth and the return of their former good health. But I’m too practical to wish for the impossible.
Ultimately, I spent my wish on my brother who recently had a run in with an aggressive cancer, that was thankfully caught in time.
Work
My reader also told me to expect a promotion within the next three months. He said that whatever projects or tasks I was working on now were earning me notice and would lead to some kind of big title or status change. He didn’t explain which images in the cup led to that prediction, but he was absolutely certain.
Though intended as a positive, the reader’s words struck me like a powerful warning of possible danger ahead.
My current challenge is trying not to slip back into my old role of leading large teams and managing complex projects. Yet, I keep succumbing to the seduction of seemingly small restoration projects that turn out to be the tips of buried pyramids poking through the sand.
Surprise Meaning
Since I didn’t offer up much conversation during my reading, my tasseomancer rapidly ran out of symbolic material in the tea cup. With a few minutes left on the 10 minute clock, he asked if there was any particular reason why I wanted a reading.
Words I don’t remember forming, poured from my mouth.
“I’ve forgotten how to take meaningful risks.” I said.
My reader pushed the tea cup aside. He looked me direct in the eye for the first time and said, “Oh, that’s easy. You need to get your head back into the fairy world. You’ve shut out the magic. But you can have it back. You just need to ask for it.”
Inviting Magic
In the process of writing this post, I’ve realized just how right my reader was. I do need to get my head back in the fairy world, even if I don’t believe in actual fairies.
Sometimes, inviting magic requires us to recognize that we’ve become too well-rooted in our present pot. Welcoming magic for me means making the active decision to transplant myself into new circumstances so I can continue to grow.
Wandering the streets of New Orleans, eating our way through a roster must-try restaurants with close friends, and allowing the city to cast it’s voodoo, hoodoo spells over me, has turned out to be a great kickstart for inviting magic into my life.
I hope you enjoyed a taste of our travels in New Orleans in the photos above and got a glimpse in to how to use the not-so-psychic art of psychic readings to help spot present patterns that might be making you feel stuck.
Most of all, though, I hope that you invite magic and many new adventures into your life in 2024!
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