Tag: A Sort of Tarot Guide

Chapter Twenty-Six – The 5 of Wands

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance

Fox brought me to talk to one of the women at the YSB.

Her name was Vicki, and she had a riot of blond curls. “We’d like to offer you a job. You’d be working at one of the city yards. You’d be cleaning up the garage. You’d work 8am to 4pm. Would that be all right?”

“My goodness of course.” I told her. In truth, the endless days of doing nothing except hanging out with Sunshine and my family on the streets or with Lisa and her friends was wearing me down. I wanted something to do, something that would make me feel like I was making a difference in the world, however small.

Fox came with me for the first time. He was one of the people that helped to find patrons of the Youth Services Bureau that wanted to work. The YSB had funds to pay workers and though the responsibilities were rudimentary like cleaning or picking up garbage, they paid a fair wage that didn’t affect the money you got from welfare if you were receiving a check each month. I didn’t care that I was cleaning a city yard. I was just happy to be doing something with my time.

When we arrived at the city yard, Fox introduced me to everyone that worked there and the other guys I would be working with. I would be only one cleaning up the garage and three others would be going out in trucks to help pick up the garbage and trash that they found in the streets. I didn’t mind at all; I loved to clean. If the other guys wanted to pick up the garbage, I was happy to clean the garage.  Cleaning had always brought me a kind of joy, like finding brightness that before had been only shadows.

The guy that ran the city yard gave me a vest to wear and a bucket of cleaning supplies. He explained my job. I wouldn’t be cleaning the actual garage, that was full of smoke and dust no matter what you did. Instead, I would clean the locker rooms from top to bottom, the kitchen, washrooms and empty lockers. If I was able to, I would clean the windows for the garage. Basically, I would clean every surface I could touch.

He showed me where the vacuum was along with the buckets and cleaning materials. I thanked him. I was shy around him, being that he was an authority figure. I didn’t need to worry though, he was pretty much an open book. Frank had a bright open face and longish brown hair that hung down to his shoulders. “We’re so happy to have you cleaning for us, Jamie. It’s hard to clean. I mean, I’m on medication. It affects my balance, you know? I used to do all the cleaning, but I feel last month, and I have to be careful. I can still drive thank goodness for that. Do you take antidepressants?”

“No,” I said. “But I do deal with depression.”

“You gotta get yourself balanced, Jamie. No one is going to do it for you. I used to think that antidepressants were the devil, but now I know that Prozac is my friend. It keeps the voices away, you know?”

I knew all about voices. I could hear my muses talking all the time, telling me stories they wanted me to write down, different poems that they wanted me to write, snippets of text or poetry that they wanted me to remember. I nodded to show Frank that I understood him.

“Sometimes, it just gets to be too much, you know? I don’t know how many milligrams I’m on; I just take what my doctor gives me, but gosh I’m so much happier. You can’t always fight against yourself. There’s no shame, you know?”

I wonder what he saw in me to make him open up to me this way, but I felt an immediate kinship with Frank. He had been misunderstood, too. “Sure,” I said. “Sure thing.”

“That’s the ticket. Let me show you who you’re going to be working with. This here is Gus. He’s a grumpy sun of a gun, but he means you no harm if you get used to him. Bars worse than his bite if you get my meaning.”

“Sure,” I knew plenty of people like that, even those whose bark matched the sound of their bite. My hackles went up a little bit and I reminded myself to be respectful.

Gus was a well-rounded man with a mop of white hair and a large mustache. He was smoking a cigarette, and it dangled from his lip. He gave me a once over. His eyes stopped at the sparkly nail polish that decorated my fingers. “What’s that about?” Gus said, pointing at my nails.

“Just something of a prank, sir.” I said, trusting my initial instinct to hide myself as much as I could while being so far out in the open. “Roommates of mine painted my nails while I was asleep.”

He blinked at me in surprise, either shocked by the lie or believing me, I wasn’t sure. He took another drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out. “Well, you may be a faggot, but you’ll do.”

Chapter Twenty-Four – 3 of Wands

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance

I talked to Sunshine about it over the next few weeks. My dreams had been full of gods and monsters, goddesses and wonders, magical events that had taken place before my time or had never happened at all.

“I don’t know why you’re over thinking this.” Sunshine said, taking a drag from his Djarum cigarette.

He handed me one and I took in the scent of cloves. The smoke was harsh in my throat, but tasted of far-off lands that I imagined my muses would have come from. “What do you mean?”

“You always talk about Egypt. It’s pyramids this and pharaoh that. Why ware you looking anywhere else. You always overthink things so much.” He pointed his cigarette at me. “It’s what keeps you so grounded.”

I let out a snort. We were sitting in his apartment. “How has it been?” We didn’t see each other as much as we had before. We hung out when I found him in the square, but there was a bridge between us. “Are you still dating Shale?”

Sunshine shook his head. “Nah, he didn’t want to settle down. He wasn’t into anything long term.” He tried to keep a brave face on, but I could see the pain in his eyes. “We wanted different things.”

I butted out my clove cigarette and pulled Sunshine into a hug. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck him, honey.” He waved his own cigarette like a baton. “I’m a free man. It will be nice to choose myself from now on. Like you are.”

I nodded. I understood what he was talking about. I could feel a shift within me. It was taking its time trying to show itself to me, but I could feel the new path beginning to grow in front of me. It felt like I was divided between what was and what I wanted. “I’m not sure if I want it.”

Sunshine let out a puff of clove scented smoke. “What do you mean, honey? What could be better than this?” He waved his hands around the room. “There are so many cockroaches here, they’re throwing a party every night. You have your own room, you’re learning about yourself.”

“There’s so much to learn.”

“Life can be like that. You can’t be afraid to go wherever the journey will take you, Jamie. You have to look at what is coming and not live in the past. Look at what you left behind you.”

The bridge between us had grown longer. I wanted to take Sunshine into an embrace and not let go of him. I wanted to take him with me, to keep him like a touchstone. I felt so far from my family that I had known for so long. “I don’t want to let go of you.”

“I’m not letting go of you. You can’t get rid of me that easily, honey. No, all I’m saying is that you’re changing. Isn’t it wonderful? You’re able to let go of Shades and his bullshit and Matt was a fucking drama queen. You’re starting out on your own. How amazing is that?”

“I just live in a room, Sunshine.”

“But it’s your room. It’s your space. You’re at the start of a new beginning; you just haven’t realized it yet.”

“I don’t know where I’m going.” I said, almost whispering the words because I was afraid to admit this.

“You didn’t no where you were going when you got here. Don’t fight where the world wants to take you.”

“I won’t.” I told him, knowing that there was fear there. I had known fear all my life, but this was different. It felt like a fear that was filled with possibility instead of full-on fear that promised hurt. Rather than make me want to turn away and stay with what was comfortable, I was looking down the road that led me away from the bridge and knew that I wanted to discover what was possible.

“Good, I’ll kick your ass if you muck this up.” He butted out his cigarette. “Want to go look at the guy across the alley jerking off?” Sunshine grinned. “For old time’s sake?”

“Just try and stop me.”

Chapter Twenty-Three – 2 of Wands

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir

It was fair to say that Lisa captivated me.

Instead of going downtown every day, I started going to Lisa’s place. She lived in the bottom floor of a red brownstone house with two other roommates. It was a three bedroom apartment with a sprawling kitchen, living room, three bedrooms, a big backyard and it was a complete and total disaster.

The first thing I noticed when I started visiting her was that I had to clear off clothing and objects of any of the chairs if I wanted to sit down. There were ashtrays filled with cigarette butts and there were always dishes in the sink left in water, presumably to soak, for days at a time. She had a cat named Lucy and its litter inevitably stank. Having grown up in homes that required so much order and structure, the wildness of Lisa’s home made me feel like I was in some kind of forbidden forest and Lisa was the wild woman of the woods.

She always had something to say about magic and the art of creating spells of our own to take back our power. “The thing is, you have to find a god and goddess that call to you.” Lisa gave praise to The Morrígan, a goddess that symbolized prophecy, war, and death on the battlefield and Cicolluis, the Irish god of war. “It’s all about who you have in your corner, Jamieson,” she said and handed me a book of gods and goddesses to look through. “It’s about who calls to you.”

“Well, you picked two Irish gods. Are you Irish?”

“Nope, but I love Irish whiskey.” She gave me a smile which I returned. “Magic and the gods don’t care about your nationality, where you came from, your social status, how much money you make or your gender and sexuality. They are more than that, you know?”

“I don’t actually,” I said.

“It’s okay, you will.” She started pulling books out from beneath piles of closes and shelves crammed full of books, bits of food, ashtrays and crystals. “You should learn about crystals, too. They come from the earth, and they are meant to help us find our way along wherever our path has taken us.”

“Why did you choose a god and goddess of war?” I asked after looking up her deities in the book.

“I told you that I’m a warrior witch. You are too.”

I wondered what horrors she had seen and what she had lived through. I looked at the book in my lap and its large compendium of gods and goddesses and wasn’t sure where to begin. “I don’t know anything about these people.” I said, shrugging. I was a little overwhelmed. “I have no idea where to begin.”

Lisa shrugged and lit a cigarette. She handed me the lighter and I lit my own. “Well, you have to just start delving in. Don’t get overwhelmed, this is the time for discovery. What kind of mysticism are you drawn to?”

I didn’t have to think about it. “I love Egyptology. I love the magic of that world.”

“Yeah, you do read with the Ancient Egyptian Tarot, I should have thought of that. There is a whole section in that book about the gods and goddesses of Egypt. See, if you look in the index, it’s broken down by alphabet and then by place in the world.”

“Do I have to choose right away?”

“No, and you can change who you pray to, it doesn’t have to always be the same. During my early hippie phase before I chose my warrior path, there were others that I prayed to. Devotion in Paganism isn’t a set thing. It’s fluid, like we are.”

I took the book home with me that evening and flipped through it before bed. I let the pages fall through my fingers and I wondered if I could hear the whispers of the gods that were contained in the book, ready to share their wisdom and help me find the way I was supposed to go. My small room didn’t seem so small when I was reading about lands from the past, peopled with the spirits of the old.

I had no idea where I was going, but I knew that light had started to burn brighter within me. The light continued to grow the more I continued to read and I wondered what direction my path would take now.

I was ready for what would come.

Chapter Twenty-Two – The Ace of Wands

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Tarot

I met Fox in the square.

He wasn’t homeless or living in a boarding house like I was. He just hung out there and we became friends of a sort. He hung out with others like Stacey and Shadow, both of them always dressed in black. Fox knew other people I knew like Sunshine, and he was different. He didn’t have to be here; he wanted to be here. It felt like he was choosing all of us as his family and we became fast friends.

After a few weeks of knowing him, Fox asked if I wanted to meet some other friends of his. “Nothing kinky, don’t worry about that. They’re just some like minded individuals that I think you’d get along with really well. If you’d like to?”

“Why would I like them?” I asked. He knew that I had an aversion to meeting other people and I knew that he would be honest with me about why he had brought them up.

“It’s your tarot cards. My friend Lisa is always going on about them and loves them too. She’s always reading, and you’ve read some of the books she has. I’d like you to meet Lisa and a few other friends. We’re all going to dinner at James Street if you want to come. My treat?”

I nodded, despite my initial fear. It was the mention of tarot cards. Anyone that was drawn to the cards couldn’t be that bad. It would be good for me to talk to other tarot readers and see what their journey with the cards had been.

As we approached the James Street Feed Co., I was nervous but excited. Fox told me all about Lisa and his other friends Sophie and Jess. Sophie was an artist and Jess was a writer. It felt too good to be true and I had no idea how Fox knew so many awesome people, but it felt like I was being invited into a community of creatives, and they were all the things I wished that I could be. I had always written but had begun to think about trying my hand at making art, too. I reminded myself not to ask too many questions; I didn’t want to be too annoying.

Entering the restaurant, Fox saw his three friends and waved. We walked over to the table and all three woman got up so that they could exchange hugs. I stiffened as Lisa wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I hugged her back, but hesitantly.

“Why, Fox! Who have you brought us this time?” Lisa asked.

“This is Jamieson.” Fox smiled at me and gave me a reassuring look. “I think you’ll like him.”

“Fox is always bringing us strays so that we can help lead them home.” Sophie said.

“Home to where?” I asked.

“To the god and goddess, of course.” Lisa said, giving me another hug. “I knew you were one of us, right when I saw you, I knew.”

“One of who?” I asked her, feeling as if I’d fallen down some sort of rabbit hole.

“That you were Pagan of course.”

It was if the word was a key and it opened something within me. Looking at Lisa, I could see fire all around her, the air above her head filling with sparks and bits of magic. For a moment, I could see her walking toward me, a metal helmet and breast plate made of the shiniest metal. She was a flame and I was the moth drawn towards her light. Lisa was lit brightly and she radiated warmth.

When I blinked my eyes, the vision was gone, but I knew that I was in the presence of someone beautiful.

We sat at the table, and they ordered appetizers. “I’m a warrior witch,” Lisa said. “You’ll find your own path; that’s what Paganism is all about. Instead of a G-O-D, there are all kinds of gods. You just need to find the ones that call to you.”

“The ones?”

“Yes, in Paganism it’s all about balance. There is male and a female, or at the very least two gods that call to you.” Sophie said. She was a little older than Lisa and when I looked at her, I saw the Hierophant, someone who was wise and full of ancient wisdom that she had collected. “Just like there are all kinds of gods, there are all kinds of magics. You just follow what you’re called to.”

“Fox tells us that you like to write.” Jess said. “That’s a kind of magic, too. I’m a writer, like you. It’s good you’ve found your magic already.”

I shook my head. “My writing isn’t magic.”

“Ha!” Jess said. “We’ll make a believer out of you yet. Do you need to yearn to write, need to write?” She gave me a knowing smile when I nodded. “Then it’s your magic. You’re lucky you’ve found it when you’re so young. It took me ages to figure out what I wanted to do.”

It felt like I had found my kindred spirits. We talked about all manner of things, how they had each found paganism and how it had brought them to a deeper sense of who they were and their place in the world. We talked a little bit about my family, but I veered the subject away from my mom and stepfather. I wasn’t ready to talk about them yet, but I did talk about the people I knew on the streets. I talked about Sunshine, Rainbow and Angel. I talked about Renee and Jesus. I told them about the YSB and the Ottawa Mission and the people I had met there. I talked to the four of them as if they were already fast friends and I knew that they were.

I thought of the door that Lisa had opened within me, and I was astounded that I felt the light within me grow a little brighter, so much so that I could even feel its warmth within me. I looked down at my hands and could have sworn that sparkles were cascading from my fingertips, and I wondered if the light showed when I spoke, whether the group of us could see the light growing within me.

Looking up at the light fixture that hung down above us, I took in all the light that surrounded us. I wonder what that light would show me and which direction I was heading in. Lisa looked at me, a deep knowing look as if she could see into my skin and observe my spirit. “I don’t know hurt you, but we can help with that.”

I shook my head, suddenly embarrassed. “No one hurt me,” I said.

“Your eyes tell me different.” She patted my hand. “It’s okay, Jamieson. It takes time to heal. You’re safe, now. You’re a warrior, don’t forget that.”

My spirit thrummed in response, and I opened myself to the music of the light. In that moment, I chose to follow that light and see where it would take me.

Chapter Twenty-One – The World

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Finding Balance, Memoir, Tarot

It began slowly.

I noticed it growing more insistent each day. I had tried to ignore it and to shove it away from me, to pretend that there was just whimsy that had entered my mind and foolishness. I was filled with worry all the time and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I didn’t know how to be gentle with myself as I was with everyone else. I had been taught that to be gentle was to be weak and to be hopeful was to invite foolishness in.

Still, the idea wouldn’t go away.

Every time I went to bed at night, curled up on my roll of foam on the floor of Sunshine’s bedroom, I wanted more.

I wanted more than this. I knew that after a few months of living this way that I needed a sacred space of my own. I wanted to have a bathroom that I didn’t share Dan and Mike and Sunshine. Four people to a two bedroom people was a lot. I didn’t want to feel like I had to be on all the time. I needed a space of my own.

I knew this with my whole heart. Before the words started to pour out on their own, the vowels sliding over my lips and the consonants stabbing into my cheeks again, I told him. This was something I wanted and I had to believe that I was worth it.

“I have something I want to talk to you about.” I told him.

“Sounds serious. Hold on, serious talks require smoke to smudge the space.” He lit a cigarette and passed one to me before lighting one for himself. “Okay, honey. The floor is yours.”

I took a deep breath, sure that this would change our friendship. “I think I need to find a place of my own.” I said. Once the words were out, I felt an incredible weight lifted off of me. “I hope that’s okay.”

Sunshine’s eyes widened in shock and then relaxed. “I swear your psychic honey. You almost always know what I’m going to say and you say it before I do.”

I was confused. This was not the reaction I had been expecting. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Sunshine said. “I’ve been trying to think of how to bring this up to you but couldn’t find the right way to say it.”

He looked really uncomfortable all of a sudden. “I don’t want you to think this is me talking, it’s Mike and Dan. They love having you around, but they thought you would leave eventually. I kept telling them that you were still sorting stuff out.”

“They want me out?” I asked. “I’m sorry, Sunshine. I really am.” I hated the idea of being a burden to anyone.

“Well, they said you don’t pay any rent here. I mean, it’s not an issue I have. I love having you here. You are like a brother to me.”

Hearing those words form him meant so much at that moment, being so far away from my own brother and my family. It had been such a long time since I had seen my brother and I missed him a little every day, especially being here. His legend lived large, and people reminded me of that all the time. I thought of Sunshine as my brother, too. He was more than a friend to me, he was family. I hated the fact that he had had to stand up for me and defend me against Mike and Dan. I should have been able to fight for my own honour. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t worry about it, honey. They have their panties in a wad about something like every fucking day and can’t figure out if they’re straight or gay yet but every night they fool around together. They’re a couple, yes, but a couple of what I’d like to know.”

He tapped out his cigarette and gave me an inquisitive look. “Now, back to you. I can help you look for a place or least find you someone who can. You’re not alone in this, honey. You’ve got me.”

I motioned around me. “I love this, I love living here with you, but I want my own place, I’ve wanted my own space for a while.” I let out a sigh. “But I have no idea how to go about it.

“Well, that’s easy. The YSB can help you find a place.”

“They can?”

“Sure, they helped Angel find a room to rent in a person’s apartment. They have a whole roster of places offering a room for rent. I’m sure they can find one for you.”

I set out with Sunshine that day feeling a sense of hope that I hadn’t had before. We went to the YSB right away after we grabbed something to eat. Walking into the centre felt different that day, as if I was about to witness a great change. Sunshine asked one of the workers there and they brought out a small binder with rooms and places to stay that were available and also willing to take the $325 from monthly welfare cheque.

I ended up going to see a room at a boarding house on Arlington. It was a small, dilapidated townhouse and I liked the aged aqua colour of the awnings, the flaked white paint of its walls. Sunshine and I knocked on the door and asked the man who answered it if they had any rooms for rent. The man who ran t he said he did, one had just become free.

Sunshine said that he would meet me in the square later and I gave him a quick hug. It felt odd to be starting the next part of my journey on my own, but it had been that way before and would be that way again. I had to get used to swallowing fear so that it could help me fly.

The person who ran the house was a little French man named Joey. He had a kind smile and large glasses that made his eyes look like they were dragonflies blinking at me from behind the lenses. He was older, he said, and ran this house on his own. He showed me to the large kitchen to that had windows that overlooked the street. Then he took me up the stairs and to the first door at the end of the hallway. He opened the door with a flourish as if I were about to enter a mystical place, and in a way I was.

The room held a bed, a small bookshelf, a dresser and a small desk. It was homey and warm with dull grey walls in a herringbone pattern and lots of warm coloured wood. There was a mirror that stood above the dresser and saw my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t turn away from myself but turned to look at all the space I had. There was a small window on the far side of the room, next to the built-in bookshelf.

“This would be all mine?” I asked him. I looked at the roll of foam and the purple backpack I carried with me. It was everything that I had in the world and it made the room seem bigger than it was.

“Of course it would be. You’re welcome here if you want to. I would be happy to have you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I had to sign a contract with the house, and they would be in touch with the welfare office to make sure that he got paid. It was the fist of the month in a couple of days. I was worried, but Joey said to not pay that any mind. “What is a couple of days?” he said.

I nodded my thanks and didn’t tell him that to me, two days was everything. I looked at my room that was mine and I marvelled at the fact that it had a door with a lock and a lock meant safety. I sat on the bed and took out my two blankets and spread them out on the bed and finally felt at home for the first time in months.

Laying down on my own bed for the very first time, I wondered what the future would bring.