Tag: Jamieson Wolf

Chapter Nine – The Hermit

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

Sunshine lived with two other guys in a two-bedroom apartment.

It was this squat building painted a burgundy too dark to be considered gentle and there was yellow trim everywhere on the outside of the building. The building looked tired, but damn it was trying. “It’s not much,” Sunshine said. “I get a large room with a window that looks out into the alley. There are sometimes that I like to sit there and listen to the music that the evening has to offer.”

He gave the old building a wink. “Still, she can be temperamental like all old places are.” Giving me first a shrug and then a saucy wink. “At least she’s trying!”

The lobby was a one room with a jumble of mailboxes that looked strangely like mouths. I was reminded of the doorknobs from The Labyrinth for some reason and wondered what kind of a world I was about to enter. There was graffiti in the stairwell that had been there for years. The words had faded to the point where they were unintelligible. In certain sections of the stairs, it looked as if a painter’s pallet had exploded: the stairs were covered in bold blacks and yellows, arcs of magenta, vibrant oranges faded to the dusk of dusk itself.

To my mind, only the fey folk lived here or those desperate to live. It felt like home to me right away. My stepfather had taught me to recognize the signs of what had once been a good building. This building may not look pretty, but I could see what the building had once been underneath the grime, crumbling stone and faded windows. She had been a jewel in her day. The wood held the stories of these people that had come before me. I may not be here very long, I thought, but it would be home while I was.

Sunshine’s roommates nodded at me when Sunshine and me came into the apartment. “This is Dan and Mike. They’re nice. Their room is that way. They don’t want anyone knowing that they are a couple, so mums the word, honey.”

We passed by a kitchen, the bathroom and then ended up in Sunshine’s room. He was right, it was a spacious room and the window to the outside world was huge. I could see the deep blue of the dusky sky and it brought me comfort. “Come here, honey. Look, it’s like a window box. You can even sit in there and write. I like to do that. I write in my journal sometime, you know? I know that it will be published someday.”

He went over to his stuff and pulled out a roll of foam. “I don’t have a lot for you to sleep on. My mother got me a futon, but it’s only a single. I can give you this to sleep on? I’m sorry honey, I wish I had more.”

I took the foam with reverence. “Thank you, it’s more than enough. You’ve given me so much already.”

“You go on and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back. I’m going to see if those two guys have left any food in the house.”

While he was gone, I took a seat in the window. If I wanted to, I could have opened it and dangled my feet out into the alleyway. Instead, I was content to sit there looking at a slice of the moon that I could see. There was a haze around the building that seemed to take on more life the darker the sky got. It’s like the building wanted to shine for all those that might need her.

I sat there and tried to focus on my own light into my words. I sat there, holding my pen and paper in hand and just enjoyed the moment instead. There was no other sound except my own breathing and Sunshine in the kitchen.

I knew that the world held the dark and the light and that I had a choice to make. I could let what happened with Shades dim my light, I could disappear into the uncertainty of this world and let myself become lost within it. What did I have anymore but my own will? I could choose to let that go, too and embrace what may come.

Or I could choose to dust myself off, get up and not have my life determined for me by a man. I was in a place of comfort with someone I trusted, and I hadn’t had that with Shades. I thought of the steps that I had taken and the path I had chosen for myself. I would see this path through to the end, no matter where it took me.

As I looked up at the sliver of the moon I could see in a dusky blue sky, I promised myself this.

Sunshine came back into the room holding two mugs. “Good news, honey! They didn’t finish everything off.” His smile was infectious as he held up the two mugs. “Chicken noodle soup!”

Chapter Eight – Strength

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

I’d woken in the night to hear the sounds of Shades having sex beside me.

Having expected this to happen at some point, I lay there beside him and felt my tears soaking my face and the cloth of my pillow. It was odd that he would make love next to one of the people he was supposed to be married to. I was used to this kind of irony, or at least my mindset expected it.

I reflected on two things at that moment: that he wasn’t having sex with Rainbow and that he was allowing me to be present for such a carnal act. It was like the final slap in the face, as if he were inviting me to join in some kind of rite or ritual.

When he was done, Shades and the woman left to go to some bar. I remember the look of his eyes when he left. It was like two shards of ice in the dark. I was reminded of being able to see the eyes of a cat in the dark; if you were quick enough, you could gather them to you, but you had to be careful because they had the potential to hurt.

My bag was ready and so was I. I had not stripped down to my underclothes when I had gone to bed. He hadn’t even noticed that my sneakers were still on. That worked in my favour. I counted in my head, waiting for Shades and the woman to be down at the bottom floor and out of the building. I counted for one-hundred and eighty second. Shades had a quick stroll when he had just gotten off.

I left his room and walked as quickly as I could through the apartment. No one else was up and I was able to make my escape. I had though of staying until he came back and confronting him about how he had treated me, but I realized that some battles did not need to be fought. Sometimes, the best way to fight a battle was to choose myself. That was a victory, however hard won it was. I was not leaving his room with my tail between my legs. Instead, I was choosing a new path for myself and holding my head high, proud that I had been strong enough to realize that I was worth more than Shades was willing to give me.

I went to spend the night at the mission. They had a cut off time for rooms and I was lucky to get in. I remember lying there on a plain bed with a blanket, too awake to sleep, listening to the sounds of the traffic outside the room and watching as the light played in shadows across the walls of the room.

When my alarm clock went off, I was surprised to find that I had actually fallen asleep. I took a shower at the mission, trying to be as quick as possible. I needed refuse and comfort so that I could lick my wounds. I dressed as quickly as possible and left the mission, thankful that in the midst of the shadows it was there, shining like a light.

The Youth Services Bureau was full of people that day. As I took a cup of coffee, I looked for a friendly face. I didn’t have to wait long. Sunshine found me and threw his arms around me. “Why do you look like the cat who has been kicked, honey?”

“I left Shades.” I said.

A wide smile broke out on his face. “Honey, thank goodness. I thought I would have to do an intervention!” He gave me another hug. “You’re worth more than ten of him.”

“What am I going to do?” I asked him, feeling the fear that I thought I had left behind at Shade’s apartment fill my mind. “Where am I going to go?”

“Honey, I told you already. You can come and stay with me. I live with two other guys, but they’re cool and the apartment is plenty big with lots of space.”

“Are you sure it is okay?” I asked, not wanting to impose myself upon another person.

“I told you a long time ago that you’re welcome at my place. I’m just surprised that it took you so long.” He gave me a bright smile and a quick hug. “You’re coming home with me, honey.”

Chapter Seven – The Chariot

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

I spent a lot of time at the YSB.

It was a home away from home really and gave me a place to get away from Shades when he was in one of his moods which was happening more and more lately.

The YSB was a haven of safety in a world that felt new and frightening. It was a place where the waters seemed to stand still around me and I didn’t feel like I was going to be taken out to sea. Whenever I was with Shades or out on the streets, I hear the steady ebb, flow and wave of water around me and within. My emotions were uncertain of where this path would take me. The waters only calmed when I put pen to paper.

I had taken a notepad and pen with me when I left home and I had taken to writing in it when I found myself lost. I would often go through the tarot deck that my brother had given me and wrote down my thoughts about certain cards within the Ancient Egyptian Tarot. It helped me to understand them. The scratching of the pen would calm the waves, and it was like the words were leading me home to myself.

I would sit in one of the chairs at the YSB, talking to friends, reading books that I found on the bookshelves, delving further into my tarot deck and writing. Interspersed through the nots about tarot and my thoughts, I would write poems, casting my words like stones upon the paper.

Words had been my comfort for so long. I had found my way in the world through them, and I had written voraciously since I was a child. I had to write; it was the way I found my voice when I felt that I didn’t have one. All throughout high school, my writing gave me the comfort I needed. I didn’t even realize I wanted to be a writer, or that I was one. Writing and words were just part of who I was. My pen had been quiet, but I had begun to take the journal out from time to time. There were only a handful of pages left, and I had to keep my writing small, but even so, they came out in a small torrent, and they carried me along, letting me know that they had my back, much like my cards. The words let me know that spirit was always there.

I looked at the pages left in my journal and wondered what I would fill those pages with, what words would fall out of me and find their way together.

One of the workers of the Youth Services Bureau stopped by my table, a woman named Rebecca. I later found out that all of the people that worked there were social workers. They were some of the very best people in my life at the time. They took care of me, each in their different way. Some would sit outside with us while we smoked cigarettes and others would walk around making sure we had food, or we had been able to take a shower.

She gave me a kind look. “What are you reading?”

“It’s my journal. I’ve been writing in it, but I’m running out of room.”

“Well, that’s awful,” she said. “You don’t want to stop a story or a poem in midsentence.”

I shrugged and gave her a weak smile. “There’s not much I can do. I’m running out of paper.”

She looked at my face and she could see the longing there. The pen lay on the table in front of me, but I didn’t reach for it. She saw my hand twitch and gave me a smile. “Hold on a second, I have an idea.”

Rebecca walked away for a moment and rummaged in the desk where the social worker on duty would sit. She returned a few minutes later with a few sheets of paper. She had folded them in half. When she handed them to me, it felt like she was giving me water or the breath of life. I could hear my pen click in joy on the table.

“You can’t stop story before it’s done,” she said. “You can fit them in the back of your journal so that you can keep writing. If you need more, just let me know.”

I nodded. “Thank you,” I told her, knowing no other words.

I slipped the paper into my journal and let the torrent of words take me forward where they would.

Free Holiday eBook! A Very Tarot Christmas!

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in Tarot Books

Hey Everyone!

I’m so excited for you all to read my new holiday novella A Very Tarot Christmas! I write one every year as a gift to all of you for following me along on my journey and as a thank you for reading my work. Writing can be a very lonely profession and because of all of you, I don’t feel so alone.

When I sat down to write this year’s novella, I knew that I wanted to write about the pandemic in some way. The only worry was, how did I write a pandemic Christmas story? One of my friends gave me the idea to write about something that had the feel of the pandemic and the story took off from there.

Here’s a bit about A Very Tarot Christmas:

It doesn’t feel like Christmas, even with all the snow.

It has been snowing for three years and the snow-demic shows no signs of stopping. Joyce would feel totally alone if it weren’t for her best friend Bruno, her cat Anna and her clients. She works as an online Tarot reader, trying to provide guidance to those that need it. The only thing she won’t answer questions on are health issues and how long the snow-demic will last. No one knows the answer to that, not even Spirit.

When one of Joyce’s Tarot clients turns out to be her mother, Joyce’s world is thrown into disbelief. Her mother died when she was a teenager. What could her mother possibly have to say to her now? She turns to Bruno for help. He tells her that she will have to open her mind and listen to what Spirit has to say.

Things are about to change for Joyce and she realizes that, though she often feels alone, there are ways to come together. With a little bit of magic, Tarot cards and cats, it might finally feel like Christmas after all.

You can get your copy here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1059007

I’ve chosen to give it away through Smashwords because you can download the book in all the different formats for the different types of eReader. It’s free for you to download!

Out of all the holiday stories that I’ve written, this one is my favourite. It has everything you could need for your holiday: Tarot cards, magic, cats and a little love thrown into the mix. I really hope you enjoy Joyce’s story and that it brings the magic of the holiday alive for you.

Happy Holidays!

Live with Spirit of the Wolf and Soulscension

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in Tarot questions, Tarot Readings

This afternoon, Christine from Soulscension and I did a live Tarot reading on Facebook. I wasn’t sure what to expect but had an absolute blast.

It was great to provide clarity to people live and online. Normally, I read person to person or via video, so this was a new experience for me.

It won’t be the last time I do a live Facebook reading! I had so much fun!

Check out the video of the whole thing by clicking below.