Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Speaker 2: Julia Gordon Bramer with US. Professional Tarot card reader, scholar,
Speaker 2: award winning writer and poet, former professor of the graduate
Speaker 2: writing program at Lyndenwood University. That's where we had our
Speaker 2: live show a few years ago. By the way, She's
Speaker 2: the author of several books, including Fixed Star's Governor, Life
Speaker 2: Decoding Sylvia Plath and Tarot Life Lessons. Hello, Julia, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Hi George.
Speaker 2: Nice to be here, looking forward to this. You're in
Speaker 2: Saint Louis. I am too, in a hidden location.
Speaker 3: Oh wonderful the weather.
Speaker 2: The weather has been amazing, hasn't it.
Speaker 3: Oh it's yeah, gorgeous. In fact, I'm covered with mosquito
Speaker 3: bites for something. They just got me in the last
Speaker 3: bit of the season here.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, their last, their last, hurrah, I think, isn't it. Hey, Julia,
Speaker 2: how long have you been involved with the Tarot cards? Oh?
Speaker 3: Wow? So I started reading when I was sixteen years old,
Speaker 3: and this month I will be turning sixty, so we're
Speaker 3: looking at forty five years.
Speaker 2: Well, happy birthday. How'd you get involved in this? What
Speaker 2: got you into it?
Speaker 3: You know? I tell the story in the first chapter
Speaker 3: of my book, Tara Life Lessons. I was, as I said,
Speaker 3: I was sixteen. I wandered into a mall on a
Speaker 3: hot summer day and there was a magic shop there.
Speaker 3: This was in the nineteen seventies, so magic shops were
Speaker 3: not what they are today. You know, today we have
Speaker 3: these New Age shops with crystals and pendulums and all
Speaker 3: kinds of spiritual books. They did not exist in the
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies. What I walked into was gag gifts and
Speaker 3: rabbits and hats and you know, foam balls that you
Speaker 3: can hide up your sleeve, that sort of thing. And
Speaker 3: there was this young woman behind the counter who was
Speaker 3: maybe about four or five years older than me, but
Speaker 3: to a teenage girl, I mean, she seemed to possess
Speaker 3: all the wisdom of the universe. And she looked at
Speaker 3: me and said, do you want to see some real magic?
Speaker 3: And she guided me to the tarot deck and she
Speaker 3: showed me the cards and that was it. I was
Speaker 3: spellbound and my life took a turn and I never
Speaker 3: looked back.
Speaker 2: What are there seventy two cards in the deck.
Speaker 3: There's seventy eight cards at seventy eight uh huh.
Speaker 2: And what do you think of the death card? I mean,
Speaker 2: I've had Tarot card readers tell me it doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you're going to die.
Speaker 3: No, not at all. It's a card of transformation. So
Speaker 3: people see it and they get scared because of all
Speaker 3: the movie stuff, you know, sure, but the death card
Speaker 3: is saying the old life is behind you and you're
Speaker 3: in a whole new life. So you may see the
Speaker 3: death card when you graduate, or when you get married,
Speaker 3: or when you have children, you know, anything, when you retire,
Speaker 3: anything that everything's changed. And the thing about the change
Speaker 3: is that it is scary because we don't know what
Speaker 3: the new life looks like, right, So you've got just
Speaker 3: that fear of the unknown. But it can also be
Speaker 3: very exciting. So the death card is usually considered positive,
Speaker 3: a card of transformation.
Speaker 2: Julia, do you find that more and more people are
Speaker 2: getting interested in serialt cards and readings?
Speaker 3: Well, what I know from my clients is that these
Speaker 3: are very dark times and people need something, you know,
Speaker 3: whether we want to say faith. I mean I was
Speaker 3: telling some clients at a festival I worked this weekend.
Speaker 3: You know, every day I start my day and I
Speaker 3: ask Spirit, God, whatever you'd like to call it, to
Speaker 3: let me be a channel of love and life and
Speaker 3: to you know, just to be something positive in these
Speaker 3: dark times. And I think people need that. And the
Speaker 3: other thing I think is that in all of this
Speaker 3: world chaos, people tend to diminish their own problems and
Speaker 3: they tend to say, well this is you know, I'm
Speaker 3: not important, you know, not compared to Israel and Gaza,
Speaker 3: you know. And so I through the Taro am away
Speaker 3: to see them and hear them and acknowledge what, you know,
Speaker 3: what people go through on personal levels, because our day
Speaker 3: to day stuff does not change. We still have it
Speaker 3: even in these really hard times.
Speaker 2: From the book Taro Life Lessons the subtitle Living Wisdom
Speaker 2: from the Major Arcana. What is the major Arcana?
Speaker 3: So, as you mentioned, the Taro has seventy eight cards.
Speaker 3: Twenty two of those cards are the major arkana and
Speaker 3: those are the milestones. Those are the famous tarot cards
Speaker 3: that you do see in the movies, like the Fool,
Speaker 3: like the Love, like the Death Card, the Hermit that
Speaker 3: we've all we probably all know the Hermit best from
Speaker 3: the Led Zeppelin four album. If if you're of a
Speaker 3: certain age and you know it's uh, those are they're
Speaker 3: the the big deals. The every culture has these milestones.
Speaker 3: We have a card for the mother figure, the fathers, uh,
Speaker 3: the elders. We have a cards for money, we have
Speaker 3: a cards for you know, cards for temptation and uh
Speaker 3: and and collapse. You know, we've all had our dark
Speaker 3: nights of the soul. So there's a Tarot card for
Speaker 3: what Carl Jung would call the process of individual individually
Speaker 3: and individualization, what Joseph Campbell would call the hero's journey, uh,
Speaker 3: the sort of process of life that we all go through.
Speaker 3: And I so the major Hannah is especially meaningful. The
Speaker 3: minor Arkhana is also very helpful. That aligns more along
Speaker 3: with a regular deck of playing cards, and that the
Speaker 3: minor Arkhana is thought to be the more day to
Speaker 3: day stuff. But the major Kana are those those big issues.
Speaker 2: It's fascinating, indeed, And you use a lot of stories
Speaker 2: in the Terror Life Lessons book from real life episodes
Speaker 2: tell us about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so these all came from my journals over
Speaker 3: the years. And you know, my husband has always said,
Speaker 3: you know, you got a lot of good stories you
Speaker 3: should write about that. And I never really thought about
Speaker 3: it until COVID, honestly, and they were they were all
Speaker 3: written because I had journaled them, and so during COVID,
Speaker 3: I just put it all together and I had very
Speaker 3: much of what I would call a god moment where
Speaker 3: I had a fan letter on Instagram about some of
Speaker 3: my I'm also with Sylvia play a scholar and a
Speaker 3: young woman had read my other three books on Plath
Speaker 3: and her mysticism, which a lot of people don't know about,
Speaker 3: and she said that, you know, she was really interested
Speaker 3: in that. And I told her about this project that
Speaker 3: I was kind of working on during quarantine, and she said, oh,
Speaker 3: I want you to talk to my editor friend over
Speaker 3: at Inner Traditions, and she connected us and they just
Speaker 3: snapped it up on the spot and they are also
Speaker 3: going to be publishing via Cult Sylvia Plath next year.
Speaker 3: So I am just so blessed and could not be
Speaker 3: more pleased with my publisher, honestly. But as far as
Speaker 3: these stories go, yeah, they're real life stories of clients
Speaker 3: that have had especially interesting, you know, situations with me.
Speaker 3: I'm not just dishing. It's not just gossip because I
Speaker 3: process my end of it. So you're going to see
Speaker 3: how human I am as a Tarot card reader. I
Speaker 3: am not the guru who's sitting up on a mountaintop,
Speaker 3: you know, telling everybody how to live. You're going to
Speaker 3: see me wrestling with boundaries and insecurities and occasionally being
Speaker 3: a bit intimidated. Every story is different. There are there
Speaker 3: are murders, there are scam artists. There are people who
Speaker 3: are so very desperate for love, and you know, and
Speaker 3: I think we know all of these people. I think
Speaker 3: they're universal stories. There are gold diggers, there are people
Speaker 3: struggling with children who have died. And so I've matched
Speaker 3: each story to one of the major Arkana tarot cards,
Speaker 3: just a sort of the overriding theme. That's an idea
Speaker 3: I got from Sylvia Plath, my literary mentor, and it
Speaker 3: gives it a nice flow. If you are a tarot
Speaker 3: card reader, you will see and understand how I read
Speaker 3: the cards. Also helpful for people who are interested in
Speaker 3: the taro. But if you are just looking for a
Speaker 3: good story, you know you can. You don't have to
Speaker 3: focus on the tarot details that it's not overloaded with those.
Speaker 3: This is not a how to read tarot book, because
Speaker 3: there are way too many of those already. I wanted
Speaker 3: real life application of taro. I wanted people to see
Speaker 3: how taro is used in real life with real people.
Speaker 2: And you don't hold back to you. I mean, if
Speaker 2: you see something strange and unusual and maybe even sad
Speaker 2: and dangerous, you've let it go, don't you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And because these are my journals, George, I
Speaker 3: really felt, you know, as I was coming to look
Speaker 3: at seriously publishing this, I really questioned, do I want
Speaker 3: to put all this stuff in there about me? But
Speaker 3: I decided, yeah, you know, let's be real and vulnerable.
Speaker 3: And I am a believer that your heart has to
Speaker 3: be open to touch other people. And some people may
Speaker 3: laugh at me, you know, I talk about some visions
Speaker 3: I had, I talk about, you know, as I said,
Speaker 3: just some of my insecurities and just how I deal
Speaker 3: with this stuff. I think you'll come out of the
Speaker 3: books knowing I am, you know, for one of Saint
Speaker 3: Louis's top ten psychics, and all the labels they put
Speaker 3: on me, I am very very human, and so yeah,
Speaker 3: there I have not held back maybe two embarrassing amounts
Speaker 3: of truth telling take.
Speaker 2: Us through a hypothetical tarot card reading and just explain
Speaker 2: to us visually what you're doing. Somebody comes to you
Speaker 2: what happens.
Speaker 3: So I usually say, first of all that Taro puts
Speaker 3: Taro shows you the path that you're on. I am
Speaker 3: showing you what you already know on a higher subconscious level,
Speaker 3: and I am mirroring it back to you. So there
Speaker 3: is a validation in taro. A lot of times people
Speaker 3: think they know what's going to happen, or they may
Speaker 3: have a lot of anxiety or a lot of excitement
Speaker 3: or something, and the tarot will bring clarity to that.
Speaker 3: But that said, if we see something coming up in
Speaker 3: the future that you don't like, it is an opportunity
Speaker 3: to do it differently. So I'm never going to tell
Speaker 3: someone that they're doomed. As I said, these are energies
Speaker 3: and so we can say, okay, this hasn't happened yet,
Speaker 3: and let's let's change that energy. And so the tarot
Speaker 3: card's very good for giving advice, very good for you know,
Speaker 3: I'm showing you the path that you're on if you
Speaker 3: don't do anything different. So usually for a new client,
Speaker 3: I begin with a very traditional spread called the Celtic Cross,
Speaker 3: and some people do it with ten cards. I learned
Speaker 3: with eleven cards, and the Celtic Cross is a basic past, present,
Speaker 3: and future with three core cards that are kind of
Speaker 3: a snapshot of who you are today, and so it'll
Speaker 3: talk about your core issues and the things you're struggling
Speaker 3: with and how people see you. Those are those first
Speaker 3: three core cards. The card above at the very top
Speaker 3: of the spread is sort of where all your attention
Speaker 3: and energy is going. The card below tends to be
Speaker 3: the present day. The card to the left the far
Speaker 3: left is your recent past, and to the far right
Speaker 3: is your near future, usually within the next six months.
Speaker 3: And then there are this column of cards that runs
Speaker 3: up the side. Some Tarot card readers will say that
Speaker 3: that column is sort of the direction of your entire life.
Speaker 3: I personally think that's ridiculous. I don't think any of
Speaker 3: us have any sense of our entire lives. I read
Speaker 3: that is the next two years, So my reading tends
Speaker 3: to be about two years out. Where you're going, where
Speaker 3: your attention is, what might be tripping you up, what
Speaker 3: you might want to focus on to build and grow
Speaker 3: and you know, and what you might want to change.
Speaker 2: Interesting now when you're with a person physically and they're
Speaker 2: there with you, who picks the card? You were them?
Speaker 3: If they're with me physically, I'll usually have them pick
Speaker 3: and they have the added option of choosing what deck
Speaker 3: to use. And I'm a little different from a lot
Speaker 3: of Tarot card readers because I do like to offer
Speaker 3: a selection of decks I have found and I have
Speaker 3: hosted some of these on my Instagram. By the way,
Speaker 3: I have found that people choose the exact right deck
Speaker 3: they need, and time and time again, cards will show
Speaker 3: up that look exactly like them. So it's very interesting
Speaker 3: that the artwork really calls to people and that they
Speaker 3: are right there in it, you know, And how does
Speaker 3: that happen? That's part of the magic, right But I
Speaker 3: have so they choose the deck in person, over the
Speaker 3: phone or video readings, and I do readings for people
Speaker 3: all over the world, you know, lots of international callers
Speaker 3: will will get me on WhatsApp and we'll do phone
Speaker 3: and video readings that way, and I will show them
Speaker 3: the cards and I pull the cards for them. But
Speaker 3: some people like the phone because there's just a little
Speaker 3: bit more anonymity. Some people feel very you know, they
Speaker 3: don't want me to to see them, or you know,
Speaker 3: they feel just exposed for people who are very very
Speaker 3: guarded on their privacy. I have regular email clients, and
Speaker 3: email works a little bit differently. I just have them
Speaker 3: send me all the questions that they want me to
Speaker 3: look at, and then I figure out what the time
Speaker 3: is going to take and what that will cost. There's
Speaker 3: a little extra time because of course I have to
Speaker 3: type it all out, but I am a fast typist
Speaker 3: because I'm also a writer, so I you know, I
Speaker 3: will give a price for that that's not just the
Speaker 3: standard three dollars a minute that my my regular phone
Speaker 3: and video clients and in personal clients pay. And then
Speaker 3: I also come to events for parties, and that's a
Speaker 3: whole other thing.
Speaker 2: Interesting take now, when we do a phone calls next
Speaker 2: hour and you do readings for our listeners, are you
Speaker 2: going to pull like one card?
Speaker 3: It depends on the question, so, you know, because I
Speaker 3: imagine we're going to be keeping this moving and I'm
Speaker 3: not going to be spending fifteen minutes on one person,
Speaker 3: right a couple minutes reach, Yeah, I'll probably do. I'll
Speaker 3: probably do one to three cards, depending on the depth
Speaker 3: of the question. How much information I need.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Now, if someone's Tarot cards reveal something negative, how
Speaker 2: often do you temper it?
Speaker 3: Almost never, because I find that that negative information is
Speaker 3: something that they need to know. Before I start. I
Speaker 3: usually have a short meditation which I've already done before
Speaker 3: the show, where I ask for who I speak to
Speaker 3: that I give the message they most need. So I
Speaker 3: am going to trust that if that negativity comes up,
Speaker 3: they're ready to hear it and to change it. And
Speaker 3: do they sometimes. You know, some people are really attached
Speaker 3: to things like addictions or you know, or even feeling
Speaker 3: like the victim, and that will keep you stuck. If
Speaker 3: you see yourself as just going to suffer and have
Speaker 3: hard times, you know, I can point that out, and
Speaker 3: I can show you that you actually do have power
Speaker 3: in your life to shift out of that, and I
Speaker 3: can show you how to shift out of it. But
Speaker 3: you have to want to.
Speaker 2: Interesting take. Have you ever had a client lose it
Speaker 2: in front of you?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah? Really more often, more often than not, drugs
Speaker 3: or alcohol are involved. And I do like to say
Speaker 3: there's a reason we call alcohol spirits.
Speaker 2: They walk in that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It just you know the thing about especially a
Speaker 3: drunk person. And this is famous for when I do parties, right,
Speaker 3: and there's usually a lot of drinking, and so if
Speaker 3: someone is very drunk, I've come to decide. You know,
Speaker 3: usually I'll say that I prefer not to read for
Speaker 3: someone who's very drunk. But if the host has bought
Speaker 3: me for the event and most people are drinking, it
Speaker 3: can be a tough night for me. But you know,
Speaker 3: they'll see something like the death card and they may
Speaker 3: try and read it themselves and panic. And you know,
Speaker 3: I remember one girl just wailing, thinking that her life
Speaker 3: was over, and there was almost nothing I could do
Speaker 3: to console her because she was just spiraling in her drunkenness.
Speaker 3: The other thing about drunks, they tend to ask me
Speaker 3: the same question.
Speaker 2: Over an over and over again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, holler at me, so it's not fun for me.
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