an unexpected séance
a wild medium appears.
Paid supporters of Everyday Woo are getting a behind-the-scenes look at my upcoming move and a taste of my penchant for storytelling.
This post—about a weird meeting with a medium—went out last week, but I’m sharing it with you, too…it’s that good.
The night of May’s Night Market was, energetically speaking, quite intense.
Not only was I about to read tarot for 25+ people in back-to-back bookings, but there was also the tiny matter of setting up an entire tent and display under the pouring rain. By the time the event started, my booth buddy, Waleska, and I were both a little soggy and already tired.
But right as the market opened around 6PM, the rain stopped. I felt the energy within myself shift into a space of curiosity and excitement. I wondered what paths I would explore this evening with the tarot—what sorts of questions would be asked and what messages would come through.
Of all of the scenarios that paraded through my mind in those moments before the chaos began, none of them came even close to what I experienced with Jim.
Around 8PM, after the market had been open for around two hours, I emerged from behind the partition I had set up to offer privacy to my clients to see Waleska talking to a short, older man with white hair and startling blue eyes. He was smoking a cigarette and talking with his hands.
To be honest, my first impression of him was that he must be drunk. He talked in a slow, almost slurred manner as he introduced himself as Jim and asked me “where I did my work.”
I lifted my hands and gestured to the tent around me. “Tonight, here,” I said, wondering if he had ever heard of the tarot or even knew much about the spiritual side of things at all.
I admit—this was a case of me judging a book by its cover. I was wholly convinced that this man voted Republican, lived in the suburbs and probably thought I was a witch…and that wasn’t a good thing.
But then, he told me something that shifted the trajectory of the entire scene. He looked at me, his face somber, and told me that he was a medium.
A medium?! I have little to no experience in the realm of mediumship, never having experienced a session with one nor felt compelled to look deeply into the practice.
The idea of connecting with those who have passed felt like a level of spirituality that was inaccessible to someone like me, who grew up thumping a Bible and believing that people who spoke to the dead were cursed, iterations of the Devil, or sinners of the worst variety.
Interestingly, however, I didn’t feel repelled by Jim.
I was intrigued to know more about what he did, why he did it, and how he did it. As we stood there, static in the midst of an ever-changing crowd of people wandering by with vintage purchases and beers in their hands, Jim asked me to hold out my hands and place them on his.
A test. He wanted a reading, but he wanted to know me energetically first. I complied. His hands were warm against mine, and I watched as he tilted his head to the heavens and his eyes rolled back in his head a bit.
It seemed like an eternity passed as we held this posture, a strange tableau in the midst of the melee. Eventually, he blinked his eyes a few times, held my gaze, and nodded his head.
I was in.
As Jim paid for his reading, I began to feel nervous—any time a fellow intuitive asks for guidance from me, I wonder if I am ready to hold space for someone who is very familiar with what it feels like to tap into source.
But strange as this entire interaction had been so far, a sense of ease enveloped me as I gestured behind me to where two chairs, a table and a deck of cards waited behind the folding screen. He followed me and sat down.
Under the closer light of the lamp behind us, I could see his face more clearly now. And I saw a man who looked tired. There was a heaviness about him, as if he carried something within him that was burdensome. He leaned back into the chair, looked at me once more with those eerie blue eyes, and said, “I want to be done.”
“Done?” I queried, my fingers tracing the edges of my passive deck, my eyes never leaving his.
“I want to know if it’s time to be finished. To stop doing the work I’ve done for my entire life.” He folded his hands and rested them in his lap.
He was asking me whether it was time to stop being a medium. A night thus far filled with questions of love and career paths was abruptly punctured by this deep, heavy query. I wondered if I was the right person to ask.
So I did the only thing I could think to do. I picked up my cards and began to shuffle.
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