Good On Paper

The White House had a staff astrologer for seven years.

Thick in the decade of decadence and a desperation for meaning, Nancy Reagan turned to Joan Quigley for expertise. It was a relationship borne out of a chance meeting on the Merv Griffin Show, and Reagan relied on the astrological expert's insight after John Hinckley's assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981.

If it's good enough for Nancy Reagan, then it's good enough for me.

Right?

I had the unexpected pleasure of having my tarot cards read twice in the past week - once at ONE, the quarterly cultural celebration at Cincinnati Art Museum, and once at Second Sunday on Main, an eclectic street fair in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood (both spectacular events to get out and about and see the best friends you've never met).

Anyway.

The first reading last Wednesday involved me picking five over sized cards from a well worn, colorful stack. My hands combed through the deck spread before me, choosing my first card - a secret rectangle hidden behind another, more obvious choice.

My reader slowly turned over the first of five cards, remarking that success was on the road ahead. She glowed, saying I'd accomplish something significant - world changing, even - but this opportunity wouldn't show itself until I was in my 50s.

I guess patience is a virtue in the astrological world, too.

She skipped the second card, instead turning the third and fourth card, and waxed poetic about my intelligence and talents, offering up that I've been given all the tools I need to seize this great opportunity in two decades.

The reader's face had the map of time on it - beautiful, well worn wrinkles in every direction. Her sparkling, knowing eyes looked up from the table as she tapped on the fifth card. "You make your life harder than it needs to be, don't you?" It wasn't an accusation more than it was the admission of an undeniable fact, a revelation that pursed my lips as I held my head in hesitant confession. She tapped the card again and offered encouraging words that were much appreciated.

Card two. She flipped it over and quipped, "How's your love life?" I let out a single chuckle, laughing off the heartache I hold deep within. "Nonexistent."

"Don't worry. He's coming. You have nothing to worry about."

In hindsight, I wish I had plied a bit more information out of her about this last card, but courtesy and timeliness got the best of me, and I scooted out of the seat to make way for someone else's mystical moment.

My next encounter wasn't as "telling," but I was pleased and encouraged by what the cards revealed.

Sunday's tarot card reader had barely a year or two on me, but I trusted him with my deepest wonder - a yearning to know when true love would make its way to my days.

Five dollars and three cards. He chose each one for me and layed them out, saying the beautifully drawn cards indicated love was on its way.

Well, yeah. But death's on it's way, too. Is it "two years on its way," or "50 years on its way?" my brain wondered.

Knowing my thoughts, he graciously tossed out a few more cards, and said this "Bed Is On Fire" eternal love would show itself in a year or two.

Patience prevails in matters of the heart, too.

The reader went on to mention this huge success in life that keeps following me around from tarot reading to tarot reading (aside: wouldn't everyone want to hear their life includes huge success? Is this something these readers say to all the girls, or just the ones for whom it's true?), and I humbly thanked him for the positive energy.

Because I guess these days I'm all about the juju.

Next up? Maybe acupuncture and chakra therapy.