Here's one for thought:
People
come to you for advice; once they know you can read Tarot or Runes or
I-Ching or tea leaves, they'll ask you to do that for them as well as
voice your non-psychic opinion. Let them know that you have premonitions, and
they'll ask about those, too. And while you don't mind, and are
actually happy to be able to help, what do you do with the problem
ones?
You know the ones I'm talking about: the ones who ask
for the truth, but then bitch about it. The ones who complain, whether
to your face or to others (perhaps thinking that your telepathy, if not
your common sense, doesn't extend so far), that your
premonitions/readings/etc., are mean, that you hate their neighbor,
their dog, their boss, their spouse, their--whatever, you get the idea. Yet, they come back, don't they? And they always say they want to know...
The bad part about it is that these are usually good friends, people about whom you care
deeply. People whose lives you want to be happy and wonderful...but,
unfortunately, if they ask for the truth of your visions, and you tell
it to them, they suddenly think you're rooting for some villain to
destroy their lives. It's not like you lie down at night and chant,
"Oh, please let me have a horrible dream of Juanna's husband" or
"Please let me see how awful John's wife really is." In fact, you
probably aren't seeking out those visions or dreams at all, and if
you're doing any sort of reading, you start the reading praying for clarity--and hoping to hell that it will show something good.
But,
what if it doesn't? What about those folks whose futures you keep
seeing, twisted and bent and broken into miserable things? What about
the ones you never have any good news for, or won't have any good news
for, so long as they continue in the direction they've long been
headed? Is there a polite way or a gentle way to tell them about the
destruction and doom ahead of them, unless they change course?
And why do people hate you
for what you see? Why do they get angry if you have a premonition or
see in a reading that something unpleasant is going to happen? And they
usually don't get angry once, but twice: first, when you tell them, and
the second time when it happens. Like you seeing Bob's wife with the
nanny in a vision makes it come to pass! It can get extremely annoying,
can't it, when people act like that? You're damned if you do, damned if
you don't, as the saying goes. I've just recently realized, through
talking with some other folks, how big an issue this really is.
Do you ever get to a point where you say "NO! No more! I'm not telling you anything else!"
How do you handle people that do this? What do you say to them?
You
know, my favorite auntie used to, before I met Shadow, insist on taking
me to a Tarot reader every year for my birthday. I can remember the
first time that woman read something really unpleasant in my cards; it
was so shocking, so seemingly out of character for the person she saw
in my life, that I called to my aunt to join us. When my aunt came into
the room, I asked Georgina to repeat what she'd just told me, and she
did, and my aunt said, "No, no, no, I just can't believe that, I can't
see that happening." And Georgina was really, really polite and
understanding, but she said, "Well, honey, I can see it, and I can tell
you that, unless these folks step onto a different Path, this is where
they're headed." I was surprised and concerned, but I wasn't upset at
the Tarot reader herself; I was actually grateful to her for the warning.
And, several years later, when what she had foreseen happened, I still wasn't mad at her.
I wasn't mad at my aunt for introducing me to her. I was upset at
myself for not having done more to change Paths sooner, but I was NOT
mad at the Seer. So I have a lot of trouble understanding when people
ask me or someone else for a reading or for the truth of our visions
and then sit around and try to convince us we're wrong.
Seers
foresee events, some by minutes, some by years or
decades--occasionally, by lifetimes. All we're seeing, whatever the
means of seeing it, is the future and, in most cases, it's only a possible
future, one possibility of several or many. Only rarely, at least in my
experience, do I see an absolute future, one that cannot be changed.
We're not creating those futures; we're only viewing
them. The person or persons we're reading for are the architects of
what we see. Not the Seers. We're like tvs or computer monitors in that
respect; our function is to relay the images and sounds, not build the programmes.
So,
yes, I have trouble with people who get angry with the Seers. I
understand it's difficult to have news that's unpleasant or troubling.
I understand the initial feelings of surprise, the natural reflex of
denial. I don't understand trying to convince me, or any other Seer,
that we've not seen what we've seen. I don't try to convince other
people that they don't experience what they experience, duh. I also
don't understand people who insist that they want the truth of readings
or visions, when it's clear that they aren't going to put your warnings
to any good use.
One of my good friends was in tears the other day, which is what prompted my creation of The Festival of Stupidity
(more on that later). Someone she really trusted, and had been close to
for quite some time, had asked her for a reading. Well, my
friend gave her the truth of not one, but several readings. I don't
know all of the details, because those readings are confidential
between Seer and Seeker, but apparently the first reading was so
disturbing to my friend, the Seer, that she did a half-dozen more
through every Tarot deck and bag of Runes she owns, but kept coming up
with the same reading. So when she finally told the Seeker what she'd
seen, I guess that person went into denial mode and then what really
upset my friend was that this person started complaining to several of
their mutual friends. See above comment about "you hate my dog/my neighbor/my boss/my spouse" etc.
I think we really need to think
hard about the things we ask of our friends and acquaintances in this
respect. It's never an easy thing to be a Seer, whether you have dreams
or visions, touch someone and know their life, or read Tarot cards or
Runes or tea leaves or I-Ching. It's not easy to see disaster,
heartache, and hurt in the future of anyone, especially not someone you
care about deeply. So maybe, just maybe, when our friends come
to us with visions or dreams, maybe when we go to them and ask them to
read an issue because we are too close to see it clearly, maybe we
should put aside that instinct to be angry or that reflex denial and THINK. Just for a minute, THINK.
Those who love us, want what's best for us. If we asked them to read
for us, they're only following through on our request. If they came to
us with a dream or vision, it's because they love us and care about us
enough--and trust us enough--to believe that they can
share what they've seen with us. Maybe we ought to blame ourselves for
forcing them to read such painful events or upsetting futures.
I've
been discussing this subject with some good friends, fellow Seers all,
over the past several days. At one point in the history of each
friendship, we've been at each other's throats because of premonitions,
readings, visions, dreams. As we talked about those incidents, we
realized how we finally got past them and kept our friendships strong:
because we put aside our pride and accepted that the warnings were
given out of love, not out of a desire to destroy happiness or joy. As
we sat around in our conference, one of the Seers piped up and said, "I
didn't want to admit that I couldn't see something that was so obvious
to you. I didn't want to admit I could have made the wrong choice."
Another said, "I remember saying 'you just don't know him like I do,
he's not like that' but that a few months later, I was forced to admit that he was exactly like that and I just hadn't been willing to admit that possibility existed in him, so I couldn't see it."
It's
not like I've never been on the receiving end of a crappy premonition,
either. I've worked hard to suppress that knee-jerk denial reflex,
because I know that there are times I'm too close to a situation to see
it clearly, so why wouldn't a friend who loves me, who cares about me,
have a better, more impartial view? I've come to realize that maybe we
also each see different aspects of a given future, too. As our little
conference went on the other night, we all agreed that each friendship
had been built on trust and truth, and that, from the start, we had
sworn one another to honesty regarding readings and premonitions. You
see, once we had sense enough to recall that our friends were only
keeping their ends of the bargain, it was a lot easier to get past that
"I know better than you" attitude and accept their advice with the
respect and caution it deserved.
So maybe we need to be a little more understanding
when our friends try to help us or try to warn us. They ache when we
ache, because they love us. They cry when we cry, because our hurts
hurt them. They risk their peace of mind to try to save us from
ourselves. Maybe we should thank them.
So--on
that note--to those of you who have ever come to me with
a dream, a vision, a Tarot reading that's held a warning, THANK YOU. If I didn't seem grateful at the time, know that I was. I am just as grateful for the warnings as I am for the happy visions.
Brightest Blessings,
Melissa