Chapter 18. The Reading

A few days before everyone headed up to the cabin, Brian and Mason took me aside and blessed me with cedar and sage. While we stood together in Brian’s small room, Mason said, “There’s a man that lives in the mountains, a fruitarian. He might stop by the dome.”

I tried to make light of it by asking, “What’s a fruitarian, some kind of nut?”

Mason affirmed, “Yes, you’re close… he eats only dried fruit and nuts. Don’t be put off by him.”

“You told him about our leaving?”

 “No,” Brian grinned, “but he has a peculiar way of singling out people.”

As the day of departure approached, I spent more time down at the Dome. One such day, as we had been lolling about, there he was. A strange, thin, long-blond-haired man with a pouch holding a set of Tarot cards wrapped ceremoniously in a red silk cloth was at the door, asking, “Are you Max?”

 “I… am Max,” I answered.

“Do you mind if I do your chart and read your cards before you take this trip?”

“Cool, but who are you how did you know about this trip?”

“Oh, nothing psychic, you just look like you’re getting ready to go somewhere. My name is Truth.”

I thought his name was more funny than pretentious and teased, “Truth? Well, with a name like that, I can trust your reading.” 

Stan and Leah looked at us as though they’d seen a ghost.

I was familiar with tarot cards before and I loved the primitive ones. I had no idea what the symbolism of them amounted to but they looked and felt like they held some sort of ancient wisdom. As for his name, Truth, I was getting used to street names. People out these parts invented themselves over and over again so I paid little attention to the name. After a while, I didn’t even think it was odd. We sat outside the dome and Truth laid out a blanket where our little group sat around the edges.

“Are you going to read for each of us?” Leah asked.

“No, I’ve only been led to read Max’s. It takes energy to do this and I don’t like to spread my energy around like it is a parlor game, know what I mean?”

The feeling was nostalgic. I had the same feeling during the Latin Mass as a kid. It was a little hypocritical playing ‘pretend’, like it meant something to me, but still brought with it the comfort of knowing I was in a sacred place. I’d seen a lot of miraculous things and wonders I couldn’t explain but that didn’t mean I was buying everything that came down the pike. I spoke serious, “I like your attitude. I usually don’t go for oogah-boogah spirituality.”

Truth had me handle the cards, shuffle them and so on instructing, “Focus your attention on the cards and when you feel satisfied you have shuffled them enough, take off the top card and place it face down in the middle of the red silk.”

It was in a reverential ritualized sense that we respected each other as I followed the instructions. Truth picked up the deck and dealt out an arc pattern like the Thunder Bird around the center card. The cards were laid down face up and the meanings were not clear at all to me. The pictures of swords, sticks, cups and coins intrigued me. The occasional cards, like the one with a beautiful woman with her hand on the mane of a lion; the ominous card with a skeleton with a scythe; or a tramp in a jokers’ hat hiking off with a hound at his heels; these were interesting too. They were all very mysterious and I knew I would have to study this card business myself to understand the symbolism... if only for curiosity’s sake.

Truth started talking as if to no one, “The cards are an arbitrary arrangement… completely arbitrary and hold no magic of their own. The magic is what happens between the reader and the questioner.”

“That’s good to hear. Where do we start?” I was anxious to find what sort of magic was being conjured.

“We start here with the trickster launching out on a journey. You are the trickster. The trickster doesn’t know where he is going. He is just going. He wills the nine of swords. That is will power towards dissipation… number nine over the top. I see the trickster imprisoned by late July.”

“Late July? What do you mean imprisoned?”

“Doesn’t necessarily mean jail but it does mean the loss of freedom. And the Death card trumps it.”

“Death, why doesn’t that worry me?” I was seeing how the cards worked… how they brought stuff out of me: pulled out the arbitrary so to speak.

“Death means change. See this Hanged Man? You will want to be imprisoned… long enough to read the runes. You will stay until you are ready to go.”

“Read the runes?”

“The cosmos… the dance… see her there?” She was the card I found most beautiful. A nude woman with sticks or wands of some sort in each hand and standing on one leg crossed making like a number four.

“What does it mean? We’re leaving on this trip to Jamaica. Why did you choose me to read the cards? I feel like it is so very important I pay attention. Why?”

“There is plenty of time to be finding out the whys and all that. This trip is going to change your life… it’s the shaman’s quest.”

I had heard a lot of hippy bullshit about being a “Shaman” from artists and street corner gurus but I felt the term was far too liberally applied considering what a real shaman endures to acquire occult knowledge. I suspected that it took a bit more of a commitment than taking a few hallucinogenic drugs and howling at the moon. However, I’d learned to never dismiss the serendipitous and arcane when it comes out of left field like this. This was especially so after the events of the past few weeks.