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Crystal balls, English accents and tea leaves

tea leavesIt’s hard for me to write a post that mentions my neighbor (let’s call her Mary – because she’s a far, far cry from the virgin mother) without including a picture. But I do want to keep her anonymity. So, I’m linking you to the ‘Shoes’ video since she dressed up like that girl (or guy?) for Halloween. 1. I think it will help you get the point of how wacky she is, and 2. She looked exactly like him/her. Exactly.

I will tell you however, because it’s her most intense feature (besides the fact that she smells like hooch and incense) that her real hair is huge and long and sometimes black or brown or red or yellow and curly. Kinky, ‘fro-like curly. It’s intense – and I think its existence is a pure extension of the creativity and juiciness that lives underneath – you know, in her head.

But, anyway…the other day ‘Mary’ came over to tell us that she’d had her tea leaves read. She was at a crossroads of some sort, so she went for some psychic capitulation. I’m a fairly nice person, but this sort of crap is something that I usually mock, make fun of and roll my eyes at. But, there was something about Mary’s recap that caught my attention, like a hook in a fish cheek.

  • The accuracy with which the Tea Reader nailed Mary’s situation?
  • Mary’s total confidence in herself and her path as a result of the reading?
  • The fact that she ended her retelling to us with, “And the tea leaf reader has an English accent, so you have to believe her.”

And, so, I called and made an appointment. Yes. Yes, I did. And I only felt a tad bit silly, until my dear friend, Sarah, said to me, “divination is just another opportunity for you to access what you already know.” And that made sense to me. You know how you could give 100 people – all very different – the same horoscope and they would easily make it ‘like totally apply’? We all know our stories like the back of our hands – and when a psychic, a crystal ball or tea leaves tell us things – it simply gives us a new perspective with which to explore the things we’ve already been going round and round about.

So, what did I learn at my tea leaf reading?

  • Nothing new. Which is good news – because it means that I wasn’t brainwashed or high-jinxed or duped. Still, some of my ideas and thoughts (that I habitually swat away on a regular basis), were raised into the spotlight and deeply affirmed.
  • My muse is not the woman I always assumed her to be, but a man from the 1100’s, waving scrolls at me, telling me to write for the good of the people – to educate, guide and support those in need. Oh, and he has a pet falcon.
  • And, yes, it’s true. British accents really do something to and for us Yanks.

Image Credit: Jodi Green

Join the discussion 8 Comments

  • Ed says:

    My grandmother lived with us when I was a kid. She made tea for dinner every evening…the old fashioned way. She boiled water in an upright metal tea kettle and then measured loose tea into the kettle,letting it boil for some time before serving it. It meant we had tea leaves in our tea every night. She would “read” them for us. Because she was my grandmother I believed her “readings.” Nothing since those days has ever indicated to me that she was wrong. I only wish that I had follwed her “readings” more carefully.

  • Jason says:

    You should try to learn something new everyday: not to waste money on false prophets, tea leaves are for brewing tea, used tea leaves belong on the compost pile.
    And yes, British accents do something for me, but I already knew that. :)

  • Jeff Inglis says:

    So are falcons carrying scrolls the 12th-century equivalent of Twitter?

  • How often we look outside ourselves for the knowledge that lives within—-but it’s always nice to have a friend to talk with and explore (even, I guess, if we have to pay that “friend” to listen) I guess that is one reason why there is the Venus-Mars problem: we are not asking for solutions (a mars way of responding to someone who asks for help) but for assistance finding the knowledge that we have become disconnected from and are having difficulty finding.

    As always Julie—thanks for your post.

  • Julie Roads says:

    I go out for an hour and come back to so many wonderful comments – (save Jason’s sarcasm) – Thank you all!

    Ed – I love your story…she also saw my grandparents looking over me, interestingly enough.

    Jeff – LOL – yesssss! Scrolls are the Twitter of yesteryear.

    Caroline – Luckily this was very inexpensive – and a fabulous mirror!

  • Alisa Bowman says:

    I recently read about a bunch of common things that people tend to see in those Rorscharch Tests (the ink blot thing), which seems similar to tea leaves to me. The article had this picture of the ink blot and 8 or so common interpretations. Like if you saw an eagle spreading its wings, you were about to accomplish a big life goal. That sort of thing. Well, when I looked at the ink blot, I saw two people giving each other a high five. Apparently no one had seen that image in the ink blot before–so there was no psychological interpretation for it. So I looked at it again, trying to find the eagle and other things. But I could only see two people giving each other a high five. I came away from the experience convinced that I must have some sort of psychic uniqueness that defies explanation.

    That comment almost has nothing to do with your post, but I apparently needed to share it with someone.

  • Julie Roads says:

    OMG – Alisa, I really and truly adore you. That comment is perfectly apropos to this post – don’t kid yourself. We see what we want to see and we see what we need to see and we see what we’re supposed to see.

  • Moni says:

    Very cool. The fact a person can “read” tea leaves (never heard of that before) and the fact your muse owned a falcon. ;)

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