This was my second Bali tarot reading. The first one was for my bachelor party, where I was drunk, so I am not sure it counts.
The reader started with the admin: my full name, my date of birth, and where I was really from. Then she asked me to intentionally cut the deck in half. She spread the cards, asked me to pick one, looked at it without showing me, and set it aside. Then she asked me to pull five more.
She asked about my problems. I said I had none.
So she asked why the Three of Swords had turned up. I tried to explain. She wanted more, then pointed out that it sat in the past and was no longer the case.
“Yeah, I think I’m okay now,” I said.
She disagreed. If it were truly finished, she said, I would not still feel it the way I do. Then she asked me to pull more cards.
The Bali tarot reading turns to my ancestors
She hesitated over them. A few thoughtful hums. Then she brought up my ancestors.
I admitted I do not feel much connection to mine. I do not know who they were, or their names, or where they were born, or when they arrived in Indonesia. I have asked more than once and never got a clear answer. I am curious about my heritage and have no idea how to trace it.
She told me ancestor worship matters more than I think. “If you go to the office to meet the boss, you must go through security first.” The ancestors are the guide. I ought to connect with them, respect them, pray for them, because they are a part of me and I am a part of them. Praying to them would bring my life into alignment with theirs, and in return they would start helping: mediating, granting wishes, sending messages in symbols.
Her prescription was a water-purifying ritual at a temple, plus fasting, no food and no drinks, two set days a week.
I responded with some thoughtful hums of my own, mostly calculating how hard it would be to fast on a holiday. I also wondered whether she gives every client the same homework. Not necessarily a bad thing. Just a thought.
It was not the Bali tarot reading I wanted.
She kept telling me to stop overthinking and to connect more with my heart.
Then, out of nowhere, she asked me to close my eyes and meditate. So I did. At least, I closed my eyes. She asked what colour I could see. It started black, then softened into a light purple, then into something closer to purplish white. Purple, she said, belongs to the third eye chakra, the point between the eyebrows. I wanted to tell her I already knew that. I let her keep going.
My calling for 2024, she said, was to start a spiritual journey, and she could sense my overthinking blocking spiritual alignment from the divine.
She was right about the overthinking, at least. While she was saying it, my mind was already somewhere else entirely, running through my exams and a trip to Europe.
When she asked if there was anything else I wanted to know, I asked about work. She pulled more cards. The cards suggested I focus on the spiritual side instead, and consider making it my career.
If I did not know any better, it read like an invitation to quit my job, move to Bali, and become her tarot understudy.
Now that I think about it, that is not the worst idea.
Follow me on Instagram @KultureKween for more recent updates.
