When good cards go bad...

Typically I wake up to an inbox full of emails with questions, work orders, and a hefty number of "oh my God, I can't believe how spot on your predictions were--you said X would happen and now it is!!!"  I don't feel the need to make exorbitant claims about my abilities or services because my testimonials say it all and then some, but these excited affirmations do give me a warm and fuzzy feeling--unless I predicted something negative and that is what's happening--that just ticks me off!  But every now and then there comes a time in a professional card reader's life when the question must be asked, "Miss Bri, what the @#&* happened?  The cards we got are not describing the situation accurately AT ALL!"  Can the cards be wrong?  Can a reader be off?Being the perfectionist, micromanaging, anal retentive gal that I am--believe me, it bothers me more than you.  And its a darn good question because we all know that even the best readers sometimes give readings that are a little less than spot on.  In my 18+years of doing this professionally, here are the top reasons why a reading may not end up describing future events:

1. Readings describe events that occur in space and time.  Space and time are fluid concepts--they are dynamic and changing.  If you believe in a locked down fate or destiny with no chance of free will then I really don't understand why you are getting a reading.  Ergo, as time changes and space changes the future can also change.  A reader is taking a snapshot of what is happening now and using that information--as well as her intuition, spiritual gifts and guides, divination system, etc, etc to tell the client what will be happening.  But if the snapshot changes dramatically then the reading may be less than accurate.  A good example of this that's true to life is the following: girl calls me to get a reading for a reconciliation case.  She is brokenhearted that her guy has left her--will they get back together?  I read the cards, the cards say--yes, they have a good shot of getting back together.  A few weeks go by without work and then the girl calls again--she has found someone new, someone she is truly in love with and they reciprocate!  Yay! Guess who she's not getting back together with, despite a positive reading?

2.) Misinformation, lack of information, or miscommunication on the part of the client.  While you should be leery of any reader who demands that you "feed" them information, you should also be leery of any reader who just starts reading you, "cold" as it were.  A reader, especially one such as myself that does a lot of diagnostic reading, is going to need some basic background information.  If you forget to tell me that the love of your life is married with children when we talk then that might really change the outcome of the cards.  If you consciously misinform me then the only thing you are wasting is your money and my time.  Typically this is not a huge problem because there are tell-tale cards that can and do show up during a reading to let me know I am dealing with one of the situations described above, but it is known to happen occasionally.  In some cases it is perfectly legitimate too--you may not know that the object of your desire has a wife in a different country--but if they do and we don't know about it, it can effect the accuracy of the reading.

3.) The cards themselves.  Each card is layered with symbols, meaning, and possible explanations.  Interpreting cards is kind of like navigating through an enchanted forest--its beautiful and compelling but there are many paths of interpretation to choose from.  The best readings in my experience are the ones where the client and reader are working together to hone an ever clearer picture of what is happening and what will happen.  Sometimes the cards are interpreted one way and it can seem very "off" when events do transpire, but if you re-examine the cards that were pulled you can often make sense of how one interpretation may seem off, but another is spot on.  In short, my answer to questions like, "were the cards just wrong?" is almost always "no."  Its not because I'm a relativist--I'm not.  I believe in right and wrong and absolutes--however in the world of cartomancy its rarely as simple as the cards being wrong.