Friends for a Reason, Friends for a Season, Friends for Life

 

Some of the best advice I've heard in a long time...

PODCAST Your Questions ~ It's All About Friendship

 

This is a requested anonymous reading...  If you have any questions or concerns that you would like addressed in a tarot reading, email me at 

witch_of_endore@yahoo.com, 

and there's a chance that your question(s) will be featured on one of these videos... anonymously, of course!

Spread the Love ~ Tarot Spread

We needed some lighter energy for our readings this time around, so I decided to go with this tarot spread. 

The three positions for this spread include: 

• 1. What makes you special? 

• 2. What are your best qualities? 

• 3. What makes you a really great friend? 

I drew several cards for this video, hopefully covering a variety of personalities and scenarios for this very general reading. I used both The Light Seers tarot deck and The Elemental Oracle deck. 

If you would like a personal tarot reading, you can purchase one at The Tarot Parlour by following this link. All readings are video readings that will be emailed to you through PCloud, so include an up-to-date working email address. All readings are $49.99: 

http://tarotreadingswithamythystraine.blogspot.com

Spiritual Enlightenment Doesn't Require Abandoning Friendships

This is so sad, and I'm really trying to understand it.  A lady that I knew for years on the internet, at one time part of an online coven, suddenly and without warning, dropped her pagan spirituality like a hot potato.  That was sad.  The part I'm trying to understand is her husband.  From the photos and the stories she told, the activities they were into, the drumming circles they participated in, the holidays that filled their year with family dinners and pagan traditions, her husband seemed as happy on his pagan path as she was.  When she made her jaw-dropping jettisoned return to mainstream religion, her husband seemed to follow suit without a breath of protest.

Was he, or is he, just following blindly along as far as spirituality is concerned to keep his wife happy?

Doesn't his feelings and personal beliefs and desires count?

Did he have a choice, or is she domineering, and he chooses to do what will make his life comfortable without making waves?

Her own 180 degree turn about was mind boggling in itself.  I understand that an individual may experience many types of spiritual enlightenments and spend a great deal of their life exploring this realm on a variety of levels.  But it's usually a gradual thing, an interest sparked, an internal debate ensues, there will be signs and conversations, there may be gradual changes on someone's social sites, and a myriad of other signs that something is about to morph.  But with this woman, it was just out of the blue, and it left friends and coven sisters shocked.

Believe me, I wished this woman well on her new old journey, and held no animosity against her.  I was prepared to go on being friends and keep in contact because she was/is a sweet lady and one whom I enjoyed chatting with.  However, as most people do when they make a big change in their life in this department, she wound up unfriending and abandoning many of the people that she knew and had developed close and warm friendships with in her pagan life. 

Why can't people continue to be friends even though there are some major differences in certain aspects of their lives?  This I don't understand.  I have friends of many faiths.  I have friends of various political persuasion.  I have friends with polar opposite life styles.

How can someone who claimed to be your friend, who seemed to like you immensely, just one day decide to cut you off because of a shift in their spirituality?  I liked this woman when she was a pagan, and I was perfectly willing to go on liking this woman as a Christian.

It Cannot Be, That I Am He...

It cannot be, that I am he,
on whom thy tempest fell all night.

 

~ George Herbert (The Flower, 1633)

This blog post is about women and friendship, and the disappointment of it all. 
This blog post is dedicated to LC.

I had a friend.  I thought she was a spiritual sister and we would be friends through the rest of this life's journey, till we were old and gray, and bent, and wrinkled.

 

I had a friend.  I thought she knew me, through the depths of my soul, all that I am, all that I aspire to be, all that I wish I were.

 

 

I had a friend.  She was a confidant for this life's stories, a co-conspirator for projects and whims and dreams.  She was my rock. She was my joy. 

 

 

And then a change began.

 

 

It was very subtle at first, a different nuance in her voice, the way she spoke to me, the way she looked at me, little things she said that I should've taken note of but didn't.  It grew slowly over time with less contact, fewer and fewer invitations, a slow distancing.  I puzzled over it, but I brushed it off as my imagination and continued to plod along in life, which in the summer of 2012 included filing for divorce and all the tension and stress that goes with this transition.

 

Pretty soon, The Change could not be ignored, so negative was the energy.  And also the fact that my soon-to-be ex-husband began a closer friendship with LC and her fiancé, JC.  I guess I thought this was just that strange phenomena that goes with divorce, when people choose sides, even when people don't want to and think they can remain friends with both.  The oddest thing about this was that LC had never really taken a shining to this man (my ex-husband); so I couldn't understand why she was embracing him in friendship now.  It was puzzling.

 

When The Freeze began, it encompassed not only my Ex-Friend, but people who knew both of us.  I found that individuals who would normally stop and speak and talk to me when we ran into each other in the store suddenly started avoiding me, blocking me on social sites.  They would be uncomfortable when I was the first to say "Hi" whenever we would bump into each other, and I'd stop, expecting to chat, to have normal conversation. They were shifting from one foot to the other, looking past me, looking at the ground, wanting desperately to escape.

 

I didn't understand.

 

And I did not know why my friend stopped being my friend.  There were no disagreements between us, no harsh words, no harsh actions.  Nothing.

 

It has haunted me...until now.  Someone finally had the courage to come forward and tell me.

 

The rest of this post is an open letter to LC:

 

I had listened to people tell me for the past two years, "She's jealous of you.", "She's jealous of you.", "She's jealous of you."

 

Jealous?  Jealous how?

 

Jealous of what I do?  Jealous of what I am?

 

I didn't understand, and I brushed it off.  I really had no idea what was going on in your mind, why and how you could so suddenly turn from my dearest friend to someone so filled with hatred.  If you had any idea of all the moments I spent mulling over in my mind what I could have possibly done to damage our friendship, what I could have possibly done to make you feel this way...I had no idea, but that didn't mean I stopped thinking about it.

 

And then I was told, finally, just a few weeks ago, during a chance encounter.  And I was left absolutely aghast, absolutely floored.  I would never have thought of this scenario in a million years.  And the sad, sad thing about it is that it's not true.

 

And I am left to wonder:

 

Did you just perpetuate this rumor to ruin my reputation and alienate people from me? 

 

Or did you really believe it?

 

No, LC, I have never viewed your fiancé as anything more than your partner.  I have never harbored romantic feelings for this man.  I have never approached this man in any way that could be misconstrued.  I have never been around this man when you weren't there.  He was actually inconsequential to my life, part of it only because he was part of your life.

 

JC called me on the evening of September 24th, 2012, to wish me Happy Birthday.  I had been waiting for your call all day.  I was surprised to hear his voice, because I was expecting yours.  But I thought he would wish me a perfunctory Happy Birthday and pass the phone to you.  We chatted for two or three minutes, then I said, "Can I talk to L?"  He paused, "Well, umm...well, ummm...She's asleep."

 

I thought this was odd, but it was just JC, so I didn't think anymore of it, and we hung up.  I thought, and my girls thought, that he might have made this birthday call because he felt bad that you didn't.

 

And that is all there is to it.

 

 

An epilogue:

 

Two scenarios apply here, and only you know which one is correct...

 

If you deliberately started insidious and untrue rumors about me, shame upon you.  May the cancer of your lies crawl from your chest, up your throat, to your tongue, and may you lie no more.

 

If you actually believe that I was "after your man", then I have to wonder why.  Why would you think such a thing?  And why couldn't you simply ask JC about the matter, which would have easily cleared things up-- unless he had his own ulterior motives for making that telephone call. 

 

This revelation has brought disappointment, shock, and dismay...but it also brings Closure.

 

Regards,

Amythyst

 

"They"

I have discovered that sometimes people like me because I write books-- they don't really like me.  I've discovered that sometimes people want to be my friend because of my spiritual practices, the things I'm involved with, the things I do-- they don't really like me.  My experiences with this type of behavior have left me somewhat gun-shy and much less open and receptive to the general public than I use to be.  I have learned to guard my feelings, sad as that sounds, and to be cautious when someone comes on a little too strong, a little too persistent, a little too starry-eyed and intense.

This is a blog post about friends, friendship, making friends, ulterior motives, expectations, and fantasies.



They like you why?...

 

because you do something that is unusual in their eyes, or exotic even, in an artsy avant-garde manner. 

 

They like you why? ...

 

because you are different and they're drawn to your 'differentness'.

 

They dislike you why?...

 

because you do something that is unusual in their eyes, or exotic even, in an artsy avant-garde manner; and they suddenly realize that in spite of this, you are as plain and ordinary and everyday as they are, and it is a disillusionment for them. 

 

They dislike you why? ...

 

because you are different and they are drawn to your 'differentness', until your 'differentness' does not click with what they expect or approve of, until your 'differentness' sets you apart in some way and they cannot accept it-- or until your 'differentness' wears off, and you are just one of them after all.