Being a Reader

 

I got my first Tarot deck when I was12 years old, on vacation with my family in Key West, Florida. I pestered my Mom to bring me to my first ‘occult’ shop that I saw in a travel brochure in our hotel room. She really, REALLY didn’t want me to go there. But like any kid, I pestered her until she finally took me. 

Though she wouldn’t set foot in the place, she sent me in with some money. I bought my first Rider-Waite Tarot pack & a copy of “Tarot: A Handbook for the New Apprentice” by Eileen Connelly. Soon after, I was reading anyone who would sit still, looking up the meanings, literally by the book.

Mom wouldn’t let me read her, nor would any of my immediate family members. Little did they know that Tarot would become the cornerstone of my career. I have since read hundreds of people. My skills got better as I studied different authors. I read friends all throughout my teens & started charging for my readings once I moved to Boston for college.

Of course I also had a passion for being read, as my own skills hadn’t matured enough for the needed objectivity to read myself. As a result, I found myself learning more about different spreads & reading procedures than paying much attention to what was being said about my own fate & destiny.

My own intuitive skills developed quite a bit by the time I had gone professional. I was born empathic, having a Pisces Moon in my 8^th house. Intuitive empathy was truly one of those blessings/curses growing up, not understanding why I was so emotional a good deal of the time. I sorted that out in my 20’s as I began to learned to be more aware that what I was feeling was influenced by those around me.

Still, my real interest had moved toward clairvoyance. I read everything I could on the subject & subjected myself to endless exercises & practices to develop ‘clear sight,’ which is what clairvoyance really means. I got really good at it quickly as a result. 

I was able to receive what I learned to call intuitive flashes, quick pictures in my mind’s eye that would explain people, places, things & situations. After all, a picture, even in the mind, is worth a thousand words.

I really went professional in my 20’s when I returned from Boston to my home in Long Island, New York. The more clients I read, the clearer I became. This is what I tell my students now, that the best way to improve as a reader is to read as many people as you can. Intuition is a skill like any other & repetition is the Mother of skill. The extra cash helped egg me on as well, having the financial extras to get the things I wanted more than the essential I needed.

I began developing my own ethics bit by bit, as well as my own spreads to answer my own questions. That helped a lot, as I was attracting more & more clients that matched my own interests in life, romance being a primary focus. To this day my Relationship Spread has helped me & countless others get the clarity they need to move forward or away from the relationships we form in life.

So it is that I am still growing as a reader. I just keep getting better at it the more I do it. My skill I now call, Clairvoyant Empathy, a term I borrowed form a spiritual teacher I worked with for some time. In other words, I see stuff & I feel stuff, let’s keep it simple. 

Though I know many spreads, I now keep my readings clear with a handful of them including the classic 10 card Celtic Cross, the 5 card Elemental Spread & a modified 8 card Chakra Spread including the elusive & highly archetypal 8^th Chakra that hovers above the head.

Aside from teaching, which is my passion, I get great joy out of doing readings. They have also become one of the mainstays of my income, allowing me to pay my bills & become the Professional Witch that I have evolved to be.

My practice has become simpler, working with clients & clairvoyantly tuning myself to their guides. I have also refined my understanding to 10 levels of spirit, like channels on a TV. I work with Guides, Masters, Teachers, Gods, Goddesses, Saints, Angels Totems, Healers & Ancestors. 

I’ve gotten so good at relating messaged that people often mistake me for a medium. But I’m not a medium. Though I work with non physical entities all the time, I still prefer communicating & working with the living rather than the dead.

That said, I have made quite a name for myself professionally over the decades. I now charge a bit more than I did in my 20’s. I started reading $30 for 30 minutes & $50 for an hour. That changed when I started my company Drawing the Circle Productions. When I set up shop I started charging $50 for 30 minutes & $75 for an hour, as long as the hour session was in my office in Sayville. That has suited me well for what is going on almost 15 years of DTCP’s journey.

But recently I was given the nudge by spirit to change thing up again. So here’s the new deal:

As of January 1^st, 2013 I am increasing my hourly rates to $100. That includes office visits, house calls, parties & phone readings. I only do 30 minute readings for $50 in my office at the Silver Broom in Sayville. I won’t do a 30 minute house call or phone session anymore what with gas & phone charges.

But I am also offering the opportunity for people to purchase gift certificates now through December 31^st at the soon to be old rate of $75 for the hour & will honor that soon to be discounted price in the new year. 

You can purchase a gift certificate at The Silver Broom or simply purchase a reading on my website: http://drawingthecircle.com/products/readings-and-sessions/ The $75 rate will be removed from the site on January 1^st.

Tonight I am doing a Tarot Party at a friend’s house. So I am spending my day chilling out, meditating & overall relaxing myself. I usually do these parties for 3 hours at the house call rate of $100/hour. That said, I look forward to using this skill even more as I am getting better at this every time I read, probably because it has become so much fun for me over the years.

It is my intention to help as many people as I can via Tarot & Clairvoyant Empathy. I teach it too, which combines my passion for teaching with this long developed skill.

Some consider me lucky, but I consider myself just another person who followed his passion, helping people get clarity on where they are & what they want rather than offer predictions. 

After all, with my background in Archetypal Psychology, Quantum Physics & Deliberate Creation, I am more interested in mapping our own destiny than suffering Fate.

I hope I get to read you soon & that you find your own intuitive voice guides you as well as my own has guided me.

Blessed Be,

Rev. Mark A. Lyons, President
Drawing the Circle Productions INC.
DrawingtheCircle@aol.com
631-968-8307 @ProfWitch on Twitter
www.drawingthecircle.com

PS: For more info on how I read, check out my reading page:

http://drawingthecircle.com/rev-mark-a-lyons/readings-with-mark-a-lyons/

PPS: Add a comment if I have ever read you & what you got out of it.