Did My Chakra Just Bite Your Aura?

Tonight we attended a friend's birthday party, an event for which she hired a clairvoyant.

She apparently called several (who knew there was such a supply of local psychics?) and liked this one the best.  I would have loved to probe her more on that whole process (how do you interview a psychic?  "What number am I thinking of?" "If you're so psychic why are you hiring out for parties instead of living off your lottery & racehorse winnings?"), but I digress.

My husband rolled his eyes when he heard this.  His question would be, who is the bigger crackpot, the person giving the readings, or the person who would pay good money for it.  However, I thought it would be hoot.  And hey, it was free to us.   So, bless his heart, he gamely went along, and we let her have her way with us for 15 minutes.  She first asked if we wanted our relationship read, which we balked at, so she just spooled off some stuff about each of us as individuals.  After that, she asked again about us as a couple and we consented to hearing what she had to say about that.  We really didn't say anything, she did most of the talking.

Folks, it was interesting.  Even Mark agrees.

You could take her comments, repeat them to 100 random couples, and 95 of them would say it applied to them and was insightful.  It was, on most levels, sufficiently vague and general to apply broadly. She included stuff that wasn't exactly advice, but more along the lines of encouragement, and that too was both general and, I think, the kind of thing anyone would be wise to listen to.  Despite the language that clairvoyants use about "reading" a client, I'm sure it's not that different from authoring a self-help book.  There's an endless list of stuff you can write without knowing anything about your audience--because it applies to nearly everyone.  I think successful "psychics" may also have a legitimate talent for picking up on subtle clues and interpreting body language.

That said, I think it's fair to say that both of us were a little ....disarmed is too strong a word, but I can't drum up a better one, so....disarmed by some of what she said.  Our family faced a big change recently, (nothing we told her about though), and she said some things that really fit.  Now, maybe she's a psychic genius who deserves her own TV show and she truly read our auras.  Or, maybe she just was throwing out more general stuff to see what stuck.  It hardly matters. What's kind of neat is that it made both of us think about the situation a little differently, with more an eye for what the other person was going through.

So at the risk of sounding gullible, I have to say I felt better for having had this "reading" done.  I mean, I honestly got something out of it.  Maybe not more than I'd have gotten out of watching an Oprah episode, but still.  Go figure.

Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her if I'm going to get my butt kicked in my office's March Madness contest.