BTP78: The Reluctant Tarot Reader with Raven Mardirosian

I am so excited today to be talking with Raven Mardirosian. Raven dreamed of being a missionary, a vet, or an English teacher, and becoming a professional Tarot reader never crossed her mind.

However, she went from being a staunch, born-again Christian and promising academic to life in the woo-woo world. Since become a professional Tarot reader, and she’s authored thirteen books, and many of them include Tarot. She currently offers her gifts through Tarot and Reiki sessions, consulting, and classes on her website at ShivayaWellness.com.

I think so many of us can relate to being reluctant Tarot readers.

And if you’ve ever had that question on your mind about whether Tarot and Christianity can come together, or if they are really poles apart, Raven has certainly gone through that experience firsthand, so you’ll love to hear her perspective on how those two relate.

In this podcast episode, you’ll learn:

• How a nun at a Catholic retreat introduced Raven to the Tarot
• The intersection – and separation – of Christianity and Tarot, religion and spirituality
• Why Raven feels like the reluctant Tarot reader – despite being a successful Tarot author and teacher
• The 3 keys that make Tarot readings simple and easy to do

Additional Resources

Check out Raven Mardirosian and Shivaya Wellness

The Reluctant Tarot Reader

Learn the Five Simple Steps to Read Tarot with Confidence

Podcast Transcript

You’re listening to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, and this is Episode 78: The Reluctant Tarot Reader with Raven Mardirosian.

Welcome to the Biddy Tarot Podcast, where you’ll learn how to connect more deeply with your intuition and live an empowered and enlightened life, with the Tarot cards as your guide. Listen as Brigit and her guests share their very best tips and strategies to help you read Tarot with confidence. And now, here’s your host, Brigit Esselmont.

BRIGIT: Hello, and welcome back to the Biddy Tarot Podcast. I am so excited today to be talking with Raven Mardirosian. She’s the author of The Reluctant Tarot Reader, and also founder of Shivaya Wellness.

I’m looking forward to talking with Raven because I think so many of us can relate to being reluctant Tarot readers. We often come into Tarot not just going, “Hey, I’m going to be a Tarot reader,” but more from the sense that we carry out our normal lives and Tarot seems to worm its way in and say, “Hey, I’m over here. Come check me out.” We find ourselves completely wrapped up with Tarot.

Now, Raven dreamed of being a missionary, a vet, or an English teacher, and becoming a professional Tarot reader never crossed her mind. However, she went from being a staunch, born-again Christian and promising academic to life in the woo-woo world, but she’s since become a professional Tarot reader, and she’s authored thirteen books, and many of them include Tarot in them. She currently offers her gifts through Tarot and Reiki sessions, consulting, and classes on her website at ShivayaWellness.com.

Now, our conversation together is so enriching. I think you’re really going to enjoy it, especially if you’ve ever had that question on your mind about whether Tarot and Christianity can come together, or if they are really poles apart. Raven has certainly gone through that experience firsthand, so you’ll love to hear her perspective on how those two relate. We also talk about Tarot and how it weaves into our lives, regardless of whether we consider ourselves as Tarot readers, or if we consider ourselves more of healers or leaders, just regular people who just happen to use Tarot in our journey.

So, listen up. This is a really fabulous conversation. Let’s take it away.

The Reluctant Tarot reader with Raven Mardirosian

BRIGIT: Welcome Raven Mardirosian. I am so, super excited to have you here on the Biddy Tarot Podcast.

RAVEN: Thank you! I love being here.

BRIGIT: You’ve got a really interesting story, and I guess we all have interesting stories, but. So, you started life as a born-again Christian, is that right?

RAVEN: I did.

BRIGIT: Wow.

RAVEN: Very strict, fundamentalist, born-again Christian. My family was steeped in the church, and pretty much from birth, that was my religion.

BRIGIT: Yeah, how do you go from born-again Christian to Tarot reader and intuitive extraordinaire? How does that happen?

RAVEN: It is a long, convoluted path, that’s for sure, but the nice thing about actually having this experience is that there are so many other people who have come out of similar circumstances, whether they’re Christian or Catholic or another religion that might be more on the conservative side.

I find the path is one where healers have to find their way back to what they know, and I feel like many of us were born into Christian families because we understand that religion. More than likely either because we were persecuted by it in past lives, or were the persecutors. Part of it is the healing of the past and being in a restrictive environment so that you can actually find your freedom.

BRIGIT: Ah, that’s so interesting, yes. It’s totally the yin and yang, like when you need to have that contrast –

RAVEN: Yes.

BRIGIT: In order for the other side to flourish? Yeah, that’s really interesting. When you started to find yourself attracted to Tarot, what was the response from your family and friends who were more in that sort of born again Christian space?

RAVEN: Well, it was difficult. When growing up as a Christian, anything of the occult is considered of the devil. So, you know, I didn’t even have an interest in any of this. I was a very good Christian. I was a good Christian girl, and I really believed when the Bible said you don’t go there (even though the Bible has sorceresses and prophets), it was something I just didn’t even touch because I was so afraid of it.

What’s interesting though is that I went to Christian school through high school, and then college. In college, I fell in love with a woman. You don’t fall in love with women in Christian college. Being gay is not the way you want to go, but that was my path, and so, when I fell in love and realized that I was gay, there was a whole process with the church that they basically said, “Hey, either you change, be celibate, or you can leave.”

That actually started me on the path because I said, “Well, this is who I am and I really have to figure out what that means when I leave my community.” That was difficult, but once I left my community, I was on the path of self knowledge and trying to find my identity beyond the church.

I still had that urging for connection to God, but I had a lot of things I needed to filter in and filter out with my experience because when you’re a born again Christian it really is a very steep indoctrination. It’s almost untying all the things you learned and figuring out who you are beyond them.

Long story short, I was 28, and my twenties were a perpetual breakup basically. I was always figuring out my life, and I was depressed, and I went to a Catholic retreat. Very peaceful, but I was just stressed, and I didn’t know what was happening in my life. A nun came up to me and handed me what looked like a deck of playing cards, and I was hanging out by the lake, just all depressed and mopey, and she said, “Why don’t you go back to your cabin and play with these?”

I looked down and I saw that it was the Mother Peace Tarot Deck. I was like, “Why is this nun handing me a Tarot? What is this?” The Mother Peace is the circular deck, so it didn’t even look like anything I was used to with the Tarot. It was such an odd thing, and I thought somewhere in the back of my brain, I was like, “Maybe this is OK with God.”

I went back to my cabin and started to play with them and read the book and do what we do. You pull the card out and read the book. That was really my first foray into the world of the occult.

BRIGIT: Yeah.

RAVEN: Through a nun.

BRIGIT: Fascinating.

RAVEN: Thank you, nun. The original healers, you know?

BRIGIT: I could already see a BuzzFeed headline, “How a Nun Introduced…”

RAVEN: And I always say nuns have a great poker face, you know? They just kind of do it like, “Yeah, whatever, you want to do it, you don’t want to do it, no problem.” But they know what they’re up to. They know what they’re doing.

BRIGIT: So clever. Wonderful. And then, as you got more into Tarot, did you… I’m curious, do you think you can still be a good, devout Christian and a Tarot reader or someone who engages with Tarot?

RAVEN: Not in the religion that I was in. You have to understand that there are different denominations of Christianity. The denomination that I was in was a conservative, evangelical denomination. There are what are considered liberal denominations. If you’re in a more conservative denomination, the two cannot meet. It just is against the Bible because if you believe the Bible, you believe the Bible. It’s a literal word of God in those circles. The Tarot is the complete antithesis of that. I think it would be very difficult to remain in that type of Christianity and try to be a reader.

If you wanted to retain some type of Christian shapes, I would think that you would want to go to a more liberal church, like a Unity Church or a Congregational Church. – something that would be more accepting. Generally, it’s a very parallel path with Tarot and the LGBT community. If you have a church that’s accepting of the LGBT community, generally they’re going to be accepting of things like the Tarot or reiki, but I don’t think you can – you can bring the two together in the church that I was in.

BRIGIT: Yeah, I see. Even these days, do you feel that you still retain some of your Christian beliefs but from more of a liberal perspective?

RAVEN: I do, but I don’t consider myself a Christian, and I think it’s important to make that distinction because I do respect Christianity and the tenants of Christianity, Christ-consciousness, and the things that Jesus taught, but I don’t adhere to the policies and the Christianity that I held to. I do respect though, and the older I get, and the more I come to a forgiving place…

I was very hurt by the church, you know? Being rejected by what was considered my family for me trying to live my truth was very hurtful and confusing to me. It took a long time to unpack that, but as I get older, I try to come from a different place, a place of understanding, because I do believe that we come into this life with a soul purpose, and one of my things was growing up in a very strict environment. I put myself in that position.

I think that they taught me important lessons, which is the power of community, to have faith in the unseen, and honestly being such a sensitive child, I didn’t know where to put that, so actually, that was a great outlet for me, to connect to my sensitivity. I just channelled it through belief in Christ, but I was still believing in the unseen world.

BRIGIT: Yeah, I think that many people will be able to relate to your journey, and certain aspects of your journey because I’m always so blown away by the amount of people who have been through this Christian upbringing and then come to get to know Tarot and have these questions around how do the two blend together. Do they, or are they two separate things?

What I often say is when people are starting to engage with Tarot, and then more with their spirituality, they’re taking aspects of Christianity but applying it in new and different ways. I guess that’s perhaps even the difference between religion and spirituality as well, where there’s more freedom and flexibility around what you believe.

RAVEN: It’s true, and I totally agree with you, and I love that discussion of how do religion and spirituality come together and how are they opposed. I do believe that many of the healers that are out there now, who want to be involved in the Christian church in ways that I don’t want to be anymore, have the capacity to bring an element of healing and understanding into the church, because it’s almost like you’re going back to the place of oppression. If you imagine all the witches that were burned at the stake, all the people who were persecuted for their beliefs, they’re still putting themselves back in the same arena. It’s like, “Well, here we are again in 2017 like nobody actually died. Here we are, back again.”

BRIGIT: Yeah.

RAVEN: What do we do now? How do we understand each other now from this perspective because you can’t actually burn me at the stake, so where can we meet in this place of understanding? For people like me, I actually have to step away from the church completely because it does not work with my belief system. The church that I came out of rejected the power of women and rejected women as equal creatures in the eyes of God, so I had to walk away not just because of the occult aspect, but also my sexuality and my power as a woman. It was sort of a multi-layered reason.

BRIGIT: Yeah, it must be disheartening in some ways because, as you said before, I think there’s a lot about the Christian belief system that is really beautiful and meaningful, and it’s a pity that you’re pushed into a place where you have to make a choice. You’re either all in or you’re all out.

RAVEN: Right.

BRIGIT: There’s nothing in between.

RAVEN: It would have been easier if I hadn’t come out of the closet. You know, being gay was such a harsh reality for Christians, and they’re just like, “Nope, you’re not allowed here.” If you come in as someone who’s a little more under the radar, it’s easier to be in that community if you desire.

I also think that our challenge is to learn how to speak our truths and to really understand who we are and what our spiritual mission is. We all have to discover that on our own. The Tarot is such a wonderful guide in that mission because nobody can really tell you what that is. What we do as healers and readers is just to say, “Here are some possibilities, here’s where your strengths are, here’s where your challenges are,” and to be able to sort of light the path a little bit.

BRIGIT: Yeah, and ultimately bringing the individual back into connection and alignment with their inner truth.

RAVEN: Right.

BRIGIT: I think for me, I see the power of Tarot happens when it’s not the reader saying, “Do this, do that, this thing is going to happen,” and so on. The power happens when the client is like, “All the pieces of the puzzle are coming together, and now I see where I can have influence, and where I can change things for the better.”

RAVEN: Right, because if a Tarot reader is just telling you what to do, it’s the same thing as sitting in a pew and listening to pastors telling me what to do. It takes a lot of bravery and courage to say, “I am the one who tells me what to do.”

BRIGIT: Yes.

RAVEN: I am the power. Instead of fighting the power, I am the power. And to embrace that, especially as women. I can’t tell you how many people come to me in readings who are either in the church – pastors, people like that – who say to me, “Well, you know, I really don’t believe in this, but can you not tell anybody that I’m here?” And then they come, and they have a reading because they had that same yearning. I believe that connection is to their own self, to their own parts of themselves that they’ve ignored or just have a hard time accepting, which is really our sensitivity and our gifts of intuition and insight.

BRIGIT: Yeah, absolutely. How are you using Tarot now, both in your personal life and as a professional?

RAVEN: Well, I’ve been reading the cards now for about 13 years, which is incredible to me because I never expected to be a reader. I have a master’s in English and thought that I was going to be a professor. I had my whole life planned out, and it was like, “Nope, that’s not happening.”

What’s interesting about the Tarot was that it allows me to do everything that I actually wanted to do. I wanted to be a missionary, right? Now I’m someone who’s actually enthusiastic about teaching the Tarot. I wanted to be a teacher. I taught in English. I was a public school English teacher, and now I teach the Tarot. I wanted to be a writer. I’ve written thirteen books, most of them about being a healer and reading the Tarot. Tarot has allowed me to have the experience of fulfilment. Instead of “It needs to go in this direction,” it was like, “Nope, you’re going to fulfil everything that you want to do, but it’s going to be through the Tarot.”

I actually use it in my own personal readings, Tarot. Most days, I throw readings for myself. I also use other tools of divination, like runestones, I-Ching, pendulum, just to keep things fresh.

I have a regular schedule of clients. I’m branching out more into webinars and products and more books, just to put myself out there because I don’t want to be just seen as a Tarot reader because there are so many more things that I have to offer the world, and Tarot is just one of those tools.

BRIGIT: Yeah, and I’m just kind of thinking about this more and more… I think often the thing that we see are the Tarot cards, and a lot of the conversation ends up being around Tarot. You’re a Tarot reader; I read professional Tarot. Tarot everything, right?

RAVEN: Right.

BRIGIT: But really, Tarot is kind of the tip of the iceberg. It’s the thing that you can see, and yet there’s this amazing stuff that all sits underneath it, and that’s actually what’s going on. It’s the connecting to your inner wisdom. It’s connecting to your power source. Once again, it’s about trusting your gut and your intuition, and all of these amazing things that we can’t really put words around. We can’t make it a thing because we can’t see it, so we actually start talking about the Tarot because that’s the thing that we can see.

RAVEN: Right.

BRIGIT: And I wonder if that’s… I have the same sort of hesitation. I don’t like saying, “Hey, I’m Brigit, and I’m a Tarot reader.” That doesn’t feel like what I really do. I feel like there’s something more that we may not have the words yet to really put around what that magic stuff is.

RAVEN: Right. I do believe that there are many people out there who are strictly Tarot readers and Tarot masters, Mary Greer, all of the teachers out there and I respect them, but I find that the terms for myself are limiting. And understanding my past, I don’t want to be limited by any term. It really is sort of part of me and my own healing as I go along the path.

I’d like to consider myself a spiritual guide or a spiritual teacher because that allows more people to come to me who perhaps are put off by the Tarot, or fear the Tarot, or don’t understand the Tarot.

I still use it in readings, but what’s interesting about my process after 13 years… And I don’t know if you’ve found this to be the case, but when I first started out, you know, I did what everybody does. You know, I get the book, I pull the card, I learn from other people, and I practice and practice and practice, and then when I get to a certain level of proficiency, I go on my own, I learn more complicated spreads, I do those in readings.

But now, at this point in my journey, I literally have simplified to the point where I’m using three cards in the reading. That’s it. Three cards.

BRIGIT: Yeah.

RAVEN: Situation, challenge, outcome, and then we sort of branch off from there. It’s very simple, and that’s the beauty of doing this for the time that I’ve been involved in it is. The more I connect with the Tarot, the quicker and easier it is to connect with my person because we’re both in that energy and vibration of what the cards are just reflecting.

I love getting to that level of trust. As readers, we think, “How can I get people to trust me? They’re going to think I’m a fraud. How can I trust what I say? I don’t know if the right thing’s going to come out.” But I guarantee you that if you continue, and you learn, and you continue to go and get schooled with other teachers, you’ll get to that level of proficiency where it’s just such a gift. The simplicity of it.

BRIGIT: Yeah, it’s resonating so much with what you’re saying. I have not really thought about it in that way, but that’s very true of my own journey as well, those first few years of trying to master things, you know? I like to master stuff and get really, really good at it.

My head is saying, “OK the way to master things: memorise the card meanings, make sure you know all the most complicated spreads possible, and all this crazy stuff, and then, yes, I've mastered it. And then you go “No, actually, I haven’t really. What I need to do now is just step right back,” and now that’s when my intuition can come through and just trust the process.

What I’m saying is just what you have – it’s the simplification that comes with that. Yeah, one, two or three cards, boom. You’ve got a whole story in front of you.

RAVEN: Yes.

BRIGIT: You don’t need to go overcomplicate it with those fancy spreads and all these symbolic connections that have all these historic traditions. You just read the story. You just get into the fabric that’s in between the cards. It’s not even what the cards are saying; it’s the stuff that’s happening all in the in between in the void.

RAVEN: Right. It’s just the vibration that you’re connecting with your client.

BRIGIT: Yes.

RAVEN: It really is the mingling, the vibration, what you’re learning from each other because you’re learning just as much from your client as your client is from you. It’s having that trust with each other and really healing each other with that vibration. The cards are just the introduction, the gateway, and they provide the imagery, which I love as an English teacher and an artist. That’s the reason why Tarot came down the path with me. It could just as easily have been the I-Ching or something else. I’m basically challenging my gifts through the Tarot.

I love that the imagery can strike so many things in us, the archetypal situations and pains and commonality that we have. I respect the Tarot so much in that regard. I always tell my beginner readers when I teach them, “Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be, and don’t try to impress your client because sometimes throwing out a lot of cards out on the table is very intimidating to a client.”

RAVEN: It really is the mingling, the vibration, what you’re learning from each other because you’re learning just as much from your client as your client is from you. It’s having that trust with each other and really healing each other with that vibration. The cards are just the introduction, the gateway, and they provide the imagery, which I love as an English teacher and an artist. That’s the reason why Tarot came down the path with me. It could just as easily have been the I-Ching or something else. I’m basically challenging my gifts through the Tarot.

I love that the imagery can strike so many things in us, the archetypal situations and pains and commonality that we have. I respect the Tarot so much in that regard. I always tell my beginner readers when I teach them, “Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be, and don’t try to impress your client because sometimes throwing out a lot of cards out on the table is very intimidating to a client.”

Clients want three very simple things. They want to be heard, seen, and they want to get hope. They want to feel hope. If you can do those things for your client, you’ll be successful as a reader.

BRIGIT: Perfect. Tell me – you’ve written this book, The Reluctant Tarot Reader.

RAVEN: Yes.

BRIGIT: I get the sense of where that might be coming from.  Tell me about what’s been the inspiration for this particular book. How did it come about?

RAVEN: Well, it was my first book. When self-publishing started to come out back in 2011, I thought, “Oh, this is my chance to get my book out there.” What I did is I basically took all of my blog posts and things I had written about Tarot, edited them, added more, and put it into a book. The way I shape the book, it’s like the Tarot decks. There are 78 stories, broken into four vignettes based on the suits, and every one of them has a story that links to that.

I want people when they read the book to feel like, first of all, they’re not alone in their journey, especially if they’re gay, or if they come out of a religious environment. I want them to see that, yes, I was reluctant. I did not want to be a Tarot reader. This is the last thing I ever thought I would be doing, but there’s the gift beyond that doubt, and I want them to have a feeling of hope, and be able to come out of the metaphysical closet just like I did, because the world more than ever needs her healers. She needs people who are there to help transmute pain and give people hope. The Reluctant Tarot Reader is really my memoir of how I kind of got into this world and emerged out of the metaphysical closet.

I’ve written several other books, which are mainly self-help books and affirmations, but I’ve written three distinct memoirs about being a Tarot reader and a healer. The Reluctant Tarot Reader was the first that really sort of concentrates on my coming out of the closet, sexually and metaphysically, and how I became a reader.

The second one is called Just Another Crazy Cat Lady Story because I love animals. My cats really have been my soul teachers, and I weave in even more of how Tarot has supported me on my journey.

Then, my most recent book, which came out about a year and a half ago is called Home: Thoughts on Belonging. Home really goes into more of a personal journey from my family being adopted, coming into this Christian family, and finding my way into compassion and love for myself as I really figure out who I am in this world. I took a lot of journeys around America in my twenties and my thirties, trying to find home. It’s interesting – Home is the one that doesn’t have much about the Tarot, but it really shows you why I approached the Tarot, or why the Tarot found me, because it’s a sense of belonging with your gift.

BRIGIT: Yeah. Yeah, I see. And home is really within yourself, right?

RAVEN: Yes. Yes.

BRIGIT: You were home, or already home.

RAVEN: And I think part of it, yeah.

BRIGIT: Tarot is what brings you home. That’s one tool of doing that, yeah.

RAVEN: Well, it’s a great tool for healing if you allow it to be, and I think it’s magical, yes, but it’s also very healing and very supportive.

That’s what we need because as people – women, men, humanity – we’re trying to bring back these disparate parts of ourselves, and we know on a soul level why we’re here, what we’re doing. But as a human, we screw it all up because we forget, or we have all these other things or wounds or traumas, and we’re trying to bring all that back together so that we can fulfil our spiritual mission.

It’s a wondrous and courageous thing that we all do every day, and from the thousands of clients that I’ve worked with, I am so inspired that people can actually get up in the morning and be functional. It’s like, how do we do this every day? But we do it. We do it.

BRIGIT: Yeah. Yeah, wonderful. And so, with the book The Reluctant Tarot Reader, how did you come across folks who’ve read this book and perhaps connected it with something new and inspiring within themselves? Do you have any stories that you might be able to share?

RAVEN: I have lots of people who have read it, who have emailed me and said, “Thank you so much because you’re talking about my story.” It isn’t even so much the lesbian and gay aspect. It’s more so I know I am a healer. I know I’m a reader. I know I have the sensitivity, and finally, I can figure out that I can bring it into the world and feel comfortable with it.

It’s more so just accepting who they are, and I love hearing stories like that from clients, especially when they came out of a background of religion, or they have a partner who doesn’t understand them. I just get so many of those stories, and as a writer, sometimes it’s so isolating because you think, “Well, who’s really reading this stuff?”

But people really do resonate with my story, and I don’t have one particular story in mind because they all sort of blend into this feeling of “Thank you for helping me accept myself. Thank you for helping me and giving me hope that I can do this, and that I’m not a freak.”

BRIGIT: Yeah.

RAVEN: I always say, “You’re a weirdo like me, but I love you, and I see you.”

BRIGIT: Yes. Yeah, and they need that. I think even for myself… I mean, I’ve been doing this for twenty years now, and in my full-time work for four. But even these days I still just every now and then get a little funny, niggly doubt in my mind –

RAVEN: Sure.

BRIGIT: Even just say you’re presenting yourself to someone new, you’re introducing yourself, and they ask you, “What do you do?” And you’re like, “Aw man, how am I going to put this?” And you just think, “Surely after twenty years, I would be over this.”  I could be like really in my power, like, “Come on Brigit! Just do it.” I still have weird stuff going on. I think like everyone who’s engaging in Tarot can probably relate to that feeling of fear and self-doubt, and the stories that you share are incredibly important in helping us alleviate some of that fear and doubt.

RAVEN: Right, and you can be exactly who you are.

You don’t have to fit any stereotype, you don’t have to look a certain way, act a certain way, I think people take on this mantle of, “This is what a spiritual person looks like,” and that’s part of my book because it’s like, “Let me show you what a spiritual person looks like – road rage, cursing, self-doubt. Also, greatly magical thinking and wonderful manifestation,” but I really try to show myself in a real and honest way as much as I can because I saw a lot of hypocrisy in the church. I saw how people try to put on a brave face.

And I feel like the more we can accept who we are in our uniqueness, and really be able to say, “This is exactly who I am, and I love myself, even the parts that are very difficult…”

And I totally get that whole thing of hiding, because we still have – even though you turn on the TV, you know, everybody’s a medium. Every detective is psychic. It’s like every show is about seeing the other dimensions, but in reality, in the life that we walk in, there are still people who say to me, “Oh, I’m praying for you, Raven. I’m praying for you. I know that this is not right with God.”

And my family does not accept what I do – let me just make that clear. I didn’t really make that clear earlier. We don’t talk about this in my family. The most we talk about is that I’m a reiki healer. Somehow that’s palatable. But Tarot? Oh no. We don’t go there at all. I can understand your hesitation because there is still that feeling of, “Not only would I be seen as an outsider and be rejected, but I will also be in danger.”

And that is very real and present in this – even in 2017.

BRIGIT: Yeah. Yeah, because I’m a strong believer that’s in our DNA because of what happened hundreds of years ago.

RAVEN: Right.

BRIGIT: And what happens when you speak up and stand, be firm in your beliefs, you can be burned at the stake, as we know it. Yeah, it’s really, really interesting. I think there is a lot of misconception because of what’s in the media. I was even just talking with a few people the other week, and I said, “Oh, I read Tarot cards.” You know, I was just being a little cheeky. Sometimes I just get straight up. “That’s what I do.” And they’re like, “Oh yeah, my ex-girlfriend used to do cards on me, and she’d try and tell me the future and stuff.” I’d say, “Hey, look at that over there!”

RAVEN: I always say, “What future? The next minute, the next five minutes, the next year, the next month?” What’s really brought a lot of freedom into my own practice is to realise that I can’t prove any of this, and I’m not here to prove or convince anybody anything. They don’t want to believe in this, that’s fine by me. It does not matter.

As a Christian, I was always trying to convince people of a belief system and that they needed to be saved, right? As Raven in 2017, I’m like, “You don’t want to believe what I do? Fine. Some days I don’t believe what I do.” So it’s OK because I love to share this story.

This woman was complaining about her husband not being interested in spiritual stuff. And she’s having this big awakening, right? And she goes to her counsellor or a psychic and says, “Oh, why can’t my husband be on the same path as me. What’s wrong with him? How can I pull him with me to get him to be on the same path with me?” And the psychic looks at her and she goes, “Honey, your husband is an ascended master. He’s just sitting on the couch in this lifetime to take a break. He’s just here to support you.”

BRIGIT: I love it.

RAVEN: That is such a great story to remind yourself of spirituality.

BRIGIT: Yeah. Good, excellent. So, Raven, what’s next for you? What’s coming out in 2017 that you’re excited about?

RAVEN: As much as things have changed in America, I’m really excited about how things are getting energised here.  Healers are really coming into more of their power, so what I’m doing is I’m connecting with a whole new group of people. I’m actually going down into the New York/Jersey area and connecting with a whole bunch of healers down there and doing workshops and events. I normally go out to the Northwest. I love Portland, and I love Seattle and doing events out there, but I’m really concentrating on my own backyard. Then eventually I want to go down to California and do a whole tour there and meet with people in different stores and wellness centres.

It’s funny, a psychic just said this to me a couple weeks ago, “Every person you meet this year, you’re going to know from a past life. Every person.” And I’m like, “Wow, I’m going to meet a lot of people and be like, hi again, hi again.” But I’m already feeling that. It’s like people say to me, “Oh, you look so familiar, I know I need to get a reading from you.” I’m really going with that energy of connection. I was part of the women’s march on Saturday in Vermont. I’m feeling that really strong sense of connection. You know, people want to connect, and as healers, we have such prime opportunity to be a part of that. And when I say healers it’s all encompassing: readers, psychics, reiki healers, whatever. Because this is the time. This is the time.

BRIGIT: Beautiful. Oh, such a beautiful way to wrap things up. Where can people find out more about you?

RAVEN: Well, my central location online is ShivayaWellness.com, and that’s where you can find out all my information. All of my books are on Amazon under Raven Mardirosian, so you can get The Reluctant Tarot Reader and all my other books there. I’m also on Instagram (which I love), LinkedIn, GoodReads… You can pretty much find me everywhere online.

BRIGIT: Beautiful.

RAVEN: So, website would be the main place.

BRIGIT: Excellent, and we will post all of those links on the show notes, which you’ll find over at BiddyTarot.com/78, and yes, you got number seventy-eight, very fitting.

RAVEN: Yay!

BRIGIT: Thank you so much, Raven. I really enjoyed our conversation today, and I think we’ve hit on a number of points that will really ring very true in date for many people, so thank you so much for today. I really appreciate it.

RAVEN: Awesome. Thank you, Brigit.

BRIGIT: There you have it. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Raven as much as I did. Remember to pop on over to BiddyTarot.com/78, and you can get access to Raven’s books and her websites, where you can find out more about her. If you’re interested in connecting with Raven, check out the events on her page as well. She is running some really wonderful connection points with like-minded individuals. It makes me wish I was over in the U.S.  Thank you once again for listening today, and I can’t wait to connect with you again very, very soon. Bye for now.

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