Chapter 3

Earth: A Reading
to Shelter You

You hear a lot about being grounded in the energetic sense but might not have any idea what that means. Essentially, being grounded in your body is being wholly present and in your skin. The element of earth is the essence of being grounded, and your home is a huge part of feeling safe and grounded. Finances are also reflected in this element, compounding that feeling of safety and security. One of the most notable things about the earth element is that if you are secure in the present and in your home, it doesn’t matter, really, what happens outside of that space. If your family is going through a tough time but you’ve got a couch that’s just perfect for snuggling, you have a home-field advantage. If you’re going through emotional turmoil, pulling up your Doctor Who blanket and reaching over, then knowing exactly where the light switch is by touch can help you settle down. When you feel at peace in your home, things outside of you don’t have as much power to shake you up.

Instead of living in the future with anxiety or staring into the past, you are truly grounded when you are right here, right now.

Earth

earth

Home

Financially, when you have a certain amount of money in the bank, you can relax. If the water heater breaks or the car overheats, you won’t have that moment of panic and can just take care of it like a grown-up. I’ve found that in my own life and in the lives of my clients, there is always a number that someone can think of that will make them feel at ease. If you have that number in savings, it releases the anxiety that debt can cause. It lends that same grounded energy to your life.

Safety, security, and peace of mind—these are the goals of the earth reading.

First things first: if you don’t like or feel comfortable in your home, it’s going to be difficult for you to deal with the rest of your life. A few years ago, I met one of my clients at her new house. We got there at the same time and I followed her in. She tossed her keys toward a table and fell short. Dammit. She couldn’t find a pen at first. She couldn’t find a notepad and got cranky about it. It had been four months since she gotten the house, and she still hadn’t finished unpacking. All her stuff was present, but everything wasn’t in its home. It made her homecoming uneven and annoying. Not impossible, but difficult. There is something about coming home and feeling at peace that helps you deal with the stress of the day.

As a society, many of us are far removed from living off the land. Now we live on it. Even though I’m a Pagan, honestly, I’m a terrible one. I have allergies, I hate bugs, and the heat makes my asthma crazy. I swear, I’ve looked at the full moon more out of my kitchen window than I’ve seen it outside. My idea of “roughing it” is no restaurant in the hotel. Nightmare. I do have friends who go camping on purpose, so I know that there are others like them. They feel both free in and connected to the outdoors, and they strive to bring that energy into their homes. I think that we’re all looking for that feeling of having a nest. A sanctuary where everything makes sense.

I feel connected to the earth in my home. It took a while to get where I wanted to be, but after a few moves and life changes, I’ve reached a place in my life where I can navigate my kitchen without turning the lights on. I have artwork that I love on the wall and little collections and tchotchkes around the house that make me feel better every time I see them. I feel comfortable walking around in my underwear and eating leftovers at 3 a.m. My kids and my partner feel a sense of ease when they get here. Our house isn’t perfect, by any means, but it feels perfect to us. We don’t have a lot of money or really nice stuff, but it’s ours. I always remember my dad saying when I was a kid, “It might not be fancy, but it’s ours, and we’re going to take care of it.” Regardless if you have 600 square feet or 6,000, building a nest in which you feel safe is paramount to peace of mind.

When I do readings for people who are not at home in their house, I can pick up on that discomfort. They’ve inherited furniture that’s stacked in the basement. They haven’t gotten rid of their kids’ outgrown clothing (or their own). All over their house, you’ll find things that take up square footage without paying rent. This is a problem. I don’t know a lot about feng shui or how energy works in homes, but I do know that if your home is filled with things that don’t matter, there is less space for those things and people who do.

Another problem turns up if they’ve gotten a divorce and have a big, empty house that doesn’t suit them anymore. Or they got a divorce and realized that their house never really matched them. When I was divorced, it was difficult for me to be alone in my own house. My kids were spending time at their dad’s house, and he was gone, too. I remember walking around the empty house sobbing. Even though the house was technically mine, it didn’t feel like it. It felt like the house that I used to own with my husband. It held arguments and sadness. It held the heartbreak of realizing that he wasn’t my person anymore. That maybe I didn’t have a person. It was quiet, lonely, and alien. I hated to be home without my kids.

It took me a while to pull my head up and look around. Do you know what I saw? White walls. No bookshelves upstairs. It was really stark, and I’m a person who dances in bright colors. I saved up and hired a fella to paint every room in my house. My house. The living room was bright orange and soft yellow. Green bathroom, peacock master bath, pink and purple for the Girl Child’s room, and green and yellow for the Boy Child’s room. I bought a beautiful comforter made of recycled saris for my bedroom and painted the walls light brown and avocado. The basement? Sky blue!

Just this simple thing—adding color—made this my house. Mine. I added bookshelves in nearly every room and filled them up, creating the library I’d always wanted. After I was finished, I felt good. I liked coming home and I loved feeling that I had a nest. A home instead of a house. This wasn’t as expensive as new cabinets, flooring, or siding. It was affordable and made such a huge difference to me. It helped me realize that the more my home reflected who I was, the more comfortable I would feel in it. I never quite thought about that before.

I also feel better when my house is clean. Call it compulsive, but I can’t think clearly in a dirty house. I just keep thinking about the mess and how it’s just sitting there … mocking me. (I literally just got up to put dishes in the dishwasher because writing about it reminded me and bothered me so much.) I’m sure this is a leftover impulse from my childhood, but knowing that the sinks are empty and the floor is swept makes me sleep better.

Another thing that I do as medicine for my home is use candles and incense. And before you give me any trouble about cultural appropriation for using sage or smudge sticks, please recognize two things. One, I am a descendant of Elsie Lake, who was Native American, likely Seneca. Two, so many spiritual practices use smoke to clear energies that it’s commonplace outside of the traditions of Native American peoples. Actually, I literally can’t think of a spiritual practice that doesn’t rely on incense, candles, censers, or even charcoal to realign energies and provide focus. Even in the Catholic church in which I grew up, the priest used smoke in ritual to gain attention at sacred times and candles to carry intent. As long as someone isn’t wandering around with a sacred symbol on the back of their phone or calling what they do an “authentic smudging ceremony” when it’s actually them walking around with a sage and cedar stick they got off of Amazon, asking all evil spirits to get the hell out of their apartment, I don’t care.

Using smoke and candles to clean the energy in your home is a really old and really easy tradition. You can find ethically sourced sage bundles online or grow your own. You can pick up incense almost anywhere. Think of these tools as energy erasers. They can cancel out any lingering energy. I’ve outlined a way to clean your house energetically later in this chapter.

I often read for people whose lives have changed in many ways. They’re empty-nesters, their relationship has changed, they have moved out of their folks’ house or are home from college. Their lives have changed, but their homes haven’t changed to reflect it. One of my best friends is sending his second kid off to college, and the first thing he and his wife did was sell their big house. He’s one of the most centered fellas I know, and he doesn’t like unnecessary things in his home. He and his wife decided that they had excess house and found a much smaller place out in the woods where the kids still had rooms, but it wouldn’t feel as empty after they went back to school. Brilliant. Now they have a forever home, and they’re not even close to retirement yet.

I’ve had clients who have moved into apartments after living in a house. Who have inherited all of their Great Aunt Ida’s china and had no room for it. Who have never let go of a magazine or a plastic butter dish (because you never know) in their entire life. I understand this impulse. My family is blue collar all the way. Farmers and police officers and nurses. I understand not releasing things, because they can build a wall of security. The problem comes up when the stuff has no value—not to you, not to a collector. If it has no value, it becomes burdensome.

This reading can find that you need to move, declutter, or even just add some paint. If you are happy in your home, I’m happy to tell you that there are four other readings for you in this book! And way to go—that’s not easy. If you can’t feel at peace in your home, it’s difficult to feel at peace in any other part of your life. We long for home. We sing songs about it. Our hearts live there and our families connect there. If our home is lacking, our life is, too.

As far as the financial problems that can come up and make everything unsettled, this reading will work as well. Just shift your question and thinking to financial security instead of your home. Also, I’ve put in some tips at the end of this chapter for financial stability that might help out.

Earth Reading

The tarot reading for this element is going to break down the ways in which you already feel secure in your life, the places that could use a little fine-tuning, and the tools that you have available to make changes. We’ll also look at what’s standing in your way.

figure 2

Cards 1, 2, and 3: What can
you hold on to?

Cards 4, 5, and 6: What can pull
you forward?

Card 7: What gets in your way?

Earth Reading Example #1: Ryan

Ryan is a buddy of mine who is happily married to his partner of a billion years and is daddy to two toddlers. He has a busy career and a full life and is looking for some assurance in his life. With two toddlers, who can blame him?

Card 1: The Ace of Cups

What can you hold on to?

Your cup runneth over with blessings. Be sure to be grateful. Happiness is afoot. Blessings abound. Accept them, acknowledge them, and say thank you. The universe conspires to shower you with blessings. Let it. If you’re not in a place to say thank you, start with “at least.” At least you have power. At least you woke up today. If things are solid, kick into the thank yous. Thank you for the little things and the big things, too.

One of the things that is in Ryan’s favor is a full heart. He and his husband have a beautiful family and have made a lot of changes in their home to help it expand as the kiddos came along. He regularly has friends and family over to build that feeling of home, and everyone feels comfortable in his home. He and his partner have decorated in a way that lightens their spirits and that makes coming home a joy. You can feel the love in this home.

Card 2: The Hanged Man

What can you hold on to?

Sometimes, you need to unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth, relax all your muscles, and just be. You will not dissolve if you aren’t moving forward for a few minutes. Take a beat. Catch your breath. Take time to assess the entire situation. Even though we are seeking opportunities, opportunity is seeking us, as well. Sometimes our job is to remain still and calm so that when it finds us, we are ready.

Ryan used to feel as if his house had to be clean all the time. He felt that it was a reflection of who he was as a person if the kitchen needed sweeping. You know what, though? He found that he would rather play Legos with his daughter or color with his son than sweep the floor. He has shifted his personal values so that even though the house is clean, it’s not spotless. Parenthood can be defined by long days and short years. He knows that if he doesn’t live in the present and spend as much time with his littles as possible, he’s going to miss something truly amazing. He can clean the house tomorrow.

Card 3: Strength

What can you hold on to?

Strength takes many forms. Figure out what yours is and feed it. You have reserves you might not be aware of. Use your strengths—compassion, kindness, humor, resting bitch face, active bitch face. Use your gifts to remain strong—whatever that means for you. Sometimes it means sitting still until you can stand up under your own power. Sometimes it means faking it till you’re making it. Sometimes it means saying no and making that a complete sentence. No.

Ryan loves his house, and although he knows there are a few problems, there is no urgency to make a major change. He is content in his home. He feels supported by his husband and by knowing that they are financially secure. His strength comes from his family support, his financial security, and knowing that he’s been through harder times. He’s also become more reflective and less reactive as he’s gotten older, making his decisions more logical and less emotional.

Card 4: Five of Pentacles

What can pull you forward?

Shelter and sanctuary exist, but you have to look for them. If you keep your head down, you’ll miss all the good stuff. Sometimes you get pulled so far into your own darkness that you miss the lights shining near you. Sanctuary is available. You are not alone. Stop walking into the unknown and find your resources. It’s going to be okay, but you have to let it be okay.

One of the tools that Ryan needs to move forward is a clear budget to make sure he’s pointed in the right direction for home improvement. This can be solved by hanging out with a contractor for an afternoon and getting a handful of estimates. Rather than waiting for something to go wrong, he can upgrade his house as his budget allows. He should ask for help before he needs it.

Card 5: Page of Cups

What can pull you forward?

The pages are messengers, and the Page of Cups brings good news! Romance, sweetness, and emotional availability. It’s called a crush for a reason. Whether it’s a piece of music or a book or a person, whatever makes your heart leap out of your chest is found here. Now, is it going to be forever? Probably not, but it’s going to be a hell of a ride.

Ryan and his family really love their home. You can feel it when you walk in the door. It makes you feel immediately comfortable. This is an energy that he can encourage by removing clutter and making sure that the items in his home are as beloved as the people who live there. The Page of Cups in this position encourages him to treat his home like the sanctuary it is.

Card 6: The Moon

What can pull you forward?

Sometimes you should be afraid. Be sure to get a mental health check and make sure your depression/anxiety isn’t lying to you. Walk your path carefully because you are not in charge right now. Listen to your intuition. You can be a warrior when you’re strong again. I promise.

Ryan has some anxieties that keep him from really relaxing. Whether it’s because he’s had financial issues in the past or because he’s hyper-protective of his children, there is some anxiety there. The best way to beat back this anxiety is to solve your worries. If he is worried about money, he needs to ask a financial advisor how much he should have in savings and then work his tail off to get that number in the bank. Then relax. Don’t just stress—worrying about something without doing anything about the source of your worry just eats your life.

Card 7: The Wheel of Fortune

What gets in your way?

Either you’ll ride the top of the wheel or go to the shadow side for a while. Remember that you’re in charge of how you behave regardless of where the wheel takes you. There is power in knowing where you stand. There is value in all these positions. The only constant is change, so if you’re being smushed into puddin’ by life right now, wait till you feel the weight to start to lift and scramble to get back on top.

Ryan has already expanded his home to hold his larger family. His biggest problem is realizing when his family changes in smaller ways and adjusting for that. When the kids have grown out of diapers, get rid of the changing table (even though that’s where you stack the laundry). When the kids (or their dads) stop playing with certain toys, get rid of them! He needs to make space for the people they’re becoming.

Summary

In summary, Ryan is doing okay with his home but can take little steps to be sure that it stays the warm, loving environment he and his husband have created. By staying ahead of the clutter, doing scheduled maintenance, and actively seeking calm and comfortable vibes in his house, he can count on his children growing up in a nurturing and safe environment.

Earth Reading Example #2: Debbie

My friend Debbie is a small-business owner with her husband. They have an awesome son and a really old, lovely home. She’s a mama to not only her kiddo but also to most of her friends and her community. She’s got two full-time jobs and reads tarot when she can.

the chariot

Card 1: The Chariot

What can you hold on to?

Use your drive and devotion to get out of the rut. You’ve got stuff to do. Remember that you’re in charge of you. Move forward. Don’t stop. The two steeds in front of the chariot will do what you ask, but you have to ask. Otherwise, they’ll just start wandering down the paths of habit and take you where you’ve already been. It’s important to focus on the destination and then do everything you can to pull yourself in that direction.

Debbie’s house is the spiritual home of her family and pretty much anyone who walks into it. It motivates folks and helps them feel stronger. You know that house in your childhood neighborhood that you just walked into without knocking, and you got cookies out of the jar and took the trash out without being asked? That’s this house. It makes her people and community stronger.

Card 2: Eight of Cups Reversed

What can you hold on to?

You know that thing when you get really angry at work and start planning out exactly what you’ll be wearing when you quit and exactly what you’ll say and ALL their jaws will drop and you will walk out like Angela Bassett’s character walking away from her husband’s flaming car in Waiting to Exhale? Yeah, don’t let that be a real thing. If you’re unhappy, take a second to make sure that you actually want to leave the situation and aren’t just really pissed off.

The energy in this house is like a fountain. People come here to be refreshed and bring their good vibes along with them. They come when they’re stressed or scared, and they feel stronger for walking through the door. The energy is an extension of the happy family that lives here and the strong magic that Debbie uses to protect her home. When it falters, people drag their garbage through her front door.

Card 3: Seven of Cups Reversed

What can you hold on to?

Congratulations, you finally know what you want. That’s a huge step. Now that you want, get to gettin’. It’s really important, now that you know which direction to go, that you go now. This card shows up as the green light, and ignoring it means that you’ll go back to that mushy, indistinct thing where you can’t decide. It was a struggle to get here, and dawdling will only make it into a struggle again.

There are a few people—not many—who come to her home that shouldn’t. They’re not nice or trustworthy. Debbie needs to strengthen the protection around her house, and make sure that people with ill intent are stopped at the door. Luckily, the energy of the house is such that those characters feel uncomfortable from the moment they walk in the door. Good. If she lets her protections get too lax, this might change, and we don’t want that. She knows how to do this.

Card 4: Eight of Wands

What can pull you forward?

Time to make a move. Don’t let insecurity get you trapped. Decide. If it’s the wrong decision, make another one. You decide your course of action. Which obstacles will you step over and which will stop you? How badly do you want to move forward? Break free of stasis. You have to understand that if you don’t decide the course of your life, the universe will decide for you.

There are some things that need to be finished around the house, and rather than set her own timeline, Debbie has hired friends (who could use the money) to do the work. The problem with this is that they don’t have a schedule. She’s stuck with wanting the bathroom to be finished and is waiting for her friend to get their act together or fit her in. Debbie needs to either renegotiate with the friend or hire another professional to do the work. This waiting around stuff is for the birds.

Card 5: Seven of Wands

What can pull you forward?

Tenacious. Literally, this exchange: “Are you done being sassy?” “No.” This is the honey badger card of the tarot. Not backing down. Not asking permission. Not going away or sitting down.

This is another reminder to put up protection magic in her house. It’s become a seasonal practice for Debbie to protect her house, but life gets life-y and that isn’t happening as often as she’d like. It’s like brushing your teeth twice a day. You know that you need to do it, but sometimes you’re too tired and your bed is too inviting. Debbie needs to be reminded of her self-imposed responsibilities so she can yell at me for reminding her and then go do what needs to be done.

Card 6: The Hierophant

What can pull you forward?

You may need to find a teacher or counselor to unlock the mysteries. Remember that you are not always the smartest person in the room. Every person has something to teach you. You have to study—people, nature, feelings, whatever—so you can open the world. The world doesn’t open to the lazy, and with immersion in a subject, you can begin to own it.

Debbie needs to listen to someone else for a bit. Defer for a bit. She is in charge of so many things so much of the time that handing the reins to someone (even if she hates releasing control) will help. So, so much.

Card 6: Ten of Wands

What gets in your way?

You are doing it wrong. All of it. Even the things you think you’re doing right are actually getting overshadowed by the things that you’re doing wrong. Put down everything, get some advice from someone you love, then try to pick up just a few things and see how it works out. Baby steps. Decide what your priorities are, say no to everything else, and move forward. And please stop carrying other people’s expectations around—they’re surprisingly heavy.

There is just so much stuff. Debbie needs to be married to lists. A list for each room that needs renovation or clearing out. Reminders on her calendar for quarterly cleansing/blessing of her home. She needs to have orderly, timelined lists for things that will make her house one of rest and upkeep instead of thirty half-finished tasks that drive her mental.

Summary

Debbie’s house is emotionally sound and healthy. She needs to be more practical with her to-do list, building a budget and a schedule instead of allowing things to happen on other people’s schedules. She also needs to stick to a schedule with her protection magic, considering it standard sacred maintenance for her home.

Exercise

This is a very simple exercise that’s going to help you isolate those parts of your house that feel off. I’ve found that it’s easier to have a visual when you’re talking about a broad concept like home. Although home can be an idea, for our purposes, we’re going to bring you back to the second grade. Draw a picture of your house.

Draw each room and spend time in them. If you’re home when you do the exercise, walk into each room and sit down.

On your picture, mark with colors or symbols how each room makes you feel. When I did this for my house, I put smiley faces and frowns in each room. I haaaaated our basement, for example. It has, throughout the life of my home, been a room with an ill-fitting pool table, a sitting area, a spare bedroom, and a storage space for a bunch of crap that we didn’t have homes for, and, coming soon, a home gym and library. When I sat in it, it was in the middle of the crap-o-lanche stage. I sat in the middle of the floor and drew a distinctly surly frowny face on my drawing. I liked nothing about this room. I hate clutter, the whole space made me anxious and unhappy, and I avoided it as often as I could.

Now, what to do about it?

First, you have to clean your house. And I mean clean it. You can have someone else clean it if you give them dollars. You can enlist your friends and family and make a night of it. You can pick one room a day and clean it to the best of your abilities. What’s important is that the entire house is clean. My favorite website for housekeeping is called unfuckyourhabitat.com. It’s magical.

Now pick a room. This is going to be easy and fun, if you do it right.

Step 1

Sort through everything in that room. Decide what’s going to happen with it.

  1. Keep (only if it makes you happy!)
  2. Trash and recycle
  3. Redistribute to family members
  4. Donate
  5. Sell

Step 2

Do the thing you’ve decided. Give it away. List it on eBay and move it to the garage until it sells. Put the donate and redistribute piles in your car. Put the sell stuff in a place next to your computer so you can post it on eBay. Make it easy to get rid of this stuff.

Let’s talk about all the stuff in your house. Why is it there? Why are you holding on to it? How does it serve you? I mentioned earlier that people who’ve got clutter in their house are letting things take up valuable real estate in their houses without paying rent. Think about it in terms of the payoff for you. If you have a gigantic china cabinet full of china that you never use, and will never use, give it to your cousin who will enjoy it, and put a sewing machine that you love in the place of the thing that was just taking up space. I inherited my grandpa’s piano, which was lovely, except that no one in my family played piano. It just sat there, all lonely and unused for a few years, until I found out my cousin’s kid was taking piano lessons. We got the piano down to her house, and it’s become the center of her home. It makes sense in her house. Didn’t make sense in mine.

If you need help with this—letting go of things is difficult, I know—get a good friend to walk through the house with you. Have them ask you the hard questions. Prepare to answer them.

Step 3

Go into your clean, less-cluttered room and look around. Do you like the flooring? Do you like the color on the wall? Listen, we don’t all have money lying around to use for redecorating. What we do have, though, is initiative. Maybe you can’t repaint or pull up the carpet, but you can get a say-something lamp from Ikea for $10 and a nice new-ish couch on Craigslist for $25. Just make it your own. You don’t have to go all HGTV on it.

Step 4

Do a smoke blessing. The best way that I’ve found to clean the house with smoke is this:

  1. Start at the bottom level of the house.
  2. Walk counterclockwise with your sage bundle or incense stick and “paint” the walls with the smoke. Reach as high as you can and as low as you’re able, and paint each wall, window, and door in the room.
  3. Pay special attention to the in-betweens: the door frames, windows, etc. This is where energy gets sticky.
  4. As you clean the room, ask whatever negative energies that are around to please leave and ask good, healthy energies to stay. Or you can tell them. It’s your house. If an energy or a spot feels especially gross, you can throw some salt in the corners of the room and the in-betweens as well.
  5. Light a candle or a stick of incense in each room as its “finished.” This helps hold that good energy in place.
  6. I always try to end the ritual at the front door, which I then slam. I ask that nothing with ill intent be able to enter our home, and I throw some salt on the front step for good measure.

    Work with your particular spiritual tradition if you have one. As I said, I’m a witch and I integrate my Paganism into this exercise to make it a ritual. If you are Jewish, you can end the exercise at your front door and pray the mezuzah. If you are Christian, you can get holy water from church and bless each room with a prayer. Make it your own.

  7. The basic idea is that you’re asking bad energy to leave your house and welcoming good energy into it. You don’t want to just do the first part. That leaves kind of an energetically empty space, and nature abhors a vacuum and all that. After you’re finished, carry the trash out.

The complete process is not going to happen overnight unless you are supremely motivated. Make a timeline. Make it accessible. Do the thing at your own pace and remember that you’re doing this for yourself.

The last part of this is the homework. It’s pretty simple. I don’t want you to complete this gigantic self-exploratory project and then lose all the progress in six months. Put these prompts on your calendar or in your journal to be sure you don’t go backward.

Homework

It’s not enough to just do the exercise and the reading. You’ve actually got to schedule and do something about it. This is your home. This is where your heart lives. Investing time and energy to make sure that it bolsters instead of drains your energy is so important. It helps you stay grounded and safe and pulls your family and friends together. You deserve a quiet place to rest your head.

Resources

How to Clean Your House

This is something that you aren’t really taught unless one of your parents took the time to do so. You can kind of figure it out, but there comes a time in your life when you truly have to learn how to clean your home. There are some great websites that will help you strategize house cleaning. It’s a constant demand, and you have to come at in a way that works for you. Get organized in your organizing. I find it easiest to start with one room at a time.

  1. Pick up everything off the floor and put it where it belongs. If you find dishes, put them in the sink. Shoes in the closet. Clothes in the laundry room.
  2. Start laundry—that can go while you’re doing everything else.
  3. Start at the top of the room—dressers, counters, tabletops—and move down.
  4. After each room, take the trash out. Don’t leave it sitting around.
  5. Clean the floors last, then light a candle in the room. You’re awesome.
  6. Pick another room and do it again. Take your time. Don’t hurt yourself or frustrate yourself out of closing your circle. Don’t move to another room until you’ve finished the first one.

If you’re not sure how to clean something, look it up. If you can’t clean by yourself, hire someone to do it. If you can’t afford that, see if you can barter for the service. Trust me, it’s worth it.

Blessing Herbs

You can find ethically sourced sage in so many locations. Some kinds of sage are endangered, so be certain to check your sources. You can also use sweetgrass, lavender, copal, or frankincense. Or incense. If you have allergies to these, you can find sprays that will do the same thing—they can clear the energy just as well as the herbs. These will reset the energy balance in your house, and they’ll really help after a cleaning.

Plants that deflect negative energy include basil, frankincense, calendula, and chamomile. I love having fresh flowers in the house, too. If you have a black thumb, air plants are great and also clean the air while they’re eating it—or however that works.

Teamwork!

If other people live in your home, cleaning is their job, too. The emotional labor involved in keeping your partner or kids or roommates in line with a clean house is completely exhausting. Make a chore list, assign tasks, and then stop. If it doesn’t get done, the kids get consequences and your partner gets a conversation about shared spaces, resources, and workload. Your roommate gets their mess dumped in the middle of their bed. That’s it. No negotiation. No cleaning up after grown people.

As a social worker, I worked with the poor and disenfranchised, and I saw living conditions that were unimaginable. A family heating their home by leaving the oven open because the gas got shut off. A hole in the floor of the living room feet away from where grandma was sleeping, because her house was owned by a slumlord who wouldn’t fix it. The reason I’m telling you about these problems is because there are always resources out there. Every city has resources for people whose housing has become tenuous. Please reach out and be an advocate for yourself if this applies to you.

If you’re like me and this doesn’t apply to you, please stop for a moment and say thank you to the universe for letting you live without fear about where you will sleep tonight.

Finances

A lot of readings that I do show that one of the limiting factors people struggle with financially is the idea that they deserve to be poor. I can use myself as an example. I grew up poor, then lower working class, then lower middle class. I remember the distinct feelings that came from living in a place with mice and leaky windows and eating welfare bricks of cheese and food we grew in the garden 60 percent of the time (or not eating). Then we were able to eat out at a restaurant once a month—that was a big deal!

Each of these transitions brought with it a huge amount of feelings. Did I deserve to eat at Bonanza? I knew how much it cost, and I knew that my folks were working their tails off. Did I really need new jeans? There was so much guilt in the little things that my reaction as a teen and in my twenties was either to blow all my money in one weekend and then guilt trip myself for the next three weeks or scrimp and save on “fun stuff” and then overpay on bills out of guilt.

This left me in the same place every month. Broke. Exactly where I was the most comfortable and used to.

So, how did I get over the guilt and the feeling that I deserved to be broke?

A few years ago, my buddy Mark noticed that I always said, “That’s why I can’t have nice things.” And before you think I’m going to go all The Secret on you, I need to tell you that I think that’s a crock. I don’t think that people get sick because they don’t want to be well.

What I do believe is that thoughts have roots, and if you don’t believe you deserve nice things, you’re not going to behave as if you do, either. Your head will be down, you’ll miss opportunities, and you’ll accept failure as a matter of course.

The best thing you can do to combat this is to monitor your thoughts and behavior. I quit saying “I can’t have nice things” and quit acting like it, too. I got a job that paid better, a nicer car, more money in the bank, and a boyfriend upgrade, too. The better I felt, the better I did, and so on and so on. Do I think that the universe heard me when I said that sentence? No. I do believe that I heard it—and I believed it, too.

So, from my experience and observations in my readings, the first step to financial success and stability is rerouting your thought process and your relationship with money. And when you do see the dollars coming in, say these three things that my friend Limitless Megan taught me:

thank you.
i am grateful.
more, please.

Budgets = Freedom

Do you know that thing where you stop looking at your bank balance midweek because you’re afraid of what you’ll see? Well, I do. I’ve spent a lot of years hiding from my financial decisions because I didn’t want to see how deep of a hole I was digging. I would splurge on things I wanted without thinking about where the money was coming from. I used credit cards like they were real money (they’re not real till you have to pay them back at 24 percent interest). I would have such anxiety about what I was doing to myself financially that I would just not look. If you can’t see it, it can’t hurt you, right?

Now the first thing I do when I’m up and dressed in the morning is check both of our bank accounts. One is personal for family stuff, and the other is for Melissa Cynova LLC. Every Friday, Joe and I figure out our bills for the week. We keep a running total of how much post-bill-paying money we’ve got by texting the balance back and forth after we spend money.

$754 … I got gas.

$730 … I got a book.

$720 … and so on. At the end of the week, if we have “extra” after budgeting, we decide whether it goes into savings or toward a bill that we’re paying off. Then we do the whole thing again the next week. That’s a lot of work, so every morning I check all the deductions and see if anything looks weird. I make sure that the bills getting paid this week are all lined up. I’m not afraid anymore.

The difference between those two approaches is pretty intense, and the time span from getting from one place to another was about six years. It wasn’t easy, or fast, and I screwed up a lot and slid backward a few times, but after doing readings for folks in the same position for thirty years, I’ve found there are a few things that always help make the transition.

  1. Realign your relationship with money. You get to be in charge, not money. One trick that sounds really stupid is to write it a letter. Tell it that you appreciate it being there when you need it, and that you’re ready to take a stronger role in your relationship.
  2. You gotta have a budget. Have to. The first step is to list out all your income and your bills and your debt. Have to. You can’t know where you’re going unless you know where you are. (There’s a lot of pentacle magic going on here.)
  3. There is a great book called The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey that has a great plan to getting your finances in shape. It’s a bit preachy in places, but it’s been a lifesaver to so many of my clients.
  4. Walk the walk. It isn’t enough to have a budget, you have to stick to it. Expect that you’re going to screw up now and again, and then get right back to the budget.
  5. Keep setting goals for yourself. Pay off the smallest bill first and cross it off of the list (it feels amazing). Save up for vacations or whatever pampers you. Make your money work for you!

Just remember that if you’re not in charge, the money will be, and that bitch doesn’t care about your future.

One of the most important things that comes up in money readings is that you have to stay present. So many people either live in anxiety (future) or regret (past) and forget to enjoy where they are here and now.

Let’s assume that you’ve gotten into right relations mentally with your money. You’ve got a budget and you’ve made some plans for your future finances. Now what? Now you would really like to get that tattoo sleeve you’ve been mentally designing for like five years.

Since you’re all fiscally responsible now, you can’t just throw $600 at your tattoo artist, for example. (Plus, a really good tip for them. Don’t be an asshole.) That would derail your budget and land you right back where you were before you worked so hard. Here’s what you do:

  1. You need to talk to your partner, if you have one, and if you share financial responsibilities. Joe and I touch base with each other about anything over $100. We have a conversation. Sometimes I get what I want and sometimes I don’t, but the conversation is important.
  2. Let’s say your tattoo is going to be $700 (including the tip). You don’t want to mess with your budget too much, but you can find some room if you try.
  3. Look at two weeks of expenses. Can you cancel a subscription box for a few months? What about
    Netflix? Stop eating sushi for lunch for a few weeks? Can you sell some stuff on eBay?
  4. Once you figure out how much you can save or earn, mark it on your calendar. You are saving $20 a week by skipping Starbucks? Awesome! It will take you 35 weeks to save up for your tattoo. It will take less if you find more things to get rid of or more things to ignore for a while.
  5. The decision that you truly have to make is this: How badly do you want the tattoo? If it’s worth it, you’ll do what you have to.

The best part of this? The absolute best part is walking out of the tattoo parlor with your new tattoo, no debt, no bills left unpaid, and no interest rates following you around. It’s yours. No regrets.

It is really good to be fiscally responsible, but if you forget to have fun, you’re more likely to go crazy on Amazon Prime at 2 a.m. after you’ve taken a Xanax, I hear (cough). Not that I’ve ever … um. Anyway.

This year I was able to pay for a tarot retreat and my flight without panicking or using a credit card. I can’t tell you what a relief that was. Melissa Cynova LLC has only been an official business for five years and is now completely self-supporting. It’s got its own savings account and is taking care of all the expenses that come from running a business.

If you think that the best thing about this is that you’ll be rolling in money, it’s not. I’m not a millionaire, but I’m comfortable. The best thing about this is that I’m not afraid anymore. If something happens, we’re able to take care of it without panicking or wondering what we’re going to sacrifice so we can handle the emergency.

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