10/22/01: OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD

I am open to all avenues of assistance.

I went to see my Aunt’s psychic (a different aunt) while I was in LA.  The psychic’s name is Shooshan.  She sees a lot of Hollywood types.  I liked her.  She’s Italian, had been in the US for 25 years.  She and her daughter used to live in Modesto before moving down to Los Angeles (not sure how someone coming here from Italy would end up in Modesto, but I didn’t ask her).

Her office is in her pool house, in back of her house with a blue awning, on the Valley side of Topanga Canyon.  When I got there, she had me drink a small cup of what I think was Turkish coffee, anyway it was sweet, syrupy coffee.  Then she had me turn over what was left of the coffee onto its little saucer and she dribbled some of the grounds onto a napkin.

She also had a large deck of cards, which seemed to be a regular deck with 4 suits, number and face cards, but the cards were larger and the pictures were more fanciful than a deck of playing cards.  She laid out the cards in complicated designs and continually referred back to the grounds in the cup, on the saucer and on the napkin as she did my reading.

The only things I told her about me before she started was that I was concerned about my job and unsure whether I should try to stay in New York or move back to Los Angeles.

She started off with general things about me – she said I am sensitive, fast to be happy and fast to be sad.  She also said I am strong, no matter how many times I fall down I get up and start all over again.

She said, I give from the heart to those around me, but that for the past two years I have been more focused on my own needs and that is good.  (I guess that’s a fair reading of my move to New York two years ago to focus on my career)

She said I am in excellent health and will live a long life.  And no one in my family is going to die soon.  

She said I might lose my job, but that I would find another one soon and should stay in New York.  She sees me moving in the long run, but not now.   Don’t run away, she said. 

She said, you have an artistic side, I see you painting or writing, you could be writing music, stay with this, this will carry you through.  The money should be okay, just be careful with it.  Because everything will be up and down, turbulent for me over the next few months.

She said I am surrounded by good people, there are no evil people in my circle.  I am very lucky.  Except maybe there is one person who is nasty, but I stay away from them.  I should continue to keep my distance from them.  (I have an idea who that might be, but I don’t think I will write it down.)  

She said I have a guardian angel, a woman, who protects me very strongly.  (Grandmother?  But I know I’ve had a guardian angel before 1999 when Grandmother died, so maybe it’s a woman whom I haven’t known in this life?  Jamie, my fiancé who died when I was 20, I think watches over me occasionally.  But it makes sense that my guardian angel is a woman, I have always felt a strong female force behind me.  Recently, though, I thought maybe that was just me!  But it could be my guardian angel.  Bless her!)

Shooshan said there are two men that love me.  One, she really likes, she gets a good sense of him, he loves me so much and would never lie to me or cheat on me.  Oh, she said, sometimes you feel close to him and sometimes you feel so distant.  (This could be Jeff, whom I have known for 8 years and have been with as boyfriend / girlfriend for 3.5 of those years.  Sometimes I am close to him, and sometimes distant because both times we have been together, I have left to move across country.  He will always be dear to me, though.  Together or not.).

She said the other man who loves me is married or has a girlfriend.  He is not available and I should not get involved with him.  (Not a problem, I thought.  I don’t know who this would be, but I don’t get involved with unavailable men.  I don’t even get involved with available men these days.  ;o)

The one who has such good energy, though, she said, is not the one I will end up with.  He is great and fine and good now, but he is not the one I will be with in the future.  There is another man in my future, whom I haven’t met yet, but I will know when I meet him.  (She proceeded to tell me that many people ask their psychics, what does my future partner look like?  But that it is a knowing in the heart, not a physical knowing.  I wasn’t going to ask, anyway.)

She said, someone from my past will show up, don’t take up with him again.  It didn’t work before and it won’t work now.  (Perhaps my ex-husband, with whom I have recently started emailing again.)

She asked me twice, have you ever had an abortion?  Have you ever been pregnant and lost a baby through miscarriage?  I said, no.  She said, I see three children for you, but your destiny is only two.  There will be some sort of abortion or miscarriage for the third.  But don’t worry, your other two children will be healthy.

She said there are two women in my life who I should stay close to at this time.  They are very supportive of me, they will help me.  She sees an M.  Are there any women in my family with M names?  My mother’s name is Mary, I said.  She looked at the cards, the grounds.  She looked concerned for an instant.  No, it’s not your mother.  Your mother is beautiful, but it is not her.  I said, well the only other M name in my family is my Aunt, Kool M---, you know her, she referred me to you.  Yes, it could be her, Shooshan said.  She has great spirit, very strong.

About Kool, Shooshan said, she is trying to bring you closer, she is reaching out to you.  I said, well we haven’t known each other very long, really.  I was adopted (I know, she interjected here) and she is my birth mother’s sister (I continued, without asking how she knew I was adopted), we only found each other 2.5 years ago.  Shooshan said, yes, that makes sense then, she is trying to bring you into the family.  Reach out to her.  I said, yes, I am working on it.  I really care for them and I’m trying to get to know them.  I may be fast to get happy or sad, but I am slow to get to know someone!  Then I shut up, because Shooshan is a psychic, not a shrink.  :o)

She did say on this point, however, that my family are the people who raised me.  I nodded, yes that is how I feel, Mom and Dad Bourke and brother Scott and all my cousins and aunts and uncles, they are my family.  But so are Kool and Eileen and Felicity and John, my birth family, they are becoming my family, too. I think what she meant was that when she was talking about my family in my reading, she was talking about my family who raised me.

She said, about your original parents, they are good people and we cannot judge them.  They did what they from a loving place and we should not judge them.

She said, there is one person in your family who you are close to who is troubled.  She made a gesture of a beard.  One person, he is upset, he is having a hard time.  (That would be my brother Scott.  He does struggle, he rushes into life and has little patience.  He also has a Foo Man Chu-type beard.)  She said, just stay close to him, give him love and support.

(I told Scott this afterwards.  He said, yes he knows he is troubled.  He has issues, he knows!)

At one point during the reading, Shooshan stopped and said, okay now you ask yourself a question, a selfish question, something that you wish for, and draw two cards.  I asked to myself, am I going to sell a screenplay?  I drew two cards and she did something complicated with the other cards before turning my two cards over.  Yes, she said, the answer to your question is 100% yes.  But you must have patience.  She said, patience, then fireworks! 

(Patience – Yuck!  Fireworks – Good!)

She said I am doing a very good job living my life.

She then told me a long story about a young woman who used to come see her regularly.  This woman’s name was Jennifer.  One day she told Jennifer, I see you getting married and going on a plane to your honeymoon in the next six months.  Don’t get on the plane.  Jennifer said to Shooshan, I am not getting married in six months.  There is no man in my life, I’m not even dating.  Shooshan said, this is what I see for you.  In the next six months, don’t get on the plane.

Three months later, Jennifer came back to see Shooshan.  See, she said to Shooshan, no man, no marriage, no honeymoon.  I still see this for you, Shooshan told her.

A couple of days after this second visit, Jennifer’s ex-boyfriend showed up on Jennifer’s doorstep with a ring, begging to get married.  She said yes, and they were married within weeks.  Her in-laws gave them a honeymoon trip to Switzerland as a wedding gift.  She told them, no way can I go, my psychic said this would all happen and I shouldn’t go on any long trips for my honeymoon.

But her new husband and his family told her that that was ridiculous, and that she needed to go to prove to him that she also thought it was ridiculous.  Jennifer called Shooshan, and told her she was going on the plane.  Shooshan begged her not to.  She even called Jennifer’s mother and begged her not to let her go.

Jennifer went, and that Swiss Air plane crashed, killing everyone on board.  Shooshan said, the news kept showing pictures of Jennifer in her wedding dress.  It broke her heart.

Then she said to me, I am telling you this, because you should be careful if you are riding in or driving a dark-colored car in the next ten days.  Uh, okay, I said,  I get it!  She said, it is not that serious, but if you are in a grey or dark blue car you should wear your seatbelt and just be more cautious.

(The only thing this might have been, was back in NYC three days later, in the cab from JFK, we almost got creamed by a tractor-trailer from behind and the cab driver had to swerve off into the shoulder.  The cab is yellow, but the interior is all dark bluish-gray.  I was wearing my seatbelt, though!)

At the end of the reading, she said, okay now you ask any other question you have.  I said, well I’m a screenwriter and the wish question I asked you was if I would sell a screenplay.  She said, oh!  Wonderful!  Yes, that is why I see you writing.  You could sell a book or a screenplay.  I said, when?!  She said, not until March.

So, we’ll see about that!

I am glad I saw Shooshan.  If it’s real or not, if she’s accurate or not, I felt a lot better after she said all these positive things about my life.  It was almost better than going to see a shrink.  I do believe in psychics, though I don’t think they see the future all that clearly, they just get glimpses of random things.  A very good psychic, someone who has been focusing on their gift for many years, might be able to contextualize their visions better.  So I hope that Shooshan is that kind of seasoned, good psychic.

Maybe I will go see her again when I am in LA for Christmas.  This time, though, I will think of more specific questions to ask her.