Guinevra - A "Lonely" Tarot Reader (not any more)
As I am from another country and lived and live under very different conditions than yours, I will first present some facts about me and my live.
My name is Suanna-Maria, but because of my *obsession* with the Arthurian Legend I am called Guinevra. I was born on the 4th of August 1936 in Berlin/Germany. My mother was a Jew, my father a German, a very bad one.
My mother was married to him because she had money, which was what he needed, and she was a Jew, who needed some protection.
In 1944 he divorced her and gave us "free" to be brought to a concentration camp, the other members of my grandmother's family died there before, so I have no family to speak of.
Through the protection of an uncle, the husband of my grandmother's friend, we escaped at the last minute. All in all it was a difficult time; I refuse to remember very often. But as I newly joined your group and have great joy to be a member, I think you should know something of my background.
My grandmother came from a family of "wise women" and some psychic gifts were given mostly to the eldest daughter. There is a family legend, told by my grandma, that one ancestress was burnt as a witch in the late middle-ages. My grandfather came from England. He was born in Egypt as the son of people who served Queen Victoria. Later he worked with a London firm and became a representative in Germany for them.
My religion was a very mixed one, Jewish grandmother and mother, Lutheran father and myself baptised catholic for protection. So I never took to the church, thinking God is the same for all. My grandmother began to teach me card reading with playing cards, as Tarot cards were not available than. But I was sent to convent school with my grandma saying: "It is the best school in town, learn what you can, but let them not cloud your mind". I did, and red-haired, green-eyed and with the beginning of showing some psychic gifts, I was devils Spawn for the nuns.
My father forbade her 2 years later to teach me more. So I remembered with longing, tried not to forget, but it was difficult.
Then the wall came, dividing Germany into two parts. I worked as a manager for scientific congresses and also translated English books into German with the help of a scientific Editor; I was also the editor for a scientific magazine.
I hated communism and longed to get out. I tried three times to escape, each with not disastrous consequences, as I was only once caught, and that was at the Hungarian border. They took my money and sent me back.
I began once more to practice with the cards. Tarot Cards were not available, card reading not really forbidden, but frowned at, so I told only very good friends. Two of my readings saved the lives of two men.
In 1980 I was allowed to fill out a form to ask to leave East Germany. It took 5 years. The Stasi were very ingenious in making the lives of such people hell.
In this time I really got "addicted" to my cards. A West German friend smuggled in a book about gypsy reading with playing cards. I learned and used that over and over. I had to know, when I will get out. But nothing happened. The cards helped me a lot, to avoid the tangles I would have stumbled in without them, and that brought a lot of people like me into prison.
At the end of August 1985, my cards told me "the walls will fall down". So I prepared all I could. Packed some luggage, mostly with some memories and some clothes, gave all the money I had saved over my working years to my sister and waited. On the 18th of December I got notice that I had to leave on 22nd December.
When I arrived in West Berlin I had a breakdown, but was happy. Than a long time I did nothing with the cards, trying to get adjusted to a totally new kind of life.
But than I "discovered" esoteric books. I never knew, besides Madame Blavatsky, and that I thought nonsense, those books ever existed. So first I read and read, and than bought my first Tarot set and began to relearn, but seeing very quick, how much easier it was than with playing cards. The pictures told me their story themselves.
I practised with the help of my friend, who gave me the gypsy book years ago , but she died 2 years later.
Hesitantly I gave some readings to neighbours, friends. I never found someone who was also interested. I even placed an ad in some papers wto do it for free. I became calls from people who would like a reading and I gave it, without ever charging anything. I found nobody who did it like me, even if my ad asked specially for that.
But mostly I practised on life readings for some friends and readings for myself. As all books tell a different story, besides the basic meaning of the cards, and even that differs, I discovered my own way.
I invite the questioner into my home, prepare with, depending on my mood, a special tablecloth, one or some candles and some things I like, sometimes a flower, a stone, the figure of an angel, some incense, but it is never the same.
I ask what the question is and choose a layout. The next step is I let the questioner mix the cards and choose. I lay them out and then tell him or her, look at the pictures and tell me, what you see. I use the Enchanted Tarot, whose pictures really tell stories, not only for me, but for other people as well. I discovered, when I let people tell what they see in the pictures of the cards, they tell me involuntarily the real question they have. My practice tells me that the question asked is never the real question and I have to find out the question behind the question. When I have heard all, the questioner has to say to me, I give a short reading of the cards, because I am bothered with the Aura, when someone is near me, when I am reading the cards. I say that there is more in the cards, but I need time and quiet for reading them.
In the night, when I am sure no phone will ring, nobody interrupts me, I put on my candles once more, put some precious things on the table, as the photo of my grandmother and other things, it just depends. Then I play soft music, mostly Liszt. He is my favourite composer.
I begin the real reading, look at the cards separately, then connect them, and sometimes, very very seldom I have a flash over one picture, seeing a scene, and I hate it, because mostly these scenes will be real and are seldom to prevent. If they are lucky scenes, then good, but mostly they are telling of death or illness, and then my difficulties begin; what to say, what to do. I decide most like with the men years ago, to advise a thorough check up with a doctor, or be careful with the car or other things, depending of what I have seen, but never tell what I really see, because you all know, the future can change. I do not frighten people as there is a possibility that nothing will happen.
I take careful notice and than go to my computer, type it all down, scan the cards, and past them on the pages. This I send or give to the questioner.
My best reading was when I asked because of the diagnosis of an ovarial tumour, through a mistake of the doctor found out only after 4 years from the first positive test. I got thess answers: tumour: yes, operation: yes, dying: no, getting my health back: yes. This was last November and so it happened. It was like a miracle, as the doctors in the hospital gave no chance anymore and after all these years I should have been dead
Now I am trying to learn some more, especially about "witchcraft". This depends also on some experiences with my grandmother after the war (besides meeting a ghost and having a strange experience with a train in the 70's.) There was never enough to eat after the war. So people tried to steal from the fields and orchards of the farmers. The farmers had killer dogs to prevent this.
My whole life dogs were kindly to me, so my grandmother decided; we will try to steal on the fields and risk the dogs. That meant walking in the afternoon for some hours till we reached the fields in the night. My grandmother stood far back and I got a big bag and went to the fields. The dogs came, let me pat them, licked my face and one of them accompanied me, during my stealing vegetables and fruits. Heavy work for a 10 year old, with the beginning of this Rheum and the pains already there. But my grandmother had it full and she never lamented, so how could I? The first time I filled my bag and as it was heavy I pulled it behind me. My grandmother waited with a kind of wheelbarrow out of the reach of the dogs. We put the things I stole into the wheelbarrow and thinking of the pain of walking back some hours and pulling the wheelbarrow (public transportation was broken down at this time and nobody had a car), and the wheelbarrow not full, I went back with my bag to steal more. But this time the dogs did not let me. They barred my way. So we had to be content with what I got. It was enough for a week for 6 persons eating very sparingly, every time we were hungry. Next week we went once more, to another field of another farmer. But the same thing happened again. The dogs let me steal once, not more.
So remembering all this, I suppose I have some more gifts I never discovered and would so much like to find out. I can send intentions with a crystal ball. If I wish my husband to call, then I take his photo, place the crystal ball over it, look in his eyes and send *please call*. Usually during the next hour he does, even if it is not a day when we decided on a call.
That is my story in short. If someone is interested or can help me to learn more, please write. Hope I did not bore you.
Guinevra
Readings from Guinevra: Rates and Selections
Available in German or English
A Riddle?
Tarot and Ethics
Memories Are Made of This
Tribute to Gerd Altendorf
Lady Sayuri (E. Jent)
Poems, Chants, Invocations and Spells
Published: 2007, ISBNN LCCN; 160 pages:
A Review (c) Guinevra 2007-10
Glastonbury: Ghosts of former monks helped with the
excavation
about 350 years after Henry VIII destroyed the Abbey
(c) Guinevra 2007-10
Knecht Ruprecht, Saint Nicolaus and Santa Claus:
The development of German Christmas Customs
from Pagan times to Christianity and beyond
(c) Guinevra 2006
Tarot Deck of Sissi: Empress Elizabeth
A Review (c) Guinevra 2006
A Journey Through Memory (c) Guinevra 2005-10
Scrying Ball Against Depression
(c) Guinevra 2003-10
The Innocent Bear the Guilt for the Guilty Ones
(c) Gerd 2003-10
Light of Day: Tarot and Dreamwork by Gigi Miner,
A Review (c) Guinevra 2004-10
The Amber Room
(c) Guinevra 2003-10
Gerd Altendorf's Tribute Page
This page was created May 11, 2002 and updated 2013-06-04.