Just A Smudge--Can that work?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  Can you foresee the future? Can anyone ? How? 

And can the past be... erased?

The fab Judy Penz Sheluk—from up in Canada! Hurray!—takes us down a fascinating and mysterious path today. She explains how she went from skeptic—to, well, let her tell it. 

 From Smudging to Tarot

By Judy Penz Sheluk

Where do I get my ideas? From everyday life.

Such was the case the day I walked into a quirky little gift shop attached to a large natural foods store. I was there to purchase a white sage smudging stick, and feeling a bit ridiculous about it, if I’m being completely honest. But my husband, Mike, and I had purchased an old house and my hairstylist at the time (who is also a death doula and a yoga instructor, but that’s a story for another day) told me smudging was an absolute must.

For the uninitiated, smudging is a ritual where the leaves of the white sage plant are burned, and the smoke is directed into and onto areas that are in need of clearing and protection, while the sage-holder chants something along the lines of, “I purge this house of negative energy, and welcome positive energy, creativity, and good health.”

Anyway, among the sage, crystals, talismans, and tie-dyed t-shirts there was a section on tarot. I found myself inexplicably drawn to the vibrant images on the Rider-Waite deck. What can I say? I walked out of the store that day with a smudging stick and a deck of tarot cards, along with a book on how to read them.

To say that I was naïve is putting a gloss on things. Several sample readings, online research, and how-to books later, I was no further to being an accomplished tarot card reader than I was ready to become an astronaut.

And that’s when I knew it would work in my (then current) work-in-progress, Skeletons in the Attic, the first book in my Marketville Mystery series. While searching the house she inherited from her father, my protagonist, Calamity (Callie) Barnstable would find five tarot cards, and those cards, in addition to a basic understanding of the principles behind them, would be a matter of individual interpretation.

While the tarot angle was only a small part of Skeletons, it resonated with readers (and yes, I included a bit on smudging…wouldn’t you?). At any rate, it stood to reason that when I wrote the sequel, tarot would have to play a part. But what sort of part? I couldn’t play the “find five cards” trick again. But I could bring back Misty Rivers, a self-proclaimed psychic and tarot card reader with questionable abilities, at least according to

Callie, who is at best a skeptic, and at worst, a complete non-believer.

But Callie’s just started her own company, Past & Present Investigations, and she’s been hired to look into the death of a woman who’d been murdered in 1956. She knows she needs help, and so with some reluctance, she brings in Misty Rivers to join her team.

Here’s a brief excerpt:

“Maybe if we pull a card today it will inspire us, Misty. Did you bring your tarot cards with you?”

Misty had. She pulled the deck out of her purse, shuffled the cards, and asked me to split the pile in three. “Select one card from any pile.”

I flipped over the top card in the middle pile. It was the King of Pentacles in reverse. “What does it mean?”

Misty reached over and patted my arm lightly. “It means you’re worried about money. That what you have isn’t enough.”

Maybe Misty was psychic after all.

HANK: ooh, I know the reds are divided over tarot readings--some of us say yay, some say no way. What about you, readers? Tell us your experiences with fortunes. Do you think anyone can foresee the future?  And hey, Judy—how did the smudging work? (Has anyone else done that?)

Judy Penz Sheluk is the author of the Glass Dolphin Mysteries (The Hanged Man’s Noose; A Hole in One) and the Marketville Mysteries (Skeletons in the Attic; Past & Present). Her short stories appear in several collections.

Judy is also a member of Sisters in Crime International/Guppies/Toronto, International Thriller Writers, Inc., the South Simcoe Arts Council, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she serves on the Board of Directors, representing Toronto/Southwestern Ontario.

Find her at www.judypenzsheluk.com.

Judy’s latest installment in the Marketville Mystery series, Past & Present, was released today (Sept. 21) in trade paperback everywhere, and on Kindle at the special introductory price of $2.99 (reg. $5.99). Find it: http://authl.it/afj

PAST & PRESENT

Sometimes the past reaches out to the present...

It’s been thirteen months since Calamity (Callie) Barnstable inherited a house in Marketville under the condition that she search for the person who murdered her mother thirty years earlier. She solves the mystery, but what next? Unemployment? Another nine-to-five job in Toronto?

Callie decides to set down roots in Marketville, take the skills and knowledge she acquired over the past year, and start her own business: Past & Present Investigations.

It’s not long before Callie and her new business partner, best friend Chantelle Marchand, get their first client: a woman who wants to find out everything she can about her grandmother, Anneliese Prei, and how she came to a “bad end” in 1956. It sounds like a perfect first assignment. Except for one thing: Anneliese’s past winds its way into Callie’s present, and not in a manner anyone—least of all Callie—could have predicted.

 thanks for Pents14  to By Authorship: Arthur Edward Waite, Pamela Coleman Smith was the artist and worked as an artist 'for hire.' Waite was the copyright holder and he died in 1942. - This image scanned by Holly Voley, PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6088121