February 22nd, 2024
Have you ever wondered how I learned to read the Tarot?
By Bonnie Tarantino
Sometime during my senior year in college, my mother took a class through our local rec department on developing her intuitive ability. The instructor was a psychic by the name of Craig Junjulas. My mother and Craig quickly became friends and many nights Criag ended up at our lively kitchen table amazing us with his esoteric knowledge and wizardly antics. Craig also connected my family with a local Reiki Master and well…. we all know how that turned out!
One day Craig was over and I asked him how to read palms. He held my hand and said, “You know. You know how to read anything. I will remind you.” He took my palm and opened it wide and then gazed into my face. My body grew warm. He told me to close my eyes and then he touched my third eye. He guided me to visualize a few things in my mind’s eye while applying soft pressure to my forehead. When my eyes opened everything was hazy, blurred between the lines. He said, can you see the light coming off my body? He was aglow and pulsing. He said, “That is what you read.” The palm is just a way in.” And that was the beginning of training my intuitive abilities under his kind and wizardly ways.
Another day he pushed across the table a little piece of blank paper with pen. In front of him, he too had a piece of paper. He then said, “I am going to show you a few of my past lives. Do not get scared. Just keep breathing and look at the point between my eyes. Breathe slowly and deeply and try to remain open. Soon he became soft and hazy. I got a little scared. He came back into focus and said, “Keep breathing you can do this. You are safe. You are just remembering” He went back out of focus and then I saw it. In the softness of his pulsing light, he shifted into an indigenous tribal chief, then he shifted into a medicine woman, then a 10-year-old boy, then a wizard. I love the picture above because it shows what this looks like.
You probably are shaking your head “no” at this point. Unless you have spent a lot of time doing Reiki or yoga with me, I may have just lost my tenuous credibility, Let me explain the feeling because we all have it. Have you ever seen someone across the room and swore it was your friend, relative, or even someone you love who has crossed over? Do you know the feeling of getting closer to only witness their face morph into someone you don’t know at all? Yes, it is unsettling but It feels a lot like that.
Craig then came back in to focus. His crystal-crazy blue eyes twinkled with delight and a little mischief that all good wizards enjoy. When it was over, he told me to write down what I saw. After I did he pushed his paper over to me. I flipped it over and on the back were written the 4 images I saw and the words, “These are the lives you shared with me.” When people train with me I do a similar technique with them to help them see the auric field around the body. Some of you can attest to this.
Another time I asked Craig how to read Tarot cards. At the time I was getting my MFA in writing, living in NYC, and teaching high school English in Yonkers NY. His face flickered, “You are a writer.” He said, “Here is what you do.. Each week pick one of the major arcana cards out of the deck. Close your eyes, step into the card and have a conversation with the character or characters or landscape. Look all around the landscape and include as many objects and details as you can. Let the world inside the card tell you its story and journal about each one. Then look for what is revealed out in the world all week in connection to what you download. After you do this for all 22 cards I will sit with you and teach you how to use the Tarot to enhance your psychic ability.” He explained that the cards help open the gifts held deep inside us but first, we must open ourselves to cards.
Week by week I listened and observed these intriguing characters. I wrote and wrote. They appeared animated in my creative inner landscape and then magically showed up in my classroom and all over the spectacular NYC streets where I lived. I learned firsthand from the archetypes in the cards about their role in elevating consciousness, their impact on personal development how they orchestrate difficult challenges to ultimately guide us to alchemic mastery. True to Craig’s word when I finished my tour of the 22 cards, he took me under his wing and deeper and deeper into this expansive field. I am still going….
And I would like to take you with me….
