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TERRY IACUZZO
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Interview
John LeKay: Your memoir Small Mediums at Large is funny, sad, confessional, educational, philosophical and revealing- the kind of book you cannot put down. I read it in two straight sittings. Was it difficult to write?
Terry Iacuzzo: I used my abilities as a psychic to write this book. There is memory and then there is my ability to go back in time. When I’m doing a reading for a client, I can travel into the future, the past, the present of their life, as well as alternative realities that are available for them to choose from. When I was writing my own story, I found myself doing just that for me. I wouldn't just remember specific events; I would go back there and actually be in the place in that moment in time. I wouldn't pull back. I’d let myself go and be fully present in experiencing the past.While writing the book over a period of 5 years, I didn't do any psychic readings for other people, so I was able to stay inside of my own process for hours and hours. I didn’t have to think about the client sitting in front of me, so I was very available to focus on myself.
One of the major events I write about in my book was being molested by my uncle when I was a young girl. When I went back to the time when it happened, I relived each and every detail about it. I could smell his cologne, I could hear his voice, and I could feel his hands touching me. It was painful and believe me, I was back there in my childhood home being molested again on the couch. But when I was back there, I was also able give myself comfort. It was very freeing. Of course, I have remembered this experience throughout the years, but somehow in writing about it I had access to a whole other level of what it meant to me because I’m psychic.I changed only a few peoples’ names in the book, which freed me to say anything I wanted to about them. I didn’t hold back.JL: It's like that Oscar Wilde quote, "you give somebody a mask, then they will spill the truth". When you were able to go back in time to relive some of those painful memories and then you brought the pain back to the present, did something change within you?
TI: I would get up in the morning and continue writing from the day before and it would be one long moment. Time and space disappeared. I’d get up at 5:00 in the morning and look at the clock and it would be 4:00 in the afternoon. I was in this whole other world, my world. Sometimes I was young again and back in the house in Buffalo, New York, where I grew up, or in my early days when I first came to New York City. Writing the book allowed me the time to savor all the textures of my experiences. Writing healed me and connected my past with my present. I know now I am capable of being truly happy. I was every day that I was writing my book.When I finished it I went into a kind of identity crisis. I wasn't a writer anymore and I wasn't doing readings for strangers. I was somewhere completely new and fully present. I'm still enjoying finding my way as to who I am now on a deeper, more present level. It’s so exciting. I'm completely here today, right now with you as you’re hearing this. Before the book, I would be in a million places all at once, and not only in my life but in the lives of thousands of others.
JL: Would you describe it as being able to let go a lot that you carry from your past, things that weren’t really helpful?TI: I call all those experiences that we carry with us Our Library of Life. I don't have to let them go. I can refer to them when I need them. I can identify as them when I have to. You never let go of your mythology completely. It’s what makes you who you are. Every single experience I’ve had, every one, brought me here to this day with you. This tape recorder and this piece of paper, this tea you brought me. Every detail got me to this moment-- it all had to be as is, or we wouldn't be here. It all had to go this exact way for me to know who I am and what the full experience of this moment is about. We can talk for sixteen hours on this question alone.
There is so much more I wanted to say in Small Mediums at Large. I started out thinking I would write a whole different of book-- an academic analysis of my family and how it was that we came to be psychic. Was it genetic? Was it a collective experience about power? Was it neuroses? Was it a dream?
JL: In the beginning of your book you mention when looking at one of your clients that you look away, preferring to feel the presence rather than let the details influence you.TI: Yes, I have to stay away from the influence of profiling. We started hearing that word a lot in the study of criminals and serial killers. There’s a pattern in serial killers, most of them tortured animals when they were young, they’re loners, often their parents were divorced or they were sexually abused. Anyway, where am I going with this? I haven’t read for any series killers that I’ve known of. Believe me, I’d remember and be sure to get that one right.
What I mean is, in my work I don’t want to be influenced by the way someone looks, or in my case, as I see the first outer layer of their being. People follow patterns and styles not only in their clothes, but also in their lifestyle, emotional reactions, in their choices. I can see the patterns. You can see the patterns when you start to pay attention to those details.In our city, New York, there are many different groups of people coming and going and those groups have their standards and styles. The tourists, the models, the people in the art world, the Downtowners, the Upper Eastsiders, the Wall Streeters—they all seem to follow their trend and way of being to the letter. I’ve read them all, thousands of them, so I have to push away what I’ve learned about them-- the profiling. The human costume. I work very hard to look into each life and find their uniqueness in a much deeper way. And under that is where the story is, the predictions, the psychic information.
JL: Do you think most people have intuition, but they let their needs and their desires get in the way of seeing the truth?
TI: Yes. When you first meet somebody you know everything about them in the first few moments of meeting, but then you choose to look away, because you think, oh my God, I find that person really hot! I want him! Desire, judgment, fear… all get in the way of pure intuition. I've asked people, “What was the first feeling you had when you met him?” And they might say, oh, I felt he was pretentious or I felt he was a liar. He’s still married. She’s never going to commit. And they’re usually right. And that’s the reason why they broke up. They knew the whole story right from the beginning.I’ve been finding something scary in my life lately. I notice that when I look psychically at random strangers, I find myself receiving very disturbing messages. There’s a human connection that’s being destroyed and lost. I feel the deadening of the psyche caused by medication, depression, I Pods, cell phones, computers, apathy, and lingering remorse. Whether people are depressed because of the world, the war, and the failure of the American dream. Or that many people are accepting they new world idea of terror, something is rapidly dying inside and around us. We have to come back to our humanness or we’re going to lose our intuition altogether. We have to connect with each other, look at each other, talk and touch each other. We need our intuition if we’re going to survive in the future. It’s all we’ll have left that’s privately ours. It’s our compass.
JL: Because of all of this technology?
TI: Some of it has to do with that. This is a recent thing that I’m seeing. I’m constantly studying myself and the ways in which my psychic gift works. I’m constantly thinking, “How do I know that?” “Where can I go with this?” “How can I observe more, know more?” The subway is a great place to “look” at people because underground people are often afraid, they’re locked inside a steel box together and something about being underneath it all and just sitting there puts them in a vulnerable position. It’s effortless for me to read them.It has always been a great place to check out people psychically and to sharpen my skills. I’d watch them sitting there and I’d get so much information, details. Of course I have no way to validate what I’m getting. I can't go up to them and say, “Excuse me, did you really have that fight with your husband last night and you told him you were leaving?" I could hear and know who was getting fired, who was getting sick, who was simply daydreaming and what they were daydreaming about and who was happy too. But now I find a kind of deadness, visually and emotionally inside of people. They’re harder to read and sometimes there’s just nothing to read at all.I ask myself could it be me? Am I changing and I don't care anymore, not interested anymore? No. Because I’m looking, looking, looking. And something scares me that never scared me before. We must do something fast to change this or we’re not going to make it.
JL: So it's been stunted, it's been almost like a liquid cosh isn't it, like it's been whacked out?
TI: It makes one wonder if commerce and the government want us all to be numbed out, helpless and frightened, of course they do, and most of us are falling into the pit.
JL: There's tons of money in medication, in that industry.
TI: Money, power and control. It’s hurting us. We need intuition now more than ever. We need all our psychic senses to be fully opened and turned on if we are going to survive in the future. It’s all we have left that’s unique to us. It’s how we navigate through life. It’s how we protect our self, make art and invent. It’s how we love.
JL: Do you think a lot of people go to psychics because they have problems with making decisions by themselves?
TI: Yes I do. And I can see their choices clearer in ways they can’t. But sometimes they want everything done for them, everything explained to them. I think it’s better to take a peak behind the curtain and leave some things for surprise. A good psychic can show them their choices and guide them to make their own decisions from there. I never let anyone depend on me to the point of obsession. You can come for a reading only once a year maybe twice. I want you to depend on your own feelings. I would weaken you if you came to often. Most people come for a reading because of love. The number one question is: "Will anybody ever love me?"
JL: Are people lazy - or they're just not that tough and they want to give their power over to you.
TI: They often want me to tell them what to do. It’s probably the most powerful job in the world. The psychic can see the future, know the truth about a situation, and know the outcome. I want to empower people to trust themselves. I want to show them the places in their life that will work or won’t work and to help them move on.
JL: That's why you get a lot of these powerful people coming to you.
TI: Are you referring to the rich and famous? Powerful people can be both presidents and housewives. They know I can help them and that I always look at life with a loving, yet discerning heart.
JL: I could just imagine whom you’re talking to. I won't even go there. Laughs.
TI: I never reveal my clients names. They trust me. Where would they go if I talked about them? Everyone is selling everybody out for cash. You’d be surprised who’s sat at this table and shuffled those cards. All kinds of people know about me and I know a lot about them, especially now with my book out. Please, I used to be terrified of being kidnapped by some crazy cult or some foreign government who wanted to use me. I’ve read for all kinds of people, you have no idea. Actors, students, politicians, priests, mobsters, teachers, royals, lawyers, dreamers… many people, thousands have come to see me over the 30 some years I’ve been professionally reading. They have serious issues too-- life and death. People come when they’re dying. They want to know what they should do with the rest of their life, with the time they have left.I have vision. I help speed time up if they're in a situation that seems like it’s never going to change. I help them find the way to get on with it. I give details, maps to move on in life. I give hope. That’s the most important thing.
JL: To get unstuck, people that are stuck.
TI: Yes. The world is so distracting. It’s difficult to untie yourself especially if you don’t think you’ll have anything better. We believe that the pain we know is better than having no pain at all and feeling nothing. And that being alone is unbearable. I try to show them that being in the bed, so to speak, with the wrong person is lonelier than being alone in the bed with yourself.
JL: What about people testing your abilities, do you get any of those?
TI: People come sometimes because they’re curious and they’ll test me by withholding and closing down. Though when that happens, and that’s rare, after a few minutes into the reading I have them in tears about something that’s going on in their life and I soon find the testing stops.
JL: What draws a person to a psychic?
TI: They’re searching for answers, directions. Often they’ve had a psychic experience themselves and they want it validated. We get lost along the way; a good psychic can help see the road ahead. I’m like a helicopter pilot. I can see the roads below and give you the traffic report but you have to choose your destination and drive the car alone.I'm always curious about the people who come to me who are just about to get married. I've called off a lot of weddings. I’ve read for many young girls just months, even weeks away from getting married. I'd say: Yes, I can see the happy party, all the guests and beautiful dresses, but… I want to ask you a question, why is it when I see you having sex with your fiancé you're clenching your fists and you hate it? Or, you're thinking of someone else, you’re obsessed with a guy at work and you’re getting married in a month? Why are you seeing your old lover again when you already set the date?They usually start crying… my God you can see that? I love him, but he's so cruel. But I can’t give up my old boyfriend. I say, “Call it off! I'll go with you to your parents. I’ll help you, but I beg you don’t get married to this man.” I told this to men too just as many times. “I don't care if you're embarrassed or what. Send all the gifts back. Don't do it!”There have been several people who have called off weddings because of what I saw. I’ve had a few calls from the fiancés, both men and women screaming at me, “Why did you tell my girlfriend…?” I say, I'm sorry I can't talk to you, it's confidential. That’s a terrible moment for me.One time there was a man waiting for me in front of my building…“I’m so and so's boyfriend.” I was terrified… I thought… oh my God, he's going to kill me. I talked my way out of it. That’s another story. Laughs.
JL: You probably saved them both.
TI: Another man came looking for me. He looked through his girlfriend’s appointment book and saw the name Terry. He found my apartment and got into the building. He thought she was having an affair with a man. When he saw me he realized I was a woman and was embarrassed. He should only know what I had just said about him.
JL: You mention the Akashic records.
TI: The Akashic records, who knows if they were or are real or not? In my young days I was told that I was an interpreter of the records. They are ethereal books detailing all time and space of everyone and every event-- the book of all knowledge. The story of all our lives. Is everything written somewhere? It does make me wonder how I know what I know and that I could actually read the story of a person's life as if I pulled a giant book out of thin air and read it to them.We’ve all had the dream where we go to a great library in the sky and pull books off shelves and read, wonder and learn. Has it all been written before, is it all planned?When I went to Palenque, Mexico, this spectacular place in a mountain jungle, I saw a temple ruin where I was told such a library actually existed. I was very moved and I had very clear memories of being there once in another life.
JL: Is that south of Cancun about 45 minutes? I was there.
TI: Yes. It’s a beautiful place with the scent of gardenias. It’s wild and lush and overgrown. Monkeys and magnificent birds are everywhere in the trees. I went into one of the buildings where the books of prophesies where supposedly kept and read. I strongly felt that if the Akashic records existed, that they where there at one time. I believe they actually materialized in our human's lifetime. I could feel them in the room in Palenque. I could read them inside of me as I stood there. It was incredible.But is there a real library now or is this a symbolic name for the knowing of psychic information? I don't know. It really doesn’t matter. Nobody really knows the answers to questions like this. The term Akashic records, I believe comes from The Theosophical Society, Madame H. P. Blavatsky wrote about them in The Secret Doctrine. Manly P. Hall of the Philosophical Society writes about them, both are fascinating people to study.
JL: And Edgar Cayce mentions them as well.
TI: I don't know what the word Akashic means exactly. Many psychics and mediums told me that I am a reader of the records. My sister told me only recently that she had many readings too where she was also told she can read them. Those old schools of spiritualism and metaphysics are so interesting; they paved the way for all of us. But I feel I'm a more modernized twenty-first century psychic. I like to strip away from all that formal ancient study and connect with the world today, humanity and nature through what I feel in the moment. The one tool that I do use is the Tarot cards. And always, I rely on my heart for the truth.
JL: That's a good question - the Tarot cards - would you say you use them as a vehicle? It's really like a tool for you - like a visual aide?
TI: The cards are like little television or movie screens that tell the story of life in pictures. They’re cue cards to open up the psyche. I respect the cards as one of the important books of our time. It’s a book without a binder. It’s also something for the client to focus on as they sit there in front of me. It distracts them and takes their mind away from their problems in the moment, as well as the intimacy of the experience of being with me in the reading.
JL: It takes their mind off it.
TI: They shuffle the cards, and while they're doing that I'm scanning them and getting information. I changed the style of my deck I use. I now in my second life, after my long career of doing readings, switched decks. I now use the Rider-Waite deck. I used to use the Swiss deck. The difference is the Waite deck it has pictorials on every card and I sometimes point them out to the clients so they can really see the representation of what they’re going through. It’s very helpful and they feel more included in the process.
JL: How many cards are there?
TI: There are 78 cards in a deck, the major and minor arcana. They have suits just like the regular 52 playing card decks. Wands in the Tarot are clubs, pentacles are diamonds, cups are hearts and swords are spades. One to ten, just like the regular deck. But the Tarot also has 56 major cards with representational pictures on each card that tell us about the more important changes and events in our life, such as death, disaster, love and the meaning of love, wisdom, hope, life after death. I love the cards. My brother taught me to read them when I was 12 and they’ve been a part of my daily life ever since. I see the living Tarot everywhere I go. The cards are alive to me.
JL: Can you explain a little about the symbolism?
TI: The nine of swords for example in the minor arcana is a good one. Nine swords generally, simply means grief and tears. It shows a woman in a bed holding her head with nine swords above her. When I show this card to the client they know exactly what it means to them. “Oh that's what it’s like. I can't sleep and I'm so upset.”I like using the Waite deck now. I'm a pop culture girl. I was born before the television was invented. But it was a big thing when it came into our lives, a huge influence on us as kids. The TV set showed me how my psychic mind works. A little screen showing me the future inside myself. It was a revelation!I’m a visual person. I look at everything as a movie and screens, so the cards are a perfect tool for me. Everything I see is a vision, a tableau inside me and in the outside world. I’ve done readings where I took that all away. I wanted to see if I could still be psychic if I couldn't see. Years ago I did my own blind studies where I had a friend blindfold me and bring someone to me that I never knew, met or heard of before. I made them promise not to trick me. I didn’t want to be tricked because that would confuse me too much. If I had prior knowledge I would pick up that I knew the person, but I’d be all muddled trying to figure it out. I told them not to speak and to leave me alone in the room with the person. It was amazing the things I saw and knew about them!I imagine people who are blind go through this and must use their intuition to feel their way through, but being psychic I also got information on a much deeper level about the person. I have to say it was frightening to me at the time. I’d had to work through a lot of fear about having such knowledge about other people in that helpless state. I was in a black hole of infinity experiencing the person’s complete soul. Something I had only experience with myself on LSD years ago. But then it was me in my own exploration, and I was not as fearful.
JL: It would be interesting to experiment with that.
TI: Yes, maybe one day. It interests me again.
JL: In order to do that you have to let go of fear completely?
TI: Yes, you have to let go of all fear to go to levels you haven't even dreamt of yet. Believe me you can go there.
JL: Do you also pick up on people's auras that you see?
TI: I can see the aura energy field around a person. It’s not really something that I work with that much at all. Colors mean different things to different people, as well as time and our own personal time clock. Both are changing constantly. There are so many different fields of interest in the paranormal. I’m interested in all of it and have met many people over the years that are so fascinating in the things they can do.
JL: What about Feng Shui?
TI: Of course, I think all these things are quite amazing. And they're so interesting-- your horoscope - my God - I am so my chart, definitely; Sun and Moon in Scorpio, born on Halloween, Sagittarius rising, Venus in Virgo; that’s totally me. But these things must not distract us. The real work is liberating oneself from the identity. And focus on opening the heart.
JL: Were you born on the 31st?
TI: Yes, on Halloween. Someone gave me a gift recently of a reading of my astrology chart. I said I didn’t want a natal chart done again; I've had it done several times over the years, but I wanted to check a specific date instead, the date I signed an important contract.The astrologer read for me and told me that my life was about to become a nightmare. It was so horrible and negative and he went on and on, and on like that. And I said, "I'm glad you're telling me this because I can handle it, and I have a lot of experience with psychic and paranormal information, but if I hadn’t I’d be devastated. He gave me no hope and no possibility to reverse. And don’t forget—there is always the interpretation of the information one is translating. It can mean several different things depending on who’s reading the chart.Now, I remember that day I signed the contract, and it was a horrible day, just like he said. It was one of the most difficult days of my life. He got that right completely. But I don't put a lot of power on one moment that you put your signature on a piece of paper. I think that cripples you, holds you back. That the ink and the paper can hold you back from change as well as the power you place on it. I refuse to surrender that much to such a philosophy. You can change everything, you can. I met a woman recently who said, “Never make a vow because it leaves you no room to grow.” But sometimes we just have to sign contract or make a promise, that’s the way of the world. The words can emblazon your soul for life.Well, it remains to be seen if the astrologer was right. Wait a minute. I’m the psychic!
JL: That's interesting because that is one of the questions I was going to ask you. You said something in your book about - you've got to be very careful whom you let read for you.
TI: Yes, you do. Believe me, in some readings I’ve told people some very terrible things that upset them. But along with that information must come hope and a vision with a new direction. Be very careful with whom you consult with because when you turn over yourself to someone you believe has power their words will stay with you your whole life. Think before you go for a reading if you want that kind of influence in your life. Trust your own intuition. I’ve had people cancel their appointment just before they were scheduled to come. I appreciate when they tell me they changed their mind at the last moment. They didn’t want to know.
JL: What a psychic says to you - it stays with you?
TI: People are innocent and vulnerable when they come for a reading. They trust me with their life. I take my work very seriously. I have to be fully in the experience, knowing precisely what I feel, before I’ll tell them what I see. I never just blurt anything out.
JL: That leads to the next question about - how much emphasis would you put on the power of suggestion?
TI: That can’t be helped. People want to hear what they want to hear. They want to make happen the things I say. I try to explain to them to almost try to forget the reading and let the life unfold and watch for the signs. I know I have to have an open loving heart when I read for anyone. I want to guide them in ways that helps their life grow and liberate their suffering.
JL: What about some of the psychics out there that are not so pure of heart. Are there some "tell tale" signs that people should look out for?
TI: Always get a recommendation, talk to friends, and ask them what was the experience like for them. I also encourage people to have different kinds of metaphysical experiences and trust in your own intuitive feelings when you’re seeking a reader. Those discoveries when you’re on your own can open up your thinking and questioning that leads you to finding what’s right and truthful for you.There are all sorts of readers. It’s hard today to find the authentic. Some readers mean well, they’re wise, kind, some are making things up, some are very dramatic and entertaining. It’s a journey to find someone who’s suitable for you. I would suggest strongly staying away from the storefront reader/advisors. Sometimes they will hit on a piece of information that’s going on in your life at the time, but then comes the “You got a curse on your head and where’s the money and I’ll take it off?” The curse, I mean. There never really is a curse. The curse is meeting them. Stay away.It's like finding a doctor, a therapist, a lawyer, or meeting some one new-- you want to interview, ask questions of yourself from your intuition. Find out first as much as you can about them, but in something like this, what works for one person may not work for someone else so you've got to take the chance and follow the wheel of destiny sometimes. I don't believe in bad experiences or even negative ones, they are all transformative.
JL: For learning?
TI: Yes. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a place where it's exactly where you’re supposed to be. It may not have been your intention, but there you are. I had a reading when I was in my early twenties. It was a glowing reading about how I was going to have this amazing life as a psychic (and she knew nothing about me, neither did I at 20). She told me that I would be world famous because of my talent and I would help thousands of people. I was so excited by her visions, but then at the very end of the reading she looked right at me and said, “There’s one more thing: “When you go to Europe, you’ll be raped.” I kid you not, that’s what she said. I was too inexperienced and in shock to ask her where, when, why? That off handed comment scared me for many, many years. And please, know that I’ve been to Europe several times and it didn’t happen and it won’t.But let me tell you, I consider her one of my greatest teachers. From that experience that woman taught me that if ever I say anything like that to a client I better be having the vision, feeling the anguish, looking closely to know where am I, what country, what year am I in? I must get all the details and the feelings before I ever reveal something like that to a client. I have to be certain, unquestionably.When I wrote my book I went back to being in the room with her having that reading again. I was able to teleport, so to speak, back to myself at that age. And I was also able to slip into being her! I discovered then that she was jealous of me. I was young, on the edge of this magical life… She gave me a glowing reading and then took it away by that horrible, frightening prediction she gave me. She had that much power over me.
JL: Yes because words are very powerful.
TI: Absolutely. That’s really what a curse is-- words with power aimed directly at someone.
JL: There’s a part in the book when you talk to a psychotherapist and he says "making this up gives you a sense of power when actually you feel powerless and fragile in this world so you have created a fantasy in a world you do not feel safe in"
TI: Yes, he said that. People, and especially some therapists I’ve seen, try to figure out the reasons behind our family all having psychic visions. They can’t just accept that this is our family’s natural talent. I used to myself, try to analyze it, find out why this was. I don’t do that anymore. Writing the book made me let go of all that.
JL: It's a power trip some of these people have.
TI: Yes, they are also trying to put their power over on us, rationalize our life or come up with some explanation that it’s all fantasy. I wanted to write the book about this, not to prove all those people wrong, and yet there is a part of that that is true about wanting power. But this is true in many families.I’m constantly being asked to explain my family and myself. I have to endure such questioning but it makes me think too about our unique individual gifts and how this came to be. Most people really only know of psychics from movies and television. And most of what you see is fantasy. I have noticed people are both fascinated and terrified by it. And some want to disprove it.
JL: It's interesting when Carl Jung and Freud had that falling out over this stuff. The story with Jung shattering the glass. Do you think this is a new era?
TI: This is a new era. We are more sophisticated in our understanding of our self and the world we live in. Look at all the self-help and New Age books available to us now. And how many psychics there are! We’re in the 21st century we have to stop doubting. Psychic communication, telekinesis, teleportation and materialization are something ancient people did naturally. It was part of being human. We are now going in two directions: those who are cutting off with medication and technology and those that are discovering their psychic humanness and tender heart. Coming too are the future inventions. Wait until the telephone arrives that has a direct line to the afterlife. And the dream machine where you can get up in the morning and replay your dream on a television set. And flying cars and interplanetary travel as the norm.JL: How do you usually translate the visual pictures in your head into language? Do you have a method for doing this?
TI: It's many different ways. I often just know things inside myself as if I’ve always known the person I’m reading for—like an old friend I haven’t seen in years. Sometimes I see movies in my head. There either about the person I’m reading for or I’m the “star” of their movie and I represent them in the role. It’s like an awaking dream with symbols and clues I have to interpret.I pay attention to the sensations in my body. Rarely do I hear things in my ears. I sometimes see a manifestation in the room. The process happens very fast and I have to translate the visuals I “see” and “know” into words. It’s very exciting for me. I can’t exactly stop when I’m doing it and explain the process to the client but when I do, and I slow down the experience, I find many more details in the vision that the client can explain the meaning of it. Sometimes my speech can be broken up. A woman asked me once if English was my first language. I started to laugh. She should only know what I was translating in my head. This goes on all the time with me not only in a reading but when I’m going about my everyday life. I am constantly receiving messages in all sorts of ways. I don’t sleep very much.
JL: Do you ever get information from a name?
TI: Yes. The names in my appointment book for example. I don’t make my own appointments; my assistant does it so I don’t know anything about a person before they come to see me. When I read a name in the book I start getting a story right away. On rare occasions if I had an unsettling feeling or a doubt about reading for them or just letting them into my apartment, I’d call the person before hand. If I felt something was unsafe for me or that they were too disturbed for me to work with, I’d have to call them. If I was right, and I can tell right away from hearing their voice, I would make some excuse and cancel the appointment. Now, that rarely happened. Also, what I might have been getting was the problem they were facing, or about someone in their life. But I wanted to check it out for my safety and wellbeing.I also start getting information right away as the client approaches my street and as they start climbing up the sixth flight walkup to my apartment.
JL: You see in color?
TI: Yes it can be in color. Sometimes seeing is not visual. It’s like a slow movement inside me walking through the dark of becoming the person I’m reading for. I think of it as a human transfusion. Fluids of being, passing through me very rapidly, but in slow motion. You have to stretch your thinking to understand this. It’s like trying to explain love.
JL: I love your photo of the train tracks above your reading table.
TL: Yes it's faded a lot. It's my crystal ball. It's falling from the mat inside the frame but I don’t want to touch it. It has the vibrations and stories inside of it from all the readings I’ve done here and the life changes I’ve been through. I’ve had it since 1968. I always said to myself that I’d stop doing readings when it fades away completely. I told that to a photographer who came to see me and he said I’d be sitting here a long time. Once in awhile a client will look at me looking at the railroad tracks and wonder why I’m staring at it so long. I don’t look at it that much anymore, but it does work for me as a focal point. My favorite place in the world is on a moving train.
JL: How do you feel about karma?
TI: Karma… the first thing is, I grew up in Buffalo, N. Y., a Sicilian-American Catholic girl. Karma is an Indian belief system. I came of age in the hippie movement when the Beatles first went to India, so I certainly now what Karma is and what it means. What you do in life will come back to haunt you either way, until you just let go. Let go of the fixation on meaning. Let go of your need to have answers. Be fully present in the loving heart. The moment is rapidly changing. Feel, experience, be present… breathe.I live in a mystery, that’s what inspires me. Not knowing all the answers, the reasons why. I’ve let go of the desperate need to find out. With or without knowing, we all go on and we will all disappear.
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