Patty Newton of Brattleboro,Vt. did a Tarot Card Reading for Maria and me yesterday, something I would surely have scoffed at a few years ago. This is the second reading we have done with Patty and we were both deeply affected by it. It was perceptive, affirming and very relevant to us. Patty does a lot of things – readings, psycho-therapy, holistic health referrals and consultation, Feng-Shui, spiritual adornments.  It might be difficult for Patty to survive in many parts of America, but in Brattleboro, she is nearly mainstream. She is a part of my health care, and that is not a joke to me. Patty personifies my evolving idea about health care: I know it’s good when insurance doesn’t pay for it, when it is located in small storefronts in back alleys, when the practitioners have no receptionists and handle their own money, and when you are not afraid to go.

For me, the best health care has been on the edge of health care, and while that is not universally true, it is increasingly true for me. In the reading, we talked about soul-selling, the small compromises that disintegrate one’s sense of self and life, of the spirituality inherent in all of life – day-to-day, friendship, business, change. Of insulating oneself from the anger and judgement that swirl everywhere. Of the need to surround yourself with people who want their lives to mean more than angry political declarations, money and security, surviving from one passage to another.

How remarkable that I would be amazed by the perceptions of this woman, so unlike me, and yet in so many ways, exactly like me. I have learned to worship the power of new experience, to challenge myself to be open to it, and to understand jeers and contempt as a symptom of mine, not a shortcoming of theirs. Perhaps it is important in life to take great care to who and what you listen to. I am happy to include Patty amongst my new health care practitioners and I expect to live long and well.