For as long as I can remember, my mom has been into astrology. She struggled during my birth and my brothers' to record the exact moments we were born, and she has spent hours drawing out our charts and analyzing our stars. I even was not allowed to take my driver's test on my 16th birthday because my mom saw in my chart that I would fail if I took it that day.
My 16th birthday is when I started believing her: Two girls with the same birthday failed their driving tests that day. I started asking her about everything: what my signs were (yes, you have more than one), what the different houses were and where the planets lined up. While I sort of felt silly for putting so much merit into the positions of some rocks and balls of gas in the sky, I couldn't help but wonder if my place in the universe somehow had something to do with the placement of other things in the universe.
But nowadays, people seem to be less shy about exploring metaphysics. Thousands of people openly watch and visit John Edwards to talk to their dead counterparts, and now psychics are so prevalent that they are having their own conventions. Many people can't leave things up to fate, and many others just need a little guidance.
This week's cover story, "Psychic exposure" by Rekha Muddaraj, looks into the life of local clairvoyant James Betz. This man who carries a cell phone and a Mormon past has taken his psychic gift and turned it into a full-time job. Both Muddaraj and our photographer Matthew Garcia admitted that what he does is a little bit creepy and right on target. "It's very specific. Very personal," Garcia says.
And this, again, made me curious. Is it possible that there are people, or stars, or cards or stones that can show us our futures?
Personally, I don't think so. What I do think is that there are people out there who are intuitive and can read a person's emotional state. I think that while people feel they hide their feelings and their issues rather well, they actually wear them on their sleeve. What's interesting is that Betz seems to feel the same way. He makes it clear that he isn't there to tell people what their futures are, but is more like a life coach.
And I think we all need a little bit of coaching in life. While I haven't made all the best choices, a few of the good ones I did make were because of what my mother told me she saw in my chart: because of what she saw in me. And while I might not totally believe in tarot cards, a mother's intuition is something in which I always will believe.
Reach the editor at emily.murphy@asu.edu.
