Everything I knew about tarot I learned from Real Housewives. That is, until I met actress and tarot reader Rachel True. Known for her roles in The Craft, Half & Half and Half Baked, Rachel transformed a youthful fascination with the esoteric and turned it into another career. Today, in addition to acting, she does tarot readers and helps, sans irony, to de-mystify the process.
As a generally skeptical person I had, like many, lumped in tarot with psychics and palm readers and old Russian women who read coffee grounds (saw that one on The Real Housewives of New York). Almost immediately, Rachel explained how tarot, in fact, isn’t what I and many think. She described it with a helpful metaphor: Sometimes you’ll walk into a room, a party or a meeting and the vibe just doesn’t feel right. We all understand the power of intuition, and it is this intuition—both hers and your own—that she uses during tarot readings. Tarot, she says, allows you to “tap into your own intuition to make better choices for yourself.”
I met Rachel at House of Intuition on Melrose Ave in Los Angeles. She walked me through not just the mechanics of tarot, but how she got started, how she practices today and her experience as a black woman in Hollywood.
During my reading I felt more like I was in a therapy session than anything else. As she interpreted and broke down the iconography of the cards for me, she explained how each signified something in my life, be it a fear or a goal. She peppered her reading with advice which made it also feel like sitting down with a life coach—which Rachel also does. After experiencing it, I understood how someone could turn to tarot because, in many ways, it mimics other coping mechanisms or tools we seek to make life a bit easier.
Like many things, I think it’s all as convincing and helpful as you believe it to be, and Rachel’s natural charm made it all the easier to dive in. I’m not sure if I’d sit for another tarot reading, but I did walk out feeling optimistic and clearer about what parts of my life I’d like to focus on. Plus, if the cards are be trusted, there seems to be a great deal of money in my future and, really, who wants to argue with that?