Halloween

October is big for people in my line of work. The weeks leading up to Halloween are, for psychics, like the weeks between Thanksgiving an Christmas for more traditional retail businesses. Suddenly, we're the most popular folks in town, getting invited to every party (as long as we bring our Tarot cards), and being asked to weigh in on all manner of Halloween haunted-ness on every local radio and TV station. People who would never normally see a psychic call us weeks in advance to make sure they can book one of our Readers for their event. In short, my usually oddball career becomes the singular quality that makes me the belle of the ball for a few short weeks.

How do I reconcile that month-long celebrity status to the other eleven months of being the oddball outsider? It's easy, really. I love what I do. here are some of the reasons why:

• Sure, it's a very niche industry, but we have our celebrities: Mary K. Greer, Rachel Pollack, Robert Place, Ciro Marchetti, and many more. And when your field is as small as ours, you get to not only meet, but even get chummy with, your professional heroes. That's one bonus.
• I meet the nicest people! Every day someone new walks in the door of my shop, some by accident, and some looking for something; a particular herb, a book on meditation, a gift for a friend's birthday. Each of these individuals offers me chance to see the interconnectedness of all life, and they all offer a little bit of themselves through conversation.
• I get to work with my mom and my sister. Granted, this one is also one of the drawbacks of the job sometimes, but 90% of the time it's a blessing. It's nice to be surrounded by family and know that when it comes to work, they've got your back just like at home.
• I'm always learning something new. What I know about metaphysics, world religions, the benefits of meditation, the academic studies of psychic phenomena and much more, is vastly greater than when I began, yet doesn't even scratch the surface of what I still have to learn, all of it fascinating.

In short, I'll take the all the kooky over-the-top Halloweeny-ness this October, knowing that after November first I'll go back to being the oddball psychic down the block, quietly doing what I do a little bit under the radar, and getting ready for our second biggest holiday, New Year's Eve (because everyone wants to know what the new year has in store for them).

Heatherleigh