Psychic Consultation with Diane Opal (8/20/11)
By Tara McKinney
This is the fifth in a series of Notes from the Editor in which I share personal reflections on astrological readings I have been very fortunate to receive from each of the gifted consultants on Inner Sight/ILE’s new Astrology page. By the way, I just need to say that it’s part of my job description to do stuff like this, so how great is that?!
I had the pleasure and privilege of two readings with Diane Opal, a gifted psychic who uses the Tarot and, occasionally, Astrology, in addition to a crystal ball and the clarity of her own Mind, in order to access the deeper recesses of her inner knowing. The readings were spaced approximately eight months apart.
During the first reading, the conversation turned to my love life. Diane noted that I was in the process of completely letting go of the last vestiges of my willingness to participate in the kind of relationship I had been trained and socialized into: the kind in which life was supposed to revolve around a man. “You don’t want that cage,” she said, “That’s why it hasn’t worked.” Diane described me as “a rebel of relationship” and “a lightning bolt”; as one who is “uniquely glorious in my honoring of the feminine.” I laughed in painful recognition as she offered the observation that a lot of men don’t live with lightning bolts very well. Indeed!
I made a mental note to myself about how odd it was that Diane seemed to be interpreting my astrological chart without benefit of ever having seen it. As I mentioned, she sometimes works with people’s charts in addition to being psychic, but I hadn’t given her my birth information. I began to wonder if she might, in fact, be tapping into the Akashic Records data base and actually reading my chart from there. Her “lightning bolt” metaphor was such a dead-on description of Venus conjunct Uranus oppose Mars, which is the centerpiece of my birth chart.
At the beginning of my second reading, Diane once again seemed to pull major insights of an astrological nature out of thin air. Noting that transiting Saturn was retrograding at the time, she shared her sense that Saturn was currently playing an especially significant role in my life. I was truly impressed, given that Saturn is just now crossing my Ascendant and will soon be making its return to my natal Saturn. When I shared this information with Diane, she seemed to take it in stride, launching directly into a celebration of Saturn’s many potential blessing in my life, in general, but especially regarding my love life.
She explained that one of the many gifts of Saturn, especially Saturn retrograde, is learning to appreciate the “beauty of slow.” I winced, with the memory of a recent speeding ticket still fresh in my mind and the certain knowledge that patience is not one of my virtues. “You typically relate to the energy of Saturn as if it were constantly trying to thwart you,” she added, pausing for emphasis, “but what it is actually doing is trying to slow you down. Your lightning bolt energy needs to be slowed down sometimes. Since you do not slow down of your own free will, Saturn has to do it for you.” And finally, “The way to work skillfully with Saturn is to intentionally slow yourself down.”
“NEED TO SLOW MYSELF DOWN!” I typed frantically into my laptop, noting the incongruity of the moment while admitting to myself that Diane had just hit the nail squarely on the head, given how uncomfortable the whole notion made me feel. “Saturn is slowing you down in order to make sure your judgment is good and that things can endure,” she explained. “Saturn is in your service. All you are required to do is slow down.” She made it sound so easy. And then, the clincher: “Your dislike of slowing down is what makes slowing down painful. Learn to slow down gracefully. Learn to flirt with Saturn. Let yourself fall in love with Saturn, in fact.” Pearls of wisdom, one and all, and I found myself stringing them together in my mind for future reference.
Have you ever had one of those DUH moments in a conversation, when someone casts forth a string of pearls so shiny and lustrous, and, therefore, obvious, that you wonder how in the world you could have lived to the ripe old age of whatever without having stumbled upon them before? I had one of those with Diane over this next series of observations: “What you need is an oak tree of a man,” she asserted with the gravitas born of inner vision. That pearl dropped into the pond inside my head and rippled down and outward for a while. Then another one plopped in, “You need someone who embodies the Green Man archetype, to ground your lightning bolts.” And another, “Oak trees are a unique life form in that they can channel lightning without being harmed by the intensity of the electrical current as it passes through them.”
Fireworks of recognition flashed through my inner world and I suddenly understood why the Green Man archetype had always been so compelling for me as a Celtic counterpart/ consort to the Green Tara archetype I identify with so strongly.
“The Green Man moves at a slower pace than you are generally comfortable with,” Diane concluded:
You will meet this guy but you won’t know he’s the one for a while because he’s slow. Be patient with yourself and true to yourself. That’s all that is required for this to unfold. The universe will bring him into your sphere according to the natural rhythm of things, which can’t be forced or rushed. He comes into your life as you are living it; as you set the boundaries you want. As long as you don’t abandon yourself he’s there. On Saturn’s timeline, not yours.
“As long as I don’t abandon myself, he’s there,” I repeated to myself. That’s one small sentence for woman, one giant sentence for womankind, if you know what I mean…
(For a longer version of my Diane Opal consultations, please see my blog on the same subject.)
