Crystal
Ball Persuasion
Area psychics look into the future to see what 2004 holds in store
for us
BY BRANDI STANSBURY
With 2004 upon us, we’re wondering, like you, what the new year will bring. Who will win this year’s election? Will the economy continue to grow or turn sour? Will there be more love, natural disasters, and celebrity scandals? Who knows?
Virtually anyone can make a reasonable guess and predict the outcome of events such as Michael Jackson’s trial and Election 2004. A few people, however, claim special knowledge of these things and attempt to pinpoint actual future occurrences.
They call themselves “intuitives,” individuals gifted with a strong sense of the potentials inherent in the unseen world. They practice the metaphysical arts of astrology, tarot card, and palm readings, as well as consulting the crystal ball.
We took the liberty of consulting some of the Central Coast’s specialists in these arts to get their perspective on the upcoming year.
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Lynne Launius
Lynne Launius is a professional reader and teacher of metaphysical arts and sciences in San Luis Obispo, offering courses through Cuesta College. Launius has studied with the Brotherhood of Light, which specializes in mundane astrology, the tarot, occult sciences, and Kabbalah. She has also honed her skills through the Theosophical Society, Builders of the Adytum Temple of Tarot, and Holy Qubalah. She’s worked with Angela Louise Gallo, professional astrologer and teacher, as well as studying alongside Vandria Rayner-Dorland, esoteric philosopher. Launius examines people’s special circumstances in the context of their soul’s desires. Events can be indicators of how well a person is following the path their soul requires.
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PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER GARDNER
As always, love will get top play in the new year, according to Lynne Launius. One major focus this year, however, will be finding one's soul mate. People are more likely to find success by staying awake to the spirit.
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Philosophical approach
My focus with all of the work I do is to help a person realize that they are not just a personality in a physical body. They are also a soul in a vehicle needing to experience life on life’s terms. The stars impel, they don’t compel. The birth chart is an energy path, not an indictment. There is a way through everything in the birth chart. The birth chart allows you to have particular experiences and have the energies to accomplish them. It’s mostly to serve the soul rather than the personality.
In my work, I try to help people utilize energy in order to come through this life with a degree of bliss and a degree of joy. We know that life is hard; there is a lot of mundaneness to it. We also know that there are these times where we have these magnificent flashes of pure, exquisite delight. I work with people on how [they can] bring [themselves] into a place where that can occur. It’s about being awake to your life. The key words I use in my work are “alert,” “aware,” and “observing.” It’s about how to make this life work to your greatest and highest good. I try to teach my students about how intuitive they all are. That is a gift we were all given. Sometimes we just have to awaken it.
World issues and humanitarian conjectures
We’re going to continue to see exactly what we’ve seen this year, only much more intense. There will be attacks on the United States in 2004. There’s no question about it.
I’m trying to talk to myself and others about this business of fear and giving up our rights because we are scared. We’ve never really been as secure as we thought; it’s just that nobody got over here before. Nowhere else in the world have people enjoyed the total safety and security that we have. I think safety and security are very elusive issues and more of inner issues. What I encourage is for people to watch New York. In looking at New York and what they have done from a human position in serving one another, in coming forward with open hearts, great courage, great selflessness. It occurred during 9/11 and with the power outage. There was no looting, no thievery, no rape; people came together to serve the greater good. Deep down we are all wonderful people. People are going to begin to recognize their humanity more.
Thanks to corporate monotony and commuter sameness, many Americans are not seeing that they have an identity. The only thing that can bring about this awareness is crisis and chaos. We are in the process of moving out of the age of air and into the age of fire. There is no identity. There is no separation by race, religion, etc. We are all one. It’s really exciting. I don’t see death and destruction. I see great beauty coming out.
Political predictions
I don’t see Cheney on the ticket for 2004. I don’t know how he’ll be removed, but he won’t be part of the ticket. I think Bush will win the election again. Like him or not, he is carrying out the destiny of the world. That is a heavy load. He is creating and causing the things that are going to bring about changes that we need to have in order to grow and become all of not who we can be, but all of who we are.
This presidential election will be one of the ugliest ones we have ever seen. The people running for office are going to become downright vicious, worse than we’ve ever seen before. Also, their families are going to be affecting whether or not they get the job.
Love projections
One big issue that is going on right now is soul mates. Everyone wants a soul mate. What’s more important is to mate with the soul; to be cognizant of serving the highest part of the self. Being awake to the spirit and being awake to the energies and drives that are there and mating with it. Then what you wind up with is being actualized—you are who you are. You’re no longer a puppet, a follower. The logical conclusion to that is to magnetize someone else who is growing along the same lines. Someone else who is also opening their heart and is willing to share it. It’s just the natural way of things.
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PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER GARDNER Having a Ball Robin Berry is an intuitive with numberous tools at her disposal to piece together insights into the unseen world. Watch for sexier fashions in 2004, she says.
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Robin Berry
SLO resident Robin Berry is an intuitive who practices palm reading, tarot card readings, makes astrological charts, uses her crystal ball, and works with dream interpretation and past-life regression as well as natal astrology. Berry also looks at karma and grace—which indicate how we have come to be in the state we are in. She was first taught tarot at an early age by her grandmother and since then has been researching and perfecting her gift. She also has a degree in English literature from Cal Poly.
Natural disasters
There is a need for structure and stability. Good engineering is important over the course of this year. Structural problems, whether they be political, foundational—they’re all the focus. Anything that boosts that is beneficial.
There is going to be some volcanic action this year. Also some earthquakes in California and Mexico. (Berry made this prediction two weeks before the San Simeon quake on Dec. 22).
Because of the planets, there’s a real focus on things that have to do with water and erosion, which can cause a cold, wet winter. We are going to have some mudslides. Areas where structures are not supported could be lost. If you live in one of these areas, you should start supporting your house with sandbags because there will be a rise in the water level.
Political forecasts
I do see an increase in sanctions and rules surrounding the war. There will be more enforcement. I don’t see terrorism ending anytime soon. I don’t see the Bush administration winning again. I did predict him winning the last election, and I did know that we were going to go to war if he was elected.
The fate of the people
We are going to have to find more low-income housing. I think we will see some areas of San Luis zoned for this. Much like what has happened in Santa Barbara. The federal government will put part of the pressure on us. It’s good for people with less money to have housing because they are the ones that provide services in our community.
It’s going back to that fulcrum point of balance. If we don’t have that, we’re going to have structural problems. We’ll see crumbling if there is too much pressure put on things. It has a lot to do with the monkey year because we are dealing with wood and metal and they are not really yielding. To bend them you have to do that with force. When you get to the point of having to use force, it can be a harder lesson.
Be a good sport
Sports fans around the county curious about the destiny of the Mustangs can look forward to an exciting year.
Any of the sports with foundational grounding will be successful. Football is done on the ground, so they should have a good year if they have a strong defense. Wood and metal are highlighted in the coming year, so actually shot put should have a good year.
Clothing styles
I think people are getting more feminine and are more into things like lingerie and looking sexy. Part of that was taken out of the equation with the push for strong family values. I see that kind of lightening up toward a median. It’s not going to be over the top or too prudish, it’s going to be more middle of the road. We’re really going to see people wanting to dress similarly. It’s more like the Robert Palmer girl kind of thing. I see something like that. It’s sexy, there’s an allure to that, yet they aren’t showing too much. It’s also darker.
Celebrity scandals
Michael Jackson is going to be a harder case to prosecute than they are expecting. It is going to be a media frenzy. I think they are going to still grapple with the charges. People thought that it would be a quicker case to deal with, and it’s not going to be. I think that there will be some kind of consequences for him, but they aren’t going to be as harsh as people would expect them to be.
Any scandals that may come about result from people who are trying to be one particular way over another. If you have a hard right or a hard left view and you are really public—I think you’re going to get hit. If you make yourself a target by making yourself too public and too out there—you’re going to have problems. It’s the people that draw attention to themselves that are going to be targeted. Look for an Oscar for Sean Penn.
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PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER GARDNER Crystal Bobcat Joyce Davantzis, owner of The Crystal Bobcat in Los Osos, sees an imbalance between male and female energies in the year ahead. The solution is to stay open, and be a good listener. |
Joyce Davantzis
Joyce is a psychic medium who treats the living soul in private sessions with nothing but a name and a blank screen before her. Operating out of her store in Los Osos, The Crystal Bobcat, Joyce does dream interpretation and works with a crystal ball and gives tarot readings.
Imbalance in the world order
There is a shifting away from emotion and away from energy gifts and huge focus on earthly gifts and earthly things, monetary stability. [The cards] talk about how to avert tragedy. It shows female energy holding the earth, but the male energy has his back turned to her. There’s an anger that’s been created. People have become more ruthless and cutthroat. There is an imbalance. People are moving further away from that light inside, which is love. Females have had the role over time to be the storytellers and the balancers, but because Earth is so driven right now, many people aren’t listening to them. What I’m getting is a huge shift away from emotion, from the words of the grandmothers, and a shift toward the male and money-dominated world.
It’s like Hugh Hefner on the Carl’s Jr. commercial. He’s so nasty. No woman would really touch him with a 10-foot pole, and he knows that. This is where we’re headed, though, and this is where society wants us to go. They think the answer is to be like Hugh—to have money and a different woman every night. It’s so out of whack. I feel like the biggest message is cooperation, not competition. It’s about listening and exchanging energy.
We are all psychics. Everybody has the ability to feel ghosts, energy. We are all so intuitive. We are born with the ability to feel energies. It’s a coping skill that religion told us to lay down. It’s getting louder and louder to me that people need to just follow their hearts.
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Be you a skeptic or an optimist, you can’t deny that we all have our hunches about what is yet to come. Sometimes, we’re right. Other times, we’re wrong. What does it matter? And how can it possibly hurt to follow our intuitions? Hopefully some of these predictions by local intuitives will make you feel better about your own intuitions, and the psychic visions you may have had recently. If nothing else, perhaps they’ll give you something to look forward to in the new year. ³
Arts Editor Brandi Stansbury can be reached at [email protected].
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