About Maddy

When I consider where life has taken me, it all comes back to experience, and belief.

I think a lot of people see that I read for people, and they assume that I have spiritual beliefs; that's not entirely accurate. If you asked me about myself, I would say that I have had incredibly meaningful spiritual experiences. And what I believe about those experiences is something that I am still trying to understand.

The reason I fell in love with the spiritual nature of reality is because something was lacking in my life. I was seeking validation, not the type that comes from counselling or therapy, but the type that comes from looking into a mirror. People talk about yoga and meditation and hippy trips to Asia. That's all well and good, but that's not what happened to me.

I originally had my first tarot reading when I was 19. Somebody had roofied me, and when I confronted them about it, they denied it.

I was a pretty ballsy 19-year-old. I wanted to confront the man who did it in person. As I was heading towards his apartment, I saw a sign on the street in Kensington. $30 TAROT CARD READINGS. I was working retail, and I thought, huh, I can afford that. And I changed my plans on a whim.

So I went inside. I asked the reader if he could tell me if somebody was lying to me. To my surprise, he said yes.

And that is the moment that my life changed.

What happened that day are naturally between me, the reader, and the cards. What mattered most is that he validated my intuition. He was the first person to tell me, "You don't deserve that... you deserve to be treated in the best possible way."

Before that reading, I had been struggling. I was detached from my own being. I was lost without looking like I was lost; I was in pain without acknowledging that I was in pain, like an animal.

So, I listened to the reading almost every night. It bolstered my confidence. In fact, some of what was said resonated so deeply that I didn't understand how imperative it was at the time; it makes more sense in retrospect.

Previously, I had gone to police, seen university psychologists. This was pre-#MeToo, so most of the Government-funded institutions were openly hostile towards me. It was not the system that helped me. It was a random psychic on the street who backed me and explained the situation from a higher perspective, one that I could not try to comprehend at the time.

After that incident, everything changed. By my third year of University, I was teed up to become the department representative for the literature students.

me circa 2016

I had started working at a New Age store that Spring, with psychics, intuitive books, crystals, singing bowls, Elephant statues, you name it. And through the confusion of my dropping out, the panic and hysteria of dealing with a government-funded institution which was insistent on defending predators over their own students, in-between all the hysteria and noise, I saw reality for what it really was.

***

Before dropping out of university, I was studying English literature. I was highly ambitious and was gunning for an Honours degree. Pattern recognition is a really usefuI skill in programs such as these because any dedicated student processes high amounts of information, and has to sort through the intellectual weeds pretty quickly.

I had a knack with identifying these patterns. In literary theory, we studied psychoanalysis, particularly dream theory, overdetermination, and, you know, all of the Freudian classics around trauma, symbols. Reading a piece of literature is very similar to conducting a tarot reading: you are searching for a thesis; you are finding the gem within the rough of psychic debris; you are reading multiple symbols, and finding similar patterns; you are reading a single word, sentence, paragraph, symbol, very, very closely, and looking for the split meanings within it, those meanings which should compromise each other, but instead provide something deeper and more meaningful within the paradox between them.

In any form of writing or literature, you get the moment of epiphany. You get a volta with a Shakespearian sonnet, or a plot twist in your favourite novel. But what often occurs during a plot twist isn't merely a twist in events. It's a twist in perspective.

What happened that Summer is that I had an epiphany. The experience that I was having, all of the spiritual events that were taking place in that store that I was working, were contrasted with the events at the university. I came to a place of relative non-dualistic thinking, but it was from literary theory, what was occurring with the university and the #MeToo movement, and my final break from "the system."

I see that Summer like a door swinging on its hinges. Sort of like a backyard patio door, the type your grandmother had, that led to somewhere else. Sort of like an "inside," and an "outside." It was uncanny. Kind of like realizing that the life you were living was just a show on the TV, and that very moment I got up and turned the TV off to go live my life outside.

At the time I thought it was an ending. It was obviously a beginning. Freedom. But I did not realize it at the time.

A lot has happened since then. I could definitely write about it a bit more in depth.

A large part was the looking. Becoming psychic is both something that happens spontaneously, and something that you have to seek, and actively prioritize. Early readings felt like an interrobang. I got answers; I had more questions. I could write about this forever; I've tried to write about it in the past, but have failed.

If I want to sum it up, I'll say that it's all been about experience and belief. I have learned about what motivates people, about how the world works, and what it means to truly feel, by following my gut and being open and curious about spirituality. I have started interviewing people about their spiritual books as I am still open and looking for answers. I've been reading tarot for about a decade, but my first actual psychic reading was January 3rd, 2025. I remember it because I was eating a grilled cheese at JK Bakery in Canmore, and the Universe very clearly said, "Pick up your pen; we want to talk to you."

I'm turning 29 this year. I don't know the exactitudes, but I'm around the same age as the man who drugged me -- when he originally did it. And I have to say, I have been considering this life experience a lot.

It could have really messed me up, and it did, but it also changed me. It forced me to confront things within myself, go looking for answers, see reality for what it truly was, and find the truth of why it happened. I had to get real with myself and look at my patterns. It's been a process, and one that has been deeper than I originally anticipated. Honestly, I still get surprised by what I see, or find out about the Universe. The depth of my own mental and emotional patterning has surprised me, too.

After that experience, I wrote about it, and I got nominated for the CBC Short Story prize, which was one of the most proudest moments of my life. I would have never had the courage to do that without that Tarot card reading, which is why I am so lucky to read for others.

So I guess my closing statement is: be open to what life has to offer, as in a single moment, everything can change.

I was on a Batman-style redemption mission after a member of staff had assaulted me. It wasn't typical university politics; I was looking out for the students.

Things came to a head when I really started standing up for the women in the department and, halfway through the summer, on the eve of my 21st birthday, I made a painful choice and I dropped out of school.