Correction appended.
Dr. Jessie Rose, owner and founder of Moon and Wheel, blends her Ph.D. in sociology with her experience in tarot cards. Moon and Wheel, 8 N. Court St. suite 412, is a creative studio where Dr. Rose distributes her admiration of tarot through intuitive counseling. The shop had its grand opening on Feb. 1, right before quarantine started. Due to family health risks, she is unable to take walk-in clients but is still reading people online.
She is also offering six self-paced modules with more than 20 lessons, as well as three live video calls, Nov. 6, Nov. 20 and Dec. 4 from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., with a question and answer session and demo readings.
The Post sat down to talk with Dr. Rose about how business has been, her goal in reading tarot, how COVID-19 has impacted her business and what stereotypes she wishes would stop.
The Post: Can you briefly explain what Moon and Wheel is?
Dr. Rose: Moon and Wheel is a creative studio where I am sharing my love of tarot through intuitive counseling. And my intention was to also have some small classes and groups there and some regular events, but the vision has shifted a little with the pandemic. I have family health risks and I haven't been seeing people in my Court Street location, honestly, so that's been a change. I’m now just seeing folks online.
The Post: From what I read, you do tarot card readings. Is that right?
Dr. Rose: I do. I do. And so, when I first opened, I was letting people know that it was thereby doing walk-ins, and so I would put a sign down on Court Street and have hours where I was there for walk-in traffic. Unfortunately, it's not something I'm doing during this pandemic. Because of the pandemic, I've had to change the entire vision of how that business would build a clientele. Instead of doing walk-ins now, I am going to be putting out some more promotional material about how to connect with me online and to be able to bring tarot readings to this population online. It's sad because I really loved it. There was about a month between when I opened and when things got to be a health risk for me and my family. In that time, I had a grand opening, I had people come up, we had some events and I was getting a good flow of students who were curious [and] coming in excited to see the place, impressed by how it felt in there. I love sharing the space with people as well as the experience and the readings and everything. I still have the space and I really hope that we can come through this sooner rather than later, and I can reopen it because it's a special thing to be in the space, but in the meantime working with people online has also been good. It's still the Internet experience of them being able to ask the questions and be guided through story to personal insight. But I'm not able to invite up that walk-in traffic.
The Post: Are people able to get tarot readings from you online?
Dr. Rose: Yes. So I have a website, which is moonandwheel.com. I also have been putting a lot of energy lately into a course that I teach online on how to read tarot cards. My approach is different from a lot of readers. I have a Ph.D. in sociology, and I approached the cards both as someone who's been reading for more than 30 years––I got my first stack as a teenager from my mom––and then being trained as a sociologist. Bringing those two things together, I think they really amplify each other because of the role that symbols play and how we come to understand ourselves, culture (and) other people. That's part of [why it] is so much fun for me.
The Post: Can you explain intuitive counseling?
Dr. Rose: I bring sociology together with the tarot cards. I'll read the cards but I'm also bringing sociological insights into that conversation, along with the story of what's in the cards and helping people always to come back to their own intuitive knowing. My goal is always for people to leave with a clear sense of their own next action step. People often think that tarot is about fortune-telling and telling people a future that they haven't walked into yet, but my approach is to help people get perspective about the past and more insight on the present so that they can have the power to shape the future.
The Post: Is there a specific card you’re seeing more often because of COVID-19?
Dr. Rose: OK, so there's a little of both and one is the readings since COVID has definitely tapped into the uncertainty and the complexity of the time…We really can't count on external information as much as we used to…the thing that we need and that is most helpful is to be able to go internal, [to] connect with our own inner sense of knowing or faith or our inner guidance rather than external guidance. In times when things are stable, in society, we can count on specific authorities or news sources or our boss or our parents or the school –– any of the institutions to give guidance about how to behave, what to do, what choices to make. When things get more chaotic and uncertain like they are right now, we can't count on those things outside of us as much, which means we need to become stronger at being able to listen to inner guidance. People also may often think the cards are the reading. The cards aren't the reading. The story that we tell inspired by what we see in the cards is reading
The Post: Are there any misconceptions about tarot cards that you wish would stop?
Dr. Rose: The idea that the future is somehow set and can be seen and is inevitable, that doesn't make sense to me because every choice that we make in every moment shapes how the future unfolds. When people think tarot is about finding out what their future is, I think that can be really harmful because then you're putting that power on to somebody else to tell you what your future is versus wanting to know how you can create the future that you want. I'm always steering people back to their own personal power of choice and will and creativity.
Correction appended: A previous verison of this article included a headline with an incorrect title for Dr. Rose. The article has been updated to reflect the most accurate information.
