This month’s featured deck is:
The Fairy Tale Tarot* from Llewellyn Publications, www.llewellyn.com 

Artist Lisa Hunt has transformed the symbolism of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck into fairy tale images from around the globe. The cards are complex and fun. The people portrayed are varied and engaging, and the Minor Arcana cards are as lovingly rendered as the Major Arcana cards. This is my favorite tarot deck right now. It comes with a companion book, Once Upon A Time..., in which Hunt tells the tale associated with each card. www.thefairytaletarot.com; www.lisahuntart.com.  


Material Realm
The Magician

Magic is afoot! Make sure your customers know it is alive and well in your store. Attractive, fun, and easy-to-read books about fairies and other spirit helpers should be displayed prominently. Ditto for CDs and DVDs. Items having to do with feng shui and lighthearted ritual work will draw customers into the store as well. Add flower-scented incense, brightly colored candles, dream catchers, and all things shiny to your displays. Keep items with a more serious spiritual/religious connotation in less prominent positions—even angels. The energy shifts of the past few months have settled down. A renewal is beginning around the globe.

People will be feeling an odd mix of relief, exhaustion, and child-like wonder. Lift their spirits, and they will put you on a pedestal. Remind them of how much they still have to learn—how much work they still have to do on themselves—and they file you away with the memories of their dullest childhood teachers.

This is a good month to run promotions about donating a percentage of your sales to nonprofits. But keep it cheerful: “You’ll be helping us save the planet, make children happy, find good homes for shelter animals...” Don’t be against anything or anyone and don’t show guilt-inducing pictures of people or animals suffering. This may sound shallow, but the energy flowing through the planet in January will be uplifting. You want to help customers feel the updraft, not bring them back to harsh reality.

Enjoy your business. Make sure your employees enjoy working there. Happy encounters with everyone who enters your store will position you for sustained abundance in the future.  


Emotional Realm
Three of Cups

This is a good time to consciously welcome positive spirits (or high vibration energy, if you prefer) into your store. Once again, the advice is to keep it cheerful. Spend time before your business opens, and/or after it closes, tuning into your right-brain consciousness and communicating with the invisible. Allow yourself to be guided by your intuition for part of every day. Do the New Age equivalent of putting milk and cookies out for Santa. Make spirit helpers feel at home (they like flowers), and they will help you make money. They will tell you how to rearrange your merchandise so it sells better. They will invite other invisible helpers to bring their physical plane companions to visit the store. They will suggest the right questions to ask customers to get them to open up and begin a dialogue with you. You need to get into the habit of listening with your inner ear to draw them close enough to the physical world to communicate. (If you prefer to think in terms of your Higher Self instead of out-of-body entities, insert Higher Self in place of spirit helpers. The principle is the same. Energy is set in motion by thought, no matter where we think it comes from.)

Your customers will be more sensitive to negative energy than usual. Use incense, candles, ritual, or prayer to keep your business’ energy high and to ward off negative entities. If you stock crystals, cleanse them regularly so they don’t collect psychic dust. Once a day, say the following out loud: “Only positive influences are welcome here. If you are a misguided or unbalanced spirit (energy) you may come for healing, but leave your negativity at the door.” 

Mental Realm
Ace of Pentacles

The Goddess is in the details. Now is the time to review the fine points of every aspect of your business. Clean email and mailing lists. Send back inventory that is not selling. Throw out (or give away) anything that is old and tired and can’t be returned. Review vendor catalogs and make sure you have the newest ones. Make repairs. Repaint where needed. Get new furniture or displays. What you do on the physical level will make way for revised plans coming through from the mental level. The higher plans probably include a shift in focus/strategy for your business; make room for it. Spend time in meditation and then walk through your business and “feel” what doesn’t belong anymore. Test new ideas; see how they suit your customers. Your Higher Self is fine-tuning the blueprints. Pay attention.

Spiritual Realm
Five of Swords

Clear your negative belief system one fear-based thought at a time. Be vigilant for feelings of lack, competition, betrayal, attack, and self-doubt. Your opponents will use any weak links to dissipate your energy. Believe in love and a bountiful universe. Don’t worship at the altar of “can’t.”

Allow your energy body to fill with the translucent light of the higher realms. Send love to the shadows—your own as well as those that belong to other people. Wear your higher vibrations freely and they will draw people to you. And if you’re selling, having people want to be where you are is a really good thing. Be willing to be helpful even if it means giving up a sale. Customer gratitude is worth more than a quick dollar, especially now.

Listen to the angels sing. Feel the breeze from their wings sending blessings toward you. Let your business plan be joy this month; receive it; spread it around. You’ve worked hard this past year. You’ll be working hard again soon. Enjoy a moment to float on a universal cloud of love. You might be surprised by the company you will be keeping there.   


Anna Jedrziewski is founder and director of Spirit Connection New York (www.spiritconnectionnewyork.org), a metaphysical healing and learning center incorporated in New York State. Visit Anna’s tarot website, www.tarotwise.com, to read her weekly and monthly forecasts for individuals. She would love to get your feedback on this column. You can contact her at: anna@newageretailer.com  


*The Fairy Tale Tarot by Lisa Hunt © 2009 Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd. 2143 Wooddale Drive, Woodbury MN 55125-2989. Used with the permission of the publisher and Ms. Hunt. All rights reserved.