Lollypalooza!

LOLLY: We are back yet again with another reader… She is personally my favorite in the shop. Lolly, I am so honored to be here.

LOLLY: The honor is mine, girl. I absolutely adore you. I just love your work.

LOL: I love YOUR work, are you kidding me?! And I must say, you look so stunning. I’m actually floored.

LOL: You must be looking in a mirror because you are so beautiful.

LOL: I can feel myself blushing. So, you just passed your one year with Illuminate Your Spirit?

LOL: Yes! I started in April of 2025. I think it was the 21st. Best decision I ever made. I love this job.

LOL: I love to hear it. And you also are celebrating something else?

LOL: Haha, yeah, it is my birthday. Aren’t you a Taurus, too?

LOL: You got me! Happy birthday to us.

LOL: Happy birthday to us!

LOL: You are the youngest reader at Illuminate Your Spirit.

LOL: Correct.

LOL: Do you think that puts you at a disadvantage? 

LOL: I’m not gonna lie, it is a bit intimidating. Some of the ladies I work with have twice as much if not more experience than I do. Some have been reading about as long as me. I do feel like a kid in a way because my ladies will give me readings whenever I need them, yet they never ask me for much, haha. I also really admire the way they speak on things without any tools. That is an aspiration for me. They also really took the time to learn what they do, and I didn’t.

LOL: What do you mean by that?

LOL: Pretty much all of them have taken classes or had a mentor in their various skill sets. At the very least, they studied. Read books or whatever. I never did anything like that.

LOL: So, if you didn’t take a class or have a teacher, how did you learn?

LOL: Well, back in 2012, I suffered real loss. I didn’t know how to handle it. I grew up religious, got educated in science when I entered high school, became chemically spiritual after that. Nothing super metaphysical ever… dawned on me, you know? But when those people died, I became really curious. It was my way of coping. I asked my witchy aunt about it. She wrote a few things down–basics of a Tarot deck. A spread. That’s all the mentoring I ever got. And I still read in the way she explained it to me. Like wands are emotions, cups are perspective, so on. She suggested I get a Rider-Waite deck to learn with, so I did. Then I lost it, haha.

LOL: The Rider-Waite was your first deck, then?

LOL: Not exactly. I really didn’t use it before I misplaced it. I honestly never resonated with it. I was–maybe still am–slightly appalled by those decks! I don’t know why I truly do not like it at all! Though my slightest bit of research does tell me everything I need to know.

LOL: Oh? And what’s that?

LOL: We’ll save it for another blog.

LOL: Got it. And you actually write the blog?

LOL: Yeah, I do. It’s a very new thing that I decided I wanted to do. I thought, “Let’s get to know the staff” and I began the interviews. Starting with Shelly and working our way to Patty! I work with this company called Comics, Beer, & Sci-fi where I do live interviews, off the cuff, on camera, so this was really easy for me. Plus, I’m a writer. Always have been. And I lowkey love social media curation. I’ve been doing it for years for different people. Me and Danielle are the social media team here. We collaborate on memes, split the work for the blog, and help each other with content. She is the one doing the daily posts you see and I do more specialized content, like product videos and horoscopes for the New Moon and Full Moon every month!

Lolly as Sookie Stackhouse at Motor City Nightmares 2025

LOL: Oh, I love those!

LOL: Thank you! I do draw from my decks to get the messages.

LOL: Wow, very cool. So, back to it… How did you learn?

LOL: I actually was working a season at another crystal shop in 2013 and to keep an amazing story short, I found a deck. No box, no booklet. Just cards. The Thoth Tarot by Alister Crowley and Lady Frida Harris. I was told they might be short some cards so I actually gave a few away thinking I would never use them. Then I just decided to try reading. I heavily practiced with my coworker, Tine. I’ll never forget when we went to a jazz bar and I gave her such a good reading that she said, ‘Okay, now do someone else.” I was so nervous! But I approached some guy, gave him the most depressing reading of MY life, and he THANKED ME!!! He said it made sense and was what he needed! That’s when I knew, oh… I can really do this. Tine didn’t teach me how to read, but she built me into a reader.

LOL: Wow. So you… never learned, haha.

LOL: Well, I guess not, haha! But I have always been good! Even when I talked to a street vendor in Colorado in 2023, she was very shocked and impressed that I had started with that deck. And she was raised doing Tarot and had cards from the 70s. But, in my opinion, mediumship came to me first. You could say I was a little haunted by the deaths that happened that year, but 2012 is when I started having dreams of the dead, feeling like I’d been possessed by people’s spirits, had messages from loved ones. It was the year after that I explored Tarot.

LOL: Would you call that your specialty, mediumship?

LOL: Um… Yeah, I think I would. It’s definitely what I like most. I spent decades of my life morbidly fascinated by death, especially in my youth. I am so sure that it was the ability cookin’, haha. Just waiting to be addressed and nurtured. I love my classic Tarot. I use Oracle decks. I also do Love readings, which a lot of readers won’t do. Faeries are newer in my life but quite reliable to me. I’ve been told I have a lot of angels. I have ties to Yeshua with my Catholic background. I do a lot of predicting and sight seeing. I got some Runes from my Godmother for my birthday. I started learning Akashic but I didn’t get far. I would like to try again though I don’t know that it’s meant for me.

LOL: But despite your traditional tools, you’re not a very traditional reader…

LOL: No, not at all. I rarely pull cards, I let them fall out. No two spreads are the same unless I’m doing a Year Ahead reading–another specialty, haha! I’m very honest and unafraid to tell people what is meant to be said. I’ve given a lot of bad news but who am I to deny them of truth? I cuss a little, too. I got a complaint about that. I’m sorry I can’t go 45 minutes without a cuss word. That’s my bad, bitch!

Lolly and her alien named Bitch!

LOL: Lolly…

LOL; I’m sorry, hahaha. Despite that perceived “harshness”, I’m really good with making people feel comfortable. I’m like that in my regular life. Strangers and friends alike often open up to me in ways they don’t with others. I guess you could say I started reading people long before I started reading cards! But yeah, my sessions are usually full of tears. I don’t know what it is, but I make people cry a lot. A lot, a lot. And sometimes… I’m crying with them, very genuinely. Especially when I’m speaking for the deceased. Oh my Gawd, do they get me.

LOL: Wow, yeah. I wish I could get a reading from you.

LOL: Me, too, girl.

LOL: Well! As it goes.. What’s your favorite deck?!

LOL: I KNEW you were gonna ask me this and yet I don’t know! All my decks have very distinct purposes. For a long time, I’ve been telling people my favorite deck is my “spiritual deck”, the Cosmic Deck of Initiation by Barbara M. Delong. They are circular–so cool– and each card is a mandala. My bestie gifted them to me used in 2022. I love used decks, haha. Prefer them, actually. Most mine are. But… I really love my very new Oracle of the Angels by Mario Duguay. I got it from Moonlit Mystic in a mystery bag a couple months ago. I am obsessed, they are so beautiful. And I can’t count out my Thoth deck, even though I am not a Crowley fan. But I’m thinking of my Halloween Oracle, my Faeries decks, my “mystery deck”--which turned out to be the Dreams of Gaia deck by Rayvenne Phela. I love all my babies!

LOL: Are you still working on a deck?

LOL: It’s funny you say that because it has been on my mind heavily for the last month or so. I’ll take this as a sign to get to work on it again. I also have a few decks to learn, still, which is where my focus is headed. The Book of Doors by Anthon Veggi and Alison Davidson is number one on that list. It is the first time I’m actually reading a Tarot book, haha. But it’s Egyptian and complex, so I need to. And now, I’m learning Runes, too! So… I’m hoping this summer will be spent in that space of creating and learning on a spiritual level.

LOL: I hope that goes well for you, Lolly. Thank you for this. It was… Well… Interesting to hear from you.

LOL: I always keep it interesting. 

LOL: That you do! Enjoy your week, kiddo.

LOL: You, too! Happy birthday!

LOL: Happy birthday!