The complete profile

 This would not be the first time I visited a psychic. I've seen my 
past and future unfold in various tarot decks. I've been through the 
standard routine: shuffling the cards while focusing on a question 
of my choice, then cutting the cards, carefully choosing seven 
cards from each pile and designating one card to represent me.

 In addition to being emotional catharses providing me with the 
opportunity to spill my anxieties and fears all over the place, 
tarot card readings had more often than not been accurate. Love 
affairs long forgotten have been described in detail, future 
undertakings, career moves predicted and hateful individuals 
slandering me, named. All of which explains why I had been willing 
to pay $15 to $25 to have my cards read. There have been times 
when I had to sit and watch my time being wasted on irrelevant 
information, embellished with promises of fame.

  But the psychic I was about to  meet on this smoggy afternoon was 
known to a friend of mine to be "reputable". This 71 year-old-man 
my friend told me had a Phd in Psychology and was a disciple of the 
late Carl Jung, the famous man. "He spaces out sometimes but in a 
good way" said my music-critic, friend. Although this cryptic 
statement combined with the knowledge of the man's age, in my 
mind outweighed his otherwise impressive resume, I could not resist 
calling him.

  It wasn't long before a youthful voice at the other end of the 
receiver identified itself as Michael Hilary Hughes and adding to my 
surprise he informed me that he did not work with the tarot: "I work 
with claire-audience". An appointment was immediately set: 40$, 
Hollywood.

   By the time I parked my Golf Rabbit in front of number 1344 on 
tranquil Spaulding Ave, I had ran out of combinations matching the 
man's voice with his appearance. Still the 6 feet tall, Laker of a man 
who greeted me, with hands crossed in a bow before his chest, 
between two rows of red and yellow roses, was beyond all my 
expectations. Without introducing himself, his large blue eyes 
barely aknowledging my presence, he disappeared somewhere at 
the back of the house where a phone was ringing. So I stood in the 
living room inhaling the sweet scent of incense. Except for the 
incense, nothing else hinted to the occupation of its owner. "Shall 
we start then?" Michael Hughes asks gently, from an adjacent room. 
I find him sitting around a rectangular, wooden table, waiting.
There's nothing but a tape recorder on the table. He inserts a tape: 
"It comes with the reading", he says, "some things that might not 
make sense to you now, might make sense later''. He stretches out 
the palm of his hand and asks me to give him an object that is close 
to me. His eyes, though, are fixed on the cobra ring I' ve been 
wearing on my index finger for a couple of years. He wraps it inside 
his fist, stares at me for a few moments, then covers his eyes with 
his right hand, softly squeezing his temples. There's complete 
silence, the only thing moving the room is my ring. An 
incomprehinsible mumble breaks the silence, then the man speaks 
"Up here in a row are figures. Let's see if they move, they don't. 
They are deity figures, they are not alive.The first image has to do 
with some kind of light on them. Are these projections 
accompanied by the usual expectations? 
Kopamalafatikopalamafata... What is crucial... Have you been 
relinquishing things this past year?" My answer is in the negative. 
"Well, let us see", he says in a serious  voice. "Are you in a 
relationship that has dried up? That I feel I am just marking time? 
It doesn't matter who's right or wrong, I just can't follow someone 
else's rhythm of life. End of story".

 A couple of days later, Michael Hilary and I are sitting around the 
same dining table facing each other. The golden Thai statue 
kneeling in prayer atop a chest of drawers behind him, smiles 
serenely. At its left, a framed picture of Carl Jung, Hughes's 
mentor and second most important influence. His first most 
important is hanging to the wall on my right. It is a 

portrait of Sri Ramana Maharshi. I look at Maharshi's portrait then 
at Hughes. The same cropped snow-white hair, mustache and 
beard forming a halo around the face. Michael Hughes doesn't feel 
comfortable talking about himself or his past: "We end up getting 
frozen in this thing called 'time' with its concerns about yesterday 
and its fears about tomorrow".

  Only a few sentences are pulled out of the freezer so I am forced 
to change subject. I want to know what purpose the object, the ring 
in my case, serves in the reading. The object is nothing but a prop, 
I learn. It is not necessary but it helps him to move quicker from the 
personal, relative image we have of ourselves, to the realm of the 
impersonal, where our true will lives, where our past and future 
remain undistorted. Therefore, my cobra ring, which has 
accompanied me constantly through very precarious circumstances 
is only a useful 'trick': "So are the tarot and the tea leaves, just 
turn-ons. Each has his own." As for the mumbling sound, it is his 
guide, or, better yet, HE is his guide, because the guide is a person, 
a Mayan person at that. He acts as the unseen agent whose intent is 
to quiet the mind so that Michael can reach the dream level of 
consciousness where the symbols are "I must have had him for 20 
years before a man came in for a reading and asked me if I 
happened to speak Mayan." Fine, but what is a symbol, what is true 
will, what are deities?  He leans back into his chair and breaks into 
a long hearty laugh.