RAYNE

01 The name

My name came from the question, "What does California need the most?" — combined with my Aunt Starr's memorable name and her unusual spelling.

So I was named for the thing a dry place wants most. It has turned out to be a fair description of the work.

02 The road here

Texas first, then California. Degrees in Fine Arts and Graphic Design, then a good run at a design agency. The kind of job you are supposed to keep.

My parents had settled on the Costa del Sol, so Spain was already familiar. Seven and a half years ago I moved to Mallorca properly, to a finca in the countryside outside Felanitx.

I have not regretted a single one of them.

03 Casa Mariposa

The butterfly house. Forty-two animals live here and most of them have opinions.

Donkey Dougal came first. Then Piggy Rosie. Then Coquí and her kittens, Shortbread and his hens, Figgy and his bunny brothers, and the horses, who are the reason I paint.

They have much to communicate to all who listen. I have had eighteen years of practice at listening and they are still the better teachers.

04 What a reading is

Ninety minutes. Here at the finca, or wherever you are, over video.

I read the Llewellyn deck and work with animal guides. I have been doing it for more than eighteen years, which is long enough to have seen tarot go from strange to fashionable and to have stayed exactly the same throughout.

A reading is for planning ahead, for talking it out, or for seeing things clearly. Like a fly on the wall of your own life.

It is not for telling you what will happen. I am not in the business of fate. The cards are a way of getting a proper look at where you actually are, which is usually the part that was missing.

05 Nine of Pentacles

A woman stands in a garden with a falcon on her hand. Everything around her, she grew.

It is my favourite card and the one I began under. Feminine power and financial independence. I am woman, hear me roar.

There is a photograph of me from that week holding an owl. Life has many mirrors. That one is mine.

06 Two ways in

The wheel is open to everyone. Seventy-eight cards, five spreads, your reading to keep.

Or sit down with me for ninety minutes, here or over video.