“I’m so glad to see you,” Lanie says, taking a step back to give Nina her personal space.
Nina takes a cleansing breath. “I can’t tell you how badly I needed this night.”
Lanie claps her hands together. “Should we get started?”
Lanie, Nina, Corinne, and I make our way to our stations, sitting in a circle on my great room floor.
“I call to order this meeting of the Gin and Tarot Club,” Lanie calls out, in a tone that sounds a lot like Madame Corinne.
I have to refrain from making a face at Lanie, not that she’d see it. She’s too focused on her notepad, which brings a host of questions.
“Tonight, we will be working on our New Year vision boards, but before we dive into that, I want to make it clear that there’s a process to this.” Lanie looks up, meeting each of our eyes.
I bite my top lip, glancing at Nina, who appears more than a little amused.
“The art of vision boards is not simply picking out a bunch of lavish things and throwing them on a board with no thought. That’s not how you manifest.”
“Isn’t it?” Corinne says, and Lanie glowers at her.
“Corinne, you should know better,” she chastises, earning an eye roll. “I can assure you, if you follow my method, by next year, you’ll be married and well on your way to children.”
Corinne practically chokes, face twisted up in horror, while Lanie tries very hard to refrain from bursting into laughter.
“You…are evil,” Corinne snaps. “I don’t want to be married, and I most definitely never want children.” She points a finger at Lanie. “Don’t you dare put that kind of juju on me.”
Lanie tosses her dark hair back over her shoulder, wholly ignoring Corinne.
“Whatever you ladies want, you’ll have,” she says to Nina and me.
“How exactly do we do it? The manifesting,” Nina asks, getting us back on target, and currently seeming rather into the notion.
Lanie cracks her neck and then her fingers. “I want you to thinkabout four categories that really speak to you. They can be anything from wealth, health, career, family, friends, etcetera, but narrow it down to four.” She lifts a hand with four fingers raised as if she’s teaching a bunch of kindergartners.
Next, she holds up her board to display that she’s already gotten started. There’s a large eye drawn in the middle, separating the top of a tree from the trunk and roots. The roots extending from the trunk and branches full of leaves extend from every side at the top. Lines protrude from the symbol in the center to create four separate sections to the board.
She has one labeledhealth, another labeledprosperity, one labeledcareer, and the last section islove.
“This is how you will set up your board. In order to determine your four keystones, I want you to each take a different room of the house. Find a quiet spot. Get comfortable and meditate on it. The first four that come to mind are the four you’re going to concentrate on.”
“What were those categories again?” Nina asks, and Lanie purses her lips.
“There aren’t particular categories. You just choose areas of your life you’d like to grow.” She turns back to the whole group. “While you’re in your quiet spot, set your board up as I have, and then we will all return back here. You have ten minutes to complete this first task,” she says, effectively dismissing us.
I look around at the room to find Corinne already on her feet, grabbing a marker from the middle and carrying her board underneath her arms, heading out of the family room.
I shrug my shoulders at Nina. “I guess we have ten minutes.”
She grins and grabs her supplies.
“You can come with me. I don’t need a quiet space. I already know my four,” I say, making my way toward my office.
“Me too,” Nina echoes, following on my heels.
We sit cross-legged on the floor, putting our boards in front of us, getting to work. We divide our boards into four sections, but leave space in the middle for a symbol. I choose career, self-care, love, and prosperity as my pillars, already compiling a list in my head of the things I want out of each of the four.
“Good ones,” Nina says, and that’s when I notice she’s just staring at a mostly blank board. She’s created her sections but hasn’t put a single pillar down.
“I thought you said you knew what you wanted to do.”
