October 17.2003
PEOPLE
...............¥ ...............
went into one of my favorite coffee shops
and saw the sign. “Free Psychic Readings
Today.” Free is a very gixxl price.
I
I sat down across from Suzanne Deakins,
a 59-year-old bisexual counselor. After some
small talk, she asked for my ring. T hen she pro
nounced, “You have a pain in your right arm."
I was floored! O f all the things she could
have said. My right arm had been aching for
about three weeks (the result of some vigorous
gardening). I had even gone to the acupunctur
ist a week before for some relief.
I gaped over the table at her, and she said,
“You’ve never had a reading from me before,
have you?"
No, 1 hadn’t. I’d had another psychic read
ing 10 years ago. T he fellow told me there was
someone in my life named Ingrid. He was
close. My partner’s given name is Sigrid. But
Suzanne was so right on; how could she have
known about my arm?
So 1 s;it down with Suzanne and another
queer psychic to see if they could explain it.
Don Clarkson, 58, does not fit the picture of
“psychic.” In his dress shirt and slacks, I picture
him as the real estate agent he used to he. His
small office downtown near the library is deco
rated in yellows and golds; a statue of a wizard
holding a crystal ball sits in one comer. A huge
tarot deck poster covers most of one wall. We
sit down, and Clarkson explains how he works.
He will close his eyes and watch pictures that
appear before him. “It’s like watching a movie go
on behind you," he says. He will then open his
eyes and share with me what he has seen. Clark
son explains that the pictures he sees have a
really gtxxl accuracy rate but that his interpreta
tion of them can oftentimes be wrong.
1 ask a couple of questions— about my dad,
who has been ill, and about my potential to
make money as a writer. He closes his eyes and
rubs his head. 1 sit and listen to the MAX
trains go by as the aftennxm sun streams
through the windows.
W hen Clarkson opeas his eyes he shares
with me that things for my dad don’t lcx>k so
gcxxl but that my income potential is promising.
ack in 1978 Clarkson was at a personal
growth seminar where he was asked to
close his eyes and try to “read” something
about a stranger in the group. He was skeptical.
He s;it down across from a woman he didn’t
know, and she asked him to describe a rcxxn in
her house. He priKeeded to tell her that she
had a round oak table in her dining rixnn, five
chairs around the table and a sixth that sat bro
ken in the comer. The woman was astounded.
She began to ask him other questions.
Everything he said was tme, and Clarkson
freaked out. “I’m a double Virgo, left-brained,
B
~**a*m '~
Color me read
Are psychics spooky or comforting? WeVe decided both.
by
K athy B elge
pen,” he says. “If I say you’re going to get m ar
ried next week— if you d o n ’t want it to hap
pen, it isn’t going to h a p p en .... I think people
come to the psychic thinking it’s magic. T he
psychic can reveal but doesn’t heal or make
things happen.” For th at Clarkson has com
bined life coaching with his practice to help
clients work toward some of the goals he
reveals in his readings.
o why would a person go to a psychic? "I
believe they come for some help in finding
solutions and understanding the symbols
appearing in their life," Deakins says. Clarkson
adds most people come to
him with health, career or
relationship issues.
A nd what about predict
ing the big stuff—say, 9/11?
"Many psychics get very
uneasy feelings before big
happenings,” Deakins con
jectures, and reminds that
she sees only the present
moment. But, she adds,
"Many things can happen
to change that moment of
energy.”
Clarkson says he once had a vision of a train
wreck that happened two weeks later, but he
works hard to filter those kind out. “Every once
in a while there are these uninvited visions, and
I really don’t like that,” he explains. He would
instead only welcome visions so vivid that he
could call someone— like the railroad compa
ny— and try to prevent it.
And what about picking winning lottery
numbers? Clarkson claims to have had some
luck once predicting stocks for a client, but
when he tried his hand at the lottery, “I didn’t
even get one number." A nd even in relation
ships his psychic abilities have not necessarily
helped him. His last relationship was with a
man who cheated and lied. “T he psychic
process didn’t do a damn thing," he smiles.
So what did I get out of their readings?
Deakins saw that I was still holding onto the
grief from a close friend dying. She gave me
some tips to let it go.
After hearing what Clarkson said about my
dad, I decided to take a cross-country trip to
visit him. Even if he lives for another 20 years,
I will not regret the special time we just spent
together. J H
S
Don Clarkson and Suzanne Deakins (inset) can help you tie up those messy emotional loose
ends we call feelings
very grounded businessman," he notes, “and we
do not believe in this sort of shit.”
So the left-brainer spent the next few years
in distress. He began to have visions more and
more often. Once when he was at a party some
one mentioned a friend and asked him what he
saw. Clarkson describes feeling sick to his stom
ach and having a horri
ble feeling of falling. It
turns out the man was
in the hixspital after a
terrible fall at work.
Oftentimes he
would pick up informa
tion about people on
the street. “That was
very upsetting," he
explains, because usual
ly he only sensed their pain. “I felt like they
were intruding my life."
Eventually Clarkson met Diane Stone, a
well-known astrologer, and she helped him
fcx:us his gift— to allow visions in when he
wanted and to shut them out other times.
Eventually he set up a business doing readings.
Deakins realized she had psychic abilities
about five years ago when she was working as a
physician’s assistant. The diKtor noticed she
knew things about the patients he didn’t know.
“I didn’t think of it as a gift at the time,"
she shares. "My friends tell me 1 was always a
bit scary knowing about things 1 should not
have know n...I never
thought of it as spe
cial...! still don’t.”
The first thing
Deakins picks up from
people is their general
health. “I feel I am led
to problems," she says.
“I feel them first in my
kxly."
Both psychics
emphasized that what they experience is in the
present, and they try not to predict the future.
“I have always been a bit concerned about giv
ing...a reading that it could become a self-
fulfilling prophecy," Deakins explains.
Clarkson says he just tells you what he sees.
“If you don’t like the pictures, they won’t hap
‘Tm a double Virgo,
left-brained, very
grounded businesstnan,
and we do not believe
in this sort of shit”
—Don Clarkson
Call D o n C larkson at 503-295-9777. Contact
S uzanne D eakins at 503-544-0932 or
wuu>.ones[>iritfoundation. irrg.
Portland free-lance urtier K a TUY BELGE is your
Guide to Lesbian Life at umw.lesbianlife dbout.com.
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