Author Kimberlee Auerbach will be making a special Twin Cities appearance soon to discuss her new book The Devil, the Lovers & Me: My Life in Tarot.
Kimberlee’s book is a one-of-a-kind memoir that demonstrates the true power of tarot to change people’s lives. It’s funny, enlightening, a little shocking … but most of all, it’s charming, like Kimberlee herself.
A few days ago, we interviewed each other via Google Chat.
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Kimberlee: Hey there!
Corrine: Hi!
Kimberlee: I love your book! And I love using exclamation points!
Corrine: Exclamation points are the best!!! I also like em dashes— and use them to excess.
Kimberlee: How do you want to do this? Do you have questions? Should we just talk about tarot?
Corrine: I have a few questions, but I was thinking this would be sort of free flowing.
Kimberlee: Okay, let’s try that.
Corrine: Well, my first question… or comment, really… is, how did you muster enough bravery to put your whole life into a book? (I’ll just add that I feel incredibly self-conscious about the books I write. So much so that I can’t look at them for weeks after they come out. When the proofs come in the mail before printing, I literally hide them in the garage for a while.)
Kimberlee: Really? Wow. I haven’t read all your books, but I read Simple Fortunetelling and love it! You communicate so effectively and clearly, and you make tarot so accessible. That’s surprising. To answer your question, I can’t say I put “my whole life” in my book. I picked parts. I edited parts. I made sure the people I talked about felt safe.
Corrine: You mean there’s more? LOL! What did you leave out?
Kimberlee: Ha! Yes. There’s a lot more. I had to make sure everything I wrote about fit into the overall arc and connected to the cards. I had to be careful about not revealing other people’s stories, except where they butted up against mine.
Corrine: Well, that’s something else I wanted to ask you about … I really liked the members of your family. I wondered how they felt about becoming “characters” in your book, because they really were so vividly drawn. They were so well rounded. You revealed both the good and the bad.
Kimberlee: I went out to lunch with my dad and his friend recently, and his friend asked him how he felt about being in the book. My dad joked, “She portrays me as well-mannered and thin,” which I didn’t do. I was actually pretty hard on him. He has a great sense of humor about the whole thing.
Corrine: Still, it was all very risky and daring, don’t you think? I think so.
Kimberlee: There’s a great book called Forest For The Trees by Betsy Lerner. There’s a chapter called The Wicked Child, claiming that the people who are boldest on the page aren’t afraid of losing their parents love. I knew I wouldn’t lose my parents love, but I had to be careful not to hurt them. My mom was more sensitive because she prides herself on being a good mother. She was severely abused as a child, physically and sexually. She did not repeat the cycle of abuse, so it kills her to know she hurt us in any way.
Corrine: We don’t hear enough about people who do break the cycle of abuse and go on to live good lives and raise good kids.
Kimberlee: I agree with you. It took enormous strength on her part. Any hurt she inflicted on me was completely unintentional and unwitting.
Corrine: Clearly, it seems she did a fabulous job of parenting. And it read as though your dad is one of the good guys, too, despite the divorces and the anger issues.
Kimberlee: Yes, both my parents loved me and continue to love me. Speaking of being a parent, do you read cards for your kids? I bet that would help children develop intuition and learn to trust themselves.
Corrine: Not as much as they’d like. My two oldest girls are teenagers, and they would like me to do a romance / friends / High School Musical tarot reading for them every day of the week.
Kimberlee: Ha!
Corrine: Of course, they’d like me to bake cookies and have those available after school, too.
Kimberlee: I would like a cookie right about now 
Corrine: I’ve actually taught my oldest how to do her own readings, and the second one is mildly interested but not all that willing to apply herself.
Kimberlee: I like how you handle the fortunetelling aspect in your book, how you explain all the kinds of intuition and how to develop it further. I think in this culture people are so cut off from that voice inside them. So many people make bad choices cause they can’t trust themselves.
Corrine: Well, this always sounds weird, but I come from a family that looks completely normal—stoic and reserved, even, because we’re Scandinavian farm people—but my parents also have a hippie streak, and I grew up hearing and reading about psychic stuff my whole life. It’s only fairly recently that I learned most people are taught not to listen to their “psychic selves.”
Kimberlee: Well, you have a real way of talking about the cards that makes it seem like anyone can do it, and anyone can. It’s an underdeveloped part of our brains I think. I also like what you said about time not being linear. If we tune in, we can access information we might think impossible.
Corrine: To me, it’s completely normal. I’m glad that comes across in my books.
Kimberlee: I like your tips for how to create a sacred space and how to make it safe for you and the other person.
Corrine: How long have you been reading cards?
Kimberlee: Since ‘94.
Corrine: How did you learn to read them? And which deck you use?
Kimberlee: The first deck I ever bought was Healing Earth tarot. I loved it. All the crazy woodland creatures and crystals.
Corrine: Ah! That deck is worth some money now, you know.
Kimberlee: I especially loved this one card, forget the number, of a woman in a cage, screaming at the heavens, lightning in the sky, and behind her, the cage door in open. She could leave at any moment. That always really resonated with me. That we often create our own misery. I continued to collect decks and read a lot of books. I especially like a book called The Tarot by Nancy Shavick. Have you read it?
Corrine: Oh, sure. I have that one. I think tarot comes naturally to word and story people. So, Iris, the tarot reader in your book? How “real” was she?
Kimberlee: She’s definitely a composite. I have been to two tarot readers in my life, so I took their mannerisms and some of our exchanges and used them. I also like to think of her as my own old wise woman, my “inner” High Priestess, the one who knows. It was tough to pull off because in earlier drafts, I gave Iris all my wisdom and then I looked like an idiot. I had to strike a balance.
Corrine: So she’s your shadow self! I have this thing about light and shadow … “good” mothers and “bad” mothers … I think the lines are never as distinct as most people think, and a lot of good does emerge from the shadow.
Kimberlee: I agree with you. I tried to address the shadow stuff in my book. I see that you are a certified tarot reader. What does that mean?
Corrine: After my first published tarot work, the Epicurean Tarot deck, the tarot certification board recognized me by giving me the title. Well, not “giving,” exactly. They awarded it. I was already working my way through the ranks.
Kimberlee: That’s so cool! Congratulations!
Corrine: Your reader was an interesting figure in your book. She seemed a little domineering, though.
Kimberlee: I wanted to create tension between us. She needed to be a foil, something to push against. I thought of her as a personal trainer for the spirit.
Corrine: I like that. I’ve met a few readers just like her.
Kimberlee: Speaking of readers… would you be open to me pulling a card for you? And then maybe you could pull one for me? See how we both handle a single card reading?
Corrine: Oh, yeah! Now I have to go find a deck. Hold on.
Kimberlee: Me too.
Corrine: I only have about 500 decks. I grabbed my Thoth tarot, since we’re talking light and dark here.
Kimberlee: I want to get that deck!
Corrine: Okay. For you, I drew the Two of Disks… the serpent biting his own tail, contorting his body into the shape of the figure-8 symbol of infinity. Apparently, you tend to repeat certain cycles.
Kimberlee: Ha! You can say that again.
Corrine: Here’s what comes to mind when I see it: You bite yourself in the butt. You perform. (That’s a reference to the old-fashioned “juggler” image of the card.) You always learn something from your experiences, but you continue to cycle up and around them, so you can see and re-experience them from a new vantage point.
Kimberlee: True. True.
Corrine: How does that fit into your recent experiences?
Kimberlee: How do I bite myself in the ass? I’m very hard on myself.
Corrine: You have to know I’m laughing right now… I do think the card is being very tongue in cheek for you.
Kimberlee: Really? In what way?
Corrine: Well, just the fact that the words “You bite yourself in the butt” popped into my head is very funny. Here’s one thing it reminds me of: you’re not spiteful. Most people fall into the old adage about cutting off their nose to spite their face. You, on the other hand, do something a lot more Shakespearian. You bite yourself in the butt for the combination of comedy and tragedy that results. It hurts, but it’s funny.
Kimberlee: That’s my book in a nutshell.
Corrine: And it leaves your face intact.
Kimberlee: I definitely see the comedy in my life. That’s for sure. You think I seek out pain?
Corrine: I think you might, simply out of curiosity. I get the sense from this card that you like to see what will happen if you push at an issue from a slightly different direction each time. The lemniscates figure always fascinates me, because I think of it something like a parking ramp, where you go around and around in the same circle, but you move to a slightly different level and get to a slightly different vantage point.
Kimberlee: I love that interpretation. I’ve always interpreted that card as instability and lack of groundedness, like everything is up in the air.
Corrine: Well, that’s the juggling aspect.
Kimberlee: Okay, so I am going to pull a card for you. What do you want to ask?
Corrine: I keep having this one recurring nightmare. Let’s pull a card for that.
Kimberlee: I am going to start shuffling. Tell me when to stop.
Corrine: Stop.
Kimberlee: The cards are spread out in a fan. Tell me… my right, left or middle?
Corrine: Left.
Kimberlee: The Lovers. I don’t know anything about your nightmare, but I would say it has to do with your split self. You were talking earlier about shadow self. Well, there’s something that is keeping you from being whole. Until you connect the opposing forces within you, the spilt will continue to haunt you. It’s great that you’re conscious of it and can remember your dream.
Corrine: It’s a dumb nightmare: I keep thinking that we have guests in the house, and I’ve gone to bed without setting up a room for them. Then I wake up in a panic, sweaty, and I actually get out of bed and start looking for them so I can apologize. It’s always someone I know well — my parents, or old friends, and I think they’re sitting in the living room wondering where I’ve gone. Spooky, huh?
Kimberlee: Do you abandon your needs easily? I like to interpret everyone in our dreams as aspects of ourselves. Maybe there’s a part of you that you don’t take care of.
Corrine: I don’t abandon my needs at all. Maybe that’s the conflict. I feel guilty about being so me-focused. It is just like me to simply go to bed while everyone else is still rambling around. I like the Lovers card for this reading, though.
Kimberlee: Interesting. Then maybe it’s about letting go of the guilt or shame around that, realizing that when you take care of your own needs you are your best self for the people you love most. Would you have had a different interpretation?
Corrine: No. I think there’s a split between being the wife / mother / friend / dutiful daughter and being a writer / teacher / leader type person, and it’s hard to integrate both halves.
Kimberlee: Yeah, I can only imagine. I hope to have that problem one day But alas, I am single at 35.
Corrine: One of the things I liked about your book was that it was such a good portrait of single life. The good and the bad.
Kimberlee: Yeah. How old are you by the way? I thought only a certain demographic would relate to my book, but I’m finding women and men of all ages like it.
Corrine: I’ve been married, divorced, and remarried, but really, I’ve been a wife and mother for — get ready to be shocked — 22 years. I’m 43.
Kimberlee: Holy shit! You’ve had such a different life path than me.
Corrine: I know!
Kimberlee: You also happen to look a lot younger than 43.
Corrine: Wow! Thanks! When I was 17 I left the farm in North Dakota to be an exchange student in Brazil. Then I moved to LA at 21, got married, worked as a reporter. So I also enjoyed the little insight you offered into the news business, since that’s still an interest of mine. Did you quit Fox? Are you working or writing full time now?
Kimberlee: I quit Fox last July. Hooray! I am free. I am writing. I am teaching a memoir class this fall at MediaBistro. I want to teach and speak more and maybe do my own radio show. I also have lots of events coming up in the fall. One with you! I’m really excited to come to your hood
Corrine: Your brother is in Eden Prairie? Have you been in Minneapolis before?
Kimberlee: Yes, I like it a lot out there.
Corrine: My only hope is that you don’t get snowed in when you come here … or that if you do, you don’t mind. Bring extra underwear and socks, just in case.
Kimberlee: Thanks for the advice. I booked my flight on Sun Country, thanks to you. You’re so nurturing.
Corrine: Double Cancer. I love Sun Country. They have really good cheeseburgers and grilled cheese sandwiches on every flight.
Kimberlee: I could use one of those right now. I’m hungry.
Corrine: Me too! I had the crust of my daughter’s PB&J for lunch. It wasn’t enough.
Kimberlee: Well, we should go eat. Corrine, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for all of your help and kindness, and for your mini-tarot reading. That was fun!
Corrine: Yes, it’s been fun. I can’t wait to meet you in person.
Kimberlee: Me too!
About the Book:
Kimberlee Auerbach has tried everything. She’s been in therapy. She’s seen a Reiki Master. She’s even given hypnosis a try. Nobody can give her what she wants… to know her future is going to be bright, that everything will be okay. So she makes an appointment with Iris Goldblatt, “tarot card reader and mirror of the soul.” Instead of predicting the future, each card sparks a memory: like the time Kimberlee tried to be wild, and caught crabs from an Argentine painter; or the night her father “proposed” at Morton’s Steakhouse (presenting her with an engagement ring for her boyfriend to use); or the moment Kimberlee found the strength to kick out her freeloading ex. In a Wizard of Oz-like twist of fate, Kimberlee realizes she had the answers all along-that’s it’s not about looking to the future, it’s about trusting yourself along the way.
Exuberantly alive and refreshingly candid, The Devil, The Lovers & Me, will take you on a journey down one woman’s path, only to reflect yours back. You, too, will see yourself in the cards … The Devil, The Lovers, even the Fool.
