House of Citrine first connected with Lindsay Mack at this year's Spirit Weavers Gathering. What immediately stood out to us about Lindsay was her pure, blunt authenticity—the kind that hits you in the face but shows you straight to the heart. Her candidness comes from the belief and healing practice that acceptance brings clarity, and it’s the clear and honest path that travels forward.
A happy survivor of childhood abuse, trauma, and PTSD, Lindsay is dedicated to bringing healing to those experiencing mental, emotional, or physical suffering and helping people to arrive at their whole selves as she did. In addition to her offerings of Soul Tarot Readings and spiritual counseling, Lindsay’s writing on the Tarot can be found in numerous novels and journals.
Lindsay is based in Brooklyn, but her teachings live all around the world as her travels spread her readings and healing practices. She is also the co-facilitator of Brooklyn Fools, a six month Tarot immersion program. Lindsay offers readings, healing sessions, and tarot classes from her apartment, but teaches in workshops across the country and is reachable for her services across the world through phone or Skype in addition to her travels.
1. First off, we’d just like to say that we love and admire your passion with which you help those suffering from mental, emotional, and physical distress. How do you feel you were drawn to this form of healing?
Honestly, how I serve is really no different from how I am in real life—lots of wisdom, warmth, and compassion with a few “motherfucks” thrown in. I keep it very real, very authentic to how I actually am.
I feel that this work chose me. I never had any intentions of walking a healer’s path. In fact I wanted to be a performer, and did that for many years before being birthed into the initial phases of the work I'm doing now. It all came from choosing to stay alive through tremendous pain, trauma, and suffering, something I think that many healers share.
I bought my first deck of Tarot cards at age 12 and never thought for a moment that it would become a part of my adult life. I was always someone people came to for advice and guidance, and I always was aware I was somewhat intuitive, but it never occurred to me that that was an option in terms of a life path. It was only after moving through a life-changing breakdown a few years ago that I chose to actually say yes to my gifts and embrace my path as a seer and a healer. It began with a click for me, that all of my trauma, all of the physical and emotional abuse I had endured throughout my life, all of the supposedly terrible, shattered pieces were actually forming this incredible whole. They became the foundation upon which my entire soul’s journey as a healer was built on.
Everything I offer other people has come from being freed by it myself. I really surrendered to and embraced every dark, hellish thing I had been handed in my life as a gift and an opportunity to evolve. I just started to say yes to it all, and once I did, I started really healing and thriving. My tribe of clients soon followed, and the two still walk hand in hand. Tarot’s walked it's way back into my life and became the beautiful glue that binds it all together. My entire life transformed and continues to do so, all because I began to say yes and accept the issues that I had spent a lifetime trying to fix, neuter, eradicate, banish. I woke up to the fact that whatever arose in my inner landscape was a sacred teacher, one I could bow to and learn from. That's when I started to receive sacred offerings and began channeling my healing work.
I had no idea of all that would happen—I simply wanted to be at peace with myself, so I embraced everything in me, and everything hence flowed from that intention.
2. What is Tarot, exactly? What is your style for Tarot reading?
Stripped to numbers, the Tarot is a set of 78 cards—22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana—that are said to offer a visual range of the entire human experience. From deck to deck, there are different sets of images and archetypes used to provide the symbolism for the reading.
I myself facilitate an offering called Soul Tarot Readings. This is the intention to utilize the Tarot for the evolution of the soul, and for the continued disidentification from brain chemistry, old wounding, and the ego. Soul Tarot was born and channeled out of my own intimacy with my guides, my tarot deck, and my journey through deep healing. My practice continues to evolve with me, and the deeper I go, the richer the offering becomes.
3. How have Tarot cards helped you in your life?
I wouldn't be here without Tarot. The Tarot is the language I speak with God, and the visual representation of prayer for me. That sounds really out there, but it's true. It feels like a beloved pet, a guide and a friend. It brought Source and magic into my life when everything was dark.
Tarot helps me to understand what I am evolving through in any given moment, and to trust in myself and to grow. When I was healing from PTSD and I didn't trust my own connection to my guides, Tarot served as the bridge. Now it has blossomed into the most incredible tool for me. I channel through it, I see life through it, and I have fun with it. My relationship with my deck literally helped to save my life. It's a language that just makes sense to me.
4. Can you tell us a little bit about Wild Soul Healing?
Wild Soul Healing is the name of my beloved wellness practice, under which I offer Soul Tarot Readings, Intuitive Coaching & Mentorship, and Soul Tarot Intensives and classes. Wild Soul Healing is also my heart’s mantra—it’s the drumbeat I walk to in my own life. I believe, to quote Sweet Medicine Nation, that “wildness is our first medicine”. When the soul feels wild and free, we are truly in alignment with Divine. When the nervous system is free of trauma and fight/flight/freeze, we are liberated to live in this wildness, which is synonymous with the truth of us. Our inner children, our wisest knowing, our sexuality, our laughter, our tears, our raw, messy, beautiful selves—all makes up the treasure that we can claim once we commit to a path of healing the wild soul. Everything I offer within Wild Soul Healing is intended to return back to that essence of us.
5. How would you describe a person’s “true soul path”?
It's here! You're on it! The true soul path is this very moment. It's just us, being as available as possible to master and evolve through the moments and situations we are currently in. It's actually the moment we try and figure out what our soul path that we start drifting away from it a bit. You don't have to find it; it's already here, waiting for you with open arms.
Everything that we believe is a block or obstacle to the soul path IS the true soul path. It's whatever is inviting you to tea, so to speak, and it's usually the RSVP we are quickest to decline. Once we drop the notion that there's a problem with our current life, or that we have to “get on” our soul path (which the primal brain LOVES to think, by the way), we become available to effortlessly receive shifts, upgrades, and changes that are truly aligned with our highest and our best. At times, the soul path is rocky and dark as night. Sometimes it's so clear we can see for miles. It is wherever we happen to be moving through in this moment. It's all good medicine, no matter what.
6. If you could give one gift to everyone in the world, what would it be?
I would give to each person an embodied knowing that feelings are not facts, and that they don't have to believe their thoughts.
And a Chakrub. Everyone needs to own a Chakrub!
7. Throughout all your travels, what has been the most interesting experience involving your work? Where did it take place?
Without question, the most interesting work experience I've ever was teaching at Sacred Tarot for the Wild Soul at Spirit Weavers Gathering in Mendocino, CA. It was a very profound experience to be able to serve so many women from all kinds of backgrounds, all of whom truly aligned with the material I was teaching. That there was so special for me to witness. Holding class outside on the grass, surrounded by redwoods, birds, and butterflies didn't hurt, either!
8. Who has been your best teacher in life? What has been the most valuable lesson that you have learned?
Hands down, my mentor and sacred teacher, Michelle Sinnette. She is a master, and has given me the keys to unlock everything I am on this path and more. I love and cherish her and her work deeply. I've also been profoundly impacted by the works of Tara Brach, Thich Nhat Hanh, Susun Weed, and Clarissa Pinkola Estes. Furthermore, I find that my own fears, traumas, anxieties, jealousies, and shadows have been the best guides and exemplary teachers.
I'm in the practice of intentionally saying yes to anything that arises in my inner landscape; alas, I think that the most valuable lesson to impart regarding teachers is that in any moment you are present, you have the greatest one available to you. Whether it's your child, an asshole in traffic, or an surge of grief, it's all walking you home. I thank Michelle for having absolutely locked this in for me.
9. If you could choose one piece of wisdom to speak to all those in the depths of suffering, what would it be?
I would simply offer this quote by Rilke:
“Let everything happen to you, beauty and terror. Just keep going; no feeling is final.”
10. How do you feel that people can benefit from a Tarot reading?
People can profit from a tarot reading in so many astounding ways.
A good tarot reading offers truth, clarity, and empowerment. It holds a mirror up to our Divine nature. Tarot doesn't fix, cure, or tell the future, but is an excellent guide for the moment, so we can truly embrace the present from our heart.
A great tarot reading can serve as a healing tool, and can truly help the nervous system and the body let go of some of the trauma and embrace more of freedom. It all depends on whatever is in the client’s highest and best. It's really an amazing experience, and one that can often be life changing.
11. How often should someone consult a Tarot reader, in your opinion?
As often as they feel the call! Once every three months is a great baseline.
12. What is the most misunderstood thing about spirituality (Tarot reading)?
In terms of Tarot, the biggest misconceptions are that you will be told your future or your fortune, that it will predict catastrophe, death, or divorce, even that all tarot readers are psychics or cheating you out of money...I could go on and on!
13. What do you feel has been your greatest triumph as a spiritual guide?
That I don't feel like a spiritual guide. I just feel like a person, a person who is fucking blessed and honored to be able to walk a life of sacred service. It's a triumph for me that I've continued to do my own soul work consistently while working in this way. Sometimes I swing over into too much ego, but I'm knocked out of that pretty quickly by my guides. I am literally in a constant state of evolution, which is at once very uncomfortable and amazing! It's just my life rhythm. Honoring that has kept me very humble; it has kept my work very clean, ethical, honest, and ever-expanding. I'm delighted to be a raw, messy, imperfect human being, on this path with everyone else. Who the hell am I to be a guide if I'm not walking the same path as my students and clients? In truth, they’re just as much the teacher as I am.
Lindsay Mack is a Brooklyn based intuitive tarot reader who offers Soul Tarot readings, mentorship, coaching, and healing work. Visit her website to learn more, and follow her on Instagram and Facebook.