When Emily Guenther, also known as Reverend Omma to her Wiccan congregation, opened The Broom Closet over 10 years ago, she thought of it as a fantasy coming true. “I had spent six or seven years working in advertising,” she says. “It felt very inconsequential, like anybody could do it. It wasn’t feeding my soul, but it paid the bills. … I had this fantasy that like one day I might actually get to retire. And once I did, I would then spend my retirement working at a little store selling herbs to people — that was just this weird kind of daydream that kind of helped me get through the day sometimes.”
But after a rough year with her mother’s passing and losing that advertising job, her husband Stephen urged her to bring her metaphysical store to fruition, and now 10 years later, that store is going strong, offering solace to its customers and selling spiritual supplies from sage for cleansing to gemstones for manifesting. “We strive to serve the spiritual needs of the community,” Guenther says. “We try to cater to everyone regardless of their beliefs or practices, and just help people, talk to them, answer questions, help them find the thing that they need if they don’t know what they’re looking for.”
As such, one of the services The Broom Closet offers is tarot reading — fortune-telling that uses a deck of 78 pictorial cards. Anyone can read tarot, Guenther says, as long as they understand the meanings of the cards and can embrace their intuition, but having someone else read your tarot can offer insights that you might not have to come otherwise. “The thing about tarot,” she says, “is that because we’re all different … we filter through our life experiences and the way that we live our lives. And so if I needed a reading and let’s say I came to you and I know what the cards mean, you’re going to say it or explain it or filter it through your experience in a way that I needed to hear it.”
In a way, it’s like therapy, with someone guiding you through confronting and coping with the uncontrollable — like love or money, two things Guenther says she gets asked about the most.
To kick off the new year, the Broom Closet is hosting a special night of tarot reading for those looking to check in on specific situations in their life and find guidance. Participants will be able to choose from 15-minute tarot readings for $20, 30-minute readings for $40, and 60-minute readings for $70. Readings will be done on a first-come-first-served basis, with no appointments necessary.
To keep up with other event offerings, like workshops and sound baths, at The Broom Closet, follow them on Facebook (@The Broom Closet – Memphis) or Instagram (@ the_broom_closet).
Twilight Tarot: A Night of Tarot Reading, The Broom Closet, Friday, January 6, 6-8 p.m., $20-$70.
