Two bouts of sensory deprivation led Jahne Hope-Williams to pursue a life of spiritual practice.
Jahne was born in England and spent the first years of her life living behind a Harrods’ department store. It was a troubled start to life; she was blind.
The doctors could do nothing and on a whim, after advice from a mystical Indian man, her mother brought her to Australia by boat.
Jahne fell sick on the journey and died fleetingly, only to escape death with a chance revival. This moment, says Jahne, was the beginning of her healing process. By age five, she could see clearly.
Jahne went on to live in dedication to her studies, which are all connected through the theme of spirituality: yoga, meditation, theology, art, philosophy and hypnosis. Central to these studies is reading tarot – a religious practice passed down through her family line and gypsy heritage. “All the females of my family did tarot,” she says.
“A lot of people are stuck in their lives and tarot gives them a new perspective. A direction they may not have thought about. Everybody knows what to do but they don’t do it. Tarot gives you the confidence to do it.”
When she was 40 years old, Jahne was driving on the freeway, and suddenly, she couldn’t see. She focused audibly on the sounds around her to pull the car over in the emergency lane where she waited to receive help. She was blind once more; doctors could do nothing.
Reflecting on this moment, Jahne smiles. “It wasn’t actually bad. From five to 40, I was able to see, so I thought, ‘how lucky am I?'”
After a year of no vision she sought out an acupuncturist who worked intensely with her for eight weeks and diagnosed an issue with her kidneys. They were able to revive her sight, and during this period of limitation, tarot reading became most serious.
“I didn’t need the cards because I could visualise them. I just use the cards to make you feel more comfortable,” she says.
Her practice continues to this day and brings people from as far as Los Angeles to receive a reading at her home in the Macedon Ranges. Despite this, Jahne’s connection to the blind has always remained steadfast.
For the past 18 months, she has been working on a deck of tarot cards for the vision impaired. The cards use hole punches instead of braille because only 10 per cent of blind people can actually read this system.
Her plans for the future are to teach the vision impaired tarot reading over YouTube and Zoom as she believes they make the best readers due to their heightened senses.
In the meantime, Jahne has an upcoming exhibition at The Old Auction House Gallery in Kyneton.
The show, titled Druids, Icons and the DIG, will have its opening night on Friday, March 14, from 6pm and includes a range of Jahne’s paintings and tarot decks. All are welcome.
