10 Questions for Tarotist Benebell Wen

What’s your favorite breakfast food?

Hash browns (the grated kind that you pan-fry until brown and crispy on the outside), eggs over easy (it better be runny), and bacon (crispy, please). Preferably you cooked the bacon first and then cooked everything else in the remaining bacon fat.

Book you’d like to give everyone (or wish they would read)?

Oh, you mean aside from Holistic Tarot, right? Right. Okay then. A blank, perfect bound journal (college ruled, of course). I wish everyone would write down their own stories, and then read it to reflect on their lives and what they’ve done.

What makes you laugh? Funny cat videos on YouTube. Yes. I’m one of them.

Song that never gets old: “Let It Be” by The Beatles.

Drink of choice: Riesling.

Would you rather be hot or cold? I like the environment to be cold, but I need to manipulate my body and personal space to a temperature that’s insufferably hot (by other people’s standards). Do you know what I mean? It has to be a cold winter’s night but I’m wrapped in fifteen comforters and my personal heater is on 100° F. Love the autumn chill but I have to have those scarves draped like wool pythons and coiled up to my ears.

Mountain, beach, desert, or forest? I don’t know. I like nature…on postcards.

Favorite color? Blue or black. Or white. Or pink or gray. I don’t think I have a color bias. It depends. Favorite color for what?

Best movie line: I really want to quote something high-brow here so you think I’m smart, but I’ve got nothing. I love that line in Lilo and Stitch where Lilo declares that feeding a tuna sandwich to her pet fish would be an abomination, so she needs to hunt down a PB&J sandwich for her fish, and this is all important because her pet fish controls the weather. I love it because it’s exactly how we all think. We pride ourselves in being rational creatures, but our logical reasoning for what we do is usually more along the lines of Lilo’s logic… and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Last thing you splurged on? A donation to a cause I believe in.

Bonus Q: Benebell is such a lovely name. What is its meaning/origin? It’s based on my Chinese name. Translated literally, my Chinese name means “benevolent bells.” From that, I got “Benebell.” 

Benebell Wen is the author of Holistic Tarot: An Integrative Approach to Using Tarot for Personal Growth (North Atlantic Books, January 6, 2015). She loves lapis lazuli and malachite. She is an ascendant sign Aquarius, sun sign Libra, and moon sign Leo. The Queen of Swords totally describes her. Visit Benebell at www.benebellwen.com.