Episode 4: Questing! Slowly.

I don't know why that stuck. Well, even that, that is interesting. Right. Right. Yeah. And of course, there was some part of me back then, some young version of myself, that was flattered that he thought I was interesting. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So we'll raise a mug to all. To all the old boyfriends today. All right. All right. To all our listeners out there. We invite you to raise a mug to Boyfriend's Best. Yeah, the complimentary and non-complimentary.

Right, and in how many ways were the non-complimentary ones, the ones that spurred us on, that spurred us forward, right?

So true. I mean, that is always the classic story in the, I've heard, at least in the feminine, the woman's journey, there's many a tale of that.

So how was your month, right?

We just, we started quest season, this whole chapter four kind of landed during spring equinox.

We began our quest. We're kind of like in it, like really in it now, not just dancing around the edges anymore. Yes, we are, we are in it. And it's, it's funny because we had very obvious journey related imagery.

Just kind of super obvious, like stupid, obvious journey imagery for the start of the quest season, this chapter. So that was fun. Right. And that was both of us across the board. We both had those, those kind of in different ways, we had very obvious questing imagery. Mm hmm. Well, and then how literally translating that into IRL in real life, we both actually traveled.

Yeah. We actually went places.

So that happened.

Also, there were so I'm looking at Susan and I as part of this kind of like, look back.

For context, we pull these Dixit cards. Dixit is a storytelling game, but we've applied it to our lunar praxis here as a as a tool for integration.

And which side of the reason why we've used these cards is because the imagery in these cards and you have it's like multiple, multiple decks of cards with no words, just these fabulous images.

I don't know who created these cards, but they were geniuses. I don't know if they realize what geniuses they were, but they were really genius. Well, it's clear that they were tapping into some field of inspiration. Right? Right. Yeah. That's why I love it because it is so right brain. And, you know, I've been pulling cards with my Matthew, my husband priest guy for six, seven, six or seven years now.

And he never liked the Dixit cards, know, as we were pulling. And when I, so last night we did our own retrospective where we were looking at the cards together. And now that we've decided to pull them at the end, it's like all of a sudden clicked for him. He's like, you've done it. You've changed my mind. This is brilliant. This is genius. Like. All of a sudden, like, yeah, he's like, wow, like, now it gives all new context to the cards, and you can weave everything together. And you can eat. I'm like, yeah, you don't say. I was like, cool. That means we're doing our we're doing our job. Awesome. Not that again, not that his opinion is was going to change. Right. It didn't influence. We just were we were patient for him to catch up. Exactly. Oh, goodness. And so what that means is, for each of the podcast episodes, as we're doing this retrospective and look back on the chapter, if you want to pause, you're listening and you want to go on our website and look at the show notes, you can actually see what these cards look like.

And maybe at some point we'll be on on video too, and not just audio, but for now. So you can go and actually. Look at them as we kind of talk about them a little bit. And so that preface there was to kind of contextualize.

I was really able to see the stages of the heroic journey that we're in right now. So, you know, spring equinox, we crossed into the extraordinary world. And we call this first half of the season, the new approach. And so it's our little fun combination of the new world. And that's where you meet allies and enemies, and you have tests, and you need tools. And so that all happened. And then you have, as you get closer to that mid-quarter, midpoint, May 1st, which is the crucible, or that's what kind of what we call it.

But as you get closer to that, the ordeal. You know, some of that classic language, you have the approach to the inmost cave, right?

Would you like to say more about that? Well, so I preface all of that to say that my Dixit card, which Susan has seen more than once.

Yes, I have pulled that card more than once. Mm hmm. Shows a cave. It shows a cave with these like red eyes going out from it and then hands climbing up over the side of a ledge, you know. And so I chuckled to myself as I got that card, because that's quite literally the point that we're at in the journey.

So I wanted to start with that just... To contextualize where we're at in the annual heroic journey and, and then also, you know, invite, you know, others who might be listening to think back from Ring Equinox, so March to now, between March and May, and you can kind of think about these little points of your journey, right? So figured I'd start there.

You know, when I think about this past month, there was the literal travels.

Oh, my goodness. Can you hear a cat yowling in the background? No, I can't at all, actually. Okay. I was, I was thinking, do I want to stop you and comment that your voice, I think you might You move back away from your mic, and when you do that, it's a little bit hard to hear you, and Matthew will probably complain about the voice quality shortly. Yes, no, and see, these are the things. It's like, it's good to know in real time. Yeah, like our conversation when you have food in your teeth. It's good to know. Yes, yes, it's good to know in real time. Oh, goodness.

So the past month, past chapter, so it started out a little rough.

Yeah, had a rough time, right? It started out a little rough. like, head and congestion and...

Yes. Well, and... So it was down for the down for the count. Well, and I thought it was just the seasonal, I've never had seasonal allergies. But I figured being in a new geography, new, new pollen. So there's that. But then I was like, no, this is more than this is more than just allergies. So it was a confluence of, and I heard through the grapevine that there's something, something in the air, know, that folks were getting some, some, some sort of something. That is my professional, non-doctorly, there's something, there's something out there.

So I know, I know, that's great.

And then I, then I also So, um,

We a liver spike, which is usual for springtime, right, liver, liver disease hit, so that showed up on biofeedback, was attending to that, and then the right at the peak of where the full moon was, I had a doozy of a migraine, and it's funny because, you know, there's this card in my image.

There's this woman, she's holding her head, and there's a storm, there's a storm in the back, and we had these huge geomagnetic storms that you had pointed out. Yes, and I think at one point I had seen you and mentioned that we had more days of storms, like three times as many days of storms than calm days.

So So So So yes, the storms were really intense. And I'm not talking like storms as in rain and, you know, lightning or snow or anything like that. It was, you know, way up high in the atmosphere and X flares and all that kind of stuff. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And which affects us, which, you know, can affect us. Right. And, you know, especially people who are sensitive to begin with. Yeah, like, we really feel that stuff. Yeah. And then it was funny.

then the next day after I had like, all, all day into the night, then just paralyzed with pain.

And once that passed through, then And next night, I was also really bummed because I wanted to do, it was Matthew and I's anniversary season, and we do an annual relationship reading. And so the day I got the headache was when we were supposed to do that. And so then the next night, I got dressed up in a red dress like the woman in the card, and we did the reading together. And there was an actual storm, not just a magnetic one, but there was an actual literal storm and lightning peeled through like, you know, you could see it come through the window, just like in the card image. So I loved, I love when there's that level of hypersynchronicity or coherence.

And so it, it started out a little rough. But then also, it was so beautiful.

This chapter was so beautiful. And I. I am abundantly grateful for our MVP challenge, I will say. So this minimum viable spiritual practice that we do starting April 1st, and if this piques your curiosity at all, you can hop in any time, by the way, just as a side note. But so I had decided on, you know, what I was going to do. And part of it also was confirmed and then inspired by the cards around cultivating the mind garden, you know, and so I have this little tin, and if you're listening, can do this at home with just an Altoids tin, and you can always craft it and make it really pretty, which I want to do soon, hopefully.

But it's always like a, don't let the, don't create any barriers between your. So if you need to just take an old Altoids 10 and use that, it's kind of like folks don't want to start a journal because it's like too pretty, you know, and don't know what to write or, you know, whatever. It's like grab a dollar notebook from the dollar store and just like put something on the page. So anyway, it's my little, that's where I put my weeds, my worries, the top of the 10 says give it to God. And so if I find something, an anxious thought that I can't seem to move around, I can turn it into a prayer and I can put it in a little to-go prayer box and I can set it up on the shelf. And I find that it, it dissipates, you know, the load is, is lifted and I pulled this weed from the mental.

And And then I've also decided to do a joy cleanse, a joy challenge of sorts.

And this is inspired by Maylis, Maylis Smitig.

So this is an old colleague, friend.

And I remember she had read somewhere that she had done this in, I don't remember how many days it was, of intentional joy.

And I loved that. We have joy and delight in our to-do position for this season. And so I have started to do that.

And I realized what I was, what I'm doing is not so much, like, looking for something to do that would maybe-

Like hopefully instilled joy. It's almost more of a gratitude list. I call it, you know, the bright side list. And it's looking every day for the moment of joy.

And like using attention and intentional awareness to like turn that into like a bubble, like a real memory bubble and like really savor that and note it and appreciate it.

That is different than like making sure in your day you do something like you do something that brings you joy, right?

No, it's a different kind of practice, right? I realized. And that's what I thought it was going to be at first was this like intentional. Like, okay, I'm going to find something to do every day, and then instead, it went from intentional joy to perceptional joy, and to just, how can I become aware of the joy that's already here? Mm-hmm. And if people want to do something like this, I feel like something that might be interesting to do as well is, in the moment of something, of an activity, making that decision in the moment, you know what?

I can feel joyful doing this.

Mm-hmm. You know, I think that is really powerful, to make a decision in the moment, okay, I can change my attitude right here. Yes. No, it is incredibly powerful, and it's like the... I basis of so many self-help, like 101 stuff. And the thing is, of course, I feel like with any tools that help towards healing, it's like when you're so in a rut, it's like how do you, and you may even cognitively know that doing this thing would maybe help, but how do you actually get enough energy, enough breath, enough capacity to actually do it?

And that's why I so appreciate this MVP challenge, because it's helping me get back to basics, too. Mm-hmm. Right? And yeah, it's like this, every day now, I'm looking, like I'm paying attention for, and when it comes, it's like, oh yeah, this is it. that's get my head. Yeah. break All This is the moment. I touch that feeling. There's joy. And it's a small miracle, but I allow myself to go there and really feel it.

And then you prime it, right? So then it's like building a muscle, you know? And so, yeah, those are a couple things.

There's a couple things I wanted to share. This chapter was so rich. Tell me more. Keep going.

Oh, what else? Is there anything else that wants to be said now? I want to come back to the cave at some point. Mm-hmm. At some point. But what are some high-level first impression when you look back on the chapter for yourself? Things that are standing out in your mind.

So, let me think. I felt like, and I think that you and I touched on this earlier when we've talked about the cards, the, I'm going to now call it super hyper coherence of my cards, and that in and of itself stands out to me.

How, you know, for some reason the word miraculous is coming to mind that it feels like there is this major miracle happening.

For me, that just like gives me like the little effervescent bubbles inside.

Because it feels, the whole thing feels very supportive, you know, pulling these cards, having this imagery that comes through in the cards, and then this, knowing that we have created this structure with Within Robes of Light, that doesn't it doesn't really speak down to detail level at all.

Because it doesn't talk about life circumstances in any way.

It simply is like an outline, a structure.

And then like life fills in. All the blanks within the foundational structure, right? And it just, it falls into place so amazingly, so beautifully.

So that in and of itself is really standing out to me. How, you know, we created this structure or rhythm around seasons and lunations, and then we picked these cards, which of course we, it's just, I'm going to call it random for lack of a better word.

Like we, you know, it could appear to be random to some people. And so we choose these cards, not knowing what's going to happen in life, you know, and it's not like we, um, force things because of the cards.

We let Let life play itself out, and so much of life, as we know, we can't control, but then, like, life really shows up in alignment, not only with the cards, but with the season, and so it just is, to me, it's a really beautiful, like, aligned unfolding, and so I feel like having said that, and sort of use the word that I feel like was in my cards, in a way, with that tidy house card, I feel like what that was really pointing me toward as an intention was alignment, you know, that the intention was to clean house, to tidy up, to form some internal alignment for myself, not in a rigid way, in an energetic, loose way, only way.

That allows just life to unfold from my center. And then I had this liminal space card that showed up of the, you know, the crossing the bridge.

And then this message of surrender and go with the flow, right?

And I feel like there were so many opportunities in my month to be like, okay, this is not mine to control here.

So we went on a trip. My cousin and I, we had a great time. It was go with the flow, for sure, because it was a holiday weekend. Mm-hmm. And we hadn't made it a plan in advance, and so we really did go with the flow, talk about joy, we went to the Circus Museum, and so that was so much fun, not only what this guy built over the course of 60 years he put into this effort of building, this miniature circus city, like I'm talking the entire city, which is what it was.

When the circus came to town, like early, early years, like on the train, it literally was a city that was built, and it was breathtaking, but it brought back so many childhood memories because

My parents used to take me to the circus. So that was super interesting to be so immersed in actual little joyful memories from a stressful childhood, right?

And it was an interesting, I'll call it introduction to the Dixit card.

Mm hmm. Which, you know, forms the theme around the lunation and the other cards. Because the image on that card happens to be a child standing outside with what could appear to be a father and a mother standing side by, you know, standing on either side of the child.

Um...

In the night sky, the child is looking up like he's a pillar, like he, it does look like a boy to me, you know, I'm not going to say it is, but it does look like a mass, a small mass killing figure. Um, and it's not just solid dirt that the image shows.

It is like rolling waves of dirt underneath his feet.

Um, and behind him is, um, trees, which also, you know, could be seen as pillars.

So he is standing very pillar like with his parents. Um, the mother seems to be holding her head, freaking out a little bit in like the, the holding the head position of your, um, anxiety card, like holding her head. Um, and so I've found. I it interesting, like all those memories around my parents came up this month, and this card, and then both of my parents had health issues this month come up, some of which could have been very serious, and you know, I'll call them elderly.

Sorry, Mom, I'm calling you elderly. I know you really would rebel against that. Well, they are. You know, they're in their 80s. They're considered elderly now, and so I find like all of that synchronicity very interesting.

It gets even more interesting to me when I think about not only the workshop that we did.

That healing workshop that we did this month, that's like another level of interesting, but the fact that I have been involved in a program for spiritual development outside of this, it is more, I'll call it like energy healing, building your crystalline light body, if anybody's into that.

So like very specific, it's like very specific practices, is really what it is, very different kind of program than what we do. And so I've been really, you know, focused on this work, and over the course of, I don't know, probably the last, I don't know, I guess it was literally four weeks, I guess, that I was doing these practices. One of the practices that I was doing was clearing ancestral and genetic karma.

Mm-hmm. And... So not only did that concept of clearing karma and the way we were doing it show up in the imagery that you offered as a healing tool from our workshop, our monthly workshop, but I feel like it is so enmeshed with the theme of this Dixit card and the parents, standing by the child who looks like the, um, uh, what do I want to call it?

Um, I can't think there's a word that I'm like grasping for, um, where he's like, he's like completely independent.

Like I am not listening to you. He's got his fists like I am sovereign free.

Right? Can you picture him like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not listening to you. And so I find his stance, and particularly, I get this feeling from this card that he is aligned, that he's looking up to the heavens for his alignment.

despite the ground moving under his feet, he is standing willfully independent from his parents.

And so I feel like that is very fitting. Not that I haven't done that work in the past, but I feel like with the...

The energetic work that has been going on, and I started this program in January, I feel like it takes it down to the cellular level and really clears all the history out of your cells because the purpose of the program is to literally clear the karma out of your cells so that your cells become, and I use the expression crystalline, like obviously your cells aren't turning into crystals.

It's not literal. What it's talking about is the cellular purification that your body literally becomes pure.

You are able to fully self-heal. And so I just find that whole time. Timing of all of it. Very, very interesting. And, you know, one of the cards really showed like that closing door, right with with the the fire and the light. And I feel like, gosh, another image that really depicts like this closing door on carrying forward karma, particularly that ancestral karma.

And the person who I'm studying with has very specifically said that karma is no longer dealt with in the way that it used to be.

That that karma is not is not it's not dealt with like that anymore. And you deal with karma specifically with your higher self and your monad. Um, and It's, it isn't through like the same consequences that we used to see.

So I found that very interesting. And that was sort of that piece was just sort of a side note there. But I, to go back to the closing door, I really feel that this energetic work that I've been doing, like, that's the closing door.

It's closing the door on this old inherited karma that, you know, we had all been carrying and that's what we need to do in order to really step into our highest self fully and embody our monad and become crystalline and, you know, and live in that divine perfection here on earth, whatever.

. That may look like. So I feel like that really has come into alignment. And even with, to go back to that flow state or the drifter card, it was interesting to witness myself as, you know, my parents have to grapple with their mortality, and I need to as well, you know, recognize that they're really aging, and that they're in that last phase of life.

And it just, it has felt very comfortable for me to, to be in that.

It has not felt stressful. And I'm not saying, you know, when the time comes and they pass that it, you know, Of course, there can always be that feeling of shock and whatever, but I want to say that I have spent the past several years, particularly with my mom, really making sure to enjoy the moment with her and to just connect in a different way than we had been able to when I was younger.

And to really appreciate and enjoy the time I have with her. So I feel like, I feel like I won't have regret. You know, I really feel like I can stand here and say that we both really worked on the relationship throughout our, well, my adult life, I'll say. She was already an adult, through my adult life, and that we really came to appreciate each other and spending time together. And so I really feel like we've done that. So just very different than, you know, the way I feel like it had been, you know, where our relationship had really been challenged, you know? Um, so I feel like, um, this month really put some closure in, in that way on things. I feel like that's the, that's kind of the door that's, that's closing for me. Um, and, uh, you know, just, I'll go back to that, um, that stability piece, um, that I see in that little, that little boy's posture.

Um, despite the grubbs. The moving underneath his feet, which I feel like in a way symbolizes some of this earth stuff that you were talking about earlier, and all the storms and everything. It did kind of feel like the earth was moving under our feet in a way, you know, even I like I was getting like these little like dizzy spells, you know, I mean, they weren't major, and I knew what it was. But it feels like, oh, like the earth is really changing. So I thought that was interesting. And there was one other thing. What was there was something else I was going to say as well. Oh, I know what it was. Um, I love that this image has a masculine tone to it for the you know, that that little that little being has a masculine tone to it because over .

. Over the past several months, I had been having some significant dreams around the animus, and watching dream after dream after dream, that masculine energy in me changing.

And so I love that this wasn't a little girl, but it kind of reiterated like that willful little masculine energy in me.

So I feel like that really stood out as well. Trying to think, what else happened this month? Well, I still am healing from a broken rest, right? Which has just had me drifting a little bit more, you know?

Which has been, I just really surrendered to it. Like, okay, can't take... I of, you know, the house the way I was, can take care of preparation of food the way I was, although, you know, things have improved. So really just spending, like, more time laying out in the hammock and enjoying nature. Even if I go to the ranch, which is, you know, just on Fridays basically right now, I don't really do much. You know, I can show up and be like, hey people, hi horsey, but there isn't really much for me to do. Because I'm sort of one handed, not allowed to lift more than two pounds, which means I'm not controlling horses in any way, not haltering. Feed bowls typically weigh more than two pounds, so not doing any of that kind of stuff. It's just going and, you know, I'll sit with Odin and give him an apple and, like, that's about it.

So much more, much more laid back. Not not doing as much as I had been.

So the whole the whole role has slowed.

My eyes are drawn to your Dixit card, which I love. This is a new one. We've never seen this one, which is exciting. I I have never pulled this card before. So what part stands out to you? So I, other than the things that you've noted, and so the parental figures are sort of overshadowing him and really obvious there, but the

The stars, you know, really were just standing out so brightly to me. And his, so when you're describing like going to the circus town and the sense of wonder and childhood wonder, so the gaze up at the heavens and holding on to this, you know, he's standing in his sovereign, you know, pillar, yet there's still a sense of wonder and imagination.

Right. So there's, yeah, which is beautiful. And then, when I see the stars like that, I think of the ancestors. And I so I don't know if you'd explicitly see you said, you know, the karmic clearing from, you know, genetic parental, but like ancestral, you know, healing. And maybe it's because my little one has been watching the Lion Guard, you know, they turned the Lion King into like a TV show. So we got a DVD from the library with and And, you know, Mufasa will just appear in the clouds and the heavens and, like, have a conversation with his grandson. And I love that this show has, like, the ancestral presence as, you know, a regular – it's not – you know, Kion's, like, talking to his grandfather like he's talking to his dad. You know, like, he speaks to the heavens. And I love that. I guess that's, like, one of the famous lines from the original film.

You know, they lay in the grass and they look up at the skies and they say, oh, all the great kings of the past you can see in the stars. And, you know, so there's something beautiful about that. And then the fact that he's standing directly under the moon, right? So there's, like, a very literal thing that this is our lunar praxis, right? And so then, you know, this concludes me, like, ooh, I wonder what's happening. You know, astrologically in your chart with like your moon or like the transiting moon or, you know, seeing there's, when I think of the moon, the emotional body, the mother, you know, there's moon things, the subconscious, deep, deep subconscious, deep, either like personal subconscious, like some skaric, like, you know, these kind of things.

And yeah, the, the moon, like, very meta, the lunar, the lunar work here.

And it's, for those of you who aren't familiar with our praxis, like just a, a touch of differentiation, kind of like how I was describing, like, rather than the intentional joy of

Like, okay, I'm gonna go do something to try and be joyful. Instead, I'm going to use this as a tool to bring awareness to the joy that is arriving and present and available to me here and now, and I don't have to do anything to do that, to get that, to access that. And so somewhat similarly in evolutionary astrology, I started to read Dava Green's text.

And so in evolutionary astrology, Pluto represents the soul and the moon represents the ego and this ego structure that the soul creates, you know, in a given lifetime in order to actualize those evolutionary desires or intentions.

And, uh, so it's, it's cool.

Like, it's revered. Revealing what the soul's inherent evolutionary desires and intentions are so that then we can attune to those because what will happen, in short, is that humans are generally resistant to change because it provides, you know, these familiar patterns, even if maybe they're limiting in some ways, they provide us like emotional stability or security and how do we actually move and orient ourself?

In the flow, how do we flow? How do we drift? How do we allow life to take us there along the soul's evolutionary journey? So anyway, I'm looking forward to providing more of that context in our lunar praxis in terms of the mechanics of how this cartomancy works.

You know, we talk about why do we pull cards. So, yeah. . . The moon was standing out to me there as well. I mean, I love these cards. I mean, wow, so rich, so rich.

So was there anything else that stood out from your chapter before I was going, I was looking back at my Dixit card since we were talking about the Dixit cards. Anything else that you have that you wanted to note? I think so. You know, the one thing, other additional thing that I would say is that a thread that I keep carrying with me this year is this idea of emergence.

What do these cards mean through the lens of that archetype?

What messages can I see for myself?

How do I continue through each chapter, through each season?

How do I continue to carry that thread, um, of emergence so that I, um, really stay, um, anchored in the moment?

Um, and so, you know, I think about a few different, um, phrases when I see these cards through that lens.

Um, one is, um, that I need to allow the old patterns not to define me anymore, you know, because...

We do have patterns within us that we can choose to fall back on, you know, even though they aren't bound to ourselves anymore, we could still mentally affix ourselves to them.

So we need to, or I need to at this moment, remember that I don't need to hang on to the patterns, you know, that I have the freedom now to choose, you know, it's like having done the constellation, you know, that there is more access and more freedom in my life now.

And that I don't need the same rigid structure.

That may have been that, you know, this idea of going with the flow really, I think I used the word before, like scaffolding, you know, like you don't need to have a rigid system in place anymore, like scaffolding is enough, you know, just so I'm not building something new too quickly, you know, I need to allow the time and the space for whatever is coming in.

And to be built slowly, don't don't build too quickly, don't make assumptions on what, what's forming.

And to, I don't know, I feel like there's something to say about that in terms of my identity as well.

Like don't, don't. Quickly define myself or don't make assumptions about myself as to who I am now in this in this new moment.

So those are things that I'm really keeping in mind as I, you know, live this out moment to moment. Mm hmm.

I'm definitely seeing winks to the flexibility card for those who tuned in for the seasonal show.

And then also the turtle, the value of going slowly.

I've really been really contemplating that even more this chapter as well. So the value of going slowly. Yeah. And it's not only I mean, you have to slow down in order to like I see the moment deeply for what it is. There has to be the slowing down first, but I feel like there is more than the slowing down. Like you have to slow down and have the awareness. So it's the turtle and my owl with the unicorn horn, right? Like you need to be working with both of those images. You know, you have to let both of those play out. So slow down for sure, but also like really stay aware in the moment.

Like what, what's trying to come forth here? You know, like ask yourself what's, what's trying to come forth. And another question that I have been asking myself or trying to remember to ask myself as, as life comes up is, um, what if in this moment I did. So, that's great. you. Nothing. Would something degrade? Would something degrade if I did nothing? And that's powerful. That's like a whole other, it's not, what do I need to do? Yes. What do I need to do now? That's such a different energy than, okay, and if I do nothing here, does something essential degrade?

Very, very different question. So that's something that I have been playing with. I love that. I feel like it's contextually relevant with the astrology. know, my understanding, I was watching the astrology podcast, April forecast, and I had noted in heartbeat, these coherencies with our seasonal spread. And there's like this intensity, I'll just say, you know, there's a certain intensity. Um, you've had. So we're closing this chapter. And by the next new moon, you have this stellium, all of these planets and Aries, know, this like fire energy, if it wasn't clear, we're in the year of the fire horse, you know, we are. And there was this note about the fog of war, because so what will happen with Neptune and fog is like, things won't be clear you people don't you actually don't have the clarity or, you know, not seeing a situation clearly.

And what can happen is, is when you're doing that really fast reactionary, you know, fiery energy, that's where you can have conflict, even warfare that comes up from that. And what I realized afterwards, and I was going to come back to it is I was like, Oh, all of these things I feel like I noted, were mostly, they were challenging astrological aspects as, you know, Mercury is going to conjunct Neptune, Mars, and Saturn, and Aries, and, you know, these were noted as challenging things, but the connections that I made to our seasonal spread were all in the gifts position. Mm-hmm. And how shamanic is that, right? Like you take, how can you actually take the, right? How do you take the energy that's there and then turn it into a gift, right? And I, and so as, as the heat is on and there is this feeling of urgency or tension or whatever it is, I love this question of, well, what can I not do?

How slowly can I go, right? Yeah. In, to, to meet that in terms of awareness, love that.

Oh, it also reminded me of—I'm going to fashion this up and share it maybe as a new Waymaker Guide page for this part of the season in terms of wayfinding, but a new spread came to me and came to mind, and it was The Fork in the Road, and that is—and it's one of those things where you're feeling a sense of urgency that you need to act on something, and it's like, oh, well, you can see this path, and you can see this path, and then—but what is—maybe—what is the unseen option that can arise or appear when you can actually look at what's there?

And it's funny, I was so excited about this spread and the clarity, the real practical clarity I'd gotten from, you know, using this. And I was telling Matthew, I'm like, I was excited about it. And he's like, what do you mean a middle way or a third option? You you come to a fork in the road and there's either do this or you go, you go this way or you go this way. There's not, there's not a third path. And I was like, isn't there though, but isn't there. And then I showed it to him and he was like, oh, okay, you're right. I find, he's like, I get it now. Yeah, I think that if we pause at that fork in the road, there can very well be seen, an unseen option that opens up to us.

Absolutely. And I feel like that was the crux in our to be position for the season and in our blessing, like that's, that's baked in there, I feel like for this season. You know, that, that wisdom of slowing down and then pausing when it feels like, you know.

So there's something I was tickled by, by this Dixit card. Oh, tell me. We've, we, so we've seen, for context, the reason why we kind of giggle is that we've, we've seen this one numerous times. I feel like Susan has gotten this one a lot. I, I think that I've had it at least twice. Oh, yeah. Um, and so the, the things that came to mind immediately as I saw this was, uh, immediately the Joseph Campbell line, the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure that you seek, right?

And. So there's something very archetypal and basic about this card of, you know, if you identify with the person, the hands that are coming up over the cliffside, climbing the mountain on, you know, their quest, they're going to approach and go inside this cave and inside this cave, there's going to be the reward. And so you're like approaching this cave. And, but the, the, the thing that tickles me is, you know, the question I jotted down in my journal here of, well, which one am I, am I the person on the cliffside, or am I the glow, am I the glowing eyes inside the cave, right, am I, am I the monster, and Matthew is like, oh, you're definitely the monster. You're definitely that. That's the interesting thing, though, is that if we look at this card, like a dream, you're both. Right. I, it's both. Well, and so then. Yeah. Right? I said, am I the person hanging from the cliffside, or am I the red-eyed monster in the darkness?

Or both? Both. And I feel like that is also very indicative of, we had messages for the spring season around the masculine heroic journey, the feminine heroic journey, and so, or in other language, the seeker and the sought after.

And so, you know, the arms, the figure climbing, the cliffside, the archetypal seeker, the masculine who's out, you know, on some sort of quest or trajectory, but then the sought after, the feminine, the sacred feminine, that which is sought after.

And then, so as part of This fork in the road spread that I was inspired to do, I had gotten these cards, I'm gonna hold them up so you can see them. And I can also, I don't, I'm not sure if you have that, like the screen, the iPad in front of you, because I can pop them in there. But it's so funny, because I got the Pythia, or the Pythia, right, the Pythia card, right. And so she's in this inner sanct, innermost sanctum, you know, with the, the priest there. When did you get those cards? When did you pull those cards? Yesterday. Okay. Yeah, yesterday. And, you know, this is carrying forward. So you were talking about the archetype of emergence being something for the whole year. And last podcast episode, we were kind of like, delving into questions. And one of the questions I had was, what does it mean to be a postmodern priestess?

Priestess. And to bring back the gravitas of the solar priestess, you know, and what does that mean?

What does that look like? What is that service? And so when I received these cards, I was like, oh, my goodness. So next to it, there's, you know, the entryway to the temple, which is, you know, guarded by the priest or the masculine, right? We take, just like in DreamWork, we take these and look at these as, you know, masculine and feminine. And the aha moment was I held up the cave next to this image of the entryway or the portal, the doorway to the temple, right? And I had mentioned last time, and I don't know if I linked it actually in the show notes, so I'll be sure to go back and maybe do it this time, that her name is Escagy. It the 20s and500 dreams. It was 1. Yeah, very There's who was talking about the bird women priestesses, and she is an incredible writer, and her name isn't coming to me, but she, on YouTube, there's a 30-minute video of her reading a story, an excerpt from one of her books, and I will link it, and it's the story of the Pythia, and it is beautiful.

But there's this snake, this large snake, that the Pythia is, like, communing with and communicating with after all of this preparation to receive the holy, like, the vapors and the vision, and to speak the oracular, speak the oracular truth, and this is when, you know, it was revered and protected before, you know, the Temple of Apollo came, before the...

The fall of the priestesses. And so I was very moved to see those red eyes and see that as that primordial snake, that primordial snake.

And to realize, like, you know, people used to travel far and arduous, long journeys, like they would pay dearly, you know, the same for we note this for dream incubation, you know, the travel to the temple to request oracular insight, you know, and we live in different times now where it's information is available at a click of a button and like the times are different than they were back then.

But seeing this person as like a seeker who is going to visit and go into the cave to speak with the Oracle and I feel like

A lot of this chapter was this balancing of the masculine and the feminine and I too had a very strong and defiant inner masculine child and like, so I see and I see this within women often like a very like strong and developed inner masculine and I see this actualization here playing out through these chapters.

Cards of becoming this goddess priestess, you know, this inner honoring and protecting that inner, the inner Oracle.

And so I just, so that's why I was, I was so tickled to get that extra context related to, related to those cards.

You know, you've made me realize something else about my cards as you spoke about that, which is the only cards in my whole entire set here, the only card that actually has humans in it is the center one, and in that is both masculine and feminine.

So I do find that interesting as well that none of the other cards except for that center card shows people.

And then in that center card where there are people, or a person, it is both masculine and feminine depicted.

Yeah, you know, in, in both sides, I have, so I have the, the, in the garden and the gate, there's a little girl. So there, there is this sort of inner child imagery. Yeah. Yeah, you definitely have that in yours as well. Yeah, we, I was like, Oh, there's, there's that. You know, you were talking about your Dixit card in regards to clearing karma.

And another thing. It's all in terms of, you know, me being the monster, me being the red eyed monster in the cave. My first chapter of this entire year, I titled it seeing red, I think, and with little and there was the big and there was the big. Red Eye was the Dixit card, and this whole thing about Little Red Riding Hood, so there was Little Red Riding Hood, and so in that regard, I, so as part of the continuation of a journey, last year I had started doing neurofeedback sessions, I did a brain map before, and then I did a brain map afterwards, and you know, you could see the markers of, you know, what had made a shift, but in the post results, one thing that had not budged was anger.

It was, it was, it was still red, like that indicator had not budged, and I was like, okay, like there is a rage.

That is so sublimated. And that it can't come out, you know, it's so suppressed.

And this is the, this is like, archetypal depth psychology 101, like the shadow and like the heroic journeys, like, to go, go to those places where you have repressed or cut off some aspect of yourself in order to rehome that and integrate that little bit of soul retrieval, whatever, however you want to put that.

And so I decided also as part of my MVP challenge to do 120 days of Fists of Anger, which is a three minute Kundalini yoga practice. And it's, again, it's one One those things that sometimes, like, I had thought about doing this last year for my MVP practice, and I just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I could not, no. A lot of resistance, a lot of resistance. And this time it was like, you know what? No, I'm going to. So, like, I've got my regimen of, like, the fist of anger to, like, blow out, clear, clear, clear.

You know, I'm moving my fist through my arc line, my aura there. So it's clearing that anger, clearing the negativity, and then combining that with the prayer 10 for anxiety, combining that with the joy.

Like, let's, like, I'm going.

This is what I do. Like, I'm going to do it. So.

And I remember, I had had my evolutionary astrology chart reading with Tashi, and she had said that there was something lodged from, this is samskaric, like past life, like this is, you know, an anger that goes back, it goes back, goes way back.

And this is the thing. So when you do this practice, you're supposed to intentionally get mad, you're supposed to intentionally try to bring up stuff. And I remember it, like sometimes it can, like, if you try to be mad, like really try to be mad for like three minutes, like you'll, all of a sudden you'll exhaust yourself like you, you, like, and you're, it's a very, it's a physical practice too. But, and I remember, I had talked about this with you, I think it was last year, and you were like, yeah, if you can't feel the anger, like if you're so just. I was If from it, that you can't even bring it up and feel it, that means you might really need it or like it's in it's it's lodged in there. And so I feel very. So that's what I, the red eyes reminded me of the rage of the rage, the red eyes of the rage.

And yeah, I had been taught to suppress and fear, like, that rage that was in with.

And this is the this is the moment of the meeting of that and the integration of that I think that's not only societal.

I think that's a societal thing to suppress rage and anger. And even more so for women. Yes, I think that that message is so embedded in our. That women should, you know, a guy gets angry, and it's like, Oh, he's standing up for himself. And you know, and a woman, she's a . Mm hmm. Right when she expresses her displeasure about something. Yeah. So it is a weird, a weird world we live in where anger is so unacceptable.

Yeah. And this is I mean, there was the setup for it, too. So at the end of every year, one of our most favorite things is Beautiful Resolution, where we do a three act story that leads into the next year. And the, the third act, the archetype that I had that was leading into this year was the, that sort of the dark mother. Oh, right. Yeah, right. And, and there are aspects of the feminine that have been, you know, disowned. And. back. And one of those being one of those being anger or rage, but there there is such a thing as holy, holy anger, like anger that's not that comes from an open with an open heart, heart, heart wide open, heart wide open.

Yeah, just brought myself back to my own foreshadowing page.

Yeah, talking about your your story, your foreshadowing story and what showed up. So literally right at the top of that page. And you know, it's always good that we go back to these things every so often. Because my inspirational word for 2026 was joy.

Just want to add that in there. There we go. And I'm just looking at the way my story ended.

Give me a second to read through.

So the foreshadowing, I'll just say, I'll keep it short. I know we're running out of time here. The foreshadowing looks very similar to that little boy standing like the pillar in what I described as the golden light of purity and creative power that radiated from within.

So pretty cool. Very cool.

All right.

Announcements? What have we got? What have we got coming up? Well, it's mostly if anyone is interested in this minimum viable practice stuff that we're talking about, we're in it now, but you're still, like, welcome to hop on in. It's a free challenge and hosted on our website. We way through August, right? Yeah, so we go to August, still have plenty to go. And if you wanted to, like, get the 120 days, you could even go past when we go. You could just start where you are. Again, this is like the thing with the Altoid tense. Don't let anything get in the way between you and the divine, you and God. So you're welcome to check that out. And I'll So if, you know, this conversation interests you, our seasonal live show is now available throughout the season to purchase for replay. So it's still live and it's on our website, our homepage. So if you want to check out the Cartomancy that we opened the season with, it's available.

The live show is there on record. So it's still plenty, plenty of wisdom and guidance for the second half of the season. So that's, that's what I have until, until next chapter.

So, so we begin chapter five shortly.

we will be back with chapter five. Thank you for joining us today. And as always, to be continued and so good to see you today and so good to be.

To seen and to see you as well.