Episode 8: The Callback

Cassidy I was like, it's a maté day. This whole yerba maté, I'm like, it's a maté morning. It's a maté day.

Susan I wanted caffeine this morning, but I know that it just revs me up so much.

Cassidy It creates that feeling of anxiety and tightness in my body.

Susan I opted to just stick with tired.

Cassidy Well, no, there's so much discernment that has gone into, like, I feel like we could have an entire podcast conversation on, like, how do you choose your drink in the morning? Because sometimes it is, like, that's been a recent thing for me to... To wake up and feel tired and say, oh, I think I just need to be tired, right? Like that in and of itself is a win. But also I can't do coffee caffeine. I can't even do decaf coffee anymore because of my word.

Susan Yeah, I actually – I'm still doing decaf coffee. I can't even do decaf coffee.

Cassidy I do – but I do black tea. I'll do like a masala chai or earl gray. But it depends on the day because sometimes I can feel like if I drink that, the black tea is going to make me feel like I'm going to get anxious. So then I'll go to the green caffeinated because the – what is it? The theobromine in the green tea that kind of like helps to smooth the effect. Yes. So it'll be a matcha day. Or, it's rare now that I have the mate. I used to be a mate every day when I met Matthew. He would make it for me in the morning. But my body was in a different state than it is now. But anyhow, so we're tired. That was the...

Susan Yeah, the long way around to we're tired, right? Yeah. Yes.

Cassidy What I'm really finding interesting about the tired is that I know I haven't been careless with my energy. Yeah.

Susan You know, I feel like I have really been... I've been paying attention all along and really actively doing things to conserve energy. Yeah. And yet still... Mm-hmm. Yeah.-hmm.

Cassidy I, you know, my sleep has been disrupted.

Susan And I just get up in the morning some days and I feel tired. And it's not only I didn't have a good sleep tired, there is a there's a more general fatigue that's happening or that I'm noticing I shouldn't say that's happening that I'm noticing. That maybe still comes from the emotional ups and downs that I still can occasionally experience like I particularly found this. Our challenge season, like challenging that there was like, it was just, there was, you know, emotion there and it was tiring, you know, that the stress of the boys being ill again, you know, gosh, that it's tiring. It's like the, the fatigue of being a caregiver, you know, when you love someone, regardless of whether they're human or not, you know, and so I am feeling that. I really think I am feeling that.

Cassidy Mm hmm. Yeah, yeah. And on one hand, I feel like this in the experience, but also above and witnessing the experience at the same time is just a natural state of how we move through things. So, you know, we get to experience the challenge or the fatigue or whatever it is. And then, you know, there's some part of me that's like so excited because I'm like, oh, the framework holds.

Susan It works. Yes. Yes. I feel that as well.

Cassidy I know.

Susan And isn't that beautiful. So I want to, for people who may be joining us who are new here, just dive deeper into that, what you mean by that for a moment.

Cassidy So they, they grasp clearly. So they really, I mean, I.

Susan I what you're talking about, but thank God, because I, I, I think that is one thing that is so exciting and becoming more solidified the longer we do this work together.

Cassidy Yes.

Susan And I use that term work loosely because I feel like, oh my gosh, so much of it is like so much fun. So even though I'm tired, I'm still having fun. I know.

Cassidy That's the thing. It's like, I'm, I'm just still in awe. Right. Right. Um, yeah. And I think that that's where like, uh, the rigor and the joy, like meet each other. It's like that Saturn, Neptune and Aries, like, you know, it's like the, the, um, discipline that allows for the dream to come true or the imagination. So there's like, I learned that from the astrology podcast guys, they were talking about it in terms of ballet, you know, how you can have how just the function of that. So yes, it's, it's quote unquote work, but it is awe inspiring. And it is fun. So I watched the thing that's coming to mind is that I watched. I want to make sure that this is about explaining. Yes. Okay.

Susan Yes. I wasn't sure if in our feet, we went off on a tangent.

Cassidy already started a tangent. No. So well, and, and, and if this isn't relevant, reel me back. But it may or may not be. But I was watching this discussion. I don't know how this came up in my periphery. That was on YouTube about the new age to evangelical pipeline. same I don't-one-one. I That these cultural commentators are seeing on places like TikTok and Instagram, like, in this, in that realm, which we don't really visit often. But one of the things that this woman, she has, she went to University of Chicago Divinity School, and she likes to study, like, these online spaces and religion and how it's showing up. And she was saying how this wanting to return to, or turn to evangelicalism, but also even those like with, who are within the Christian sphere, moving to high church orthodoxy, like converting to Catholicism, and one of the reasons she postulated was the structure. That the high church offers, you know, you have a prayer, you have a rosary, you have you do these things. So there's like the, and you could insert, insert religion here, religion being like the set of doctrinal rules, like, do these things, be spiritual, you know, access the, the divine. And so that comment is what stood out in my mind when I say like, oh, the, when I said the, the framework holds, you know, the framework holds, that what we've been intuitively and slowly over time, like the building of a cathedral or a temple, you know, building some, a structure that will be sound. It, it means that we have built in accordance to nature. So we reoriented ourselves to the seasons and the lunations. And we've used story as this container through which, you know, if you're you're familiar with Campbell's heroic journey, I think most people are actually these days. You know, when I was in grad school, that was part of my work at Columbia was, oh, you know, you're already seeing the heroic journey being introduced in English curriculum in high school. So it's not, you know, you can put some creative writing in there, you can put some psychology in there, you could put you can start to put these integrate these things into curriculum. And so, yeah, the idea that life is curriculum, viewing life as curriculum, right, so it's kind of like, we're not building a religion, we're building a curriculum, and that's, like, my background is in curriculum design, and we let the rhythms, the natural rhythms of life scaffold that, right? And so then, what it is, is, like, we're not making the meaning, but life happens, and I feel like you have articulated this really beautifully, and you've really thought about this deeply, this chapter, so I'm excited for you to, like, reflect on it, that life, the divine precedes us, that's a Susan line, not mine, that life is happening, life happens. you. And the sacred is always happening. We are always amongst it. And this is how we attend to our awareness. It's a practice of attention, a discipline of attention so that we can then perceive the sacred that is all around us through story, through symbol, through what is it? The method of analogy.

Susan Yeah.

Cassidy The method of analogy. So that was a text. That was a reference from a text Susan picked up this chapter. So then what happens is when life throws you a challenge, it's like you can orient yourself. You have a map, an internal map. It's like, where are we right now? It's like, oh, we're in crucible season. Of course. Okay, now this makes sense. And now I can... And begin to change how I receive life and respond to life. It makes me more response-able. Responsible. Response-able. So I'll start with that by way of an introduction. Because there's more to go into there, but I want to get your thoughts on that.

Susan So if I remember correctly, I didn't read the article or see the YouTube or whatever it was that you're referring to. I happened to just glance at the headline of... ... The article, it was an article, right?

Cassidy It was actually, it was a YouTube interview.

Susan YouTube. Okay, I'm going to have to go It was on the YouTube. Okay, so if I remember correctly, it wasn't only about, at least the, like the headline in the little clip that you put in your, you know, to click on in your, in your Notion page. Um, and by the way, Notion is where we kind of journal ourselves.

Cassidy Yes. In people are confused of what I just said.

Susan Um, if I remember correctly, it wasn't only about like young people kind of transitioning back toward, um, evangelical or like structured Christianity, but there was something in there that wasn't the word to row in there. So just say a little bit more about. Why that was in there, because, and I find this so fascinating that you find this article about that just as I am opening this book, which I highly recommend if somebody really wants to do a deep dive into why the Tarot is so valid in Christianity. Okay, if you think that there is a divide, I just got goosebumps. Read this book. Because Tom Berg, who is like the, the author of this book, so it turns out, even though it says that, you know, it's like, unknown who the author is. He so brilliantly, and complexly, I will add. um... Uses each of the major arcana of the Tarot as like these little like threshold points. I want to like, I'm not sure what term to use. Like they're little, um, they're little threshold markers or, or points of reflection as to how we take the spiritual journey. Like the, um, little, they're like little touch points, I guess. Little touch points or stepping stones or entry ways that take us deeper into the mystery of... Spirituality through a Christian hermetic lens. And I'm telling you, I have been spending time with that book. And I just started the third chapter. Like I just opened the third chapter last night. Um, because you can like pick apart every single sentence that he writes and get into what the real, like the depth of the meaning is in each word and truly meditate on. I mean, there are Bible verses that he refers to and different, um, different thoughts about hermetic Christianity and how, how the tarot holds all of the, um, the symbolism for how. You take that mature spiritual journey. So I really recommend if you think that there is a divide, read Tom Berg. That's all I can say.

Cassidy Well, and I think the key word there was the mature spiritual journey and reflection.

Susan Like the real one, not the one that you take rope, not the one that you do the X, Y, Z, and then Jesus is going to save you. And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way. It just, to me, is very surface. It's very surface. This is a relationship and he gets so deeply into, um, the meaning and the, the, not the. How so much as the, the evidence for the relationship between how it's symbolized in the Tarot, the relationship with God is symbolized in the Tarot, and even even spiritual mechanics.

Cassidy Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yes, you know, my understanding, and I look forward to looking into it more deeply. But my understanding is that the Gnostics, that there were these Gnostic Christian, Hermetic Christian principles that got encoded into the Tarot as a way to keep the, the knowledge, the esoteric, the true knowledge alive through the persecution of, you know, of the church. And if you, if you go back in history, you know. Matthew has gone into the hyper-focused fixation of studying early Christianity, the early in like, we're talking, he's read well over 100 texts in the past six months, and we're not talking about like light reads or channeled texts, we're talking about like Cambridge, like New Testament scholarship, textual analysis of translations and redactions. I mean, it's intense. But, you know, in early Christianity, you had this split between the orthodoxy and the Gnostic sects, and text ended up being king. So the text ended up becoming having this primacy and control. I mean, they like eradicated anything that came out that countered that narrative. But in the early days, Women also were primarily leaders in early Christianity, the priests. And so I note that because one of the things that these two in the interview note is that they primarily see this trend amongst women, or as they call it, female-facing people, that this trend is happening there. And that there is an aesthetic to it. So we've talked about in the past how the younger generation is interested in aesthetics, this idea of wanting to outpicture how they dress or how they decorate their home, you know, to pick a trend or an aesthetic that then will give them a sense of identity or purpose or meaning. And so, you know, they were saying that this trend is like you can see these short videos of, you know, a girl who has like lots of piercings and is smoking a cigarette and then like, it's like, this is my Jesus glow shows, you know, it's like the clean girl aesthetic with no makeup and like, Jesus glow. So, so, you know, we're talking about not even from a place of judgment so much as like noting a much an immature versus a mature relationship with spirituality. And if it's just an aesthetic, literally, an aesthetic is a presentation or a facade, right, versus getting to the heart. And, you know, it's one of those things that like, this isn't the conversation that we're even necessarily coming into because, you know, you I think maybe some of our folks might be on Substack, but not necessarily on Witch Talk, you know, like, and I'm thinking if anyone's listening who was with us for Summer Solstice, that check yourself before you tech yourself and be eutiful. So there are a couple of themes that we talked about on Summer Solstice that are coming up with this conversation in terms of authenticity. But, yes, there's not, the thing is, is it's, there's not actually a divide, but what algorithms push it, and what content creators who are looking for that attention and clicks, they, they polarize to extremes in order to get, you know, proliferate, you know, to get, get, get those, get those clicks. Um, so, you know, there's, there's not a reasonable middle path, you know, thing that's going to go viral. Um. Right. So that's, that is what it is. That is what it is. But yeah, so we have a structure that is ancient. You know, we didn't, we always say, like, we didn't invent the wheel, we just remembered it and applied it. We just live it.

Susan Um, so they're a little bit different than, um, uh, I don't know what the term is, the, um, we'll just call it evangelical or, uh, biblical Christians, um, where, you know, the rosary, the prayer, the, the Bible reading, where that is the primary, um, I'll call it, uh, uh, connection. Um, I think that our work differs. In that we are, we are more Gnostic. We are looking for the, the relationship in everyday life, the experience of the divine and everyday life. And so I think some of my notes in my notion page about this really spoke to this idea that we don't start with belief. We start understanding that the first movement comes from God and travels down from the veil and that we need to be still enough in order to receive that. And so a lot of our families, Foundational work is in the MVP, getting a practice going so that we initiate our actions from this place of stillness and having received the movement and spent enough time in stillness that it became in some way a symbol, whether it came through dream or image. Or however it comes through, that we receive something, we spend enough time with it, this is part of why we're doing Emergence Council, so that we move slowly enough to move step by step through what the High Priestess is teaching, through her crown, her teaching. And the veil in that image, that we sit in stillness long enough to be receptive to what's coming through from God, not from our, you know, list of things that we want from life, not from, you know, what we think we should have or what the culture calls us toward, but what is coming through directly from source. And then once we sit in stillness and have receptivity and symbolism around that, then we can start to formulate our own words internally around it and continue to watch the unfolding of that happening in our lives and take external movements based on that inner symbolism. And I think that's very different than starting with a belief, interpreting the belief. And then applying that belief to the external life that shows up at my door, and then have this life experience. It feels like a very different rhythm to me and a very different path of experience. Mm-hmm.

Cassidy Mm-hmm. Yes. And it really is coming into more of a balance within yourself, which is that ecstatic Gnostic union, inner union, where life does feel like the work is listening as much, if not more, than it is, right? And being still enough to hear. Yeah.

Susan Being still enough to hear. Yeah. For me on a personal level, that was a lot of what my year was about. You know, I had very early on in this year committed to the archetype of emergence, right? To be in stillness long enough. Now, at first, so understand, even I think my own life is a perfect example, right? Like, I take on this archetype of emergence, because for some reason, I don't know why, it resonates with me. What is this going to show me? So that is what the journey was about discovering what the archetype was about. Because obviously, that's the thing that came through from source to me this year. And so, you know, in order to be at this constant, you know, leading edge of Consciousness. We often use that term to be at the leading edge of consciousness. We must be in stillness. We must be in receptivity. And not once a week, not on Sunday morning, not, you know, not on high holy days, like in every moment. And so, you know, I was reorienting my life to what does it look like to hold the archetype of emergence all the time, to be in stillness, to be in that receptive place, to be listening in each moment and not jumping to conclusions too quickly as to what's coming through and what a symbol means, but allowing each step to unfold in its own time. Um, so I lost my train of thought why I was saying that. Um, but I think what ended up happening in taking on this discovery, I'll say, of the Archetype of Emergence, is that I intersected just in the right timing with this book. So another correspondence, right? Like we have to follow the correspondences. It began to put the words to my experience of what I was doing and helped me realize that this Archetype of Emergence, what it held for me personally, and I'm not saying that it would hold it for everyone, but what it held for me was the mystery behind Elderhood. And what, what it really means to be an elder, and the responsibility that eldership holds. And so what I realized is that elderhood does have a different rhythm than other phases of life. And what I was able to discover, because I feel like, for me, this year of emergence, it really, it really put me in sync with elderhood, I think. Okay. But it helped me to sense into what I want to call the pace of love. Mm-hmm. And... I think that is worthwhile for anyone. And it feels to me like that high priestess card in the second arcana, major arcana. She helps teach that. She helps teach that through the way she sits and receives and the way she recognizes that we're sitting in stillness waiting for the message to come through like that first movement from, from God. I feel like she understands the pace at which love moves. And that just to me feels really significant. Because if we, if we are in pace with God and the If we're unfolding that, that is natural, then I feel like we're doing, we're doing, we're doing life, you know, as it was, as it was meant to be, as it was meant to be when we can, when we can stay with the rhythm of love.

Cassidy I love that. I love this idea of the pace of love. And it made me think of, talk about a correspondence and, you know, a lot of, so I loved the word discovery that you had in there that like had sparkles to it when you said it, this idea that we're helping to lead others on this path of discovery, you know, where you're discovering and then also you realize that the whole what you seek, is seeking you, that you are the seeker and the sought after. But when it comes to these symbols and the method of analogy with synchronicity, sometimes it's like, oh, am I just assigning meaning to this with belief or thinking? Or is it real? And sometimes, you know, I'll say, give it three, you know, toss it back out. And, you know, Susan's show me, you know, just confirm for me. Just ask. Just ask. And you'll see it like, so three times if you want. And sometimes, you know, you get used to it so much, you can start to pick up on it where you don't necessarily need it three times. But it sure is fun when you when you do get it, get the message. So what came to my mind with the pace of love is in your completion, the card from so the our cards from this lunation, you had the snail woman.

Susan Right?

Cassidy With the body of the snail who was resting. And then Matthew did a solar return, a birthday reading for me. And in the advice or the, you know, higher guidance position, there was from a completely different deck, a completely different deck, a woman with a snail body, and like her hair was like a snail head. So I was like, Oh, these are like very close to each other. Like we had just looked, we had just discussed and sent out our full moon report. And then snail lady shows up. And then I take my daughter to the nature center. And we go inside and they have like a bearded iguana and they have like different things. And they had a whole thing of snails. So check, check, check. And, um, so, you know, I, I didn't actually look it up because I kind of figured. problem to because The meaning was a little on the nose in terms of the pace of love, the slow and steady, and of course with the shell, we talk about the cosmos in the shell, that hermetic principle of the as above, so with, you know, what I'm talking about, as above, so below, as within, so without, this mirroring of the cosmos. So, but like, that's just like a, that's just like a small, everyday example where like, these things come to you, but you have to be moving quietly and slowly enough to be able to perceive them, to perceive the correspondence.

Susan want to add one more thing about the, whether you want to call it the symbol or the symbolic ecology, as I have started to term it. Hmm, mm-hmm. Is that the snail takes its home with it.

Cassidy Yes.

Susan And I feel like that's so important in this whole conversation that we're talking about. Because when you move at the pace of love, you're always at home within yourself. And so for some people, the part of the journey that may be happening now is finding their way back home, right to that place, whatever that means, you know, and I use that phrase loosely, because, you know, in the stillness, you'll realize you never left, but it feels like you did. But when we're moving with the pace of love, we're always at home. We'll keep If And so I felt like that was just important to share that a little piece of additional, um, symbology with that, uh, that seashell orientation, um, of the woman who carries the shell on her back or, you know, it's like her hair is the shell, um, that, uh, you're always at home.

Cassidy Hmm. Yeah. And I mean, and it's, it's so archetypal, you know, in terms of like, it would seem almost cliche. I mean, think Wizard of Oz, right? Um, get to the end. Oh, you had the, the red shoes. You had it all along. And actually, that's a good callback to, uh, spring where the heart of our season was, there's no place like home. And. And. You know, there was this question of moving that came up, you know, like physically, like moving. And then the life circumstances and the conclusion to stay in the shell. And so, yeah, I winked at Susan here when I said callback because in terms of where we're at, locating ourselves in the solar story. That's our name for the annual heroic journey, if you haven't picked that up yet. And so August 1st, that cross quarter date is when we start to curve back around the circle. We start to, we have made an arc and now we're arcing, arcing back towards to meet the beginning. with didn't Again, and so in The Rogue Journey, this is after the reward stage, then there's going to be a, this is the climax, this is the final test, the final exam, the ultimate showdown before the falling action, the denouement, and at fall equinox, at the balance between, the perfect balance between light and dark, threshold, that is when, that marks the threshold. Back from the special world to the ordinary world. And I was just talking with Susan asynchronously about, before we were calling it the way back, because you have to start to turn the way back. I was like, Oh, what about the callback? And there are several layers of, of meaning with that. But, you know, very often, we're, Throughout the entire journey, throughout the entire year, we're always making callbacks.

Susan And it's so satisfying.

Cassidy the thing is, is like, even if someone isn't into synchronicity and isn't tracking their life in this way, it's a natural human instinct in comedy. For example, I've been listening to Emily Catalano. And she's like, so great on her callbacks. I'll put her recent special that just came out in the show notes for fun. But there's something so satisfying, gratifying when you're watching a story in a show, like a television show or a comedy set. When you get the reference, when you remember the thing that they're referring to from before, you're like, there's this moment of like, it's funny. And the humor, the comedy comes from surprise. There's a surprise and delight and. Like, so I'm getting, you know, I'm getting, my mom calls them God bumps instead of Goosebumps. So I'm getting the, yeah, I got, I got the God bumps when I, when I said that, because that's, that feeling when you get the callback in the comedy set, that's the feeling that we experience just in everyday life.

Susan Mm-hmm. And I want to say, I got it in your Dixit cards when I saw your Dixit cards. Yeah. I mean, holy cow. Those were some cards that you picked. Now you'll share them with our listeners, right?

Cassidy You'll share the cards.

Susan So the one thing that caught my eye with your, well, many things caught my eye. The most recent thing that, um, had. Shown up for me in a very strange way, and then shows up in the cards, is what I perceive to be a wolf in that middle card. And he is in the kitchen with the apron on holding the pig puppet in one hand and the little girl puppet in the other. And I saw the wolf in my tea leaves. And then had the wolf show up in meditation, in dreams, the wolf family. So talk about correspondences showing up multiple times, and not even only for me, but then across us, I find fascinating. And of course, I can't help but see a resonance to what we had talked about with you. Thank What was it? With your dream, the dream that we analyzed together.

Cassidy I just am so fascinated.

Susan And of course, I mean, the chessboard. We've seen the chessboard, the game of life show up so many times. The person with the horse mask.

Cassidy I mean, come on.

Susan All right, the gray horse. mean, Odin technically is called he's a gray that he even though he looks white, he's gray mirror there, the mirror reflecting wisdom that we speak to the that showed up in our solar story cards. Mm hmm.

Cassidy There's just so much in those cards.

Susan So what was standing out to you?

Cassidy Yeah. A lot. Right?

Susan Good story. Good Good

Cassidy I know. Well, and that's the thing that's so funny is with the Dixit cards. It's like, these things are prophetic, you know, they're profound. You know, it's like somebody wouldn't touch tarot, but it's like, would you play Dixit, the board game? Would you play? Because these things, these things, I'd watch out for these.

Susan No, I know. Tarot's like beginner. I know. Tarot's beginner. Dixit cards, the real thing. I know.

Cassidy I know. Matthew's, every time he like looks at those Dixit cards, he just like shakes his head. He's like, no.

Susan Oh, my gosh. I mean, they speak volumes. Volumes. And, geez, I mean, do we pick them? They're just so, the correspondence is mind blowing.

Cassidy Well, no. And like, a very brief, I mean, the backstory to get these specific cards. for with weirdfolk It's, you know, it was my birthday and I didn't have a plan. I wanted, I asked, you know, the, my shopping angels to like help surprise me. So just like I choose a card deck, you know, I clear my mind and out of the million vintage malls in Tulsa, you know, I get one in my mind's eye and I'm like, okay, we're going here, you know? And then, so like, it was like this scavenger hunt. It feels like this scavenger hunt through Tulsa of Clarissa and I going to these like random shops and finding exactly, exactly, I never would have thought to like pick up these things. And there was a surprise waiting for me at every shop that I went to. Like you can't, you can't, it's like, it's perfect. So there was, I wasn't planning on going in the shop. It was a, it was next door. was like one of those gamer shops where they do like, they sell Magic the Gathering and Pokemon cards and like whatever, it's like, uh, Dungeons and Dragons, you know? So I like I walked in there, not even knowing why. And yeah, they had Dixit cards. And I was like, I they had a set that I didn't have. So I took those home and hence the, hence the cards here. So talk about a callback at the very at the top of the solar story. There was a series of Dixit cards with this wolf imagery and Little Red Riding Hood.

Susan And there was even a chapter called Seeing Red.

Cassidy I think it was like the first chapter of the year. And we had kind of discussed that. Well, and now here here it comes the wolf is back, but now it's the wolf wearing the red apron. So the wolf's in red. And then you have, he's it, the wolf, she, if it's me, is puppeteering. And you've got the girl on one hand and the pig on the other hand. And so you have these. I just want to add with the boy.

Susan I With pot of water in the background. Yes, yes, with the boiling... Obviously, still the predator. Just kidding. Sure.

Cassidy You know, but it's... So there's the reference to, like, the three little pigs and the big bad wolf or Little Red Riding Hood. And, you know, in these stories, the wolf is the bad guy, the villain. But you see here this look of, like, he's puppeteering these two characters, but his face is, like, a look of genuine concern because the little girl is, like, you know, giving a talking to. But there's this sense of... It's almost like he's not even aware that he's the one animating these puppets. And, go with me here, this... am... Come It me of, especially, so next to, I actually saw that as like a donkey mask, but he's holding it like in the chest set, like, but this sense of masking in order to fit in amongst the sea of black pieces, because they're, when actually he's a, he's a white stallion underneath. It reminded me of the Substack article you shared on Heartbeat, about why you're so exhausted, could be because of the ways that you're unconsciously performing, and the emotional self-editing that happens, and being able to pay, pay attention to that. And so it's, it's kind of interesting, it's almost like, in this wolf's mind, these characters are real, the voices in his head, like, what... They think about him, you know, like, in their story, he's the villain. And it's like, the wolf is like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a good, I'm actually a good wolf. Like, I don't know why they, like, I wish they wouldn't think about me this way. And like, you know, he can see, like, it's like the voices in his head, but he's looking at them like they're real, you know, and how much, you know, the pots boiling over behind him. He's got to make dinner. But he's so preoccupied by this, that there is something that came to mind for me, I think I actually let me see if I wrote it down.

Susan See if I have it here. I'm not seeing it, but I think I'll get the gist here. What came to mind for me is this idea that you need to watch out for the stories that you tell yourselves, right? Because for so long, like the wolf was portrayed as the bad guy, right? And so he just kept going along and all the stories being the perpetrator, you know, being the one who, you know, takes the victims. So I feel like this card begins to show that awakening of, oh, wait a minute. I don't need to go along. With that same old story anymore, that I can have a retelling of the story. And I feel like with that card, with the chessboard in it, I feel like when you use that mirror reflecting wisdom, you can begin to see yourself and the stories that you, when you thought you were a victim, like you can begin to see the truth in them and how they were, how one they were serving and how we have the ability to change our perception of those stories. And then we come to the third card. Right.

Cassidy Right.

Susan Where you become the hero in your own story. And you can rise above the characters, right, the characters that we created that we realized weren't real all along. I mean, they're stone characters, right? They look like stone figures and the hero is like rising above, like zooming in her beautiful costume there. Like she rose above the caricature, she rose above the storyline, you know, and realized more of reality. That's how I see it, you know, realized that the dragons weren't real all along.

Cassidy Yeah, that's funny. I do love this progression that you've pointed out of the way in which you meet life, meeting it masked, meeting it like just with the staying with the voices in your head, like the puppeteering voices in your head to like fully being in like that action figure in life. And she's masked, but it's a different kind of mask. It's a, it's like the heroes, right?

Susan Yes, heroes mask. And there's, and you could, and you could question, is she a hero or a villain?

Cassidy Or is it both, you know, in terms of like, it's ambiguous. And I think that that's fine, too. You know, I think that there can be some mystery there.

Susan Friends, when you are the superhero, right? That I think that there is a difference there between the superhero costume and the horse or the donkey mask, right?

Cassidy Absolutely. 2023. Thank Thank

Susan Yeah. I think that there is a real difference there. And also, I want to point out that the donkey is playing the chess game, right? And it appears that she is out, like, you know, being the hero, saving the world, or being the villain, either one.

Cassidy Like, she's out in the world. Yeah.

Susan She's out in the world, not just confined at home, you know, thinking about the game, you know, being on Yes, she's actually living it.

Cassidy Yes, exactly. Living the game. Yeah. And I loved the, you know, there are all these gems that are in her trail. So either it could be like...

Susan I was just going to say, I was just going to call it confetti, but... Oh, okay.

Cassidy Yeah.

Susan You know, I kind of perceived it a little bit like confetti. But yes, you're right. They are gems. And I think that... It's part of why I created in my mind that she was a hero, you know, that she was leaving in her trail like these pieces of confetti or gems. So, yeah, I think that leads to the perception that she is a hero, not a villain.

Cassidy Yeah, I believe so as well. And, you know, the confetti is a great callback to the artwork, the Christed egg that you had painted for me back in spring.

Susan didn't even think of that, yeah.

Cassidy yep. And I used that visual during my MVP meditation throughout the entire quest season. So, and I just, you know, completed it. So it was very like, ta-da, that was very exciting. And, yeah, those gems reminded me of... Like in Super Mario Brothers where he would like hit the tile and then the coin pops up like ding, ding, ding.

Susan So there's, you know, we just, we just passed reward season.

Cassidy So it's like collecting all these like incarnational treasures, but also leaving the gems for others to find as well. So there's like, there's something there and the, and this, you know, it looks like a temple or a castle that she's like scaling that has been built. And, you know, I actually, I saw those stone figures as guardians, you know, like the, yeah, of the temple or of the castle that, you know, gargoyles and lions and like these, these statues that are outside of sacred places, they're not just for decoration. You know, there was, there was an understanding that there was, um, real, uh, spiritual significant, uh, spiritual reality to these, um, beings. Yeah. Yeah. Thank And that certainly was a highlight from this chapter as well, just being attuned and aware of the beings in reality, being able to perceive whether it was the nature devas, the nature spirits, or...

Susan I was just honing in. You probably saw me, like, disappear. Because what I was looking at, I didn't do this yet. I was just looking back at your cards for this, like your other cards for this lunation. Yeah. So I'll just ask you, like, how do you feel like those Dixie cards, those theme cards fit in to the other cards in your lunation? Have you worked with that at all?

Cassidy I haven't yet though, you know. Yeah. The Be the Hunter, Not the Hunted, and the whole bit on what does it mean to be a predator, and then this play on the wolf stands out for sure. And there was this message around this full moon in Aquarius, that Aquarius-Leo axis about authenticity and unmasking that when you can fully be yourself, then there's this reorientation to being able to find other, quote unquote, black sheep, rainbow sheep they refer to. Like you can find your, your people, your community, your collective. So there's. That bit that I connected with like the donkey mask, like sort of taking off the donkey mask. And yeah, the heaven sent was the heart's desire, this desire, a spiritual gift being received during the reward stage. And, you know, so the gems from that heroine card, the standout and the relationship with the more than human world, you know, when I saw those stone dragons, I just, I do think of these guardian beings, guardian spirits, also nature, nature spirits and devas and communities. Communicating with them was a highlight from this, this chapter as well. So those are some of the things that stood out.

Susan Very cool. Yeah.

Cassidy And let's see, you know, when I saw your Dixit card with the sun with like the lion face, it really reminded me of the image that I had drawn on for our play and play workshop when we did the signature note. I was like, that kind of reminds me of the correspondence, right?

Susan I would love for you to take a picture of that. Yeah. With the card. with the card.

Cassidy Yeah.

Susan Post it with the card because the resemblance is quite striking.

Cassidy Yeah.

Susan This card to me, just, I just found it so fascinating. So the thing that stood out immediately. gonna you? we'll We'll time. we'll Bye. And then what I also found so interesting was how the, I'll call it the sun's mane, for lack of a better way to describe it, the sun's mane comes all the way down to earth and blends with the ocean.

Cassidy And I feel like, Oh my gosh, like this message is as above, so below.

Susan Because we have the sun, right, or the solar Christ, however you want to talk about it, coming all the way down to earth. And then you have this man standing in this boat or canoe in what appears to be pretty rough seas. Rhythmic seas, rhythmic seas to me, but, but I mean, there are definite waves going on there, right? Um, and so I feel like, wow, there's quite some mastery there being able to stand up and negotiate the, the seas, right? Um, and then I spent the most time thinking about the net he was casting. Um, so like those other things were like pretty quick and obvious, but the net was where I really spent the most time contemplating, um, its position. It's, um, its meaning. And I find a fascinating one that it's completely open, right? It's not hanging down in the water at all. he's casting this net and it's just like. Flying through the air, right? Completely open, like, like, it makes me even wonder if he's trying to catch fish at all with the net the way it is, right? And then it really clicked. I'm like, Oh, the divine matrix, that's the divine matrix he's holding. Um, and go, you know, going back to that galactic mushroom card that I had in, you know, the lunation, and it just made me really feel like he is just feeling very connected, you know, in within the matrix, just kind of living in the as above, so below kind of um, uh, feeling, um, What it really made me consider was this idea of consciously, like he feels like he's consciously participating, you know, in this movement of life, like he's riding the waves, he's steady on his feet, you know, the information's coming down from above to earth, he's riding that out, completely connected to the whole web of life. You know, he's got both hands, both hands connected there. So I thought that was really, really a cool card. Some other thoughts that I had was that there's no distinction anymore between the sun and the water, no distinction. Distinction, pure delineation or separation between fire and water, the elements, that they're no longer opposites, but more like the true meaning of yin and yang. Oftentimes, we call yin and yang opposites, but that's not really the truth. They're actually complementary forces, not opposing forces. And so I think that I really felt that, like that clicked with me when I looked at this card, that those distinctions are, I guess I would say, blurred. You know, that it's not, it's not what we think it is.

Cassidy Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, I've watched a lot of Moana, Matthew and I both have, with Clarissa. That was particularly last year's movie of choice, but it certainly reminds me of the wayfinding and ancestral wayfinding and the ways by which you navigated the seas or navigated with the elements and with nature. So there's like this return of ancestral wisdom and wayfinding. And I'm going to show you something kind of funny. So before we hopped on, you were like, oh, you remember our stories from the end of last year? So at the end of every year, one of our favorite traditions we do is a sort of reading and journal writing. about the whole story of the year and then it provides foreshadowing for the year ahead and when I saw your fix it card and then I pulled up my reading from last year, there was this image of an elder, a woman who has, who's tattooed and who's on this like boat at sea with the sun, who's on that boat with the sun and I was like, oh my goodness. That reminds me of her. So I'll put that, I'll put her next to that. I'll put her up, I'll put her up there too.

Susan But I just, because that guy is all tattooed as well. And the, the cartoon version of that boat.

Cassidy Yes, yes. So I, I was like, oh, look at that. I see it. I'm just going back to to I'm to

Susan Um, my cards from the beginning of the year as well.

Cassidy Now I have a Moana song in my head.

Susan I have, um, I have the legacy of light card from my, uh, my 2026, uh, you know, the beginning of the year Oracle cards, which is the, um, the card of the ancestors, you know, the three generations are depicted in the, um, in the card as well. So we have the ancestors there.

Cassidy Mm hmm. Yeah. The, the specific Moana song, I sometimes, so this is. Another thing in terms of just listening, like one of my, one of my things is I tend to be more clairaudient than clairvoyant. You know, everybody has their, their thing. So often it's the jukebox. And so it was, it's the line, you know, and when it's time to go home, and when it's time to come home, we know the way.

Susan So the song is we know the way.

Cassidy And I do feel like that actually is like, Oh, that's actually, that's pretty relevant. Like that's, that actually is a, it seems like a good for this for where we're at in the annual journey. agree.

Susan Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, a pretty, it's a pretty powerful message, you know, especially for right now, as we are, you know, being called back, you know, the way. Yeah. We know the way. We know the way.

Cassidy For I am the truth, the light, and the way. Sorry.

Susan We're going back there, huh? No, we're not.

Cassidy We're not. Because, well, it's the way back, the callback. So if we're not going back there. Any other thoughts coming to you before we do the announcements?

Susan Um, just that, um. I think in looking back over my life and to who I was, as opposed to who I am becoming, I want to say that not only, two things, not only does living in the ever unfolding require trust, it does, it does. And that's not always easy, right? Like there can be, there can be challenges to that, you know, it can be scary to not know where the hell you're going. Right? To be walking on the unmarked trail. It can be scary. That said, though, there's also so much excitement and living in that mystery and feeling like you're really living life as it was meant to be. Um, there's I mean, like, it like gives me the sparkles inside, you know, there's so much. Oh, this is funny. Um, I was going to say there's so much joy in that. And I just realized that, um, the like to pick a single word out of my foreshadowing story, to describe what this year would be about, it would be about joy. Um, and, yeah, so. There is that kind of play, that tension between, oh my gosh, where am I going? What's happening here? And the joy that comes from it. It's really very, it's very beautiful. Mm hmm.

Cassidy It is. You know, I guess the never ending story is already taken, but it's the ever unfolding story.

Susan Yeah, I feel like, you know, in all the, in all the what, 30, 20 something years that I thought I was spiritual, right? I am still. The learning.

Cassidy Yeah, and I believe that could be an indicator of wisdom. All right, maybe a little.

Susan I'll go with a little.

Cassidy Sure, well, and the path we walk is one of a path of wisdom. Yeah. The true gems, the true reward.

Susan Yeah. You know, I spoke about elderhood earlier, and there was somebody wrote an article just the other day. I don't know if I have it here. There's a woman from the Center for Holding Space. Heather Plett, she just wrote an article about Let's Be Their Elders, she called it. We're going to have to get into that. We're going to have to talk about that at some point because she makes some great points. She talks about herself becoming an elder, reflecting on that. Um, and I feel like so much of what our work does, um, differently than hers, um, is, develops, uh, True Elders.

Cassidy Love that. And we, we can put that article in the show notes as well, so can check that out. And, and so as always, uh, you can, if you haven't already checked out the show notes page, uh, for all the cards and, and mentions. That we chatted about today. And then also on our website, you'll find the summer solstice, our summer card extravaganza, our sort of opening ceremony and show. The replay is there, and I'll have a code on there, a promo code on there, so you can get 35% off since we are now past halfway through the season. And, you know, I feel like spring dragged and summer has flown.

Susan So with this, like we altered our rhythm a little bit to feel more in sync. It feels like even more the summer has flown because of the rhythm that we are living in as well. It feels that way to me. But I have to say, you know, living in New York for all those years where people don't go back to school until after Labor Day, as opposed to here where kids are back in school already, like the first day of August, like completely reorienting.

Cassidy Yes, yes, I'm experiencing that. me, it's fall.

Susan Kids are back in school, it's fall.

Cassidy Yeah, yeah, no, I, I've, I've required that reorientation as well as my girl starts preschool next week.

Susan So that's huge.

Cassidy So affirmation.

Susan Oh, my gosh, I read in your notion page her affirmation.

Cassidy Adorable. Yes, we take her flower remedy and we say, I'm ready.

Susan I'm ready.

Cassidy I'm ready.

Susan So, so cute. And she. Oh, my gosh, like, you should. Yeah. That's a good idea.

Cassidy That's a good idea. All right. Thank you, Susan. Thank you all who have listened to this point. And as always. To be continued.

Susan Yes. And thank you everyone for sharing this with us.