Practical Tarot with Melinda Lee Holm

(upbeat music)

Welcome to Synchronicity. My guest this week is Melinda Lee-Home. I just had to make sure I was actually recording here. Wait, this is one I can turn two off. Doing it on a Zoom. She's amazing, Melinda. She, I saw her at a Whitma, the event. I think it's not defunct, Whitma doesn't exist anymore. That's still cool. Everyone's going to do cool stuff. But anyway, I saw her and she was talking. She was on an imagination. I saw her and she was on an imagination panel. And she was talking about Earth energy, Earth energy. And I love Earth energy talk because it's what I need to hear the most in life.

It's just, it's super important for me. So I was taking, I was just like, oh wow, she's talking about Tarot in such a practical and grounded way that I'm like, I need to connect with her. So when I went out to LA the first time a couple of months ago, I tried to connect, so it was too short of a trip. But the second time, we ended up connecting at her place. They've got this really beautiful, where was it? I want to say, is it, is it so really? I don't fucking, I should know LA better, but I don't. But amazing house, we got to sit down. There was a kitty, there was a dog, it was just fun times.

And we spoke about Tarot and all of this awesome stuff and kind of her approach, how she got into it, what it is, magical practices, spells, and I think like my favorite part about Melinda and this is that it's incredibly accessible. It is not, it's, yeah, this is woo shit if you want to look at it from that lens, but she makes it so accessible and practical and that's kind of that earth energy connection. So this episode is a whole lot of that. Stay tuned, it's going to be great, you're going to love it. I want to talk about a few things. Ween, holy shit, the band Ween, Gene and Dean Ween. So I've known about Ween for a while, I've loved a lot of individual songs, but I've been getting into Ween with Sean and Cass from the very eight podcasts.

Oh my God, I had no idea. So I'm going to see Ween on Valentine's Day in New York City. Come, if you guys love Ween and you want to hang out, come to that show, it's going to be fun. We'll probably be at the 15th too, but just there's a playlist I put together on my Spotify. I'll put it out on Twitter or wherever. Oh, the email list, by the way. I'm starting to send out more music stuff like playlists I've done, mixes, some recorded mixes. I'll post some songs there. The Patreon is still the best way to get access to all the music, everything I post music wise will be there first. So if you want to sign up, sync what is at patreon.com/synchronicity, you can find that there, but yeah, lots more music stuff, but Ween, if you want to get like the quick kind of plugin, I have my favorite songs in a playlist there, you can find those on Spotify anyway.

What else we got, Ned? Let's talk about the lovely, wonderful folks at Ned. Also, do this, I had a person, a listener of the show, posts on Instagram when their shit arrived from them, and they tag me, do that. I'll repost your shit, it's fucking amazing. So Ned, CBD products, we know what these are. They're amazing. They make you feel good. I literally keep it in my car. I have one where I'm staying, and then in my car, it's the best. I don't know how to explain CBD. It's just kind of this thing that's good for you and good for your body, but really, if I'm being honest, I think it's less about the CBD.

We have the best ads for these people. And more about the people and their intentions and what they're imbuing in the products they put out in the world. And if you want just an example or a really good introduction, go listen to the episode with Rhett and Adrienne that I did with the Ned just to get a sense of who they are. They're really give a fuck about their products and what they're putting out in the world and the community they're trying to reach that to me is the reason to support these guys. Like if the other reason is if you haven't tried CBD products, just physiologically, it's pretty fucking obvious.

They're good for you. So do that. They're fun. Go to helloned.com. Use the code sink, S-Y and see it. Check out, you get 15% off anything. Yeah, also weed company sponsored me. That's what's going on. I'll be in LA from February, nope, nope. Not even close. January 7th for three to four weeks. We'll be doing in-person readings. You can sign up at sinkpodcast.com/readings and we'll be doing other stuff. All the other readings are open. I'm just getting through my business shit. That's what I gotta do now. Gonna fucking support my lives. Is this it? What else did I write here? What else did I write here?

It's a mirror technique. I just wanna do a little recap because I've been talking about this and all of the readings this week. I've been doing just wanna clarify a few things. One is when I talk about this mirror technique, it is not the one where you look in an actual mirror in physical reality. That is when you do your affirmations. You can just tell you love yourself. Just all the things you're supposed to be doing. When you wake up in the morning, you brush a deep. (imitates deep breathing) I will never not do that. But what I'm talking about is using the mirror in your imagination. So you imagine a version of yourself and you'll be looking in the mirror and you should see yourself.

Giving yourself qualities in that mirror world is the catalyst that makes it easy. I'm gonna go into it more in detail in the next solo cast. It's probably the same amount of detail. I'm just gonna keep re-emphasizing it. I'm truly morphing into Neville Goddard in the sense where I'm just like, I'm gonna keep saying the same shit over and over again until people accept it. But that specific technique, fuck, I don't even know what to say. It's don't use it unless you really want that shit because it fucking works. YouTube, I'll be doing some live YouTube stuff. So subscribe to that channel. Also, my iPod networks, YouTube just hit 20,000 subscribers.

So I'm gonna start using that more and yeah. What else? I don't know. I think that's it. I think we're good. I think I fucking nailed this intro. Melinda is amazing. You can connect with her. There are links everywhere on this episode page, on all the pages. Just go check her shit out. She's super fucking cool if you're in LA. She's around doing cool shit. All right, I think we're done. I think I fucking nailed it. I will see you on the other side. Without further ado, here is Melinda Lee Holm. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)

Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, sure.

We're just gonna jump in.

Okay.

Just be clear 'cause that's how I do it. So I will explain how I got tuned into you.

Right.

And then I can find out actually who you are. (laughing)

And what you're really doing.

Ready.

So at this last WITMA in New York, my friends put that on. I was in and out of the panels, but I did get tuned. You're on the imagination panel, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

That's my shit. I was really impressed with you in particular on that panel.

Thank you.

Partially because I just recently got into tarot. Like for real, like two and a half months ago.

Ooh.

And ran new.

Yeah, but within those two months, like shit just started happening. Like I just started, I don't even describe it as learning. It was like remembering. I was like, what the fuck is going on? We're now actually do professional readings and have been doing them for like a month and a half. And it's like going really fucking nuts. Yeah. So it's, yeah. It basically was like this crazy fucking thing, but I was struck by how accessible and practical you were making tarot, which to me is like a big part of what I like to do because I don't want it to seem like this weird mystical esoteric. I mean, it is in some ways, but it's also like, it's very useful.

So I'm curious, how did you get into the tarot? How do you find yourself as a professional in the tarot world? And like doing really cool shit too.

Ooh. Well, that's, I'll get to the second, but first of all, it's, it makes me so happy to hear you say that that was your takeaway, was that it was, that I was dealing with the material in a way that's very accessible and practical. 'Cause that is, I mean, it's kind of the glue that holds together everything in my practice where I think that, you know, part of what's wrong with the world globally speaking is that we have been artificially divided into sort of experts and idiots really. It's not even, because people aren't even given the benefit of like, oh, you're probably learning. It's just like, no, you're stupid and I'm an expert and I'm gonna tell you what to do.

Totally.

And that's, I mean, that's the root of like all of these forms of abuse and individual abuse and institutional abuse, everything, right? So I'm like very much about it. And the tarot comes out of this tradition. It comes out of like an illiterate tradition, right? Like the Major Arcana, those figures come out of morality plays, you know, these touring plays in Europe that were teaching people how to be good people who couldn't read and, you know, those were out of, you know, biblical tradition, like teaching people, Bible stories because the Bible was only in Latin so that the elites could have a hold on it.

So why would we perpetuate that notion that this information should be like in an ivory tower, right? So I like to really distill it down. Also, one of the elements is earth, earth is grounded. It's practical, it's real. It's like what we use it here for. So that's awesome that that's coming across. It's always good to get that feedback, you know.

You know, I haven't delved very deeply. Like I know there's a whole world of tarot personalities and like these YouTubers and this whole thing and I haven't really explored it that much, but what I, you know, like, yeah, it's just not, I mean, I've seen, there's a few people I've come across and like, wow, they're really fucking awesome and they know they're shit. But for me, that's not how I typically like to find things. I like to have the people pop up and be like, holy shit, they get it, you know, and you were definitely one of those people. So I was like, yeah.

Awesome, yeah, yeah, just that like natural expression. I mean, and that's how tarot came into my life was by accident and, you know, I grew up in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota and--

A hotbed of a cult, exactly, yeah, you know, like born in the 70s, like, yeah, real. Yeah, a hotbed of satanic panic, but maybe not anything outside of that. Oh, you can probably hear my dog growling at my cat on here, but she's trying to drink my water.

But yeah, I just, you know, I had like a real, kind of, you know, chaotic and abusive childhood and was, you know, didn't really, didn't have a great home life, didn't really fit in at school and so had, you know, had a lot of alone time. But just wandering through the bookstore at the mall, you know, God bless, Barnes and Noble, found metaphysical section and started going through all these books and like, was just so taken.

Yeah. - By everything about it, like, visually, symbolically, you know, all of it and so I got the, you know, the toth deck and the book that goes within the book of toth and then the Buckland's book of witchcraft, far more accessible than the book of toth.

Yeah, just like, yeah. - And I just, I just kind of started, you know, spending time alone in my bedroom, like going through these, you know, especially that Buckland's book is very instruction.

I don't know it, yeah. - Oh, you don't?

No, I don't know shit. - Oh my God.

I know the toth deck, that's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this, it's, Buckland's book, it's like a, it's a workbook style, so, you know, it's like a 12 inch high, 10 inch way, you know, like a big book and I, you know, it comes out of like that at the British, Wiccan tradition, like kind of 20th century and so it's, but it's very, it's like the big blue book. It's so wonderful and it goes through everything from like, here's how you access the divine, like, sit quietly and, you know, all the visual eyes of bright light, white light coming into your head. And I remember as a kid, you know, as 15, doing that and feeling my whole body just like filled, like with this jolt.

It's a good age to start doing it.

Yeah. - Because you're establishing your personal, that's when I first did LSE. I only bring it up because your sense of self, you're still trying on different personas. So like when you find something that like speaks to you on the inside, you can actually like fully embrace it, really quickly and then that's when that shit happens.

Absolutely, I mean, that's really magic and LSD saved my life at that age and completely because it was also, you know, and I started, started doing acid and doing a bunch of it as a kid at like 14 and, and yeah, it did, it was this, you know, I needed this escape hatch, but it was like the healthiest escape hatch, which I didn't realize until much, much of an life because you talk about that as an adult, exactly and people say, oh, that's so sad, that's so sad. And so you just start to believe it. And then I did ayahuasca and went, you know, back, went back in and was all of a sudden my teenage self walking around, you know, on LSD and went, oh my God, this is wonderful.

Like connecting with my friends in my environment and forming my own world in this way where like I have these boundaries inside of my body and inside of my mind that I'm not allowed to have externally.

Yes.

Which is so, just so wonderful. And that's really, you know, what magic did too. It was like teaching me these sort of internal boundaries in this way to have control within myself that I didn't have outside of myself.

Yes, I mean, that's, you just described the heart of like every spiritual religion, philosophy, you know what I mean? That's literally it, that is literally it. Like figure out what the fuck is going on. Discipline your mind, recognize that you have control over it whenever you want. If you forget it, don't freak out, just remember. That's literally like everything. And then from there, that's the launching pad for whatever you wanna do in life.

Right, exactly. And then that's where the practice and the refinement comes in and you know, and being willing to constantly refine too, right? And make sure that everything you're doing is for the highest good of all beings and not just for yourself, which is something that gets a little, you know, in this kind of empowerment circle that gets a little messy sometimes.

Yeah, this has been a real, it's been great for me, but it definitely rubs. I use desire as my springboard for enlightenment. And that's a tricky one to use because you do, like you said, if your desires tend to be fully selfish. Now every desire, just to be clear, has some element of selfishness, that's fine. That's totally okay, it's like having nice shit. It's fine. Don't get judge yourself, that's the worst thing you can do. But if it's not tied into that greater sense of selflessness or other people, it will crumble at some point, or you'll start getting all the trappings of what you're doing, but you won't feel good about it.

And that's even worse, it's like fucking really good.

Well then you start feeling crazy and like, oh, I have everything I want.

And then I'm not, yeah.

Exactly, yeah.

Yeah, man, that's a, yeah. It is very important to, and it is a fine line. It is something that I think requires constant refinement like you're saying. What I found is helpful is making it fun, like making that refinement process like a fun thing that you do. And that's also where I find like the tarot and a lot of these divinatory things that I've fallen into, they remind you that it can be fun. Like you'll pull a certain card and you'll be like, oh, yeah, like I don't want to be so fucking, like a page of cups. I don't have to freak the fuck out about everything. Okay, there's a weird shit coming up, but it's fun and playful, great.

Totally, totally, oh, I know less than a fish. Okay, great, I'm not lying.

Yes, this is perfect. Yeah, and you know, in the cards also provide, for me and what, and something that I try to perpetuate and invite other people into is that, you know, the cards don't have stagnant meanings, they hold this symbolic wisdom and wisdom is living. It lives and it evolves and, you know, if you keep, and so, I mean, page of cups, you know, if you keep pulling it in a lot of different situations, maybe that's also an invitation to go like, okay, well, what does being a total novice in the realm of water mean?

Yes.

What is my definition of water? What's my definition of my emotional experience and to like get into sort of, you know, some bigger philosophical questions and examinations, and I think that that can get lost sometimes. It's something that I find very attractive about Buddhism and you know, and a lot of the Buddhist traditions, the, you know, like the greatest thing is when the monks are like arguing over the teachings. Like, yes, it's a living tradition. Like, you should not accept things unquestioningly.

Yes.

You should continue to talk about it.

And one of the things that I think undercuts all of this stuff is the direct experience aspect of it, right? That's, and that's why I think those arguments and those, I mean, that's basically what Judaism is and it's core. It's just people arguing about this same text forever.

Right, right.

It's literally all Judaism is just like a bunch of dudes get together and like, this is what it means. No, this is just like, okay.

Yeah.

It's like, all right, maybe, maybe you can take a step back from the arguing all the time, but yeah, it is. And I think that's, right, we're constantly pushing the boundaries and expanding our own minds, this world, things that were commonplace 20 years ago have been totally transcended in a lot of ways where we are now and that will continue to happen. So through that kind of friction that's created between examination and looking at things, that's how we propel ourselves forward and create the stability that's usually needed for whatever the dominant form of consciousness, mass consciousness is at the time.

Yes.

The past 20, 500 years has been kind of like logical and like, this is how the world works and now we see this crazy shift.

Yes.

It's nuts. So what's your take, what do you think is happening, right? We've seen people, like I also started reading astrology, astrology is taken off, tarot is taking off, mysticism is taking off, Buddhism, I mean, has been taking off for the past 20 years. Mindfulness had its moments, but I think people are learning that secularism of mindfulness maybe doesn't have the same juice as people wanted it to have. What do you think is, what's happening right now?

I think, I mean, what's happening is totally beyond my comprehension, like in the largest sense, right? But I do think that there's this, you know, people have, a lot of people have become disillusioned with authoritarianism, and a lot of religious structures and institutions carry that authoritarian, you know, this is what I say, and so it is right, and so you behave this way, otherwise you're going to hell. And that, you know, as people sort of, you know, the world's a big place, and different ways of living and being are more visible and more vocal. And as people sort of, you know, and it doesn't happen all at once, it starts to, it's like, oh shit, well, okay, so you said that all gay people are bad, but now I have a kid who's gay, and he seems pretty cool.

I don't know, you know, it just starts to erode. And so I think that people are looking elsewhere for meaning, and that there's all of this stuff that's been here all along, that's kind of like, oh, wait, there's another way, there's an end, there's another way that honors the individual experience and doesn't try to shove everyone into one box, because that's the commonality, right, with all of the astrology and tarot and all this stuff, is that it really is about examining and learning from your own experience in a profound way. And it does seem a lot of these things are leaning or inviting people to lean a little bit more heavily on their intuition and these things that are not as logical and pinned down.

And like what you're describing also to me is, you know, the shadow aspect of a card, like the Hierophant, right? It's like you want some structure around mysticism and divine stuff, that's great, we need something to hold on to, but if it gets taken to its like, completely perverse end, you get like the church being used as a cudgel, scripture being used as a cudgel, like, you know, all these, even like, just to be clear, like, it was funny, there was a period of about like 10 or 15, 20 years, I would say from like the mid 90s to the mid 2000s, where 2010s where Buddhism was looked at as like this alternative to the corrupt Catholic church, which was abusing every, oh, Buddhism, oh, well, they get it, they get it.

And then you see like, even Shambhala, like Shambhala, I mean, fuck it, I'm the biggest Chogam Trunk fan in the world, and it was revealed to me that there was some, he also experienced abuse, which explains a lot, but all these things that were looked at as these like safe alternatives of like that, it doesn't happen, of course it started to happen there because it's a reflection of these things that people weren't dealing with as individuals, like you said, and it does seem, I've been saying, and I use a caveat now that the age of the Guru is dying, and it's probably dead. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have gurus because there are people who are actually capable of being in that role and being benevolent and not being weird about it, but it does mean that every single person is becoming their own Guru, and recognizing what they see in the world is their lesson, that they're teaching themselves, and that's when these modalities seem to open up and be like, hey, like here you go, like, hey, maybe there's a different way to approach this, and you can prove to yourself that you're actually running the show, and yeah, it's just an exciting fucking time, right?

Yes, it really is, and I mean, I never, I never could really identify as one thing, and for years and years, I judged myself on that, it was like, oh, you can't commit, or you know,

Yes, they say there's, you're going around the mountain, you're going around, you're not going up, but you didn't pick a path, you're going around, you totally.

You just want to pick one thing, and I find, I mean, you just get to it, but you can't do that forever, you just have to throw it away and stop judging yourself and saying, okay, well, instead, instead of judging, let's just examine here and like, what am I doing? And like, okay, well, what I'm doing is, you know, all of, you know, kind of taking from, you know, taking teachings and taking wisdom from all of these different traditions, and applying them to what I know, and that's okay, and that's more authentic, you know, it's like, and I grew up in the States, like, we don't have like a big long tradition here, like despite what people will try to say, like we just don't.

It's like 300 years.

Yeah, it's like not, that's like, people can remember, older people could know of people who they were speaking about like five generations, like that was my great-great-grandfather. It's like, holy shit, that's nuts.

Yeah.

That's not long.

Yeah, you know, and it's okay to not, you know, and as a tarot reader, it means, you know, sometimes people kind of try to quiz each other on like, you know, wickin' holidays or something like that, you know, just like, well, I'm not, I'm not wickin'. I'm not.

I don't know shit about it either.

Yeah, like I'm sorry, I, like, I know a little bit, and, you know, and there are some things that I connect to and there are things in pagan tradition that I connect to, and I've never even been Catholic, but there are things in Catholicism that I connect to.

Totally, totally.

It's in, it's that it's okay to bring all of those things together in a respectful way.

Yeah, it is this interesting thing that I think there's that, again, the line, right? The line of honoring and knowing that it's okay and being okay with it actually makes it okay. And then what I think is what a lot of people would say in the past is like, oh, you're just sampling, you're just sampling, and that's your thing. And it's like, well, you know what? Sometimes you need to sample to understand what the different things are before you know how to synthesize them into your particular thing. Like, I would find it odd if we only picked, for me, and it sounds like for you too, like, oh, I'm only a Vajrayana Buddhist, that's it.

That's the only thing I believe in, everything else is subservient to that. Like, my conception of reality is the only thing that's real is our sense of I am, our sense of consciousness, that's God, that's Buddha, that's Krishna, that's literally everything. So if that's true, everything else is subservient to that, which means everything is fair game. Even the bullshitty stuff is actually real, you know what I mean? So yeah, it's definitely this weird kind of balancing act, I think with a lot of this stuff of not judging and also like allowing yourself to know that you're not gonna fuck your shit up.

Like, that's a big part of this, you know?

Right, and a lot of people are afraid of that, which is, I think, why sort of guru culture exists, right? People want, see it all the time, people come to me and they just want an answer, they want an answer, they wanna be told what to do, they wanna be told what's right and wrong. And I get why people fall into the trap of becoming, you know, that sort of like guru-all-knowing personality because it's like people are asking you to do it all the time and you have to actively resist it when you're in a place of, you know, when people have put you in a place of authority, you have to actively resist it and say, "No, you're not, we are sitting side by side."

Yes.

"I am not in authority over you, "I am helping you to discover your authority within."

That's right.

And that's how we're moving forward. But it is, it's constant and then, you know, with somebody, you know, I'm, this is my life, this is my job, I'm working on a book, I'm working on a tarot deck, all this stuff, that puts me more and more in the public eye, right, and puts me in the, in the--

People are coming to you for answers.

Right, right, right. And so it's, it is, then that expands my personal work into how do I navigate that?

Yes.

And how do I make that, how do I remain in alignment with my values in that position?

See, but this is why success is found and we'll continue to find you is because you take that as a lesson and a challenge rather than some corrupting force that could fuck your shit up. Like, 'cause this same thing happened to me is like, I had a direct experience 17 years ago that just like, it blew my fucking mind open and I was like, holy shit, what the fuck is going on? I eventually crashed down from it 'cause I didn't know what was happening. Up until about seven months ago, I had my like Clark Kent clothes on. I was just like, oh, this is the world, this is how it works. I was speculating, yeah, it was pretty nice.

But I still had the remembrance of like, oh, that's not really how reality is. But anyway, I started proving to myself through these imaginal techniques and just doing all this shit, bending reality in a lot of ways that, oh my God, that was right. Like that experience, those downloads, that was fucking accurate reality. As that started to happen, I started to get more confident in answering my own questions, understanding my own sense of stability. And once I had figured it out for myself, sharing it with people, 'cause I'm like, yo, if I did this, you can definitely do it too. But this interesting thing does come up where people start asking a lot of questions.

And then you know like, shit, I kind of know the answers to those questions. So you have to do, you do have to do exactly what you're saying, like be aware that yes, maybe you do have the answers to these questions, maybe a lot of questions, maybe ones that could change people's lives or just even the power of suggestion, make their lives a little bit better, don't get caught up in thinking it's you, the individual, a lone who has this and there is this connection to a broader thing. That's kind of how I stay, like-

Yes.

Just like, and I'm very, very wary of being pejorative to the ego. I love my ego. I fuck it, we're buddies. I think of it like a wolf and we're friends and it goes and gets me stuff. And we're really, we love each other. But I think what a lot of people start to freak out about is this inflated sense of like individualized ego. And you can always get that to like a, the balloon will never pop or fuck you up. If you can just remember like, yeah, it's you, little I, and then big I. That big I, as long as you remember that, you'll be fine. You'll be fine.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think in line with what you're saying there, remembering that you're not the source of this information, the source of the information is source.

Yeah, exactly.

It's source, it's the divine, it's the universe.

Yeah.

And that we are, we are channels, but that we're also interpretive channels. We're human. The universe doesn't speak American English, right? Like it's ridiculous to think that.

Not all of the time.

Yeah, not all of the time. Like the idea that just like, oh, I'm just this pure channel of information. Like, no, you're not. We're like, we're human, we're living, you know, we're living in this material world. Any information that comes through is coming through that material world filter and through the filter of our language, which is, you know, all language is limiting. And that's okay. And then you, if you just acknowledge that, then it allows people, it kind of gives them permission to acknowledge that within themselves too, right? To say like, oh, this is what I'm thinking. Or, you know, this is what I'm feeling.

That doesn't mean that it's absolute truth. It means that this is an experience that I'm having and that I can interpret.

Yes, and I think what that ultimately helps us do is distinguish between those two kind of like, I look at it like the conscious mind and the subconscious mind are unconscious, right? The conscious mind is aware, it's practical, it's rational, it's personal, it's selective. Like, we know, I want that, I want to take a sip of water, I will take a sip of water. It's also relatively weak and poor at affecting change in this world. It seems like it's good. It seems like, oh, I'm gonna get the water, I'm gonna do it. But if we go back one step, there's an urge or something that's deeper than that, that's there.

The subconscious mind to me is feminine, it's receptive, it is impersonal, non-selective, irrational, not in like anything to do with women or being crazy, just doesn't give a shit about morality or anything else. What this means is it accepts anything delivered to it by the conscious mind that is fully accepted by the conscious mind, receives it, and then delivers that out. So I've found that this principle, if you can kind of walk into it, find your desires, find your wishes, find your real goals in life, and actually deliver it to your subconscious effectively through spells or any other thing.

Right.

Reality literally conforms to what you delivered to it. It's the craziest thing I've ever seen, and that process is fun and amazing, but it also gets us better at like when a feeling comes up knowing like, hey, this is what I've been like, is this my feeling? Or is this some other thing going on here? 'Cause this doesn't really feel like me, you get better at those distinguishing marks, which also makes you a better vessel for getting shit and like information from places.

Yeah, exactly, you can receive, well, and it's the two energies that you're describing just very much me feel like the emperor and the high priestess.

And I love the high priestess.

Right, I love the high priestess.

Yeah.

And I love the emperor. And I think that, I mean, this is part of my whole thing too, is that there are no good cards, there are no bad cards in the tarot deck, right? And the emperor, people are so resistant.

It's 'cause the past 25 years, right?

Right, that it's that, but if we can take, but it's just that you have to have both.

You do!

That if the emperor is making, you know, like making all these plans and setting everything up and just like exactly in their vision and then taking that to the high priestess and saying, okay, can you, what can we do with this? And then allowing the high priestess to do their thing and like go in and out, then you've got, I mean, then you've got magic.

That is exactly what it is. And I've been looking a lot at the distinction between the magician and the high priestess who I feel are essentially doing the same thing. But the magician is up there like, look at me, I'm doing all these stuff, see all these suits and cool energies I have in the high priestess is like, I'm chilling, I'm just gonna let stuff happen. You're gonna tell me what you want, I'll give it to you. I'm not gonna freak out when she's got the moon and all the emotional things with her. And I've found that our emotions and our feelings are actually what, they're the operative mechanisms of like unfolding reality.

And that is both a liberating and terrifying thought, terrifying if you have no control over your emotions, which was me for a long time and it's like, holy shit. Liberating if you know that you can control your emotions or at least develop the capacity of mind to examine them, to see like, what is that happening? And then you just kind of give it to yourself. And then it's like, oh my God.

Yeah, and do not fight your emotions too. I think like we tend to, and especially men, like men are just, you guys are really fucked in this capacity of just like all of this, you know, thousands of years of being too, like, no, don't feel anything bad. And if you do, don't fucking tone anything, like you better keep it under wraps. And so it's like having, then you grow up and you have feelings and like, what are you supposed to do with that? Like it's such a crazy thing and it's life changing. To just allow yourself to feel and give yourself space and go, oh, I'm sad, I'm gonna be sad.

Yeah, it's fine. And what's cool about it is you actually get to dictate your relationship to those emotions. Like I've noticed like, there's a lot of manifesting stuff that's going on in my life. Just in general, like conscious, intentional and it happens. But the strength of all of this kind of the magic and the divinatory stuff and just kind of accepting how reality is is when shit isn't going well, when the external circumstances are like, what the fuck? Like I'm a kid, my two month old was in the hospital, what tubes in his throat, it was ours if he was just a cold, but it's every parent's worst nightmare, truthfully.

But by using these kind of like, I don't know, awareness techniques, imaginal techniques, magic, whatever you wanna call it, I was so fucking stable in that moment where I knew two years before, a year before, six months before, I would have crumbled as a human being. Catatonic, probably, like truthfully, it was crazy. And I saw, I was like, you know what? We have so much more control. Our mind is so much more malleable. And this is a scary thought for a lot of people because sometimes it doesn't feel like we have control. But we have so much agency control, whatever word you wanna use over our states of consciousness that if we take the time to kind of pre-select very powerful states of consciousness, like fearlessness, balanced ecstasy, joy, those things, this world becomes a very different place.

Yes. - Like very different.

Yeah, completely, completely different. And that it's, it's so, there's so little reality that's objective, right? Arguably there's zero reality that's objective.

I would argue that. - I would argue that.

Yeah, and so, but that's, it's such a, it's liberating and it's terrifying to so many people. I mean, again, I mean, that's why we have gurus 'cause people don't, it's so scary to accept the level of control over your own life that you have because also, then you need to, you know, in a vacuum, that sounds great. But in reality, that means that you look around at your life and you see things that you don't like, that you've been suffering under and that, and you have to go, oh, fuck, I did that too.

Yeah.

And that's the part that is really, it's, I mean, of course it's difficult to face. It's really, it's really challenging. And they're, you know, it's, and it gets messy because there's no hard line between what we've created for ourselves and what has been thrust upon us by other people, by institutions, by systems, you know, like that's all real as well. And it requires this constant examination and navigating between things. There's just no, it's not black and white. It's all a gray, gray.

It is, and I think where it starts to get really weird. And I think part of the reason why we logically and analytically reject a lot of these things, like, hey, it's all your subjective reality is because eight, our sense is deny that. It's like wrong, like, that's not how the world works. So that's number one. Number two, what you're describing is many people. I used to say most, I'm gonna say many now, a Trumpism, have a very difficult time dealing with their own individual existence, their own issues, their own problems, their own whatever, relationships. The idea that you are everything and everything is you, including other people then makes you responsible for literally everything.

And most people do that quick little like equation in their head. And they're like, no, I'm good, I'm good. I'm good on all that. Like, yeah, this is my rant and the kids. It's just like a whole thing. But what you realize is if you click into that state of consciousness, everything that bothers you or people that bother you or situations or institutional stuff, cease to become these things that just vex you and like fuck you up. And you're like, ah, but they've become and reveal themselves as lessons, as opportunities. And this is, I think, 'cause this can very get quickly into spiritual bypassing and just do your own shit.

Fuck it over there. This is why I think the act of bearing witness to other people suffering, institutional suffering is for people who really like wanna do big things in this world, like yeah, it's gonna be great. Everything is gonna, like shit is getting better for sure. However, don't just stick your head in the sand like an ostrich. I was someone pointed out to me that I've been saying camel. Don't stick your head in the sand. Like a camel, they're like, camel don't do that. I'm like, you're right. You're totally right, I'm an idiot. It's an ostrich.

Well, you can lead a horse to water but you can't beat him to death.

Yeah.

It's just like some fucked up butchering of an aphorism. But yeah, the truth is that this is how our reality works and if we can hold that perspective, especially in times of confrontation or triggering or just like looking at someone like Donald Trump and being like, that's, you shouldn't do that without attaching ourselves to that and judging and condemning. I think, I mean, I don't think I know that's how we actually start addressing these issues and it's just, it is, it's a major step that is a pre-rec for anyone who actually wants to alleviate suffering beyond their own. And I would say, and I'm sure this is your experience, like don't try to really take on anyone else's suffering until you've stabilized your shit and know how to deal with your own.

You know what I mean? Like, oh my God, absolutely. And look, it's a lifelong process. Like none of us is ever gonna, you know, we're not gonna be perfect. And if anybody thinks they are like, run the other way from that person, but it's, get it under control. Get it under control. And then also pick one thing, go outside, volunteer somewhere, like do something, you know?

Take an action.

It's very grounding, right? And like I, excuse me, my thing, I tutor once a week at the LGBT Center has an incredible education program. And anybody, you know, like homeless youth can come and like we help them get their GED and stuff. But it's, and it's so great to help in being a good tutor, sorry, is like--

Throat chakra.

Geez Louise, this is my truth throat, I'm gonna speak.

It happens to me all the time, it really does. It's so funny, right? It's just like weird.

It's like right when you get to the thing, you're like, and this is, I don't know if I want to say it anyway, but it's being a good tutor is like being a good spiritual leader. It's, you don't just look at the math problem and tell the person the answer.

No.

You help them to discover the answer themselves. So when they encounter a similar problem later on the test, they can solve that problem on their own.

Teach a man a fish.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So that's what I hope to do.

And it's true, like I tend towards the more ethereal and imaginal conception of reality because I acknowledge this world of duality. I acknowledge time as a thing, but real, I don't. And so I, I've warned--

You have to a little, but still--

Yeah, like, yeah. I mean, they're right on time today. So you're pretty good at making it.

So what's crazy is about the time thing. So I used to be like compulsively like early to place. I'd be like 15 minutes early. And I started to examine like, why do I, why? I'm nervous about maybe the other person being upset. If I don't get there in time, maybe the people will be slow and so I'd notice when I traveled to places that have a lot of anxiety about getting there, even if I was early. I let that shit go and this weird thing started to happen where I'm almost never early, but I'm never late. I'm always within like two or three minutes. And sometimes the, you know, it's LA. Sometimes it'll be like, you're definitely not getting there in time, like no fucking way.

Sunset, you're gonna be jammed up forever. And I'm like, I don't really accept that. And this weird thing started to happen. Like I got a parking spot right out there. It's just like literally right there. It's just like this weird, it's this acceptance thing of like, you don't have to have it be a certain way, but you just kind of know, like in the same way you make a deal with yourself. And I've been telling people this 'cause it's important. Sit down, whatever ritual you need to do, whatever modality you need to just make a commitment to yourself that you don't fuck your shit up. The reason is, is A, you won't.

But B, when it feels like maybe you are, you'll remember, oh, I'm not going to. So even if shit gets fucking nuts, like you're good. But yeah, yeah, but the time and the duality stuff, I think should be useful as expansion and like lessons for us. But if they start to restrict us, this is also what I say with tarot and astrology readings. If I'm giving a reading to someone, I'd really be interested to hear your thoughts on this. And it feels constructive, restrictive, deterministic, or like it's boxing you in, you're not understanding what I'm trying to communicate to you through the cards 'cause that ain't it. - Absolutely, yeah.

Yeah. So let me see this. When did you start reading professionally? Like when did you like, we're like, okay, I've groked this. Let me start doing this.

I started taking, I mean, really, so that like when I started taking money for readings, right? Like that's-- - Yeah. Or friends, family, start. You can do that trajectory 'cause that's usually how it starts, right?

Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I had read for friends a little bit. It was really, I was very reluctant to give myself another external marker of being an outsider, but I really, I really had that covered for many, many, many years.

Do I really wanna double down?

Yeah, yeah, totally, like, well, I'm just gonna keep this private, it's gonna be fine.

And then I moved to LA eight years ago and I was about a year after that. So about seven years ago where I started, you know, really, really doing things professionally, you know, which is like 20 years after I started reading and, you know, had been studying and practicing all that time.

We have the opposite origin stories.

Yeah, yeah, they're literally convenient.

I'm a very, my moon is in Taurus.

Oh, okay.

Very slow and say, and I have Virgo rising. So I like to be exacting.

Yeah. - No, like make sure everything's buttoned up.

What's your son's time?

Cancer. - Me too.

Yeah. - Yeah.

What's your birthday?

July 10th. - July 20th.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yes, you get it. You just want to hold everyone in that watery embrace.

Yeah. - But yeah, it's, and it just started, it just grew. It just grew and grew and grew on its own and people kept asking me for it and I, you know, I moved here with a job, a job job. I was working as a photo editor for MSN.com and then was laid off about a year after I moved here and I just, you know, it was one of those like deep inner knowing of like, oh, no, I'm not, no one can see my resume. I'm not doing that anymore. That's what I'm doing. - Yeah, yeah.

So I, yeah, so I just started doing, you know, metaphysical world full time. I worked part time at my friend's crystal shop at Spellbound Sky over in Silver Lake here.

Oh, where should I go for crystals?

Go to Spellbound. - Fuck yeah.

Go to Spellbound Sky. It's incredible and there, yeah.

I'm gonna go there after this.

Awesome. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's very close. - Awesome.

But yeah, and that was a magical thing too where they had, just, Mark and Martin had opened up the store. It was in a, around the corner in a much smaller place than the one you'll see and it was just the two of them and they had just gotten to the point where they needed to hire somebody else and I'm like, "It's me." (laughing)

Yeah, and then for my, for my 39th birthday, the gift I gave myself was that I wouldn't work for anyone else anymore.

Fuck, that's the best, one of the best gifts anyone can give to themselves.

Yeah, 'cause I just thought I have to, like, I'm gonna be 40 in a year and I wanna know, I don't wanna turn 40 wondering, I wanna know. And if I can see, like, a year is a lot of information, right? And it was and it is and I'm still not working for anybody else, so it's--

That's so awesome because I think a lot of people, it's weird, I had a similar thing happen to me, but I had always, I've worked for myself since, I went to a music college, so there wasn't like, I wasn't gonna get like fast-tracked into a corporate high-paying job, so I was like, all right, let me try that, so very quickly after I started doing freelance digital marketing, but six months ago, seven months ago, I made a similar type of decision where even though I was freelance, I was still working, yeah, sure, with other people, but for other people, they're hiring me to do shit for them, and I'm like, no, fucking more.

Yeah.

That coincided almost like to the week or like with the tarot stuff and the astrology stuff, like it just, it was so weird how it came into my life and then started showing me like how I could make, 'cause I was very reluctant to chart, I actually asked my friend's mom who's an astrologer, and she only does free readings, I was like, listen, I feel weird about charging money for this, 'cause like I just learned it, I don't know what's going on, she's like, oh no, no, no, no, she's like, you're good, like you're good, she's like, you're Neptune, is right where it needs to be, it's in a water sign, like you're good to go, oh no, it was in Sagittarius, she's like, you're good, like the divine arts, the mysticism, like you're good to go, so I was like, fuck yeah.

And it literally, it's interesting when you make those decisions, how everything conspires kind of magically to make it happen, you can run this friends at the crystal store, it's just weird, and I think people need to hear that it is nothing more than an inner sense of conviction and faith and determination that actually allows you to do it. It's not like, people are not handed these opportunities without that on some level.

Right, right, and it's very similar to something I think I have a lot of friends in the music industry, right, and at all levels. - All levels, yeah.

And you know, literally the only thing that they all have in common, everybody who works full time in music is that they refuse to stop.

You just won't, you can't.

That's it, that's the only thing. And it doesn't, you know, and it's not a judgment on anybody who does, like people make decisions at some point, they're like, this hustle is not--

It's too much, good for me, it's too much, it's not good for my health, I'm gonna go get a job and that's great, but it's, I think people have this idea that there's some magical thing or that there's some, that you know, that there's like a rich parent, which is a misconception that, that about me, that someone told me that I--

Oh, they thought you were funded?

Yeah, that I was actually super flattered by, 'cause I grew up really, really poor, so I was like, you're trending, you're poverty mentality. You're totally like, oh my God.

That's awesome.

But yeah, it's like, it's just, you really just put one foot in front of the other and--

Yeah, it's, and it is, I think, for a lot of people who find themselves in creative or mystical paths, it, you can't do anything else. And when you try to do something else, it eats at you so much, like that's what people don't understand, like, you know, they'll ask someone who just did this and I know this is someone who let this eat me for like 15 years, like it wasn't like I learned this, I'm like, oh yeah, it was just naturally, like I just pursued being this like, no, like I fought this shit real hard and it becomes clear at a certain point, or maybe it doesn't for some people that like, it doesn't, I would rather almost do anything than sacrifice the part of me that actually make me feel alive and good.

And paradoxically, as you found, and I'm finding, as you make those decisions, they're not mutually, you can do the things you wanna do and be okay and have it happen. And I don't wanna give it like, this glossy like, hey yeah, just become a tarot reader overnight and everything's gonna work out. This was for you 20 years before you started doing it professionally, for me, 25 plus years of experience allow, I could not have done this without everything before then. So even though it seems really fast, yeah, popped it open real fast, it was something that was slow building for so long. So I don't wanna make it seem like, some people can jump cut real fast for sure, but it is this cumulative kind of direct experience that leads to these realizations that you can do this stuff.

And it really, and it pulls everything together. I mean, I went to school for art history, I got a degree in art history. I had zero awareness that I was getting a degree that would be directly informing and supporting my career as a tarot reader.

Yeah, how could you have?

Yeah, no idea, I was just, I was just very, very fat, had always been super fascinated by visual language. I'm a visual learner, like all the symbolism in bed and are like, yeah, duh, tarot. But I just had no, I had no idea, you know, and my dad was kinda like, okay, I don't know what you're gonna do with that. I'm like, I don't either, but yeah. Let's see, let's find out. How, God, that's cool, the art history background. So how does it inform kind of your approach to using tarot, which is clearly just imagery, right? Like what are the connections you see that probably a lot of people don't pick up on just because you have a, you've studied this stuff?

Well, I think the main one is just seeing the, seeing the historical context of the deck, right? Which is something that's very, very important to me and seeing, you know, where these archetypes come out of, why they're named, what they are named, exactly. And what these, and what they were before then, right? Like the, like, the Hierophant is, you know, the Pope and the Marseilles deck. And so people have sort of an allergy to that a lot of times. But why do we have a Pope? Why do we have a Hierophant? Where does that come from? Like it comes from, you know, like they're, they've always been spiritual leaders.

They're like pagan spiritual leaders. Somebody has to lead the ceremony.

Right.

Somebody has to lead the ritual.

The shock.

Exactly. Somebody has to answer it. And so like also being able to, to sort of continually trace back that just that, the culture that things come out of is very important. And it also leaves me open to interpreting and to say like, okay, so what does that look like now? You know, how does that, how does that role? How does that energy manifest in contemporary societies, contemporary cultures?

Put your modern lens on these archetypal energies.

Right, but yeah, I think that that's, and I think because of my background in art history, that stuff doesn't make it less magical to me.

Right.

It makes it more magical, right? We're in, you know, like the Golden Dawn, God bless them, you know, like lots of great work, but very invested in obscuring the history, rewriting the history, making it, you know, it's like a real history, isn't good enough. Yeah, yeah, it's from Egypt, it's cool. You just dug up a bunch of tombs. So everybody's excited about it.

Definitely not, by the way.

Right, and I mean, another art history point. Of course, all of that stuff is all about Egypt because Egyptomania was so fucking real. They were like, they were actively excavating all these tombs and discovering new stuff all the time. Like it was a huge thing, it's not that, it's not that Egypt is this inherently magical place. I mean, it is, but you know what I mean? That's not why.

No, at least not practically in the worldwide.

Exactly, exactly, the why is because the Golden Dawn was operating at a time when culturally this stuff was bananas. Why are all the classic theaters, all the old silent movie theaters, all Egyptian themed? It was everywhere.

It was pervasive, it was like a loop in time.

Exactly, it was really good marketing on the part of the Golden Dawn, really, to say that everything was rooted in Egypt.

It tapped into deep archetypal energies too, which people really, you know, I'm appreciating something about you. So I spoke to, 'cause he lived really, he lives close to me is Robert Place who does the alchemical tarot and he has like a shit loaded decks. And he like you is acutely interested in the history and the etymology and like really where this stuff came from. He showed me some cards that are like 400, 500 years old. It's insane. Yeah, I'll show you.

He has his personal collection.

Yeah, it's, oh, it's nuts.

It's, they look, they're fucking nuts.

Yeah.

But for me, as someone who's recently discovered it, I had almost no historical context for it, but what I loved about the way he described it and the way you're describing it, is I think for some people, if they were invested in the narrative of them being like these holy mystical ISIS delivered them through some seance thing, when they find out that like, hey, you know, like most of the stuff we use kind of came from like playing cards. Like they didn't, they weren't even the mystical ones at all like the actual deck of cards that we play with was the mystical one like that fucks people up. But to me, it reveals the truth of this, which is it's us.

It's us.

It's us. It's nothing to do with anything. Like of course there's something to do with it, but it's really us. And I found that's why I've been able to do readings that help people because I never make the mistake of thinking like, I'm doing this. It's the person to develop this crazy thing where they got in touch with me or they get in touch with you. Oh, they think they're doing it, but it's really them trying to communicate with themselves. Something very deep and profound. And if you're good, if you're clear and understand this shit like you do, you can actually help people like a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah, a lot.

It's been, and that's, it's just incredibly humbling and rewarding. - Always, always, like right? I mean, I didn't know that when I started to do this. Like I would get little glimpses of it, but then, you know, the more you do this, you've been doing it now for a while, like, man, you just see, you'll just hit something for someone and you can just feel the change and that perspective, they go, whoa. It's just, it's one of the most rewarding. It's gotta be how doctors feel when they like a surgeon and they, you know what I mean?

Right. - Cause you just feel like, oh shit.

Oh yeah.

Like, what is that so cool?

Yeah, yeah, where it's obviously like, oh, looking at my hand, like, whoa, oh my gosh. Like, how does this happen?

Yeah, it's, I mean, it is, that's the, that's, you know, and that's the magic, that's the real magic is the interpersonal relation and the ability to communicate and to reflect someone and their experience back to them in a way that's loving and elevating and not, in helpful, yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of the best. Let's talk a little bit about earth energy.

Yeah.

Cause you, I, again, I alluded to it. I have a tendency to just be like, yeah, this world exists, but not really. And just like, be comfortable with that and still be able to navigate it and not be totally like, batch it. But, I have found, especially Capricorn, right? We know what's happening with Capricorn this coming year. It's gonna be real, real intense.

Yeah.

Especially related to people's fears. But, this element of earth energy is also like, it's one of the best parts of being human is that, like, we are on earth and it's pretty cool. So, what's your connection? Taurus Moon, why do you spread the gospel of earth energy? So...

Well, because, oh, sorry, was that the end?

No, that was it.

It didn't get trail off weirdly, but that was it. That was it.

People wanna make sure that I wasn't good at you.

I think that something that is commonly missing from people's understanding of magic and spirituality is that it applies to your real life. That this is, that it is not some fanciful thing that's like a fun addition, that it is real and tangible and a practical tool that you can use. And I think that when you open yourself up to that, it shows you all of these other ways that that earth energy can be manifest in your life. I mean, one of the things at Whitma that I said, sorry, oh, this is gonna be important. (all laughing) You know, there was a question about, like, play. You know, play and bring play in.

And my thing with that is like what, you know, people don't, people don't decide that they're gonna play from, right?

This fucking blew me away, yeah.

So, you know, and so what, you know, and then you can just, and when you start to say things like that, you can feel the people in the room sort of backing off, like, well, that must be nice for you. But I work in an office and I can't, da, da, da, da, da. And so I just said, like, look, like earth element, real practical solution, then drink tons of water. If you can't make that decision within yourself, if you feel, if you don't feel empowered to just say, I've had enough and I need a break, make your body do it.

Yeah.

Make your earthly earth element body do it, drink a ton of water so that you have to get up, otherwise you'll pee your pants and your desk. Like, just, that's into me, right?

I love it.

And it's, and it's like, it's silly, but it is also so real. And that is, to me, that is a type of magic. Like, give yourself permission and allowance to affect your world through the means available to you. That's magic.

Yeah, and it also works macro and microcosmically, your practical suggestions, because if we just look at it like, hey, feed your emotions, and then after you keep feeding your emotions, you'll eventually have to get up and do something about it. Like, that's why, you know, it's like real wisdom when it literally is like applicable meta to everything. But it's true, like, that is something that I have found to be very present in kind of the modern mindfulness community, which is what I realized after I kind of balanced my elementals unintentionally and masculine and feminine energies is that what I thought was meditation.

And granted, I didn't do it that much, but I had extended periods. Was not even close to meditation. It was literally me closing my eyes and fighting with my mind, and I could have done that for infinite years and been no more close to what's going on. The reason I bring this up is it's wonderful to tell people they should sit down and meditate and that they'll start noticing their monkey mind and figuring out the nature of their discursive mind. But if there's no practical fucking benefit or step one can take to, like, what are we doing? And that to me is why this earth energy, it's like, yes, let's take these spiritual practices, modalities, concepts, ideas.

But can we just actually use them here since we're awake here? A lot of the time, you know what I mean? Like, that's, yeah, it's just needed. Give people, like, we just, we need something to do. That's our animal nature. Like, we want something to do. It's why we're here. Yeah, and like, so I used to write all of my spells with a seven day candle, right? 'Cause I love a seven day candle. I love it. I have a fireplace. I can set it in front of the fireplace and it's fire safe and everything. But a lot of people are not comfortable quite reasonably with leaving a candle burning for seven days nonstop.

Or they don't have a fire safe place for it or whatever. And so I started writing them like, or you can, you know, you can use a tea candle and you just do it every day for seven days. And then I realized, like, that for beginners, that using the tea candle is actually better in a way because you're engaging with it every single day of practice. It's a repetitive practice. Exactly. Instead of like, okay, and then go sit, you know, like go sit and meditate in front of it. Like, what am I gonna, what am I doing in that meditation? Like, what, I'm just gonna sit there with this candle that's burning for seven days?

If you actually physically go and light it, then like, that's great. Then you're engaging your, you know, and that action, that movement, that energy here on earth reverberates out through all of the planes and lets the universe reflect it. How about that? That's huge. And it does show that it's not that we're sitting here bashing meditation and closing your eyes. It's the idea of a practice is actually what's beautiful about what is being presented with meditation. It's that that practice doesn't have to look a specific way. It just has to be something you're routinely doing. It doesn't, that's the best part of it.

Like, it would suck if it had to be this one specific way and that's the only way that would be lame and it wouldn't be fun and it also doesn't make sense. So 'cause nothing is like that. Nothing is like that. There are so many different ways. And look, like I went last November, went to India for the first time. It was incredible when I went to Daradun. I don't know. And did, it's up in the foothills of the Himalayas. Northern? Northern, yeah, very near Rishi Cash. Rishi Cash, that's what I had in my head. Yeah, so we stayed in this. Maybe we eat up there that just grows wildly. Oh, really? Yeah.

That's so funny. Yeah. That's it. And they have the honey. What? The trippy honey. What's trippy honey? Oh my God. So they put the trippy honey in the Himalayas. They have the biggest honey bee in the world and they make honey that is hallucinogenic. Holy shit. And you had some? No, I didn't. Where do we, I wanna go. I know, but let's go. Let's go get this honey. I need this honey. It's like Winnie the Blue time. I didn't know about the honey at the time I was there and then, oh, anyway. So it was up there at this fancy ashram and they, you know, even there in like the kind of center of the spiritual world, there are a million different types of meditation.

You know, they're like, yeah, like, well, which one should I do? They're like, I don't care. Like, go to that one. Go to that one. Go to the evening yoga. Like do, try them out. And figure out. Do whatever. Yeah. Do you need to be chanting? Is that something that helps focus your mind? Do you need to stare at a candle flame? Does that visual cube focus your mind? Do you know, is it visualization inner? Is it moving your body? Is it your breath? Like, just go do them all and figure out which one. It's not a one size fits all. That's what a bee does. Yeah. It doesn't stick to just one flower. It goes around and finds more of the available flowers because it needs to make that honey.

Yes. I want the psychedelic honey. Basically is what I'm saying. That's true. I agree. Oh my god. I mean, if you needed more reasons to be in love with bees or the Himalayas, give me a break. A bee flew into my Airbnb today. And it couldn't get out. And it wouldn't go out the same door. So it got stuck in this skylight area. So I opened this other door and I was like, all right. And I'm like, I want to say I'm afraid of bees, but I get a little weird around them because I don't know if I'm allergic. My mom is allergic and I just haven't been stuck. So it's like this weird ever? No, no, never. I was bit by a bee when I was a kid, but it didn't.

It didn't, yeah. Oh, weird. Yeah, it wasn't on my cheek and it wasn't a sting. I am very confident I am not, but I was like, all right. I have to help this bee. I'm not going to be able to open the skylight or anything, but I opened this door and I was like, all right, I'll go and I'll make some music. And by the time I come back, he'll be gone. And he did. He got out. And I was like, oh. Because I like to see bees as signs of abundance. Like that is what they are. So I don't like to run away from them. Like, it's like not what you want to do if abundance is coming into your life. It's like, I'll help this fucking bee.

But yeah, bees are really, really cool. So I end with three questions. And then one open-ended questions. Question. What's your favorite color? Red. Nice. What's your favorite number? Ooh, I was about to say three, but really it's nine because nine is three threes. OK, cool. Cool, cool, cool. Favorite animal? My dog. He's cat over here. He's like, I know. I know, I get it, I get it. She is. She gets it. I get it. What's a practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening? Could be anything. Really quick, I want to revise my answer, my favorite animal. OK. Because now I do feel bad that I've chosen between one of my two beloved baby pals and Octopus.

Cool, psychic octopus. Love it. Octopus, hitting octopus is the greatest representation of the fifth element. Totally quintessence, of course, of course. It's officially changed. OK. Thank you. Feel much better about that. OK, so sorry, and then what was the last question? A practical tip that's helped you in your life that you could share with people listening, and it could be anything. Don't be afraid to say no. That's real important for this next coming year. Yeah. Real important. Don't be afraid to say no. That's some earth energy wisdom. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, down to, like, especially, you know, like, this time of year, the end of the year, there's, like, a million parties and functions.

If you're tired, say no. Yeah. Stay home. Yeah. Job doesn't feel right. Say no. Yeah, this is good stuff. Can I talk to you about something? I'd rather not. You know? Yeah, step arms sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. Melinda, this has been a pleasure. Yes. Same. Absolutely. Well, can I soon? OK. Thanks for listening to that episode. A reminder, you can check out all of the links to connect with Melinda on Instagram. I don't think she's on Twitter. I don't think so. But there's all the links to her stuff and everything. She's pretty great, as you can tell. Rate and review this podcast, so I need to say that anymore.

Join the email list. That's the best thing you can do right now. If you want to stay connected with everything, the two best places would be Patreon and the email list. And email list is probably better than Patreon, because you don't have to pay for it. You can just optionally connect where you want. But the Patreon is also sweet, too, especially when these live events kick off this year. You're going to want to be on them, because you get in for free. So that's fun. Do that. It's like the cost of Netflix. It's pretty fucking good. All right, that's it. I will see you in a few-- I don't know when I'm putting this out.

I'll see you with the solo cast, though. All right. Love you. Bye-bye.