Latest / The Liminal Lounge Mediums / Ep. 9 - Tarot book of the Dead - my interview with Jenna Matlin

Transcript

Ep. 9 - Tarot book of the Dead - my interview with Jenna Matlin · The Liminal Lounge Mediums

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Soul to Earth Podcast.
0:03
SPEAKER_01: I'm Carrie Koss.
0:05
SPEAKER_01: Throughout this season, I'm sitting down with some of the mentors that I've worked with over the last few years.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: These are really important people to me that I've studied with and those I respect and admire.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate their level of integrity, commitment to their work, and the uniqueness that they bring to spiritual work.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Janet Matlin is one of those people.
0:28
SPEAKER_01: I have taken two classes with her, her La Normand class and also her tarot and mediumship class.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: And I hope to take many more.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: The mediumship class blended with tarot was before she began writing her book.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to be hearing about the process of writing the tarot book of the dead and also how Jenna became a professional tarot reader, a medium, and an author.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited for you to meet her.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Her book is released on October 5th, The Tarot Book of the Dead.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm excited for you to listen to this episode.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Here's Jenna.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for being here on the podcast.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: I just love you.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: I love you too.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: And thank you for having me.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: I was so happy to like see your email.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God, we get to hang out because it's been a minute.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: It's been a minute.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'm asking so many questions.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I adore you.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: We've already decided it's just a natural thing because Jenna's a Gemini and I'm a Libra.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: So it's just all the flow.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: So as I mentioned to you, I love to go back to the beginning and then, you know, go towards where you are now.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: You have such an incredible background, things that you've done in your life.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to leave it, turn it over to you.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Tell me, first of all, let's start with how did you start working with tarot?
1:52
SPEAKER_01: I think that's just my first question.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: It all begins with men that moved in my neighborhood who were drag queens.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: And they happened to kind of uh adopt me, or maybe I forced them to adopt me.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: And there was one of them that I really loved.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: He was very special.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: And um, this was in the shadow of the AIDS epidemic, and some of these men had lost their partners at the time.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I remember telling, telling one of them, I really want a tarot deck, but it's like$40 at Barnes and Noble.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Like that could be the moon.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: So I actually can tell you the day to the date that I got my first deck, because it was a couple of days after my birthday in June.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And me and some friends were in the living room of my, you know, my parents' house watching O.J.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: Simpson run it in his white Bronco.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: That is the day that I got my first deck by this lovely man.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: And um him and his drag queen friends were like, Jenna, will you come and read at our Victor Victoria party?
2:56
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, maybe like 14.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, so I did.
3:01
SPEAKER_00: And that was the beginning.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: That was the start.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: That's the start.
3:03
SPEAKER_00: That's the truth.
3:04
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: That is so vivid in my in everything you just mentioned.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: Now, I know you took to it like a duck with water.
3:14
SPEAKER_01: So, what do you think pulled you in so to make it like a lifelong?
3:18
SPEAKER_01: You are a tarot scholar, your love affair, your intimacy with that divination tool to get started.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about that.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it that's an interesting question because um people often ask me, like, when did I know I was psychic or intuitive?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's the wrong question.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: The right question is when did I realize that other people weren't?
3:40
SPEAKER_00: That's such a good point.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, oh, wait, you can't like really like you just okay, cool, you know.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was actual work because prior to tarot, I was already natively, I was doing like palm readings, but not not really, I was just reading people.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: And it was actually, um, I remember the effort it took to kind of marry my psychic ability to tarot.
4:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like if you're a natural artist and then you go to like art school, and then they teach you a completely different way through, and then you kind of have to be like, oh, I gotta, so that's kind of where it landed.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: But I think I was always interested in divination tools of all types, even before tarot.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: Tarot is just one of many in my collection.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: But the richness uh of tarot and the stories of tarot um have gripped me.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: And as soon as I think that I've um there's there's nothing new for me to learn, right?
4:41
SPEAKER_00: I I've hit the bottom, then the bottom opens, and then I fall through to another layer and another layer of meaning and and understanding.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: So um I think yeah, I I I didn't anticipate my walk with tarot to be so lifelong, but it has become so.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: It has become so.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: That is such a beautiful analogy.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: Now, I just want to say, upon doing my research about you for this podcast episode, is you have a degree in anthropology and a master's in organizational psychology.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: I do, mama.
5:13
SPEAKER_01: So that makes sense.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: The anthropology just totally tracks.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about when you were envisioning when you went to college and you were thought it just makes sense to me.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about those your years of after once you graduated and moving into college.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: What were you envisioning at that time?
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And tell me about for my undergrad?
5:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and just what were you thinking at oh, what am I gonna do with this?
5:36
SPEAKER_01: This is an amazing degree, but what what was your vision for what were you?
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Well, the circumstances I was kicked out at 18.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm self-made, and I was the first in my family to get a degree.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: So uh my original, I originally wanted to major in environmental science.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm actually very scientifically minded, actually, though people are like, you are, but you're like that.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I know, I'm a kind of all of it, you know.
6:03
SPEAKER_00: But um, on top of having to survive, and back then you you you couldn't sit on your parents' health insurance, you know, it was much harder in the 90s before they kind of made some shists.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't deal with what what I had as a bit of a math delay, which was really ADHD, but you know, they didn't diagnose girls with that.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, well, I I don't I don't have the bandwidth to like to deal with this extra thing.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: So what else do I like?
6:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, I love culture and I love people and I love learning about different cultures.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, why not anthropology?
6:38
SPEAKER_00: That's that's the only reason.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, there was no one sitting me down and being like, so how are you gonna make a career, right?
6:45
SPEAKER_00: Like I thought, oh, well, if you just get a degree, you've made it.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: Like that's all you need to do, right?
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, right.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: Um so, but during that time, um, I, you know, I went to China and I was an exchange student, and Chinese was my second language, though it's been a minute, like I'm pretty rusty.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: And then when I graduated, I only graduated like$400 to my name and no car.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I was going to Humboldt State up in Northern California, and I was like, well, they they if I want to teach English, I can go to Korea, they'll pay for a flight, I'll have a place to stay.
7:24
SPEAKER_00: And that was where I really started like being able to create that nest egg for myself and then make choices.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's part of like uh the first degree story.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: And um, and I think I was well trained for that because I think the way I look at things is in a very anthropological way, anyways.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: My second degree was really because I was working for higher ed and I was like, oh, I can get a free degree.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: Great.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: What will they let me get a free degree in?
7:53
SPEAKER_00: Right.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: And that really influenced that choice at that point.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: May I ask where you were when you were getting your second degree?
8:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, where were you living?
8:01
SPEAKER_01: This part of Philadelphia?
8:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
8:04
unknown: Yeah.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: So I went to St.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: Joe's and my degree is with St.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Joe's.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: So St.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Joseph's University Adaphilly.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: Amazing.
8:11
SPEAKER_01: So tell me then from there, all the while, of course, you're still being psychic as F, and then you're still doing divination, you're still doing tarot.
8:19
SPEAKER_01: So you it seems like you moved into doing this fully in about 2012.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: Tell me how you were able to swing that and oh my gosh, I want to hear all of about it.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I was working in higher ed and then I got a really awful job.
8:34
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of how it starts, right?
8:36
SPEAKER_00: But but I really felt like here I was in an admin role, assistant director, filling in Excel spreadsheets for other people to live more interesting lives.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: And I want to live that more interesting life.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: And I never felt like office work ever really fit me.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: It always felt like I was like trying to force myself into like pantsuits.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, like I just jargon, like, let's circle the way.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm like, I'm too direct of a person.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: I never did really well in office environments.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: And so when I had this epiphany, um I asked myself, like, I don't think I can ever go back to an office job.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm done with that.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: So, what's the thing I do better out of all the things I can do in my life?
9:28
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I can read tarot and I can read people.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: Can I make a business of this?
9:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
9:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give myself six months.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna work 70 hours a week.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give everything I can.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And if I can make these economic goals, uh, then I'll stay.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: If not, I'll figure it out after that.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: I'm just visualizing that.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: And and the people should know you have you have been an incredible resource for butting tarot readers to turn this into a business because you've written not one, not two.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Have you written four books specifically about building your tarot business friend?
10:08
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: I have two about that, and I have them here.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: The first one was Have Tarot Will Travel, which is I wanted I wanted to write a book to help people because there was nothing really to help me.
10:20
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:21
SPEAKER_00: And um, I just saw how a lot of readers were not very business oriented or business minded, and I wanted to help them because a lot of really good readers were getting taken advantage of.
10:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's funny, I like we're seen as con artists, but I'm like, I got con hella crazy, right?
10:37
SPEAKER_00: So it was about how do we use low-stakes festival work to get your tarot chops?
10:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: And you can tell whether someone's really good at tarot or not.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: If they're just doing email readings or whatever, reading tarot is is is a live, intuitive, channeled, in the moment process.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: And so you kind of need to force yourself to be in that kind of uh environment to kind of get it all to click.
11:07
unknown: Yes.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: So then after that, a couple years later, I wrote Have Tarot Will Party.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Yes, which is that book.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: I have that book.
11:14
SPEAKER_00: So this is about like how to do party work, corporate events, that kind of thing.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: So I was really writing the books I wish I had had.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think in many ways, I am I am the tarot reader's reader.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I feel very protective of my fellow tarot readers because we often kind of are at the bottom of the dog pile of psychic work where they're like, oh, well, I don't use till whatever.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's all made up, right?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: It's all, you know, pecking order stuff.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I think that um for people who feel called to tarot, it is a it is a different kind of intelligence.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: And I remember once going to an astrology meetup in Philly, and I'm sitting here thinking, going, oh wow, these are not my people, you know, like, you know, not like there's any wrong, just very linear and very like, you know, and that was not, you know, I'm on the artsy side.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: So um, so those are those two books.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And then was my you know, first traditionally published book, Will You Give Me a Reading?
12:16
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Llewellyn, uh, out in 22, and it won the Cobra Um Silver Award for Best Tarot Book of the Year.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations, by the way.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: Incredible.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: And this is another tarot reading book.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: It's a true intermediate tarot book.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: I had to fight hard to get it to publish because there just weren't many intermediate books.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: There's no keywords in there, there's no buy the card.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's about how to be a good reader for others and to ask yourself questions.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between my bias, my opinion, my anxiety, intuition, or reading the cards?
12:54
SPEAKER_00: And if you can't interrogate yourself well enough to be able to watch yourself, um then you you're not as good of a reader as you can be.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, that's so brilliant.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: That's so well stated.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: I would love to know also your philosophy, because I've been in class with you.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my brain blew up and I had to put it back together in every minute of it.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: My brain blew up and I had to put it back together.
13:20
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jenna.
13:22
SPEAKER_01: I want to know your philosophy about teaching tarot to this, say the newbie.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: I would love your just your behind-the-scenes approach to it and how you help people build that relationship with their deck.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Ah, well, I don't start with tarot.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: I if you remember, right?
13:40
SPEAKER_00: Like I think people are too focused on keywords.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: And the problem with that is you're not looking at the card.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: Look at the card.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: Um, because when you run to keywords, what you're doing is you're activating the left side of your brain, which is logical, which is um cause and effect, which is linear, which is linguistic.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: This is not where intuition is.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Intuition, which is um lateral, associative, spatial, um, relationships-oriented, systems-oriented, is in the right side of the brain.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: And that is when you look at the imagery.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: So, what I think is that a lot of tarot readers have inadvertently, or people that want to learn tarot, and they want to learn it because they want to be intuitive, are inadvertently reinforcing the kind of thinking that's going to keep them from really um uh platforming the intuitive part of their cognition.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: So, to that end, I have them all right here.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: When I when I teach tarot, I often don't start with tarot.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: I use a game called Dixit.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Oh God, this is unfortunate.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: You remember?
15:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: I got it.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, Jenna, I didn't take tarot with you.
15:05
SPEAKER_01: I took Lenormand, and then I took the dead.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and I and then I took I took the medium ship.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: So Dixit is a it's a board game.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: It's not an Oracle deck or anything like that.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: But what it does have are these really interesting images, right?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: So what we'll do is we'll ask a question and we'll pull from the Dixit, and that forces students because they there's no tarot here, there's no uh external meaning making forcing them to have to actually look at the image and build a reading.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: And when they see that they can actually do it very quickly and very easily, actually, they were just kind of pointed in the wrong direction.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: That's when we can begin.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, oh my God.
15:51
SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is gonna put me straight into the mediumship.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Because I knew we were gonna go there.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: I just I'm like, I want to dive right in.
16:00
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I need to you and I share this in common that we're both mediums.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: And it's one of the things I love so much about you.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: And the first thing I want to say is that lots of questions.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: One thing I just loved about how you taught us mediumship with reading cards was that you broke all those like bias standards and patriarchal, you know, right things they have about that people believe about mediumship and using cards that you can't channel people.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: So I have so many questions.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: I just want to give you the floor on because I want to know your root philosophy and also you as a medium and how you integrate this.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: And then we're gonna talk about your book because oh my gosh, you've gotten so many accolades from all of your colleagues, are just absolutely blown away by that piece of art that you've created in the tarot book of the dead.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: So share with us, will you?
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Wait, which part?
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Which part did you want to?
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, I know there's so much.
16:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say, I know that's that's how I feel.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay, talk to us about your mediumship and then this like part.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: There's three parts, I guess.
17:06
SPEAKER_01: Your mediumship, the um bias and patriarchy surrounding that you know that are connected to tarot and people that believe they can't do mediumship with tarot, right?
17:18
SPEAKER_01: And then how and then doing combining the two.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a lot of questions, but um so I I think my mediumship along with everything else was from childhood as well.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny actually.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Um I I was in Ireland last week.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I spent the week there with a friend, and we were in a new building, and about maybe the fifth morning, maybe the yeah, the fifth morning, she was sleeping.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, there was like two twin beds, right?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, so she was sleeping in one twin bed, I was in another, and I'm sleeping, and this woman screams in my ear, hello, with like that's not an Irish accent, but it was an Irish accent.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, and I woke up and I look over, and I'm like, one, she's asleep, two, I don't think she can do an Irish accent like that.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, so obviously it was some passing someone passing by and wanting to get my attention, but I'm like, that's not how you do that.
18:18
SPEAKER_00: That's not how you get my attention.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Bad manners, yeah, scream in my ear and wake me up.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Like, I no, I will not.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Um so, but for me, in terms of I I think we're too, if we look at other cultures that do mediumship and use tools for mediumship and use tools for predictions and all that stuff, they don't delineate like we do in the West.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, a babalao, you know, out of you know uh, you know, Western aspects of Africa, um might might throw shells or bones, and and it's it's mixed.
19:02
SPEAKER_00: Like, like of course my ancestors are going to use the tools to to indicate to me what needs to be done here.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, coca lecimos in Peru will toss coca leaves.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Same concept, same in the Philippines, same in so many different places.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: So when I was really looking at as an anthropologist, all the cultural analogs, um it was really it begs the question like why do we delineate this so hard here, but we don't in other cultures?
19:34
SPEAKER_00: And it has to do with, I think in the West, we often will delineate by transaction and and not delineate by the job.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And so for someone in these other cultures, they would be shocked and astonished that a tarot reader would say something like this I get messages from my tarot deck that are accurate, they're good, whatever, but I don't know who's speaking.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: Right.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: That would be imp that would feel impossibly profane to cultures that are relational.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And so what I wanted to look at was these delineations are artificial.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And what would what could happen if we decide that those rules aren't actually true and that there are other cultures that have lots of different other kinds of roles?
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And that kind of is the story.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: So to me, whether you're natively getting something and and and so oh gosh, it's so hard to like uh be very succinct because they all kind of connect.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: So for me in a tarot mediumship session, it's it's it's there are two mediums in that session.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: There's me and then there's tarot.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: We're two mediums.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: And so if I as a native me medium are like is like charades, I may be getting one of a hundred things that spirit is trying to get through to me because I'm in a body.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: Tarot acts as that secondary net to catch what I didn't catch, and vice versa.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I've noticed that some spirits do better with cards than it it's just one of many ways that we can and and I don't actually know why that is.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: I've just noticed that.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: And some don't.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: But if people are saying, and and I think this is another thing, I'm sorry I'm jumping around, but No, it's fine.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm I love it.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: There is this topic of, well, you need to tell the difference between what's psychic and what's medium.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, so what's the difference?
21:56
SPEAKER_00: And that's when it gets kind of loosey goosey.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Um and but a tarot reader who all of a sudden goes, Oh my god, there's a spirit talking to me through these cards.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: Well if they have like how would they know the difference if if you're saying that you can get confused?
22:19
SPEAKER_00: Because I think for many tarot readers that happens, like you're not trying to be a medium, you're just doing your own thing, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh my god, your grandma's right, like she's here.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: So how would they know if if they don't know, right?
22:31
SPEAKER_00: Like there's obviously some internal signaling, some some sense in the cards that tells them that this is different.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: And for me, part of that is I know my deck in regular readings.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: I know how my tarot talks to people, right?
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Like I know my decks, but with tarot mediumship, the tone of voice of a the reading changes depending on who's who's also talking from the other side.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: So it changes, it completely changes, and it's not my deck anymore.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: It's you're it's being served for its purposes of communication with the loved one or the soul coming through.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: Right.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: So let's go into it because I remember I'm gonna tell you I was there, and I remember that you were writing out your proposal for this book.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, getting I'm getting the chills.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: Ter the tarot book of the dead, absolutely uh revolutionary.
23:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I and we're gonna talk all about launch date and all those good things because everybody needs to put it into their cart right now.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: Hello.
23:40
SPEAKER_01: And I want to talk about the inception of it, I want to talk about the experience and then talk about the book.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: Share us with us, please.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
23:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, at first it was just going to be tarot and mediumship, and that's it, right?
23:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, there, and I was like, wait a minute, there is actually no full book about tarot and mediumship.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, why is that?
24:01
SPEAKER_00: All the things that we talked about.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: But when I started doing research into the oldest decks from the mid-15th century, I came to realize, um, and I think this is this is uh fairly new um information that I don't know if anyone else has coined it, but the dance of death uh started off as, and you know, the dance of death is like you've seen it like the skeleton is dancing with people to their to the graves.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was a whole thing where at first the skeleton it goes down the social stations of man.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: So it starts off with the the devil, uh the devil, death dances with the Pope and then the Emperor and then the king, on and on and on until you finally get to a child.
24:49
unknown: Okay.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: This was first um uh a mural that was painted on a cemetery wall in Paris in about 1427.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: This motif of death dancing with people, like it doesn't matter what your station is, it doesn't matter how good you were, it doesn't matter how death comes to all and it's indiscriminate.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: It took off like wildfire through Europe.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: This really kicked off the Gothic period of the high medieval times.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: You had Memento Mori, you had Tempest Fuji, like time flies, you really saw the codification of this very um macabre kind of artwork.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: And as I'm looking at it, I'm like, oh, this is a trauma response.
25:33
SPEAKER_00: Because 60 years earlier, Europe had lost 60% of its population from the Black Plague.
25:40
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: So these were people trying to maybe even like hyper-vigilant in the way that trauma shows, like right, you're like hyper like oriented to death in a way to process it.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: And so when I looked at tarot, I was like, Tarot is a derivative of the dance of death.
25:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
26:01
SPEAKER_00: It it the dance of death was one of the main influences of tarot.
26:07
SPEAKER_00: Tarot was born out of death trauma, therefore, Tarot is actually uniquely qualified to do this work.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: Um so part of the book is excavating the oldest history of tarot.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, I I am I'm pretty confident because I'm using my eyes, I'm looking at the art.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: Like we we think about the star card, right?
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Like the card of hope, an inspiration, and a naked woman with her pictures into the water.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: When you look at the first star card, the earliest one, and you're looking at the eight-pointed star, and there's some other things in it, but I was like, this is Stella Maris, because at the time, uh Europe was going through the Marian cult, the cult of Mary.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And so Mary appears several times in the original tarot deck.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: She appears as the star of the sea, Stella Maris, and that's who the star originally is.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And here's how I know I found an old Franciscan song that it's basically pleading the Star of the Sea to intercede and stop the Black Plague.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Because they believed at the time that the Black Plague was happening because of a bad conjunction of stars, right?
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, which oh boy, oh my God.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: So to them, of course, they're gonna ask the good star to defeat the bad stars and stop the plague.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: So you had, and it was the Franciscans who really turned Mary into the suffering mother.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: She lost her son, like you lost your children.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: She understands you.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Like this is when Mary was rebranded.
28:03
SPEAKER_00: Right.
28:04
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, my mind's blown.
28:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: So that's just the researchy part.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: But I really wanted people who read tarot to really feel very deeply with receipts that there's nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong with approaching death and dying and grief with tarot because of its unique origins.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: And in the book, are you sp do you specifically walk it through with the major arcana in the work that you're doing?
28:34
SPEAKER_01: Can you talk about that?
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: So I reordered the major arcana.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: So instead of magician being the first, death is the first.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: And the arcana, the major arcana are reordered so that you as the reader, instead of the fool's journey, which many of us tarot readers know about, right?
28:52
SPEAKER_00: The the well, now it's an underworld journey, it's the shadow journey.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: So the book has four parts.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: Yes, catabasis, the plunge, then you have by those, the depths, you have anidos, the kind of like um the ascent, and then a panodose, which is the return.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: And so the major arcana are reformulated to tell that story.
29:22
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: And so in that you learn how to face your own death, um, how to how to be a medium that that is really resting on three fundamental pillars, right relationship, right intention, and right space.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: Right.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Um, you learn with with tarot mediumship, you you can do something that um that regular, let's say regular mediumship has a harder time doing.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Like in the book, I have simultaneous readings where I'm doing a reading for the person, the client, and then I'm also doing a spot a simultaneous reading for their loved one who's died, all at the same time.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: And so I show how tarot mediumship is not a cope.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it allows us to do things we couldn't otherwise do in the traditional way.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: I have so many thoughts about that.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: And I and that that I'm so impressed with that because again, we all know as mediums that do that work that you're holding space for the spirit coming through, but even more so the human who's going through the suffering and the disconnect.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: You're trying to make be the be like you say, the psychopom.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: You're trying to be the bridge, you're trying to create that connection, that link.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: It makes so much sense to me.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: I cannot wait to like get into that next sport.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: That is so incredible.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what a beautiful gift.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, I was thinking I should give you like I really had to dig because I it was really well researched.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: I did a ton of research.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:59
SPEAKER_00: And I found two research papers that do look like look at spiritual mediumship and its impact on early grievers.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: It's I should say I'll send it to you.
31:11
SPEAKER_00: I'll I'm gonna research on let me see.
31:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna write it down real quick.
31:15
SPEAKER_00: Research on grievers and um how those experiences uh in early grief can can really head off a lot of trauma that could otherwise happen.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: And there's no one else who can do it.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: A thousand percent.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: You it I mean, and you know because you feel, see, sense the shift as soon as you start creating the the bridge and the link, yeah, that that healing energy can come through.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: That it's just because we want to hear from them.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: We want to know, yes, that they're okay, but we need to say our last words.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: We need to just be in their energy, their presence, and we have to believe that it's so.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes our own brain won't allow that.
31:59
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: I and I think like, and I talk about this in the book too, and um early grief.
32:08
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing in our culture that really culturally holds that person in early grief.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: And I noticed how, and and I'm sure you have too, like with my clients, they'd come in with like as an example, one came in and was like, My mom died 10 years ago, and she was worried she wasn't gonna make it to the other side.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: Did she make it?
32:28
SPEAKER_00: And there I am sitting there, heartbroken.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Right, honey, for a decade you've carried that.
32:34
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: And if there had been the correct intervention in your early stage grief, a lot of this calcified trauma would have never been able to become trauma.
32:50
SPEAKER_01: Yes, a hundred percent.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: So I have very, very careful early stage grief practice, uh, mediumship practice.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: But I only allow it like up to the first month or so.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And then so my rules would be different than um some other people's rules.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And my rules may change.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm just doing it based off of like experience.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like what's the best, like where do where do I get like the best um you know, experience?
33:20
SPEAKER_01: So exactly, exactly.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, and I was also really so I love that you also identify with being a psychopom because there's a lot of people that don't even know what that term means now.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love and sit right next to that because I, you know, I work with the gods and I walk with Hikate.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: She's like the main deity who is a psychopom in her side.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: But talk to the everybody about that role and what that means to you.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, and you're already explaining it so beautifully with the work you're doing, but maybe you can explain it for those Western-minded folks who don't really understand where that place you straddle.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: And I think the place I straddle may be a little different than how um psychopom work has been taught before, because um, yeah, I have like partial certification and death doula work.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: Years and years ago, I used to sing with the threshold choir that would go sing at the dying.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: So um I really, from my experience, right, of bringing people through, I have yet to have one spirit come through who says, I was all alone, no one was here for me when I died.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Like it's never, it's never, never, in my experience, it's not yet been the case.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And so even our pets will come.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
34:47
SPEAKER_00: Which I'm gonna have an army of cats.
34:49
SPEAKER_00: I I am not one.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have a den of cats.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: So this idea that, like, oh, I'm just I and my human body are gonna tell you without a human body to go to the light, and that's supposed to fix everything.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, there are other people.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: So I think about psychopomp in terms of like a handoff event.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: And that my work is to sit with the terror of the physical body that knows it's going to end, right?
35:26
SPEAKER_00: It knows it's going to end, and that is where the terror is.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I see it as like an unzippering process.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: So my role is here to attend and honor and love, because this terror will hold this.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: Right.
35:48
SPEAKER_00: So my job is here, and then when I see the others as well, yeah, I want to facilitate a handoff process.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: As well as telling family members, oh, so-and-so is here.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Like we're they're good.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's funny because because of my work, I don't I don't really fear death actually at all.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: And when I die, I think I do want to die alone, which a lot of people are afraid of.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: But to me, it's like, but my eyes are not are going to be there.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, that's why so many people wait until no one's in the room to die.
36:30
SPEAKER_01: I believe that a hundred percent.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: Especially the ones who are the most tethered to them, obviously.
36:37
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
36:39
SPEAKER_00: And so for me, it's about being on the the physical side of of honoring and gentling the body that has the terror of ending because it does end.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's just and so yeah, we we're just facilitating that process.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: Incredible, so beautiful.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: All right.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't, so I want to a little more of the nuts and bolts of the book.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: When can people expect to get their hands on the book?
37:08
SPEAKER_01: Tell us everything.
37:10
SPEAKER_01: And do you have any plans in the next months to come for teaching any classes?
37:16
SPEAKER_00: Ah um the book comes out October 5th of this year.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, and probably not this year, like this year is really about just getting it out and and working on some other proposals.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: But um, oh my god, it's so much work, isn't it?
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, and I'm really thinking, like right now, I'm thinking about what comes next.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: And I'm kind of on the fence about doing a retreat to Ireland at a castle that's haunted.
37:48
SPEAKER_00: That I that was part of my reconnaissance mission a little bit.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
37:52
SPEAKER_00: So um, I'm thinking because it's really challenging to teach this online.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: And people uh I don't know, there's a there's a whole other conversation about uh how we're being shaped by AI or social media in ways that this is an initiatory journey.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: This isn't just like, well, one and done, I took my Zoom class.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: And exactly.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: So for me, I really would, if possible, I would prefer to do longer intensives, like a long weekend or something where we're really in each other's juice.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that so much.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: And you've you've done that.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: I know you've done that with the incredible Mary Greer, who I know is a huge colleague of yours.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
38:47
SPEAKER_01: I remember that.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: I missed that one.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: I think you guys did that in Mexico a couple of years ago.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: To loom, yes.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: That was bad.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: That would be ri literally amazing to do that in Ireland.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I could just see that like people signing up immediately to soon as soon as they hear about those two things.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: You medium Terror of the Dead in Ireland.
39:07
SPEAKER_00: That's like uh, you know, yeah, there's definitely and it's an active castle, it's actively haunted.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: It's I've been there, and I was like, Okay, someone just opened the bathroom door and uh cool co-call.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's an old castle, it's still owned by like the landed gentry, and um so um, but the way I teach tarot mediumship is right relationships.
39:35
SPEAKER_00: So, what I don't do is just you know, because people are like, well, whoever comes through comes through, and you can do it that way.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: But for me, it's about what's the intention?
39:43
SPEAKER_00: What who are we meeting and why?
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
39:46
SPEAKER_00: And and it's the relationship, like the relationship is the tie.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because when we die, we step out of space-time.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there's no time, there's no space.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: So, what do you have?
39:58
SPEAKER_00: Relationship, connection, that's love, the bond of love.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: And so, um, and and of course, there's like, well, what happens if there's a poultry, blah, blah, blah.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: That is outside the scope of this book, right?
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Like this book is long enough.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, in a matter of fact, they were like, uh, you're over your word count.
40:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I know, I'm sorry.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: But um, so um, and then and then our and then you know, it finishes up with some ancestral work, like, yes, what do we owe our ancestors?
40:32
SPEAKER_00: What do we owe our descendants, you know, and how can we do some of that work in the real life, like with actual measurable results.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: But at the heart of this book, the the most important chapter to me, the deepest part of the chapter is the hermit chapter at the end of bythos.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: And I looked long and hard to find a female hermit that aged but wasn't treated as a trope, not a grandmother, not like, you know, or a you know, like she sits in her own power.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And I found her in the Aenead, the the Khamaean Sybil, the day dia deophobe.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: Deophobe?
41:21
SPEAKER_00: I always can't pronounce that one either.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: So let me tell you about Deapphobe.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: She was tapped by Apollo to become one of his oracles.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: And he wanted to bet her because you know, Apollo's like that.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: And she was like, No, I don't want to have sex with you.
41:37
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Come on, I'll give you whatever you want.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, so she scoops up two handfuls of sand and says, I want to live as long as every grain of sand in my hand.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Done, you got it.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: So can we like, you know, are you DTF now?
41:54
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, no.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Okay, fine.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, you didn't you didn't ask for eternal youth.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: So she was kind of doomed to live almost immortally and age.
42:07
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
42:08
SPEAKER_00: So that got the notice of somebody else.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: Hecate.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: So Hecate is like, oh wait, this mortal can't die.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: Well, then I can I can teach her the how to walk into the underworld and back again.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: So in Italy, she has two caves.
42:35
SPEAKER_00: She has the main cave with all of the Delphinic oracles, but then there's one that very few people know about, but it's still there.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: It's near what's called Lake Avernus.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: At the time, it means lake without birds because it was sulfuric ash.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: So birds would die flying over it.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: There's another cave that is the underworld cave of this oracle.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: She is one of almost no other classical figures that do both oracle work, predictive work, and underworld work.
43:15
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: I can feel myself going down the rabbit hole.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: And if I message you, I'll make sure I do it all like in a lot, like with a lot of questions, as opposed to drip feeding you for the next year.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, she's painted, she was famous in the medieval times.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: She was seen as a uh what was it?
43:36
SPEAKER_00: A virtuous pagan that she had seen Jesus being born.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: In the 1400s, 1500s, people would go looking for her, thinking she was still alive.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: If you go on Google Maps and go to her cave, the one at Lake Avernus, you will still still see to this day people who have written her notes and fold them up and put them there.
43:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm getting the chills.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, it's an incredible story.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: And when I found her.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh my God.
44:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
44:04
SPEAKER_00: How do you spell her name?
44:05
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm going to have to, I have to secretly looking at this.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, well, you can find her by she her title is um like the Kumeyan, C-U-M-E-A-N, Sybil, right?
44:18
SPEAKER_00: S-I-B-I-L.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: She's in the Virgil, she's in the Anya.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: There are several books that speak of her.
44:26
SPEAKER_00: She's the one who is supposed to have written this um the Sibyllian uh prophecies, the the these special books, but she's a very rare figure in that she's ancient and old, and she's she's still seen all her wisdom, her glory.
44:44
SPEAKER_00: She's deeply revered and respected, and she walks two paths.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: Do they consider her deity?
44:52
SPEAKER_00: Because she's not, she's not, because she was mortal.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: She was mortal, she might be still alive now.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
44:58
SPEAKER_00: She may be a small, like, because she just kept shrinking.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: And um 182.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, this is my this is this is the person.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: So if anyone is like, oh, well, you can't do both, right?
45:13
SPEAKER_00: It's one or the other.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, guess who?
45:16
SPEAKER_00: Guess who?
45:17
SPEAKER_00: And what's amazing about Hecate, Hecate is such a friend to women, right?
45:22
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh my god, and she's people that suffer and those that yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: She is the lady of the crossroads.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: And the thing that's interesting about Hecate is that she's not a Hellenic goddess.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: They she's from some other culture that kind of brought in.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that there's another crossroad goddess of death that also was brought in from one culture to another?
45:46
SPEAKER_00: Who?
45:47
SPEAKER_00: Oya, the Yoruban goddess of the marketplace.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: She is the only female goddess that can uh rule over the Orishas, like the undead.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: So like Hecate, she doesn't have the same roles.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:02
SPEAKER_00: Like Hecate, she presides over the crossroads, and like Hecate, she's not originally Yoruban.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what?
46:10
SPEAKER_00: And what?
46:11
SPEAKER_00: Like why didn't the what?
46:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm like, what?
46:14
SPEAKER_00: How many of these wandering goddesses?
46:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, like I couldn't believe how they married each other.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:23
SPEAKER_00: But Hecate comes to this Sybil word on the stream, and she is like.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: So Apollo, when you read in the Inead, he he takes over the Sybil.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: It's it's like an active mind assault.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: She's fighting him off.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: And but with Hagate, it was just a loving introduction.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:49
SPEAKER_00: It was it was friends.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: So if I may, please, but the Sybil, still not broken in, not broken in by Apollo.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: She was fighting him off forever.
47:07
SPEAKER_00: Storms with a wild fury through her cave.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: And the more she tries to pitch the great god from her breast, the more his bridle exhausts her raving lips, overwhelming her untamed heart, bending her to his will.
47:25
SPEAKER_00: So this is how Apollo comes upon her.
47:28
SPEAKER_00: And she has her own abilities outside of Apollo, anyways.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: But this is how she's treated by a god.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: And then so Aeneas, she gives him this prophecy, and he basically says, Tell me something I don't already know.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, I'm like, oh man, even 2,000 years ago, same as today.
47:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, but um then he goes, he's like, Can you please walk with me under the underworld?
48:01
SPEAKER_00: I need to see my dad because I need to ask him some questions.
48:03
SPEAKER_00: So she tells him how to do like all this stuff to like open the underworld.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: Was that before that he knew?
48:09
SPEAKER_01: Because don't they consider Apollo as also a psychopom?
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Don't they consider him to be one?
48:15
SPEAKER_01: No, that's not.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: It's Hermes, it's Hermes.
48:18
SPEAKER_00: Hermes, it's Hermes.
48:21
SPEAKER_00: Um okay, here we are.
48:23
SPEAKER_00: So Aeneas, after he does his like ritual, he hurries back to this Sybil.
48:29
SPEAKER_00: There was a vast cave deep in the gaping jagged rock shielded well by a dusky lake and shadowed grove.
48:36
SPEAKER_00: Over it no bird on earth could make its way unscathed.
48:40
SPEAKER_00: Such poisonous vapors steamed up from its dark throat.
48:44
SPEAKER_00: This is Lake Avernus.
48:46
SPEAKER_00: You can go on Google Maps and see it.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: Here, as her first step, the priestess studies four black-backed calves.
48:54
SPEAKER_00: She tips wine to them.
48:56
SPEAKER_00: Basically, she opens to the river sticks, so she walks with him, and all of the souls that are still on this side of the river, she kind of keeps them away from him.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: Away, away, the Sybil shrieks, all you unhallowed ones, away from this whole grove.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: Now for courage, Aeneas, and your steady heart.
49:16
SPEAKER_00: And so she teaches him how to walk the underworld because she was taught by Hecate.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: They've they've passed by Cerebus, which is the monstrous uh dog.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: There's something she says that the road to uh the underworld is easy, it's the road back.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: Right.
49:37
SPEAKER_00: And so, and it's also in the Virgil, there's a couple of different places where her story with Hecate comes through.
49:45
SPEAKER_00: And I know this is like this long side journey that we just went on.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love it.
49:50
SPEAKER_01: Hekate is my, you know, she is my patron.
49:54
SPEAKER_01: So this I'll spend all eternity with her hearing.
49:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, spoiler alert, she's comes through a lot in that book.
50:02
SPEAKER_00: She's a lot, a lot, a lot.
50:04
SPEAKER_00: And I was reading some of the oldest source material about Hekate and how I was delighted to find, and I didn't know that originally she was blonde and beautiful.
50:15
SPEAKER_00: And they'd say, Oh, she's the gods lusted, like, oh god, her golden hair, and oh, look how she turns an ankle.
50:23
SPEAKER_00: Like the way we may see her today is like the kind of a darker goddess catonic figure.
50:30
SPEAKER_00: Back then she was still the cathanic figure, but was very bright-haired, very beautiful.
50:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm like, oh, of course, Hekate defies all expectations.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: She totally cracks it open.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: And some, and some who do, you know, I would say some well-known people who do have her as their patron also sometimes see her in that made more maiden form.
50:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
50:54
SPEAKER_01: So I just think that this the parts of a diamond of a goddess.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: So incredible.
51:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I I do have a final amazing question.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: If you were to recommend to anyone, Jenna, who wants to go through this book, what would be your wisdom to share with them ahead of time?
51:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, how would you suggest they move through the book?
51:17
SPEAKER_00: Oh, give yourself time.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: This is not a book to speedrun.
51:21
SPEAKER_00: No.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: And and really follow it because the every every chapter, every Aeon, you have you meet the underworld character, you have the lesson, and then you have the challenge.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: What is the activity?
51:35
SPEAKER_00: And you have to do the challenge to be granted access to the next gate.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
51:40
SPEAKER_00: So do them.
51:41
SPEAKER_00: Don't just read through it.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:42
SPEAKER_00: If you want to really be impacted, do the activity then and do not continue the book until you've done the activity.
51:52
SPEAKER_01: Jenna, I cannot wait for people to get their hands on this book.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: And perfect timing, of course, is we're moving into fall when the veil begins to thin and we get closer and we connect with our ancestors and our loved ones anyway.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: This has been such a pleasure.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: I want to do a part two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: So we'll definitely have to do this again.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: I want to have you back in the spring and just oh gosh, next week.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: It's been great.
52:16
SPEAKER_01: I adore you.
52:17
SPEAKER_01: I adore you.
52:18
SPEAKER_01: You're an incredible um light in our community as a scholar, as a mentor, and as just your genius.
52:25
SPEAKER_01: We're so lucky to have you.
52:27
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
52:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh gosh, thank you.
52:29
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
52:31
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for letting me go down all my little rabbit holes.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm so with you.
52:34
SPEAKER_01: You and I we could spend hours.
52:36
SPEAKER_01: I can already tell.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
52:37
SPEAKER_01: All right.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Thank you again.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: All right.
52:40
SPEAKER_01: Take good care.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: Bye.