In this episode, Liz and AB dive into the everyday magic of transformation -- manifesting what you need and becoming who you want to be. They talk about the power of perspective, intentionality and choosing how you think. If you have trouble keeping your cool in traffic or are looking to explore your magical side, this episode is for you.
Tune in next week for a quick cozy (and seasonal) meditation before we jump into our first round of interviews with subject matter experts.
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[00:00:00] So you can live your life full of belief in the impossible, or you can just believe that everything is impossible. And you get to choose, just like you get to choose how you think about thinking, you get to choose what kind of reality you want to create. I think it's a form of helping me release things that I personally mask.
[00:00:25] Because when you pull these cards, you can pull great ones and it's gray and it's like, Oh, I'm going to make all this money, but it's not about making all the money. It's really about what are you going to dedicate yourself to to get you there? Hi everyone. I'm Ashley Brooke James and I'm Elizabeth Moore, co-founders of TRILUNA. And this is the Wellness Community Magic podcast, a podcast where we settle in, get cozy and talk hard truths about the wellness world.
[00:00:57] We're here to take on diet culture by [00:01:00] making self-care realistic, sustainable, and inclusive. We have a pro donut, anti-racist, Glenda-the- good- witch agenda. So join us on our journey to build community and redefine wellness. Let's get started.
[00:01:17] What's up Liz. Good morning. How are you? I'm good. I'm all hopped up on a recipe of iced coffee I found from fancy sprinkles where I shake it with fresh whipped cream and then I put sprinkles on it. Why didn't you say that when you offered it, you just pulled it out. Like it was regular. Oh, you know what? I won't do anything regular, old.
[00:01:37] That's right. She's like queen of extra, but I love it. Life is good. We had cinnamon rolls with more sprinkles. Shout out to the fancy sprinkles fam. This morning, we had unicorn barf on our cinnamon rolls and it's all very magical. It is [00:02:00] unicorns. And what we're talking about today, we're talking about magic.
[00:02:06] Let's talk about magic. I think we found each other through, like really found each other. We found each other through yoga, but we really connected through our beliefs and how we connect with our magical side. Yeah. Which is unique because we come from very different faith backgrounds. Very much so. How do you want to kick this off?
[00:02:33] Let's just jump right into it. Okay. Let's get into the meat of it. So when we talk about religion, Ashley, what do you believe? I believe there is a God. I obviously grew up as a Southern Baptist Christian. And through yoga and doing some self work with [00:03:00] myself. I still believe that there's a God, but the way that I view religious groups, uh, organizations, is very different.
[00:03:09] I do feel like community is important in this space, but I also feel like it's my personal connection with that. You know I love some good old gospel songs and that's the things that I love about the church. But through yoga, I've also learned to respect and understand other people's spiritual backgrounds, rituals that they may do.
[00:03:38] And that's just through opening my mind. Um, before I was very. I'm not going to say terrified. I did not know much about like Oracle or tarot cards. It was always displayed as this witchy wicked type thing and through yoga, um, we learned about [00:04:00] different tools, resources, crystals, incense, all the things that make it woo-woo.
[00:04:07] And that's where I found my relationship with the use of Oracle and tarot cards. To me, it is just another tool, just like I use my Bible, to really do self-reflecting work. I use those things as a tool for me to. Like I said, it's not anything that I don't know about myself. It's really using it as a resource to go deeper.
[00:04:34] Just kind of like a yoga practice. I guess what I'm trying to say here is through the practice of yoga, it has allowed me to open up what I call my magical side. So I use all of those tools as a connection for me to talk to God. So can you be a Christian and do tarot? Yes, absolutely. Can you be a Christian and smoke weed?
[00:05:00] [00:05:00] I mean, I feel like that's the same type of, the same type of question. I feel like the world, just like wellness, has put this bad image on tarot cards and makes it all about the witchy side, which I get it's been displayed like that. And movies and the things that we see. But to me, it's a lot deeper than that.
[00:05:25] Yeah. And that's what we mean when we talk about magic. So I am agnostic. I was raised in a Christian family. My family is very religious. And I decided when I was a teenager and beyond that that didn't really fit with my view of the world. I took, I went to Belmont for my undergrad and we are required to take religion courses because it is a Baptist college.
[00:05:53] And I took this one class from this professor who was, I mean, probably a hundred. He was probably a hundred years old at the time, [00:06:00] but I absolutely loved him. And we took a class called understanding world religions. And there was this one philosophy. I can remember the image in the textbook, like so clearly, and it was a mountain and it had all these paths leading to the top and they were all labeled with names of different major religions, Christianity, Islam., Judaism.
[00:06:20] I'd had all of them and they all went to the same peak or apex of this mountain. And it was like the philosophy that all paths lead ultimately to the same place, which to me really deeply resonated because growing up, I could not wrap my brain around the idea that an omnipotent being, God would send someone to hell for not having been exposed to their religion.
[00:06:46] And that just, I never could wrap my brain around that. So the idea that all things lead to one place is kind of where religion and/or relationships starts to make sense to me. So for me, I talk [00:07:00] about source and that just means, honestly, I don't really know. I don't know what exists beyond me and I'm trying to figure it out for myself, but I believe in the interconnectedness of all things.
[00:07:14] So I believe that anything that I do impacts the world around me, impacts my family, my friends, things that they do impact me. You know, if you, if you look at any sort of like scifi movie where there's like a time-space continuum, and one thing gets changed, everything gets changed. And I, that is kind of how I feel about connectedness and the interrelation of all things.
[00:07:38] We're all connected. We're all part of the same kind of source material or whatever. I also find a lot of peace and solace in ritual. So my mom always laughs at me because I say if I was going to adopt Christianity, it would probably be Catholicism because I like the ritual aspect of Catholicism.
[00:07:57] That to me is a very like, [00:08:00] I'm definitely not Catholic, but there is something peaceful to me in finding ritual. And so I practice tarot and I journal and I use crystals and all of these things as a ritual for myself to ask myself deeper questions. And that is what we think magic is. Like we believe magic is the out chemical transformation that happens when you live your life with intention rather than from your default settings.
[00:08:28] For me, there is a speech from this guy named David Foster Wallace. He's an author. And in the beginning he starts at, and he says, there are these two little fish swimming along going about their day. And this larger fish sees them and swims by and, and stops and says, morning boys, how's the water? And the two little fish keeps swimming on.
[00:08:46] And then one turns to the other and says, what the hell is water? And we talk about this story when we talk about racism, when we talk about white supremacy, when we talk about religion, when we talk about all of the wellness things that we deal with, the wellness [00:09:00] industrial complex. What that story or that anecdote to me is, is being intentional about your surroundings, being aware of your surroundings and then creating the life that you want from those surroundings.
[00:09:15] And it takes being really intentional in order to do that. The whole point of his speech as he goes on is that we have the power to think about how we think. And one of the examples he gives is like, when you're driving down the highway and someone cuts you off and you're like, Oh my, you know, a stream of cuss words because that person is in your way, they have cut you off.
[00:09:37] They have personally slighted you. You have the power, instead, to say what if the person that just cut me off is on the way to the hospital with their wife in the backseat who is giving birth? That is probably unlikely, but it is also possible. And so you can choose to see the world as some guy who cut you off or you can choose to see that actually [00:10:00] they're the ones with the emergency and you are the one in the way.
[00:10:04] And I just think that there's something really beautiful and that is not the same thing as like the cult of positivity, right? Like we're not saying that you should undermine other people's struggles and that they don't exist and that you can just like be positive and everything's fine, but that you can choose how you think about thinking.
[00:10:21] You can choose what you focus on and it will turn your life around. That doesn't mean that every day we're focused on what's going right and we are like forgiving the person that cuts us off. That is not it. But through practices of magic, we can choose those thoughts more often. There's a line and this is water that says I'm going to read it because it's, it's so good and I can't rewrite it better.
[00:10:45] It says, "but if you really learn how to pay attention, then you will know that there are other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded hot, slow consumer hell type situation." He's talking about [00:11:00] like the grocery store right there. "As not only meaningful, but sacred on fire with the same force that made the stars, love fellowship, the mystical oneness of all things deep down." Not that the mystical stuff is necessarily true.
[00:11:18] The only thing that's capital T true is that you get to decide how you're going to try and see it. This, I submit, is the freedom of a real education of learning how to be well adjusted. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. That to me is magic. That's exactly what we're talking about.
[00:11:40] And when you think of that, when you say that, I think of a personal story to myself. Five years ago, I was working in corporate America. And I put out the mindset of owning my own business. And I kept saying to myself [00:12:00] and everyone around me, "If I don't do it now, five years from now, I will regret this because Nashville will be this huge city," dah, dah, dah, dah.
[00:12:09] This was back in 2014, everyone. I changed my perspective. I started to become. And that's a part of the magic, too, is becoming not only having the mindset to think of that, but I started to become the entrepreneur that I wanted to be. And I think it's just something very magical. I mean, look at that. That was in 2014.
[00:12:33] I got my first yoga certification. And now here we are in 2020. I have three yoga certifications under my belt, and I'm doing what it is that I love. I always said it was going to be something in wellness. And I think just this year, Liz and I figured out what our form of wellness is and what we wanted to bring to the world.
[00:12:58] But I'm saying all of this as it [00:13:00] goes back to that shift in mindset, that shift of perspective, that sense of becoming that is so magical in that. Yeah. So what you're talking about is manifesting. So let's take a step back. So magic is to you, what you believe that it is. So anytime we talk about crystals in like a workshop, we'll say, okay, we're giving you a crystal.
[00:13:25] It is either a, a rock; B, a vibrational piece of the universal oneness that is life; three, a message from God; four, something pretty that you can remind yourself as a cognitive behavioral exercise is an intention that you're setting. So you can either look at this crystal and you can stare at it really hard and say, this crystal to me is the goal that I'm going to start my own business in the next year.
[00:13:56] And then every time you look at that rock you can be reminded that you are [00:14:00] going to try to start your business in the next year. Or you can believe that it has vibrations that help you to accomplish that. It is to you what you believe it to be. Absolutely. All the tools around us, our crystals are, I mean, Oracle, tarot decks. It's, they only have as much power as we intentionally put into that.
[00:14:24] Right. And here's the thing like you can either believe it or not. So you can live your life full of belief in the impossible, or you can just believe that everything is impossible and you get to choose, just like you get to choose how you think about thinking, you get to choose what kind of reality you want to create in that respect.
[00:14:45] We have chosen to live a life with magic. That doesn't mean that we think that we can cast a spell and it will come true. But, what you focus on you become. And we really do believe that. I mean, look at us. Look where we [00:15:00] are. That's what I said in my journal today. Like take a step back and kind of observe where you are.
[00:15:04] And I think it's pretty magical that both of us set out on separate journeys and it brought us together and we can look at the things that we were intentional about and that we manifested and put it into place. Right. And that's what manifesting is. It's like putting your intention on it until it becomes true.
[00:15:24] Like you are more likely to accomplish something, if you, quote unquote, manifest it. You write it down. You might think about it every day. You might work towards it more intentionally. You might think in different ways that it can appear in your life. You are more likely for that thing to happen if you are focused on it.
[00:15:40] And that's what manifesting is. It's intentional, directed focus. It's a pillar of magic. It's a tool. Yeah. Yeah. And so how do you use tarot for that? What does tarot do for you? What is Tarot?What tarot is to me, it's another resource. It's another tool. [00:16:00] I think it's a form of helping me release things that I personally mask.
[00:16:09] Because when you pull these cards, you can pull great ones and it's gray and it's like, Oh, I'm going to make all this money, but it's not about making all the money. It's really about what are you going to dedicate yourself to to get you there. And it's really having you transform the perspective of what's real in your life.
[00:16:32] Yeah. Tarot can't tell you anything you don't already know. Absolutely. It is a thought exercise. I mean, if you believe that it has magical powers and can tell the future, go for it. Believe it. Like run with that. We, we don't knock that at all. That's not how we use them and we're allowed to use them how we want to.
[00:16:50] So for us, so tarot is a deck of cards and it's built much like a regular deck of cards. They're beautiful. Some of them are absolutely. Yeah. There's [00:17:00] all different interpretations of them throughout time. They go from one to 10. And then instead of Jack, queen, King, there's Paige, Jack, queen, King. So there's an extra card than there are in a deck of cards.
[00:17:12] And then there are, uh, another set on top of that, that are called the major Arcana, which are life, larger life lessons that sit on top of that. So there's four suits, just like in a deck of cards. And they each have a different meaning and there, the cards range from one to 10 and there's numerology involved there.
[00:17:32] And so anyway, that's a larger conversation and probably an entire podcast in and of itself. We'll bring that. We do you have a whole box coming out on this topic in January of 2021 which you can purchase and we'll explain all of it in detail. Yeah. We're going to have some magic makers on the podcast. It's going to be great. We're going to get all into it, but basically you have a spread and you ask a question.
[00:17:53] So say I'm like, What do I need to know to figure out what is blocking me from [00:18:00] quitting this job? And then you pull three cards and whatever you flip, you interpret, and it will uncover things in yourself. It will make you ask harder questions of yourself. So say I pull like the eight of Pentacles and that card is about skill and craftsmanship.
[00:18:21] So say I flipped that one and I'm like, Oh, you know what, maybe what I need actually is a little bit more training. Like maybe that would make me feel more comfortable. If I hone my craft a little bit, I might feel more comfortable making the leap into my next job. So it's just a tool for you to discover, uncover, work through whatever already lives in your own body.
[00:18:43] And it's a, it's a process, right? So you flip these cards and you get this information and it's not like that quick fix in a day. It's really, you, like Liz said, really digging down. Like she can interpret it a little bit more. She's been practicing longer and it is a practice [00:19:00] to get to know these things.
[00:19:01] But for someone like me, for someone to pull that card, it may take us a minute to see where that is playing in our lives. So just like the crystals, the intention of going into it with an open mindset and being open to being honest and authentic with yourself. Yeah. And they may surprise you and it's not anything that you didn't know, but it may surprise you in that it might be something that you weren't aware of or that you weren't consciously drawing your attention towards.
[00:19:32] So that's how we use them. And they are different from Oracle cards. Oracle cards, I would describe them as the softer side. Yeah, the softer side. I, some of them can be used for encouragement. Some of them can be used to do the deeper work, but where your tarot cards is really gonna make you go deep, these may do [00:20:00] surface level pillars for you to take that next step into.
[00:20:05] They're like prompts. I see them. And they, they definitely can go deeper. The thing about Oracle cards is that there is no cohesive format like there is in tarot. Like tarot is all of your suits, all your numbers, your major and your minor Arcana. Whereas Oracle was like, kind of whatever the hell you want it to be.
[00:20:22] Yeah. Beautiful. Just beautiful decks made of beautiful pictures and wordings and content. Which is so cool because just like with tarot and the different artistic interpretations of them, with Tarot and Oracle, you get to find the deck that resonates with you. Like Ashley and I have very different decks. The one I have is called the wild unknown, and I love it, but it's like, it's kinda dark and I know after studying it for a really long time that there are multiple interpretations of it and so I can interpret them how I want.
[00:20:52] But it's okay for me to look at the darker side of them and to kind of do a little bit of shadow work. Whereas Ashley's, even though it's, it's [00:21:00] definitely capable of doing deep work, it's a little lighter.
[00:21:02] I love that deck. What is it? The fountain deck. It's a beautiful deck. Who gave it to you? Elizabeth gave it to me. I did. I have three decks thatn I pull from every morning. I have my Gabby Bernstein universe has your back Oracle decks, which is more of the, the things like the trust and the love and you know, things of that nature.
[00:21:24] I think everyone's first deck should be the everyday tarot deck. This is a very easy deck to understand. Like Liz said, understand the different suits and what they're about and the card meanings. They're very beautiful graphics, very easy graphics. That's the one we're putting in our box because it is a great starter deck.
[00:21:49] It's by Biddy tarot. That is the company, the woman that makes them. She has a website. That is actually the deck that I buy for any of my friends who are interested [00:22:00] in getting into tarot and learning more. And then my favorite deck, the fountain deck, but I pull from each of those everyday because I'm looking for, I feel like the Oracle gives me more of that day focus. The other two give me more of a life focus, if that makes sense? So Biddy tarot is the one we were talking about.
[00:22:23] She has a book called, we'll link to it in the show notes, but I think it's literally like "How to read Tarot" or it's like very basic. Yeah. This is where you start. That's a great book. So the, the deck that we're, that's going to come in our box is a mini deck. So it's small. And the little booklet that comes with it is really small.
[00:22:42] So there's only like one or two sentences for each reading for an each interpretation, but she also has a book of tarot meanings that you can buy separately that is like, I mean, like 200 pages. It's huge. And it goes through all of the meanings. And I think for [00:23:00] most people it's really getting to understand their day.
[00:23:04] Uh, I know one thing that I do is when I pull a card now, before I even read what it's about, I try to get that from the art and try to read through the art. And I'm in a process now of really focusing on learning my deck and growing my own appreciation and how I use this around this certain deck. But I really think it's like a relationship, right?
[00:23:28] It's like anything that you have is like really getting to know it and understand it. I could have relied on Liz to do all of my readings or two, but I want it to be able to learn for myself and find something because we all have different rituals. We all have different practices that come with it.
[00:23:46] It's just like anything, you create your own space around that and your own intention of how that looks like to you. Yeah. My friend, Melissa, actually like gathered her favorite interpretations from all over the internet and put that in a [00:24:00] document and she basically created her own book and that's what she uses.
[00:24:04] She's like found what, what resonates with her and that's what she uses. I mean, if you Google like tarot beginner classes, you can, there's all sorts of courses and stuff you can take. The thing about magic is that most of it does not come from white people. No. Especially like in the herbalism community. I didn't mean to say it like that. No, you're right, it doesn't.
[00:24:28] In magic or in ritual, often sacred herbs are burned as like a clearing practice and often things like white Sage are used and white Sage is endangered now because of this. Um, so knowing where you're sourcing your materials from is really important. There are some indigenous, uh, companies that actually grow it to harvest it.
[00:24:57] So supporting the communities from which those rituals [00:25:00] came from is really important. You can also just use incense or you could use something that is, you know, non-harmful to the planet. Sourcing is really important in all things. Sourcing is really important. It's also important to know where your rituals come from and to understand the history behind them so that you can pay proper homage to them.
[00:25:24] The herbalism community is having a big reckoning with racism right now, actually, which is surprising to me and to a lot of people, because you think they'd be more open-minded, but they're not, not all of them. Some of them are not, but herbalism did not come from white people. We did not come up with that.
[00:25:43] And so knowing where your rituals come from so that you can learn more about the cultures that created them in the first place. Yeah, that's just what I was just going to add to all of this. Just being smart, like you said, of the sourcing part, but also understanding the story. There is [00:26:00] an article on our blog called white lies, white Sage by T Lark, who is one of our instructors, shout out to T Lark.
[00:26:08] It's on our blog, but it's about how you can use rituals and pay homage and not use tools that are unethically sourced. So we highly recommend that you check that out. We'll put a link to it in our show notes. And we're not saying that it's bad. I mean, we do some of these rituals, but like Liz said, doing the backend work.
[00:26:29] Yeah. And like, so, for example, like using indigenous practices without supporting indigenous lives is problematic, right? So like, if you're going to use the practices, you need to make sure that you are doing the work to support BI POC in this country or in whatever country you're in. To be honest, you need to do the work on both sides.
[00:26:51] If you're going to take the customs, you need to benefit the culture. Sure. Boom. I love magic. I know you do. I mean, we knew. I really do. [00:27:00] It has changed. It really does change my life. You know, I think it's, it's really easy for me to like slip into cynicism. I'm more science-based myself. I don't know if I actually think crystals have vibrations that I can use. Maybe they do. I don't know. If you're a scientist then you know that you don't know anything. And so you can either believe or not believe. That's what we were talking about earlier. Like you can choose to believe in a world with magic, or you can not. Either way, it's just a way to focus your intention.
[00:27:31] And I would say when I think of my whole Christian background and you and people use like, the words like I'm blessed or I was blessed with this. To me, that is a form of magic because you put your focus towards something that you were working for. And on the other end, you received that blessing. And that is, that goes back to that manifestation and that magic part.
[00:27:56] Right, and that's also a gratitude practice, right? Believing that you are blessed [00:28:00] is a gratitude practice. And we know, scientifically, that gratitude practices actually improve mental health. Not that it solves mental health, but all, all these things are interconnected. Like one of the few wellness things that we have like science behind is meditation because we can study the effects on the brain.
[00:28:21] So like meditation can be a science practice, too. It can be like something that is quantifiable that you can actually use to improve your life, or it can be part of your magic practice and that is all perspective. Basically all we're asking in that space is that you approach it with a little bit of curiosity.
[00:28:38] Yeah. Maybe it's true. Being open-minded. Yeah. If it's not, you don't lose out on anything by doing gratitude practices. You know, like, you're not losing anything by just trying to create some belief around it and how you frame that belief is entirely up to you. And so magic has given me a way to like tap into [00:29:00] something bigger than me which to me is just the, the universal connectedness of all of us.
[00:29:05] Like if I act like a shithead every day, it will affect you. You are my business partner and my best friend. And basically my wife. If I'm shitty, it affects you. There is to me magic in choosing to believe that there's a bigger purpose than me and that my actions should reflect that belief.
[00:29:24] That's why I love this stuff. Okay. So if you want to get started with tarot and you're not really sure where. Uh, our friend Holly Ramy has a really good tarot podcast. She also does some like tarot readings and lessons. I really highly recommend if it's within your budget to have your first experience with tarot be someone like Holly. My first big tarot reading was actually from her and it helped me understand what I was getting into and what it, what it could be, what it could mean, how to interpret it. That's the way I like to [00:30:00] learn. If you are more on your own, you can literally Google like any tarot anything and so a bunch of resources will come up.
[00:30:07] Biddy, tarot B I D D Y Biddy tarot is a really great place to start. She has a ton of resources. She's Australian, I think, but she's really, she's amazing and her voice is lovely and you'll like her. And for all my Christian folks who are afraid, don't be afraid.
[00:30:26] I'm going to direct you over to Gabby Bernstein. She is spiritual leader. She makes decks, oracle decks that allows you to be in a safe space, but also allows you to do a deeper work if that's your intention. That's Gabby Bernstein. She has those on her website and Gabby, if you're listening, we want you to come and talk about your magic on this podcast one day. Manifest it.
[00:30:52] See what I did there, y'all? The manifestation, the magic... it's on the podcast. But as far as just magic, being [00:31:00] intentional about what it is that you're doing, having the ability to change your mindset, change your perspective. That's the beauty, that's the form of magic.
[00:31:12] There's no potions involved unless you want it to be. But I mean, that's just the beauty of it. If you are already involved in magic and you like rituals and you've been using Sage and stuff like that, we really recommend you go read that article that T Lark wrote. I think it's really, really important.
[00:31:30] We'll link to it. Well, today was fun. Yeah. Your fancy sprinkled coffee lasted the whole time. Oh yeah. It really kicked in. Well, my friends y'all know what time it is. That's it and that's all. We out.
[00:31:48] Thanks for listening to the wellness community magic podcast. We're so excited to be able to share our thoughts with you and bring compassion to the wellness space. Take what you've learned today to a friend or colleague and [00:32:00] tune in next time for more tough but necessary conversations about the future of self care.
[00:32:05] If you are interested in learning more about TRILUNA or are pre-ordering one of our wellness gift boxes for loved one, check out our website @trilunawellness.com.