all the things.

October 14, 2022 Angie Yingst

It has been a week. I mean, it has been a month. Or so.

Actually, let’s be frank it has been a year. Or two.

No, I guess, it has been a life.

As the Buddhist note, it is all sucky, uh, I mean suffering. It shouldn't be shocking when things are hard. I have a very child-like part of me that is wide-eyed, gullible, and trusting. She jumps into things and as my friend Jess says, "She's a joiner!" Then the other part of me is world-weary and jaded. She sits in a darkened room by candlelight, smoking unfiltered cigarettes, drinking black coffee, listening to the Velvet Underground and talking about existentialism. She guffaws a lot and says, "I bet it is!" She is always urging me to just take a nap, then get a jobby job with the State already. I have have these two competing for attention. Let’s say they are two turtles.***

The naïve part constantly says, “Certainly, that’s it for the ‘hard stuff’ of this life. After this bout of cancer/babyloss/illness/husband surgery/busy season, everything is going to be smooth sailing.” I have two prints in my house that was hung by that Divine Fool aspect of me. One says, “EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY” and the other one says, “Nothing but blue skies from here on out.”

The jaded part is waiting for the next thing. She sits like a gargoyle on the mantle and growls at people who move her shit. She hung a sign that says, “Don’t Fuck with Me. (Protect your Energy.)”

The two turtles are fighting inside me. One is jaded. The other is not. This is not an Ancient Panamanian proverb. It is a metaphor and the turtles will make sense in a bit.

I keep thinking things will slow down and then they don’t. The jaded part asks the enthusiastic child part, “Why are you overscheduling yourself?” And the Divine Fool says, “I can’t help it. All the things are important. I love all the things.”

Are they? Are all the things important?

The jaded part points out that taking care of me, and me first, is priority. "No one else is going to watch your ass, Toots. You better make sure you get a nap."

+ + + + +

My brother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece visited this weekend, and my niece says, “I love everything about your house. It is the most inviting and comfortable house I have ever been to.” And it made my decade. That is literally my only style aesthetic—warm, inviting, comfortable. All my furniture is thrifted. I have plants everywhere. Crystals on the surfaces that make sense. There is art on almost all the walls…art from my kids, art from me, art prints are treated with the same import as painting and retablos and metal and woodwork, which I love. It just fills me with JOY to see everything I love out and accessible.

And without thinking I said, “Yeah, I am a maximalist.”

More is more. I try to distill my thoughts, keep things nice and streamlined. I have tried to play minimalist. Mysterious and distant. Giving you only a little. But it is not me. That childlike enthusiastic part of me that wakes up at 4am with the first thought being, “YAY! It’s morning! Can I get up now?” When someone talks about something I love, I get bright-eyed and just start sharing all the things I know.

Less is more leaves me wanting. I keep adding things. I put it all out there. More than is needed. I painted the tree. Then started adding animals. More animals. With people visiting, I make more food than is needed. I create more art, more words, more research.

All that is to say that I am unraveling this part of me that thinks all the things are important.

I am a neurodivergent, thinky, introvert masking as an extrovert. I am a research monkey and an artist, creative and logical. But I have to start saying “No”. I have to stop contributing to my own suffering. I have to learn how to prioritize. And when I started saying this over the weekend, when my feet ached and all I wanted to do was hide away, the medicine started coming in big time.

I thought in October, we would be journeying with bat (what an October animal to journey with) or owl again. But no, sea turtle came through. Sea Goddamn Turtle.

A turtle of the sea for this landlocked mama. I mean, I love turtle. They are nice. They generally seem to mind their own beeswax. This is a quality I admire in humans and in animal species. I began journeying with turtle to prepare the guided journey for my membership group, researching turtle and finding the medicine was exactly what was needed right now. Firstly, it is coming in the watery West, in Autumn, and it lives primarily in water—we are going to be dealing with deep emotions. The secondly, it is about slowing down, going inward.

When I journeyed with turtle, she took me into a turquoise sea with the bright sun shining through the water, illuminating the parts of me that need attention. She showed me that she walks slow on land because she is a water being. When she walks slowly on land, she has to be very protective. She is easily targeted for attack. "That is why the hare was so much faster," sea turtle said, "I'm not a creature of the land."—the turtle is supposed to be in the water. She showed me she travels through time through millennia. She showed me how ancient they are, and how they can access the knowledge from the 40,000 years of mankind that existed before writing did.

As I was journeying, I fell asleep. I rarely do that. But it all caught up with me—the past week, month, year…I ended up waking up groggy with the icaros still going, and me singing them in my sleep. I tried to focus on my work and record the journey for my membership group. But an ocular migraine slowly developed, which forced me into a dark room, then two more naps. I fell asleep at 9p.

+ + + + +

Turtle’s medicine was a forced pause. "BAM you need to slow down, sister!" I truly have been going a mile a minute, waking up at 4am just to get everything done. Turtle medicine slows us down, to evaluate if ALL THE THINGS are important. Are all those deadlines and busy-ness self-imposed? Can you un-impose them?

The next day, a groggy, slow, post-migraine day, our power went out at 6p, right before I went live for my weekly Live Office Hours, where I answer questions live for our crystal students. Everything shut down. I was done, but prepping the live video feed. I couldn’t access my work or research. We had no internet connection. The house was growing darker. The refrigerator warmer.

I contacted the team—"I have to reschedule.” And it was rescheduled in 5 minutes.

Many years ago, when I worked at a café in Tucson, I opened the shop. I get in there at 530a, and there is an inch of water covering the entire coffeehouse. I called the other worker to come in early. I turned off the water to the ice machine, which was the issue, and took a mop and began mopping up the floor. One mop head at a time. Sop up water. Put it in the mop bucket. Squeeze. Repeat. For 1 hour. Before someone else came in and said, “You do not have to mop this.” Basically, you do not have to do this impossible task alone and try to open the café by 7am. You can ask for help. And then they pulled out a squeegee and pushed the water out into the parking lot in almost no time. (Again, I ask myself why I am causing my own suffering?)

Yesterday, Spirit said, “Not today, honey. You cannot do all the things.” Zap. The power was out. Now what? Sit down. No devices. No work. No things were as important as the moment I was in right now.

I took a breather. Played cards with my kids. Set up the generator, the candles and emergency lanterns.

Turtle gave me this lesson this week.

That is how the medicine is, you know. You begin working with an animal, connecting with its energy, learning its ways, and then you can see those obstacles coming is as gifts and lessons. I very much needed turtle medicine. My Divine Fool part reminds me of the other sign she hung in my house, the one that says, “I am practicing radical self-acceptance, because this is the only me I’ve got.”

Sacred Turtle, the master of longevity and patience, comes forth for you too this month. Slow it the eff down, friend. Call in sick. Let the power outage bring you mindfulness and presence. Feed both of the turtles. The one that speeds through the ocean and the other that rambles, wearily, through the sand, and let them be brothers in arms, fighting against all the things to bring you just the right thing.

empathic boundaries

September 17, 2022 Angie Yingst

*My mentor* *Pixie Lighthorse* *uses Mountain Lion as the sacred solar queen and guide who assists with protection and boundaries.* *I have a guided shamanic journey in my shop with Mountain Lion if you are interested in looking into the animal medicine work of boundaries.*

One of the things that I get asked most frequently, whether people know me as a Tarot Reader or a Crystal Healer or Energy Worker, is "Don't you get really worn out doing that work? I mean, don't people drain you?"

And actually, no, people don't drain me, and beyond regular working physical exhaustion, I don't get worn out in an empathic way. But they used to wear me out, simply when I went out for coffee with someone. I completely understand why people ask that question, because learning how to control your energetic boundaries is incredibly difficult and being an empath can be draining before you learn how to deal with it. We go through headaches, bellyaches, fatigue, anxiety, trouble grounding, as well as picking up ailments and emotions of other people. I am a classic Empath with IBS, Celiac, Arthritis, and Hashimoto's Disease--autoimmune disorders from years of tapping out my adrenal glands and not practicing good boundaries.

When I work on a client, we have both signed a kind of sacred contract. First, they are inviting me into their energy field or aura. I take that responsibility seriously. My clients are allowing me to sense their energy; allow my intuition to pick up on their emotions, guides, and spiritual grappling; and to work on the different layers of their energetic field--the ones that govern the physical, the etheric, the emotional, the mental and the spiritual.

They lie prone on my table, allow themselves to have their eyes covered with an eye pillow, and fall asleep, or drift into another plane of existence while I hold space, watch over them, lay crystals on the body and then touch their bodies. It is a huge responsibility. My part of the contract is not only to take that seriously and treat their body as sacred, but also to do my own work, keep my own boundaries, and align my thoughts, feelings and spiritual center with their healing. Vulnerability is a precious gift. I honor that gift given to me in my healing space.

Most people do not invite many people into their auric field. Think about how many people you have close physical contact within the course of a day--our partner, our children, maybe a random hug here and there. But in general, to get into someone's field means you are standing within arm's length. Those encounters come in 10 second increments throughout your day. A client has allowed me into his or her auric field for one hour. What I need when I practice crystal healing is incredibly strong boundaries and a regimen of spiritual hygiene. I couldn't do my job effectively if I left my healing studio filled with the emotions, quandaries, and physical ailments of my clients. Or worst, my clients left with mine. It is something we don't talk about as healers often. We must align our thoughts constantly in session.

My unsettled mind used to drift constantly in meditation. Buddhists refer to it as Monkey Mind, or a mind as filled with monkeys. One monkey is chattering, another jumping, another banging loudly on something. What am I making for dinner? Where are we going today? I can't believe that happened with so and so. Fear is a very loud monkey, as I once read in a Buddhist piece, screaming about everything that can go wrong. The writer in that article suggested talking to your fear monkey, and asking it questions. What would happen if we didn't have enough money? And just talking to your fear monkey about natural consequences. My cure for monkey mind is simply to acknowledge it. I label it, "Thinking." And then go back to being aware of the present, right where I am. A teacher once told me to stop in the midst of monkey mind and look at my shoes. This is where you are right here. Right now.

In session, quiet overtakes the room, and I am in sacred space. The entire session is meditation for both my client and me. It is inevitable that we will drift into thinking, but my part of my sacred contract is to release my thinking, my feelings, my issues as I am in my client's sacred auric field. I also give my clients suggestions how to release a thought that may arise during session. It may sound hard, but it is liberating. If you are feeling something you don't want to feel, wait. It will change very quickly. Emotions, if we release storytelling, move through our body quickly. This is a practice to cultivate when we are in meditation. Feel the feeling, but release the thoughts around the feeling.

I have done a great deal of this work. So, first I am conscious not to have my client pick up on my energy, but I am also conscious not to pick up on theirs. My teacher Pixie Lighthorse said in a boundaries class, "What if it is unethical to feel someone's feelings for them?" We must abide without picking up the emotions. I have consciously worked to strengthen my auric field and help transmute my emotions and the emotions of others. The first step was grounding, grounding and more grounding. The Empath is frequently ungrounded when they haven't trained their gifts. Using transmuting stones is helpful, like black tourmaline, smoky quartz, dravite, and obsidian. You can also ground yourself by walking barefoot, hugging a tree, and just simply sitting on the ground. During session, I ground my clients by sitting on the floor and doing energy work at their Earth Star. I see myself as their ground into Mother Earth and consciously channel energy this way through my sitz bones and up through my hands into their feet. For me, grounding begins this process of protecting your EMF. It is hardly work for me anymore. It simply is a way of being.

One thing I am grateful for is not to be empathically drained after sessions with clients. I am absolutely present in that space. The feeling I consciously express are that of love and healing energy. I ask to be a channel of healing and peace, and call on angels and guides that assist to use me, but I also ask my guides and angels to help empty my emotions and thoughts out during session. To remain present with my client. This is hard work, and I know I can't do it alone. So I ask Great Spirit and my guides. You can ask too. When I finish, I treat my work like I've been in a sacred space of shedding and I am covered in other people's emotions, thoughts, and pain. I first run Selenite through my aura, and wipe of the energy. I burn sage sometimes, or use a sage spray. When I get home, I take a salt bath, drink lots of water, and practice Reiki and crystal healing self-care. If I can't get to a bath, I use a salt soap to cleanse my auric field.

There are some great resources for working with strengthening your own boundaries and monkey mind. I love this small piece on Addictive Thinking . Rose Rosetree has some incredible blog posts about her ideas of Empowered Empaths, and has written a few books about how to work with your Empath self. I love how she talks about turning off your gift of empathy, which is something I do in public. Pixie Lighthorse has written a wonderful book called Boundaries & Protection based on her two bootcamps called the same.

the nubs

September 15, 2022 Angie Yingst

I constantly talk about my nubs.

I’m two weeks into a Tarot class at Alta View Wellness Center, and I think I have brought my nubs up more times than I have talked about the suit of cups. Zachary thinks they are hilarious and sometimes we talk about what we can do to them to jazz them up a bit, like drawing little nipples on them, bedazzling them, or sticking some googly eyes on them.

And then we laugh and laugh and laugh.

Dark irreverent humor keeps me sane. And luckily my kids love to indulge in it too. One of the most hilarious, yet completely inappropriate (but hilarious) jokes my seven year old made was when we were watching TikTok and this advertisement popped up for a binder (for those who don’t know, a binder is a compression undergarment worn to flatten breasts.) The ad shows a sad young person and a voice comes on like an 80s commercial, “Tired of your breasts?” and my kid, without missing a beat says, “Then just get cancer!”

He looked shocked because he couldn’t believe that he said it out loud, and then we roared. Honestly, the two of us could not stop laughing. I was crying with laughter and we watched it again and again as we riffed on increasingly hilarious renditions on the breast cancer comment.

Zachary knows more than a seven-year-old should about mortality and serious illness. His mother was diagnosed with not one but two cancers in one year. Breast cancer in July 2021, and Endometrial cancer in July 2022. (Sam has had his own health challenges in the last year +, but that is his story to tell)

But, and this is the thing I love about our family, we kept laughing. We laughed about my exhaustion. We laughed about my drains. We laughed about my Buddha belly. We laughed about cancer. We laughed about my nubs— btw, my nubs are the two little bits of fat between the breasts that don’t count as breast tissue, but still would look better out after a mastectomy, but that is neither here nor there, because I am just glad to have my life saved and not really judging the sewing job my surgeon did. I mean, she did a great job for having sliced me open from armpit to the center of the chest, for severing my nerves, removing 12 lbs of breast tissue and then sewing me up as flat as possible. I got some nubs, some rolls, some pinched skin. It is part of the process for someone shaped like me, and honestly, my nubs are soft and look like the top of a giraffe’s head and I like them.

(if you are wondering why I am talking about my nubs, today marks one year since I had a double mastectomy and was cured of breast cancer and so i keep thinking about what this last year has been about, you know, like you do.)

It’s been a weird year. The things that I thought would matter do not. Like I worried about how clothes would look. I worried about bathing suits. I worried about being naked and seeing my body. I like my body better without breasts even though I am keenly aware that my body kind of looks weird and is lumpy and people don’t know what to make of me. I worried I would not be able to work as much. And it is true. I have had to slow down a lot and realize that surgeries take a toll, so now, I have some work-life balance and it is awesome. Workaholism doesn’t work-a-whole lot (ism?) That was kind of a Dad joke, but told by a mom might be a Faux Pas. (OMG, someone stop me now.)

Honestly, and this might sound strange, but I have felt an immense peace about my body. Having cancer healed something in me. I saw myself as capable of healing. Strong and vibrant and positive. I am proud of myself for consistently taking myself to the doctor for routine check-ups. It is not easy to go to the doctor when you are fat, because it is all some doctors see. The first breast surgeon told me I wouldn’t want to go flat because heavy people look weird without boobs and they are so used to it. Fat bias not only exists, but it probably causes most of the health problems that fat people face.**

I left that surgeon’s office and found an incredibly kind surgeon who would respect my desire to have a flat chest and not undergo unnecessary surgeries or radiation (something contraindicated for those with autoimmune disorders ANYWAY, but the first surgeon thought that was a small price to pay for BOOBS!) When I had endometrial cancer, I went to a surgeon who told me my fatness caused my cancer and suggest the best follow-up I can do is bariatric surgery. (I literally have a genetic anomaly in this tumor that was caused by nothing I did in my life.) And so I left and said, Fuck that guy. And I found another incredible surgeon that told me I was young and healthy and was going to do awesome. And you know what? I decided to believe him. In the end, I had ZERO pain, no discomfort. And felt better than before my hysterectomy.

But fighting for my own good healthcare made me realize that all this friggin’ self-care work WORKS. I am living, thriving and happier than ever simply by getting a mammogram and a yearly PAP smear. It was hard, don't get me wrong. I had infections and long weeks of open wounds and exhaustion. I have to learn how to accept a lot of things. I thought I would never not have pain. That my children might face the same future as me.

But in the end, I realized that my cancers were so much easier than they could of been if I had decided I wasn't worth the trouble of going to the doctor. If I let a doctor convince me to do something I know I didn't want to do. I just did the next right thing for me because I love and care about myself. Because I have learned over these last 12 + years, how to mother myself. I said, “I know you hate the doctor and getting weighed. I know you don’t like getting your boobs squished in a machine, but it’s so much better than dying of breast cancer.” And so I did it. Those routine exams caught my cancers early before they were in stages that needed chemotherapy or radiation.

(Incidentally, I just said to my kid this morning at the dentist, “Everyone hates the dentist, but we go every six months because that is so much easier and less painful than getting a cavity filled. And you know what, you have done so many really hard things and you can do this.” Those are the same exact words I said to myself last time I went to the dentist too, btw.)

And so, on the anniversary of my double mastectomy, my Boob Voyage if you will, and the birth of my beloved nubs, get your girl and boy bits screened. If you are struggling with self-love and self-care, start there. Like a little commitment to yourself. Just go to the doctor even if you don’t want to, and ask for your mammogram, or your PAP smear, or your colonoscopy, or just feel your balls up or your tetitas or ask a friend to and just check. Do it for you. Early detection literally saves lives. Self-care saves lives.

It saved mine.

My love is always with you,

PS. ** I could literally go on a soap box and rant about this for pages, but I will spare you the lecture. But Aubrey Gordon’s piece Weight Stigma Kept Me Out of Doctor's Offices is really important, so read it.

PPS. I have some great things coming up and you can check them out here

PPS. I decided to use a picture of the shirt I wore today that says Chingona with a breast cancer ribbon. Chingona means "bad ass woman." My nubs are under that shirt. Seemed a wee bit more tasteful than just doing the full monty for you. Mastectomy scars can be a little hard for people to look at, but I love mine.

agreements

September 4, 2022 Angie Yingst

The last few months in my monthly readings, the Four Agreements have come up as a way to deal with some of the difficult astrological aspects arising. Honestly, I have used these for many years as guides for how to approach. They were revolutionary, because they are simple and effective:

1. Be impeccable with your word.

Say what you mean and mean what you say. It sounds easy enough. Most of us think we speak the truth, but then think about people pleasing…do you say or do things that you think other people want? If we believe we can create our own realities through intention setting, what is every word we speak—that’s right, an intention.

2. Don't take anything personally.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, that other people and the world do or say to you, is about you. It is always about them. Think about that. Take that in. And then also, even the opinions about yourself are not necessarily true, so you cant even take that personally.

3. Don't make assumptions.

The human mind has a wonderful ability to fill in blanks. Maybe because our brains is used to doing this with our sensory input, but filling in the blanks with other people, with what we think will happen, with what people should and shouldn’t know is not useful. It sets ourselves up for suffering. So, let’s ask questions.

4. Always do your best.

This is just the best for right now. Somedays that might be an extraordinarily high quality or level and other days, our best is staying in bed and resting.

I love these because they touch on my four main character defects—people pleasing, self-centeredness, know-it-all-ism, and perfectionism.

Through the years, I have collected my own agreements that I use CONSTANTLY in my work and life. I didn’t write them, but I use them as touchstones through my work and through my own approach to my spiritual development.

Stop Watering Dead Plants.

I love this one, because it came at that exact perfect time for me when a friendship I had cultivated through the years fell apart. It was not because of lack of love or lack or care or lack of trying, but because she couldn’t trust me. She constantly asked others if I was mad at her, or talking about her, or upset with her. She never asked me. Then she started sabotaging the friendship and a normal misunderstanding turned into a apocalyptic event. And this popped up. It was a lightbulb moment. I just thought, “Angie, you keep watering this dead plant.” And it literally provoked me to look around my house and clear out all my dead plants, and repot the ones not growing because they are stuck. Once I did it in my home, I did it in all aspects of my life. I do think plants have so much wisdom to teach us, particularly when we try to domesticate them.

2. Do no harm, but take no shit.

Boundaries are the key to knowing your limits, making decisions on your life and being both a good friend, partner, lover, worker and community member. Think about what your boundaries are, first of all. Then keep them. It is not someone else’s responsibility to keep your boundaries. You can share them with someone, but it is your responsibility to enforce your own boundaries and sometimes that means saying no, telling people they crossed a boundary, or walking away from a relationship not serving you. Many of us are so enmeshed in the people pleasing behaviour that boundary setting feelings like harm. The Take No Shit is really self-compassion and self-care. Be your own advocate, but dammit, be kind.

3. Be extraordinary.

Being extraordinary isn’t about being a perfectionist or perfect in any way. It is about being extra. You know, extra. I often think of it as being of service, going above and beyond and following your inner child’s enthusiasm. Being extra-creative—thinking of things outside of the box, trusting your vision and following it through. It also means, to me, to be extra in terms of intuition—extra sensitive, extra trusting of your gifts, extra confident with your gut instinct, extra kind with yourself and others, and extra healing with your words and deeds. Recognizing that we need to be impeccable with our word means that maybe words have power and we are creating our reality with our thoughts. Maybe most importantly, being you, authentically you, is being extra-ordinary. Because you are extra, girl.

4. Nothing is wasted; you will use it all.

We can use every experience we have we will be use to learn, grow or be wise. As Oprah says, “Turn your wounds into your wisdom.” This is it. We will use everything to help other people. This is maybe my most important lesson from recovery—my story is all I have. My failures, losses, suffering, and trauma are what I have to learn from. We can shift our sadness and grief into strong boundaries, lessons and healing. Like how we can turn our garbage into compost and feed our new crops, we can use those things to help us grow in new ways. I use Vulture for this work to help me see the medicine in my wounds. But the message comes all the time for my clients. Nothing is wasted in this situation. You will use it all.

When I wrote these down, I felt a lightness, an exhale…this is who I am. this is what I am about.

There is an ease that arrives when you figure out who you are and what you are not, learning your boundaries and what you will and will not tolerate. I know my ethics class, coming up in September at Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy will focus so much attention on this. Who are you? What do you or do you not tolerate? And then making your mission statement around this.

And I feel like Hans and Franz saying this (old old SNL reference)—make it now or make it later, but you will make it. We often don’t realize a boundary until someone crosses it. Even if you don’t, Vulture is just hanging out, waiting for something to die, or fail, so you can make some medicine out of it. So learn it now or learn it later. With lots of suffering in-between. I am probably going to be diving a little deeper into these through the next few weeks, so buckle up, buttercup, we got some agreements to craft!

happy agreement creating!

Tarot + Earth Medicine Allies for September 2022

September 2, 2022 Angie Yingst

The Nine of Cups in the Ninth month!?!?! COME ONE!

It is a card of abundance and manifestation or is it a curse? We discuss this and more this month’s reading. It’s feeling a bit lighter in September even though retrogrades abound, wishes work their trickster magic and Mercury pulls its shit again. We talk wishes and the medicine of the hummingbird, the sunflower, hematite, turquoise and tiger eye. It is a wonderful time to think about how we talk and how we connect.

Listen and enjoy!

Episode 29 + Episode 30 of Centered

August 9, 2022 Angie Yingst

I actually went on a vacation for the first time in years. Since BEFORE the pandemic, in fact. My family and I did two weeks in New England—first in the Berkshires and second in Vermont in a beautiful treehouse. We napped and had ice cream and found swimming holes and hiked in the woods. It was a wonderful time, but it also meant I neglected this blog, my newsletter, my podcast, etc. Oh, and I had all my female bits removed, so I did deal with some, you know, healing time!

Here are my last two episodes of the podcast. First, the monthly earth medicine for August and whew boy, is it a doozy!?!? and then of course, another Q+A episode with my first recorded message, which was so awesome to receive. I hope you enjoy them!

on openings + closings

July 20, 2022 Angie Yingst

Lately, I have been putting posts on Facebook with a kind of Ask-Me-Anything feel, so I can cover your questions on my podcast. Sometimes just coming up with ideas exhausts me and jumping off points are so very useful.

After wanting to be a doctor, then an architect, then a journalist, at some point in my thirties and forties I decided that I wanted to be an advice columnist. I love advice columns, because they delve into the experience of being human, being compassionate and being action-oriented. I used to love Cheryl Strayed’s Dear Sugar column on the Rumpus.

Beautiful writing + advice column + pontificating on the experience of being human = Angie Heaven.

I thought about what it would be called—Dear Nerd. Or Ask a Know-It-All. (Hey, I’m in recovery from being a Know-It-All!) Or What Would a Research Monkey Do? Nowadays, I like the idea of Dear Shamanic Practitioner And Energy Worker Who Reads Way Too Much And Loves To Do Research + Has an Inordinate Amount of Useless Information Floating Around her Brain, but it just doesn’t roll of the tongue like Dear Nerd.

In many ways, I have gotten to fulfill this fantasy in my actual work life, particularly with my work at Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy as a Curriculum Specialist and Crystal Coach. Every Wednesday night since 2017, I go live and just answer questions from crystal healers and practitioners about issues coming up, trying to understand certain aspects of healing work, etc. It honestly brings me endless joy and fulfillment. I connect with so many amazing healers and get to constantly be challenged to think about issues, scenarios, healing and ethical quandaries and more. I have five years of questions and answers, have talked to hundreds if not thousands of crystal practitioners about healing work. DREAM JOB LEVEL—UNLOCKED.

So many people ask me what I do, where I work, etc. If you are outside of the United States, this is normal convo…”Hi, nice to meet you. What do you do for work?” and I have to sort of list it out. It is even confusing to my closest friends when I say something about work…they are like, “Which work?” So, yeah, I have three jobs. They are all interrelated. They are all spiritual/healer-oriented/tarot-y woo woo and also not. I have a business called the Moon + Stone Healing. I added Academy later just because I wanted to start teaching classes. When I first launched my tarot reading + crystal healing + reiki + moon circle business, this is what it was called. It was out of my house, and I offered in-person work, women’s circles, spiritual counseling through tarot, crystal healing sessions, Reiki and then tarot readings. Eventually, when I moved to Central Pennsylvania, the Moon + Stone Healing became my online practice, the name of my website and distant sessions. It became the hub of my online teaching. In 2020 as I moved online for Pandemical reasons, the Moon + Stone grew to offer memberships with my monthly tarot readings. I also in 2021 hosted my first retreat in Central Pennsylvania. So, I guess that is Job # 1.

In 2013, I moved to Central Pennsylvania and found my home at Alta View Wellness Center in Harrisburg, which is run by my sister from another mister Sharon Muzio. There I started really offering classes, seeing clients for crystal healing and tarot readings. During this time frame, I started SouLodge Earth Medicine school four-level Earth Medicine Practitioner program, which not only changed my training—it changed my work, my approach and honestly, my life. At the time, Pixie Lighthorse was working within the framework of shamanic journey and shamanic approaches. I believe now, she would change that wording. I find it a good shorthand for what I do, but I was not trained by a shaman in the way some practitioners are. We were trained to do our work, and then when called, we could begin working on others. It was many years before I was called to integrate this work into my sessions, but once I did, there was no looking back.

By the way, I am a long-winded, neurodivergent, Gemini rising who goes off on tangents constantly. Nice to meet you.

AT ANY RATE, my second home in Central Pennsylvania will always be Alta View Wellness Center. Sharon has created an amazing community of practitioners (we all seem to be earth signs, btw). It is there I do all my in-person teachings, classes, one-on-one sessions, tarot readings, and trainings. And Sharon and I have offered shamanic healing circles together that are just mind-blowing (to me). So, Alta View Wellness is JOB #2.

My jobby job, my day job, is with Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy. Hibiscus Moon trained me as a Certified Crystal Practitioner and an Advanced Crystal Master. In 2014, I started working with HMCA as a Crystal Coach, then in 2017 I became the Curriculum Specialist, which was just amazing. I was helping HM create content for our students, learning how to write content and plan content that was responsive to our students, making quizzes and competency tests, even writing and editing our work as a company. Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy might seem like a woo-woo academy, but I assure you we take what we do seriously, and work within a structure, have a whole team of professionals who help make it look easy. I don’t want to say it is corporate, but it is kind of corporate, and I love it. Honestly, I thrive in an office environment.

My favorite role at HMCA is being Coach Angie, where I get to answer our students questions. First in the FB group, but then also in my Live Office Hours videos each week where for an hour to 1.5 hours, I just go through all the questions and answer them. I do tons of research and nerdy explorations, and then talk, pontificate even, about my research. I feel like I know our students and have personal relationships with them. It remains one of the most fulfilling and exciting jobs I have ever had.

Dear Coach…maybe that is the name of my advice column.

Sidenote: did you know that my public speaking skills are borne entirely from recovery and sharing in 12-step meetings? I used to break out in hives and cry just thinking about talking to a group of people. Then when I actually did speak, I would stutter terribly in front of others. You can still hear it when I get excited or nervous. Now, I just think SLOW DOWN, ANGIE, YOUR BRAIN IS MOVING TOO FAST.

As most of your probably know, Hibiscus Moon announced her retirement earlier this year. It was not a shock to the team as she wrestled with the increasing pressure of growing this beautiful, but unwieldy, academy. It demanded a lot of her, and one of the things I most love and respect about Hibiscus Moon is her commitment to her own self-care and dreams. We have lots of meetings, and hundreds of small tasks that make an online academy run. IN the end, she followed her intuition and guides, and made the difficult decision to close.

Through this process, HM and I talked a number of times about how she wanted her legacy to continue and I think it will. It continues through all of us who had the privilege to learn from her directly. Through her integrity and compassion, through her total commitment to crystal healing as a modality. She changed the landscape of healing work forever, and I know I will miss being in daily contact with her, and sharing that amazing creative and healing space with someone who is so authentically them. I hope I can be the same for my students.

So, 2023, my jobs go down to two, and I am looking to build my Moon + Stone Healing Academy into a full-time gig for me. (Don’t worry, I will always do one-on-ones and classes through Alta View Wellness Center.) But I want to grow my own teachings. Through the years, I have found my approach to hands on healing, which is a combination of laying on of stones and hands, earth medicine work/shamanic work, traditional healing, and dropping into journey during sessions is not found everywhere. I want to share that. I want to share my research and case studies and approach to healing.

I currently am reworking my mentoring circle to be a more earth medicine based or shamanic healing mentoring circle and centering it for distance students. I believe I will launch that in early 2023 and it will be a many month circle for people interested in learning about earth-based medicines and shamanic journey as a form of personal healing. I am so excited about it!!

I will teach my Tarot class in 2023 as well and do more of that. I also plan on teaching my crystal workshops online. I’d like to teach some of my magick work as well. I just started my Moon + Stone Crystal Academy Facebook group to share my daily musings and teachings and as a place for my community to discuss things like their shamanic journeys, personal tarot pulls, etc. I am thinking about doing weekly Q&As not unlike my Office Hours except for anything under the sun.

I wish I had a clean way to end this email. I don’t really. I just want to say, if you like my teaching style, or maybe you know me just as Coach Angie, please stay in touch. More is coming, I promise. I am working hard on being more regular with my emails, my blogs, my podcasts, etc. And if you have a wish list, please please do me a solid and answer this quick quick survey, which will help me target the future of the Moon + Stone Healing Academy. (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/JHYQRNB)

My love is always with you,

Tarot+ Earth Medicine Allies for July 2022

July 1, 2022 Angie Yingst

There is so much I could say about this reading. I had something written that was very straight forward…there is a transit here, and a retrograde there, and a major arcana and I something or other, but then I scrapped it all and just started rambling about religious studies and connection and love and boundaries and unconditional love…it might be a shitshow or something profound for someone, but whatever it is, may it do no harm.

Enjoy!

ice

June 22, 2022 Angie Yingst

It started with ice...

Just a few cubes to make my water extra super cold and then the joy of chewing the melty bits…then the ice machine stopped being able to keep up with me. I chewed ice wantonly, like it was the most delicious snack in the world. I chewed until my tongue was numb and I couldn't speak properly. I snuck out of the house for cups of ice water from the shops with the best ice. I ranked them. I bought bags of ice at the local convenience store. It embarrasses me that I did this, but I was recovering from a mastectomy. I indulged myself in the seemingly harmless chewing of ice.

“This is a symptom of low iron, Ang.” It was a refrain I had in my head before anyone had ever said it. And then, unconsciously doing in front of friends and family, it was the same thing over and over—“You have low iron.” Like a petulant teenager, I would roll my eyes and say, "I know." I have had anemia on and off for years, so that seemed possible. Nothing too severe, but it caused some ice eating over the years. After a miscarriage…being a vegan. But nothing like this. My husband insisted that this was the worst thing I could ever do for my teeth.

“Your teeth are so important.”

Yes, I thought, it makes eating ice easier.

I casually mentioned it to my primary care physician, who just said, “Really? Eating ice? So, Pica...Let’s order a blood test and see what’s going on. How are your periods?”

“Severe right now. Menopause sucks.”

“Severe how?”

“I have bled and passed clots the size of my fist for weeks, then it stops for a week and starts again.”

“Time for a gyn appointment.”

And so it began…ultrasounds, pelvic exams, biopsies…and again, I am on the shitty side of the statistics.

…

Anemia has seriously kicked my ass this year. It has made me slow, easily fatigued, spacey, even more sensitive to my environment than I normally am as a misophonic intuitive with neurodivergency. Anxiety and fear loomed, as surgery loomed. The threat of two separate cancer diagnoses in one year hung over my large belly, like a dagger in mid-air pointed at my womb.

When I had my breast cancer diagnosis last year, it was not long before I was trying to create a sacred experience of my breasts and their imminent removal. But this, the womb, the space that held my babies, that housed sexual trauma and fear, that was the only place my Lucia lived, felt different. More intimate and vulnerable. I want to weave flowers through it, make a joke, be okay with it, but it is different. There is a latent shame here in my womb. What causes cancers in the womb? Sex? HPV? My slutty stage? Blackouts that ended up in the bed of an unknown person? Was it the grief? The half dozen pregnancies? Was it the healing I did for so many people?

I met with a surgeon. He was an old Turkish man, kind and gentle. He explained that he would have to remove my uterus, my ovaries, my fallopian tubes and my cervix. And then he said, “We have to ask what causes this cancer. It is your weight. And so, I suggest you have bariatric surgery.”

The womb is not a place to store fear and pain. The womb is to create and give birth to life.

I sat stunned at his words. But what do they tell thin women diagnosed with cancer? I have so many unknowns. And he tells me they know my weight caused this. Not the slutty stage. Can I go back to the slutty stage causing this?

My weight. My weight. It is a constant, stupid effing refrain. I worked intensively, intentionally, expensively one-on-one with an Intuitive Eating Coach and Dietician last year. I looked at my disordered eating, my constant yo-yo weight and dieting. How I have been trying to lose weight since before I was ever fat. She tried to undo diet culture in my brain. It was so ingrained and woven through everything that I am not sure it was ever successful, but it was liberating to be able to just see food as neutral. Not bad or good, just sustenance. She—thin, young and beautiful—assured me that taste and satisfaction matter with eating, that processed sugary food is just food. She taught me about what it means to feel full and feel satiated. “I am not sure I have an off button, though.” And she convinced me I do. She told me dieting has made me fat...and then brought receipts in the form of study after study. I believed her. Bringing mindfulness to my eating freed me in many ways. And yet, I still wanted and want to lose weight. I slowly started weighing myself again, and restricting calories. Cutting sugar, carbs. Fasting.

Then the small 75 year old doctor told me that Bariatric Surgery is easy and I should do it so I don’t have any more cancer. I started spiraling. Ice has zero calories.

The womb is not a place to store fear and pain. The womb is to create and give birth to life.

In a better moment, a few days after, I called another surgeon and made an appointment. He was horrified and got tears in his eyes when I told him what the first guy said. He said he cares about all of me, and besides, that is not even true. It wasn’t the slutty stage or the weight. It just happens.

Some things just happen.

The womb is not a place to store fear and pain. The womb is to create and give birth to life.

I am having a total hysterectomy in a few weeks. And so my womb will be gone and I will be thrust into immediate cronehood at 48. I am okay with this. My womb has caused blood and death and pain and now it causes fear. I am done with you, womb. You have served your purpose. Good riddance.

Sharon and I talk about why healers get sick. Why we can hold space for so many and then get struck with such difficult trials. Does healing cause illness? Are we shitty with boundaries? How much more protection can we do? I can add it to the list next to slutty stage. I don’t have any answer, but the womb is a vessel, a space that can hold fear and pain and stories…the stories of my clients and my ancestry and colonization and babyloss and sexual trauma…the stories of all the women. The stories of all the suffering.

The womb is not a place to store fear and pain. The womb is to create and give birth to life.

I am going to use this space in my low belly, the one left when my womb is removed, and fill it with flowers and love and radical self-acceptance in the way we do when we have done so much work we always look for a “Why” and “How” and “What was my role in my suffering?” but realize we just need mothering.

I just need mothering.

I just need to say everything is going to be okay. And I just need to love my giant belly and my cancerous womb.

Everything is going to be okay.

…

So, yeah, all that is to say I am having a huge surgery in early July. A total hysterectomy. My current diagnosis is pre-cancer in the endometrial lining. There is a 50% chance there is actual cancer there. Full pathology after surgery will let me know the truth of the matter, or if it is just the ticking time bomb of cells gone wild. I go for my routine check-ups, like my PAP smears and my Mammograms, which has been the reason I can catch these cancers so very early. If you learn nothing from my story, take this away. Check your boobs. Check your hooha. They are what kills women. Luckily, most endometrial cancers, when you catch them early, are cured by hysterectomy. So, whatever happens, I feel like the odds are in my favor.

I am taking time off from seeing clients and doing readings until I feel stronger. For now, July might be all I need, but I will let you know. I am encouraging everyone to make appointments for readings with me at Alta View Wellness Center in Harrisburg if you are local, or via Zoom if you are not in the next two weeks. I will be stacking appointments on Fridays at AVWC and Thursdays for distance sessions. My anemia is still going strong, so I need downtime, but if I have enough requests, I may add a weekend day between now and then.

Thank you always for the love and support. People always ask if they can send Reiki. I always feel so vulnerable in this area of my body and often limit people sending, but maybe I should do something different this time. If you have an opinion about this, let me know. I just always feel all the energies there and it feels violating, so maybe I need to switch that idea or flip it somehow. I just don’t know how to do that. But if you want to send, maybe just pray for now. I will ask for Reiki.

My love is always with you,

midsummer lore + collective tarot reading

June 21, 2022 Angie Yingst

Honored as the longest day of the year, Midsummer, or Summer Solstice, marks a time when the sun is at its height of power. Summer Solstice, called Litha in pagan and Wiccan circles, honors this longest day of the year. The word “solstice” is from the Latin word solstitium, which literally translates to “sun stands still.” Most of the festivals from around the world, despite religion and culture, honor the Sun’s strength and gifts, particularly agrarian cultures where this time when the crops were sown, tended for a good harvest. Nearly every agricultural society has marked the high point of summer in some way, shape or form. Listen for more…

all about me, again.

May 17, 2022 Angie Yingst

Today’s episode is a little bit different. I am answering some person questions asked by my listeners and followers. Most of them are about my life as a healer and teacher. Listen, I love answering questions about my research and work and where I get to go down rabbit holes, but the personal ones can be different and difficult. Not difficult, but just putting yourself out there can feel vulnerable.

So, here I am answering some questions, and I would love to have a regular monthly episode answering questions from you. If you want to ask me some research questions or questions about healing just know that 1. Or a love doing research, 2 or b. am dedicated to teaching and furthering people’s spiritual journey 3. Or c. I strive to be mindful that not everyone knows all these words and phrases and concepts that me and my other spiritual woo woo people take for granted. If you have an question, you can send it to me at angie@themoonandstone or goto my anchor.fm Centered portal and you can record a question for a future episode. Thanks and I hope you enjoy this episode of Centered.

Meditation from my Altar

May 5, 2022 Angie Yingst

This week, I am working with self-care and self-love. I mean, let’s be honest, I am always working on self-care and self-love. But this week, I began writing a guide for our students at HMCA on Self-Care, and I went back through my writing on self-care, which inevitably took me to writing on self-love.

I don’t know who needs to hear this today, but it wasn’t that long ago that I realized what self-love meant. I mean, I'd give lip service to it in my 20s and 30s, but it wasn’t until my 40s was when I really started to understand what self-love looks like, feels like, sounds like and acts like.

What I learned is that it has to be self-generated. That seems like a no-brainer, but it hadn’t always been that way or me. I felt love for myself only if someone told me they loved me. I lived compliment to compliment, going back to my default self-loathing setting if I sensed rejection.

But true self-love doesn't care if you are rejected or criticized, self-love knows who you are. It doesn’t care if you drank 8 glasses of water, or ate a gallon of ice cream. Self-love doesn’t judge. Self-love doesn’t care if you grow hair where society says you shouldn’t or don’t grow hair where you should. Self-love isn’t about a number on a scale or on a calendar.

Self-love is an action phrase. It is healthy boundaries. It's not accepting unacceptable behavior. It is early bedtimes. It's walking away when you aren't loved in the way you love yourself. Self-love is learning to mother yourself and care for yourself even when no one is around. Self-love illuminates all darkness and skeletons and shadow shit, because self-love cannot exist with denial, lies or secrets. Self-love means you love you unconditionally, meaning without conditions.

When we decide to embark on the journey of self-love and radical self-acceptance, it means we become overly, abundantly, and radically accepting of every parts of ourselves. I no longer just love me if I do some external measure of “goodness” perfectly today. I love the imperfect me. Because, honestly, I am 100% perfect at being Angie.

It's the hardest relationship i have ever been in--toxic and abusive at times. But I'm totally committed now. I'm in for the long haul.

Tarot + Earth Medicine Allies for May 2022

April 27, 2022 Angie Yingst

Blessed May, friends,!

I do love me a lusty month of May, as we kick things off by turning it all up a notch with a New Moon and Solar Eclipse in Taurus as well as the celebration of Beltane. We have a Mercury Retrograde around the 10th of May until the 3rd of June, then a Lunar Eclipse at the Scorpio Full Moon (you may just want to find a cabin in the woods and go off-grid for a while during that one.) Then we move into Gemini season and all its airy glory. Let’s just say: ALL THE THINGS ARE HAPPENING

Keep your eyes peeled for my Beltane Reading and if you are interested in some Beltane Healing at the sacred to call in joy and creativity, check out my Distance Beltane Collective Grid Healing on April 30th at 7pm ET. If you can’t make it live, you can always watch the replay for healing work on the 1st.

nice to meet you

April 26, 2022 Angie Yingst

It has been a while since I launched the Moon + Stone Healing—almost a decade of healing work through Tarot, Reiki, crystals, shamanic work + sharing my medicine, writing + research under my belt. I realize in all that time I have not spent too much time introducing myself. My first newsletter launched into a full historical discussion of the Corn Moon without a second thought about letting you know who I am.

I hoped “who I am” would slide into the background, anonymous in that way that we can be when we are of service to others. It was a thought borne of humility and shyness. Unsurprisingly, who I am infiltrates everything I do, every client I help, every class I teach. It never slips into the background. I often share my wisdom through my own stories and experiences—it is how Spirit often speaks through me. When I think of how often I tell a personal story to illustrate the medicine for my clients and students, I blush wildly.

“Gaw, Angie, talk less. Listen more. You are so embarrassing,” sighs my inner teenager complete with eye roll and exasperation.

But when I think about talking less, I wonder how much of it is truly humility or has it been, as I am loathe to admit, a fear of intimacy, a subconscious pushing back from vulnerability. If someone said, write about you. I would say, “Meh, all these people know me already—all I do is write about me.” Recovery has taught me many valuable lessons, but possibly most important is that my story, my mistakes, my “failures”, my experience, is my medicine. It is what I have to pass on. It is why the broken amongst us are often the best at holding space and being healers.

Thinking about “my story” reminded me of working with my mentor Pixie Lighthorse. She asked us to think about what we are exceedingly good at. She said, figure out how to tell your clients who you are.

And so, I thought about all these things I would say:

I am Angie Yingst, nee Kenna.

I am an identical twin.

I am 48 years old.

I love the color red, moss, mushrooms, crystals, plants, and animals.

But those things are not really who I am. When Pixie asked me this, what she wanted me to do is figure out WHO I am.

I am a mother.

I parent three children earth-side and one ever-newborn who died during labor at 38 weeks, so I am a joyous mother and a bereaved mother. I also mother dogs—an 8 lb Jack Russell terrier named Louie and an 80 lb Chocolate Lab named Charlie, who love to make trouble just when I jump on a livestream for our students at Hibiscus Moon Crystal Academy. I mother my clients by giving them unconditional kindness and positive regard, or you know, unconditional love. It is sometimes the first time my clients have felt that. I have mothered circles of people, taught them how to hold space for one another and for themselves and how to heal the deep trauma of being highly sensitive in a very sharp, loud world. I even mothered my father when I became one of his caregivers at age 24 until his death three years ago.

I am also a daughter.

I am literally a daughter of an immigrant who comes from a family of storytellers and musicians and drunks. My mother gave me strength, resilience, confidence, grounding, and healing through her journey to the States, her mothering, her nurturing, her unconditional support, though disconnected from her family, the rainforest and ocean, and her homeland hurt parts of her soul too Still, I learned the stories, the connection to the Earth, the medicine of my ancestors. My mother taught me resourcefulness and laughter. I am a daughter to a person broken by trauma and alcoholism who also taught me hard work and resiliency. I am the daughter of Mother Earth, like my father, I am also her steward, the one who carries her medicine.

But maybe most importantly...

I am a wounded healer.

...a curandera + a bone-picker, one who pulls the meat off the bone, examines it, helps process it, facilitates transmutation and regeneration, but even as a healer, I am wounded nonetheless. Simply, I was called to do this work. After years in deep grief, hidden alcoholism, trauma-burying, and caregiving burnout + fatigue, I found myself seeking my own healing. In thousands of ways, I sought it—through traditional therapy; through quitting drinking + 12-step recovery; though uncovering and working on my own physical illnesses, chronic pain, + the doctors; through meditation, prayer, + psychic work; through travel + howling at the moon; through learning the hard way how to create, hold + maintain clear boundaries; through learning about self-love and radical self-acceptance; through art, writing + creativity; through parenting and being a wife; through research + reading + experiencing other people’s healing; + through navigating my own deep wounding + shadowlands without imploding. And as I healed and continue to heal, I was called to help others, to hold the lantern in the dark, like the Hermit, to guide others through their own wounds and heal.

As a healer, it empowers me to watch another person find their truth, to have revelations about their path in this world, to make connections between the earthly realm and Spirit, to begin to live in the flow, and most importantly, to begin that process of reconciliation and healing, because I can still remember my own journey of uncovering my truths, of having those moments of great revelation and inspiration.

Through all these things I have learned what works for me to revitalize me. The slow surrender to the will of the Earth and God energizes me, validates my work. Circles of peers, long soaks in hot salted water, morning meditations and prayer time, regular sleep, simple food, conversations and laughter, walking/hiking, and art (painting, singing, playing guitar and dancing) restore and empower me. And my work. My work with you. That inspires me.

Thank you for being part of it, and being part of this amazing journey. It is nice to meet you.

Much love,

Angie

understanding the medicine, even when it is disturbing

April 12, 2022 Angie Yingst

Friends, this is an essay I wrote a few years ago on my newsletter. I thought I would revisit it on my podcast and blog today as it ties in with the Deer Medicine of this month’s Guided Shamanic Journey. If you are interested in receiving my readings at the Full Moon and/or New Moon, which are collectively pulled, but surprisingly personal, or if you are interested in received an audio guided shamanic journey with an animal each month, which goes in depth with the medicine of the animal, then has a 15-30 minute guided shamanic journey, I can read more in-depth about it under the membership section of my website: MEMBERSHIPS. Several of my journeys are available on my website, and I am working on getting them all up there with three years of guided shamanic journeys for my memberships, which have so many amazing journey including frog, horse, butterfly, bee, beetle, whale, vulture, panther, great blue heron, fox, cougar and more.

On the way to one of my mentoring circle, one of my students hit a deer. She was devastated. The deer most certainly will die, or already had died. She asked me, “What does this mean?” As a circle keeper and an earth medicine walker, I found myself stumbling over my words. Why does this happen to us who walk an earth medicine path? Others chimed in with their thoughts—the deer knew you could hold space for its transition; it was destined to die; better you than someone else.

A few years ago, after a circle, I was driving home. I live in the boonies, as we say, out in the sticks, where I worry about hitting deer. Pennsylvania ranks as the second most deer collisions in the country. So, I drive slowly, cautiously through the fields, and frequently stop for all kinds of wildlife. But I was still in the city, headed home, and bam, a deer ran into my car. It hit my front quarter panel. I pulled over and the deer laid on the side of the road, panting, clearly injured. I called the police and sent Reiki. I envisioned the Reiki energy repairing the deer’s legs and head, and strengthening it. I did this Reiki for almost 15 minutes, and the deer stood up, steady and whole, then ran right out into the street to get demolished and killed by a massive truck.

The truck tore the deer apart. I shook and cried as well.

What does this mean? Is it still medicine for us if we see our medicine dead on the side of the road? And how do we interpret it?

As I meditated on the death of the deer, I could see this interplay between the deer’s medicine and the encroachment of humanity. The medicine of deer resides in its deep vulnerability. When deer interact with humanness and urban environments, we begin to see just how vulnerable these magnificent creatures are. Humans have disrupted the balance of the predator and the prey. Our ancestors decimated the predators—wolves, mountain lion population, the bears—who would have hunted the sick and weak, keeping populations down. Massive deforestation also affects deer populations. Whitetail deer flourish in edge environments, right where the forest meets the suburbs. Streets and cars encroach on the delicate ecosystems. And hunting is down around the country with the ease of shopping for meat in the supermarket.

So, deer medicine is not only a medicine about the individual deer’s vulnerability to predators but the species. Deer, particularly those with antlers, have a strong connection to Spirit. Their antlers are said to reach high to our guides and angels as antennae for messages. Deer connects with the subtle energy system and has heightened senses from hearing to vision to smell. They are always sensing the disruption in the force.

I could not help thinking as my student told me about the deer and her accident that this was part of the critical message for her. Knowing that she is going through a beautiful spiritual opening, deer medicine can come in this way to remind us of our vulnerability during our spiritual opening. When we experience all this light and love that begins to channel through us from Spirit, we live in a bubble of good vibes. When I started opening, I just was always blissed out and only able to tolerate other lightworkers. When we take all this gentle light and vulnerability into the real world, our first encounters with the sickness of our society, the toxicity and negativity of people, the harshness of the news and the suffering of others, we experience this world just like the deer, hit out of nowhere by real life. This modern world is cruel to the vulnerable. Deer medicine embodies vulnerability, quiet, and gentleness. Nothing is more profoundly indicative of the imbalance then when nature interacts with urban life. Where we see how pollution hurts wildlife, or cars kill deer.

This grounded, counter energy to very high vibrational work is part of the medicine lightworkers need to carry as much as the light message of our power animals. When you open in profound ways, you are, of course, more susceptible to those deep wells of grief and compassion. But it goes deeper. There is nothing natural about carrying vulnerability or being an empath in a narcissistic world. We also have to experience and learn about the shadow medicine of our animals. Shamanic work is not always easy or light or fun. It is mostly about challenging ourselves to go beyond the surface, to experience the more profound message, to become stewards of the Earth, spokespeople for the Mother. When all of this starts, we want to live in that amazing Other World of Spirit. When we practice earth medicine, we become intrinsically tied to Mother Earth and Grandmother Moon, and their incredible cycles. Life and death, happiness and grief, masculine and feminine—this delicate balance becomes second sight to us We can see it without trying. Impermanence and suffering of life and of the human condition is part of our medicine and the spiritual experience. We must hold space for both light and darkness, birth and death. As we begin our opening, this can be a harsh reality.

If this happens to you, or you are driving and notice an animal sacred to you, dead on the side of the road, my suggestion is to begin asking what is the medicine for you—both in the animal’s living experience (how does it live, love, eat, hunt, raise its young, etc), then as your medicine interacts with the brutality of this world.

If you are able and feel up to it, take the hair or an item from the animal that was killed (always remembering that if it stinks, it will always stink. If it has bugs, your house will have bugs, so only newly killed animals can be harvested, but that is another post) and use it in ceremony. As medicine keepers, we need to honor the medicine and the allies and giving them a good death is part of this process. You can use that medicine you harvested on your altar or in a medicine bundle.

One thing I know is that none of us aim for the deer or squirrel or bird, so release guilt. Guilt is the illusion of control (if I did something different, it would have changed the outcome). Just be with the profound grief. That is enough suffering. Create a ritual of honoring the medicine of the deer. Sit in the discomfort of your humanness and the ways in which we can mitigate the harshness of our living on the earth. Allow the tears their flow. Fall into ritual and ceremony.

Remember anything, all of our human experience, can become our medicine. To ignore the death, suffering, and violence inherent in our animal medicine is to ignore the full power of its medicine. May you walk gently on the Earth, friends.

crows and other things we wait for

March 16, 2022 Angie Yingst

I have been trying to make friends with the crows in my yard. I watch videos of people slowly drawing them in with peanuts and other food. I talk to them, “Good morning, Crows! I have some peanuts for you.”

Sometimes it is just like that. You put out the call. And you wait. This morning, after I put the peanuts out and welcomed the crows in, I saw one land on the porch and look in the window. Later, I noticed my dogs eating every peanut they could reach. I just watched them as I drank coffee and laughed. Sometimes life is just like that and you have to laugh.

Today is exactly six months since the day of my double mastectomy.

I woke that morning, September 15th, like always, sitting with the children while they got ready for school. I just wanted to feel normal one last time, because I had no idea what life would be like after surgery. I wondered how I would feel 24 hours later, or even a month after. Would I like my body? Would I be in so much pain I couldn’t sit up? Would my cancer be invasive after all? Would I need chemo and radiation? What was my life going to look like? I remember thinking, “By the end of the year, this part will be over.” That didn’t seem that far away. The end of the year. I had endured so many things in my life. Three months didn’t seem that long.

And yet as I went through those three months, it felt long. I couldn’t remember not being in pain, not being totally fatigued or experiencing tightness and discomfort, not having open wounds. I had the surgery, then developed an infection in early November and had to have my wounds reopened to drain and drain and drain and drain, packing my own chest wall with gauze. I felt faint the first time I did it. Not from the pain, but the idea of it—stuffing my heart chakra with soft things so it would heal. It sounds like a metaphor. Maybe it is a metaphor.

There is something profound about opening the chest. I can remember in one of my Medical Anthropology courses at university learning about heart surgery and the profound changes people went through after a doctor “fixed” their heart. I thought about that a lot in the last eight months, about how my doctor was taking the small hard balls of cancer out of my body and what’s more, she was taking out these large breasts only really here to serve others—my babies, my lovers, strangers who gawk on the street. She gave me a body that was healed of cancer. A flat-chested, Buddha-bellied and healed body.

I have often said that this surgery felt like the end of the work, not the beginning. There is a freedom in the idea of being healed. My cancer was so early and contained that taking the breasts quite literally cured me of cancer. “If only emotional healing were as easy as this,” I thought many times. And truly, removing my breasts, while incredibly painful, exhausting, and intense, has been so much easier than trauma work.

Healing and uncovering trauma felt endless. Trauma laid in wait in my body, readying for a time when I felt safe enough to see it, when I had done enough work to really reparent myself in a healthy ways. In the last six years of discussing and working actively on my trauma in therapy and in my spiritual work has been so exceptionally difficult. I never had a moment where I thought—one day, this will be over. Healing trauma seemed to be a never-ending cycle of uncovering and uncovering and uncovering I felt stripped of all ego, of all identity, of all that made me me. And Me, it seemed, was simply a conglomeration of defenses, disassociation, and survival, which, when pared away, simply left me a wounded child who needed parenting.

The word I chose for 2021 was Healed. It was the process of being done with reliving and understanding my trauma and their responses, of being actively engaged in the processing part. I was ready to be in the moved-on part. I thought I might be there, but I wasn’t. It wasn’t until I got the call that my biopsy was positive for cancer that I had to reckon with what healed meant. Because it was at that moment that I said, “How do you want to approach this thing?” And I thought about my clients and what I tell them when life falls apart. It’s not one thing to do. It is an entire mindset shift and a reframing away from “This is happening to me” to “. Gratitude. Ritual. Asking for help. Energy work. Prayers. Herbs. Grieving. Connection. Community. Laughing.

And I laughed so very much.

I had appointments with my breast surgeon every week for two months after I had developed the infection in my chest. I asked her about her life and her education. While I lay back on the table, she tended to my wounds. We are the same age—the surgeon and I. And I developed a deep feeling of kinship and love for her that I never felt for a healthcare provider. Maybe it was because she is so kind, patient, non-judgmental. Or maybe it is because I trusted her and trust has been a hard one for me. Or maybe it was because she wore a Blue Kyanite and Amethyst pendant at the appointment before my surgery. I told her then that I was a crystal healer and Reiki master. She said, “You are? Great. You will be fine. You will have no trouble healing then. Do you want me to wear this for your surgery?” And I nodded, tearing up. And she wore it. She believed I could heal. I believed I could heal. And now I have healed.

Six months ago as I lie in my hospital bed, only a nightlight illuminating the room, I allowed myself to be surrounded by the love and prayers people were sending me. I could see the faces in my mind’s eye and I felt like I was floating, absorbing love into my cells. My chest felt like I had an iron bra on and constricted in a way that was both comforting and disconcerting. A very clear voice said:

Angie, there is going to be a time when you feel no pain and simply have a scar. You will be healed.

It was a mantra I said to myself this autumn and early winter. When I developed an infection, I thought:

Angie, there is going to be a time when you feel no pain and do not have open wounds. You will be healed.

When I developed COVID in the midst of the open wound situation, I thought:

Angie, there is going to be a time when you feel no pain and no illness. You will have closed wounds and no cough. There is going to be a time when you feel no pain and no illness. You will be healed.

So, I wanted to share this on the anniversary of my six months post-surgery if you are struggling. There will be a time when you will feel no pain and have no illness. There will be a time when your trauma work is done or when your depression has lightened, or your addiction is in remission, or your heart is not so broken. There is going to be a time when you feel no pain and do not have open wounds. You will be healed.

Until then, watch the birds come back to the feeders. Cry. Create a ritual. Use some crystals and herbs. Write about it in your journal. Scream in the woods. And laugh.

rebirth

October 12, 2021 Angie Yingst

I have been thinking about rebirth so much these past few weeks, maybe even months, as the animals of rebirth began appearing for our monthly journeys in the Spring. Jaguar showed up first, the Queen of Shadow work and the one who often appears for dismemberment, then Snake, the shedder of skin and the symbol of transformation, and then in August, Beetle came…a small guide of rebirth who turns literal shit to nourishment, recycling our difficult experiences into powerful spiritual lessons. My personal work with Vulture prepares me, of course, intimately connecting to death and rebirth.

Through this entire process with breast cancer, it has felt like the end of a dis-ease, not the beginning. A personal invitation to be reborn into the healed Angie, the one who has done the work. That might sound strange, but it felt like the culmination of many years of working through trauma, grief, soul loss, and heart chakra imbalances. Like there is this part of you—over the heart, that has manifested cancer in my milk ducts. Interestingly, the cancer developed in a breast I was never able to produce milk out of. That is not exactly true. The milk was produced, but it could not be expressed. (Is that a metaphor or what?) I had a child who died, and I remember how engorged and painful my breasts were, filled with milk and no child to drink. I put huge cabbage leaves on it, until they withered and I smelled like an Eastern European soup. I would cry in the shower as my breasts would weep milk. Except the right one. It would just stay hard and engorged and no milk would weep until it just stopped trying.

During those days, I often thought about this class on Death and Dying in college with one of my mentors Dr. John Raines. He said that babies cry because they know they deserve food, comfort and love. And the cry, he explained, was exactly designed to be uncomfortable for humans, it is a noise we want to stop. It is only when they cry and no one comes that babies stop crying. My breasts were the same. They eventually stopped weeping milk because no baby came to feed.

It is interesting that this tidbit came from a class on Death and Dying. We have those moments we face death both metaphorically and literally. Maybe we survive a great trauma that threatened our life, or we stand and face our demons and get sober, or we ask for a new way to be in the world. In the process of earth medicine initiation, we undergo the process of rebirth through the shamanic experience of dismemberment, where, in the journey state, we literally ask our animals to rip us apart, tearing at us, killing us in journey, so that we may rebirth. With Vulture as my guide, she asked me to release my soul. She could not tear me apart alive. This process of releasing brought up so many emotions and feelings of helplessness that had permeated my life…how do I let go when all I have been doing is holding on tight? It is a zen koan, a paradox for survivors. Somehow I did, though. That is the thing…somehow we do. We do it when the holding on is killing us.

When I had my first chakra balancing many many years ago, my heart was completely closed. The pendulum did not move. It just stood stock still. It disturbed me. I had learned through my many years of life how to shut my heart off. Immediately, the self-punishing thoughts flooded in. “Oh my God, I am broken. My heart is shut. I am a monster.” (This is why I teach my students to be kind and gentle when doing a chakra balancing.) It has been decades-long work to open my heart and to trust people. It was well before I became a healer that I started, but I knew then that the pendulum was telling me something I needed to pay attention to. Opening my heart involved many healers, many therapists, many releases, many times feeling so vulnerable and fearful that I took steps backward and then when I was ready, started back on the path.

I say this because there is no healer that isn’t a wounded healer. Our DNA, our strength as healers comes from our wounds. It comes from our humanness, not our divinity or otherworldliness. While I appreciate there are many who feel shadow work is not as important as light work, I politely, yet adamantly, beg to differ. Any lightwork done without being aware of your wounds ultimately will take you back on the same path again and again. You encounter the same lessons, the same kinds of people (friends, lovers, colleagues, enemies.) Our wounds are invisible blocks that keep us in an eternal loop on the spiritual path, like Sisyphus, the Greek King who cheated death twice and was forced to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down. Sisyphus’s story has come to represent any futile, yet difficult task. Unless, we can identify our own triggers, wounds, and blocks; make them visible then dismantle them, we stay in this endless Sisyphean cycle. This is the rebirth. To simply emerge from the tedious work, to slowly break down that rock, our wounds into smaller pieces, so then we can break that cycle. Then our journey isn't so tedious.

Where shamanic and earth medicine work excel is in the rituals, ceremonies, symbolic work of that rebirth. We call in the snake, the beetle, the vulture to help us find a way to break our cycles. This work is a lifelong process. I have been intimately involved with this trauma work and work around my own heart for so long it is almost comical, but also I didn’t start it to be a good healer or to write a newsletter or blog post. I started it because that heart, the one closed and unable to weep, demanded I look at it. This petulant, hurt child within me said, “I cannot be ignored any longer. I will not be neglected. I need to be loved.” It began crying and I began responding. And in turn, I healed those around me, who tried to get into that closed heart for years.

Self-care and self-love sound like such bullshit terms, but they are juicy, deep, life-altering journeys. They aren’t just bubble baths and dark chocolate and masturbation. Self-love embodies self-compassion, self-care, self-worth, and self-actualization. We must remother ourselves, or refather ourselves. That has been the challenge—seeing and loving myself unconditionally. But when I struggle, I look at my own children and think, "You are just like them--beautiful, perfect, worthy of care."

It is strange to see my body without breasts. I don't NOT like it. It is just an adjustment. I am almost starting to like it more. I have been trying to take some time with no bra and no shirt to just get used to how I look now—a huge scar running across the place where my babies suckled. My belly sticks out like a big Buddha belly and my chest goes in, almost concave. Right now it is all puckered and there are major folds in it that are angry and tight. They will soften over time. Just like the other scars I have healed in my life—things soften with time. I can honestly say that I feel complete, even without my breasts. This body does not seem ugly, or unlovable, or unworthy at all. It is simply an adjustment.

This is what healing gives you—unconditional radical self-acceptance. I have been working on it for years by demanding I love myself. I thought that if I just said it enough, wrote it out on enough intentions, it would happen, but the truth is—that isn't what did it. You are not in control of the healing timeline. It is something you cannot fake. You simply love yourself until you are willing to accept the love. That's the thing--for me, self-love was about accepting the love, not giving it. Giving love was easy for me, but accepting it was a whole other thing altogether. You become gentle with your inner voice. One day something weird happens—you get diagnosed with breast cancer, or your partner leaves you, or you notice that your face is wrinkled and your hair grey, or you break something valuable and through this long rebirthing process you realize you aren't mad at you, or disappointed, or embarrassed, or ashamed. You stand tall and you say, “Yep, that is me, still me, still the same me as yesterday, still worthy of love and acceptance. I love you. You got this, kid.”

You got this, kid. I love you.

healing messiness

August 25, 2021 Angie Yingst

This is from my latest newsletter. You can subscribe here.

dearest friends,

The birds feast on the sorghum that has sprouted from bird seed. It is beautiful how they know how to do this, even if they have never seen sorghum before.

In the winter months, I watch the birds from my meditation room. They congregate around the feeders, the suet and the fresh fruit I put out for them. I put a handmade feeder on the deck this year, because I couldn’t reach it on the feeding station and besides, they are fun to watch during meals. I love the drama of it. My husband complained about the mess they made. He lost patience when a small carpet of sprouts began spreading in late Spring on the newly mulched walkways. We spent a few days pick axing, clearing, digging out and planting flowers and bushes to have these unsanctioned plants begin their fight for life and survival.

I root for the weeds, I admit. I cheer them on in whispers and stolen words. Once you begin the process of learning what and why the weed-plants grow in your yard, it is hard to pull out the ones that simply were here first. They are designed to feed the native animals and insects. But I began the process of cleaning the birdseed from the deck. And by cleaning, I mean, I swept them onto the lawn, beyond the mulched pathways, right at this place where I struggle with the mower, because it is too steep and I have an active imagination, particularly in regards to my own death. I thought the birds might find some food among the grass and be apt to scratch at the Earth a little. Let’s see what happens, I thought. I pulled the mulch up with the sprouts, carrying them to a tree stump on the hillside, and simply spread them out. Grow here, I invited them. Fill in the area. Be plentiful. I put an old planter stand there too, and that is where I put the handmade feeder. Problem solved.

It wasn’t long until I received a message from my local birders group that there is an avian pandemic, spread through backyard bird feeders and well-meaning bird enthusiasts. We are encouraged in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic to stop feeding them at collective stations, so I just left the feeders heartbreakingly empty. Because I didn't have the heart to cull all the bird seeds that started becoming plants in Spring, they grew and grew in Summer—five feet tall and beyond. They covered the entire hillside. Now, I have the most amazing garden of sunflowers and sorghum and millet, colors of bright yellow and ochre and oranges and reds. The Sunflowers are beautiful and then when they wither and grow brown, leaves falling, the birds began to visit again, and eat the seeds. The Sorghum turns burnt umber and the birds come in droves to eat and pick at their amazing heads. Golden Finch and black birds, starlings and cowbirds, hold onto the strong stalks and peck at the seed that grew out of their own messiness and shit.

This is something I relate to.

Finding medicine and nourishment in my own messiness and shit. Maybe that is what I should write on my website—Angelica Yingst, specialist in finding medicine and nourishment in your own messiness and shit. It is my new mantra--Nothing is wasted. I write so rarely in this newsletter and yet, you have probably heard it many times. I try to embody and model for my clients, my students, my children, my friends, and my family how to deal with shit. How to reach out, how to find a community, how to make things sacred. When I am vulnerable and open, it heals not only me, but also is of service to other people. I recognize this, and yet it is still hellishly hard to be vulnerable and open. I tell stories about bird seed and sorghum and shit because it is hard and I am having trouble getting to the point, so suffice to say, this is me sweeping my bird seed and my shit onto the grass to see what sprouts.

A month ago now, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

It just came, out of a routine mammogram. Nothing extraordinary—no lump or bleeding or pain or strangeness, just something they saw on an annual scan. They told me it was early and that I was lucky.

I feel lucky.

They told me in the same breath that I would have to decide what I wanted to do, which was basically one choice…one boob or two? Or rather a single mastectomy or a double? Which would I like? Would I like a single mastectomy or a double?

With one boob, I could shoot archery like an Amazon, but I would still have to wear a bra with a prosthetic tit. With two gone, I could have a weirdly unnippled flat chest, which will probably be lumpy, rather than flat, because let’s face it my entire body is lumpy. I probably won’t like either choice, they said, but maybe this choice will save your life. We think it will. Maybe you can avoid chemotherapy and radiation and death, they said, but honestly, you are so lucky to have found it now.

I feel lucky. I chose to remove both of my breasts.

A friend reached out telling me they saw a hawk flying with a snake. I saw the same thing a few weeks ago, like an Aztec myth or a Homeric saga, we are seeing similar signs. We wondered if it was a global message or a personal one. Maybe it is both...I can't help but think, in the way I did so many years ago when my daughter died, that life continues. That hawks capture snakes and people go to the mall and buy stupid shit and dogs bark at the neighbors even though things are happening in slow motion and in fear-o-vision for me. There are signs and synchronicities and healing, but I still have cancer. I am dealing with this by organizing my cabinets and buying hoodies.

When I was given this diagnosis, I kept thinking, "Angie, how will you make this sacred?" How can I capture this time before my breasts are gone forever? If I sprinkle this old bird seed and shit onto the grass, will it grow into something beautiful and nourishing? I know I will create artwork and write, because that is what I do with everything. I have created a crystal grid and an altar and called in Magdalene and Mother Mary and Kali showed up and Vulture…and yet, I simply want to lie in bed and stop the relentless litany of "Things I Need to Do Before DMX Day." And I can’t also, because the litany and the list are real and, from having done the lying in bed, obsessing about not obsessing thing, it doesn’t help. Organizing and making lists makes me feel in control when everything is out of my control.

I am lucky. And yet, how will I release my breasts, the body parts that fed my babies (do you want tetita? I would ask them, as they turned their heads to latch on.) How will I release the chest they lean on, cuddle into, grab for when they are scared? How do I offer up the boobs that offered hugs to my hundreds of clients over the years and my sponsees who ask for their bosom hugs? How do I cut off the breasts that held pleasure and sensuality for my lovers? The breasts that are my husband’s favorite body part?

It is easy to release them when I think of that time in my life when I was still a girl, when my breasts seemed to grow overnight. One day, my landscape was flat, and then small hills appeared. I remember how much they hurt when a football hit my chest. I remember when the boys started snapping bras and reaching over me, so they could graze them for a cheap thrill. I went from a flat, athletic girl to one leered at, an object of lust who still wasn’t sure if she wanted to play dolls or cut out Teen Beat pictures of George Michael. They have been the part of me people glared at, evidence that I was a slut or a hoochie mama intent on stealing their boyfriends. They brought derision and discomfort and pearl-clutching if I wore a spaghetti strap tank. I have wanted them off since they were first unwantingly groped by creepy men or whistled at when I was just mindlessly walking down city streets. My breasts have brought annoyance and trauma and healing and love. It is a complicated relationship.

This is the thing about us humans—even if we have never faced this particular crisis, we know how to make it sacred. I have learned to make it sacred by including people, by reaching out, by asking for support. Innately, we know how to eat the sorghum that grew from messiness and shit. We invite our bird friends to share.

***

I know this is shocking. It is shocking to me. But I have to tend to myself. I have shut down everything in my shop—distance readings and healings, sales and memberships. I wish I could be present and hold space for you, but right now, this deep healing is reserved for me. Besides all I think all day is, “I have cancer. I am so lucky it is not worse.” My thoughts are dominated by this particular paradoxical truth. It is a niggling mantra that I keep wrestling with, like a Zen koan. I am devoted to my clients and students, but I am healing and coming to terms with this and making it sacred. And in that process, I have had to simplify and not be so bloody busy, as well as quarantine before surgery and prepare my home.

I have one more event before surgery on September 15th at Alta View Wellness Center with my bestie, Sharon Muzio. We are doing a shamanic healing circle on August 29th at 4p at Alta View—Sharon will lead the guided journey and I will do the hands-on healing. You can register here.

I am beautifully interconnected to a vast, powerful circle of psychic, empathic healers, priestesses, shamanic wisdom and medicine keepers, seers, seekers, practitioners and beautiful souls like you, many around the world who I have been privileged to work with. If your expertise and experience falls into working with cancer, healing from surgery and making this process sacred, I’d love to hear about it. Please email or call (717-770-9109) and with that being said, hopefully, you understand that I am overwhelmed easily, so I might not get back to you immediately, or take your advice. Please do not take this personally as I am trying to intuitively navigate to what feels healing to me right now at this time.

When I return, I will let you know. I may even write you a love letter or two.

summer solstice check-in

June 28, 2021 Angie Yingst

Early Summer in Pennsylvania blossoms into Wild Black Raspberries, Mugwort sprouting up wherever you let it, Wild Yarrow that hides in the tree line and roadsides, pretending to be Queen Anne's Lace. I see the snake tails disappearing into the long grasses and listen for the calls of the nighthawks. It only takes opening the eyes of your eyes and the ears of your ears to see the medicine all around you.

I turned my chicken coop into a potting shed and have fully dived into herbalism classes and study. I had always dabbled, but I wanted more formal training, and so I am getting it. I have always grown herbs to use for teas and salves, but it is different this year when my eyes became more finely tuned to the subtle healing of all the native plants of my area. My kids thought I was magick when I chewed up a Fleasbane Daisy and put it on a bugbite of my son, and it disappeared. I felt like magick too, as he said, "I thought that was a weed."

Weeds are just a matter of perspective, son.

I think about that quite a bit--how the thing we think is a nuisance ends up becoming the medicine. How a flower's beauty is all a matter of perspective. Same with humans. I think about how hard I work pulling unsanctioned flowers out of a bed I am trying to plant flowers in. We learn the things we learn through nature. I have never wasted an experience...I have used it all in some way. I would venture to say you have too.

I have spent the last few years healing trauma from different realms of my life--big traumas and little ones. I honestly just started calling things by their proper name. It has been the most humbling, difficult aspect of my work with self-love and self-compassion. I suppose this is called shadow work, but it feels more like integration work.

I remember being particularly keyed up and triggered by something and losing my patience with my kids a few minutes later. I put myself in time-out and my husband followed me. I was crying. And in that crying without thinking I said, "Why did bad stuff happen to me?" It is a question I never let myself ask, really. It feels so immature, so unevolved, to ask that question, and yet, the child in me needs a voice too. I have suppressed her for too long. Sometimes the work we need to do is just to say--that just wasn't fair.

For me, sitting in the unfair, is not comfortable. I am a fighter (not a flighter or fawner). I prefer fighting for justice. I don't usually struggle with fighting for my rights or the rights of others. But just sitting with injustice is so difficult for me. And yet that has been the work of the last few years...sitting in injustice--in our outer world with the struggles of black and indigenous people (761 bodies of indigenous children found this week outside of a residential school is such a horrendous example of this), and people of color, and then in our inner world with our own suffering and struggles healing trauma, addiction, codependency, fear, grief, anger, physical and mental struggles...we have to sit with injustice. All of us.

After I sit and feel the weight of it, I take a breath. I process it. And then look at this unsanctioned act and make medicine out of it. When Elizabeth Kubler Ross and David Kessler mention the 5 stages of grief, they were talking about acceptance of death. It was written for those who were dying, not those who were living, but quickly, it was adopted by the grieving. Recently, I read that Kessler postulates another stage for the grieving--making meaning. This is what humans do. We make meaning. We seek a story. We want to thrive.

And so I challenge you to make meaning out of a loss, to find a weed and make it medicine. There is beauty in every flower. It is just a matter of perspective.

Episode 12: Tarot's Card of the Year for 2020 with Kyra Paules

December 21, 2020 Angie Yingst

I love me a good conversation with Kyra. It was so fun to talk about the Card of the Year (Emperor) for 2020 and the Card for 2021 (Hierophant). So we talk Tarot and the energy of the past two years and how we see archetype and tarot work play out on a larger scale with this work.