anti valentine's day

Imbolc Reading

Enjoy this Collective Imbolc Reading for February 1. And you can try it yourself with this layout from my book the Complete Tarot Layouts:

Episode 44: Tarot+ Earth Medicine Reading for February 2023

Enjoy the tarot + earth medicine reading for February 2023

Episode 43: Angie rambling and Q&As

Another rambly episode of the podcast for you, squirrel friends. (RuPaul, I adore you.) I promise more regular postings and musings as I wind down my other life and fire up a new way of being.

Date in Peace Podcast with Lauren Smith: Building Peaceful Relationships with Crystals & Tarot

I was so honored to talk to Lauren Smith on her podcast Date in Peace, which is all about dating. Lauren Smith is an author of the book the Mindful Dating Journal and creator of an app called the MettaDate Journal App. The Mindful Dating Journal is your guide to using mindfulness to find a deep connection. Explore your past and track your present to set the foundation for a fulfilling relationship and the app, MettaDate Journal App is a simple mindfulness tool for modern daters. Lauren and I met many many years ago when she was the youngest member of a meditation circle I belonged to where I learned to channel and talk to Angels. I remember Lauren’s vibrance and connect to the Elemental realm as such a beautiful addition to our circle of older women exploring the metaphysical together. I really loved talking about Tarot and Crystals and Dating. You can follow Lauren here on IG: https://www.instagram.com/mettadate/ and at her website: Lauren Smith Studio

Centered Q&A Episodes 37 & 38

Ugh, I forgot to post my November Earth Medicine + Tarot reading. For the month of November, we are working with the Eight of Swords, Salmon medicine, Thyme and the Crystals: Labradorite, Larimar + Sunstone. We deal with Mars Retrograde and a Lunar Eclipse…holy crap!

Episode 38 answers some questions from our listeners Tarot, Stage Cards, Moon phase work + Retrogrades. Here they are:

1. Suzanne asked, “Is there a card/s that is always a little difficult to interpret when it comes up in a reading? Conversely is there one or multiple that are easier? 🔮😻”

2. Tan Hm asked, “Stage cards confuse me! And it would be amazing if you could talk about how to integrate after shadow work.”

3. Danielle asked, “Phases- from the moon phases and the spiritual meanings, to the spiritual phases (waves) most of us experience in life…. Planet retrogrades and the different impacts depending on the sign if occurs in.”

4. Suzanne asked, “I know this info is probably somewhere but can you talk a little bit about what "retrograde" means. You can always send a question to angie@themoonandstone.com for me to cover in an upcoming episode or record one on my anchor page at https://anchor.fm/angie-yingst/message
   

Samhain Reading

Angie talks Samhain, letting go, emotional support corpses and pulls some tarot cards for the dark season of Samhain to Yule.

This is a picture of my Layouts book with my margin notes. I really encourage you all to change up things in your books, because connecting with the layout is the MOST important part. You have control!

I talk about this piece by Marybeth Bonfiglio called 41 Ways to Make Love to Yourself: https://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/12/41-ways-to-make-love-to-yourself-marybeth-bonfiglio/

Tarot + Earth Medicine Allies for October

October is here!! Working with some kick ass medicine this month as we pull in the masculine and feminine through the Sun and some decidedly feminine energy of Moonstone, Peach Selenite and Garnet. Enjoy this medicine reading.

autumn equinox reading + podcast episode

Blessed Autumn Equinox!!! In my earth-based pagan spiritual practice, we honor gratitude and the abundance of the Earth at this time of the year. Autumn Equinox or Mabon, the second harvest festival in the Wheel of the Year, arrives somewhere between September 20 and 22nd. Though harvest festivals have always been celebrated, the Wiccans, in the mid-20th century, brought us Mabon, named after the Celtic God of the same name. The Wiccan creators wanted to keep the Celtic-focus for the names of the eight festivals in the Wheel of the Year; hence the story of Mabon being featured for Autumnal Equinox. Mabon, a Celtic god, as a child was stolen from his mother and imprisoned deep in the womb of the Earth. At Yule, he will be reborn with the light again.

Like Ostara, the Autumn Equinox honors balance of light and darkness. Unlike Ostara, Mabon examines the move into the darkness. The Greek Eleusinian Mysteries and Rites of Demeter were honored for over two thousand years to honor the move from light to dark. Central to these mysterious rites, which were so secretive that they were never written down, was the story of Demeter and her daughter Persephone, sometimes called Kore. You can read the Homeric Hymn to Demeter translated by Gregory Nagy (my favorite translation). Listen to the podcast episode for more…

Tarot + Earth Medicine Allies for September 2022

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!

Tarot+ Earth Medicine Allies for July 2022

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!

midsummer lore + collective tarot reading

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…

June's Tarot + Earth Medicine Allies

It’s Angelica Yingst with you June 2022 Tarot + Earth Medicine reading. Maybe I am early this month with our reading because I am ready to get out of the shitshow that was May—shitshow might be too strong, but the eclipses of May brought to light some darkness, revealing true motives, bringing up old wounds. I have some good news about June…it is not May!

We move into June in Gemini, which is not only my rising sign, but the sign that embraces curiosity, extroversion, and change. And I for one am here for it. Gemini craves communication, stimulation, and adventure, while we are still in Mercury Retrograde, you might find some of this difficult, but you might also find yourself wanting to express yourself through writing to better communicate a highly important message. Gemini is social, while the new moon is not. You can scratch both itches by sending a lovely text, email, DM, to someone you like and don’t want to tell off—start from grace and kindness….

Listen to the episode for more…

Beltane Reading, History + Layout

As the Wheel turns and the grass turns greener, flowers blossom, their pollen heaving, enticing, the pollinators, come and spread seed. Greater Sabbats on the pagan Wheel of the Year are the cross-quarter holidays—what they call the Earth Festivals (as compared to the Solar Festivals that mark the equinoxes and the solstices.) Beltane marks the beginning of the transition from Spring to Summer. It occurs on May 1st. Blossoming flowers, the trees and grass really take off, the bees beginning to buzz…it is a time of lightness and fun, fertility and growth.

Beltane uniquely focuses on sexuality and sensuality with a bevy of yonic and phallic symbols. The Horned God, birthed at Yule, begins to hit his lusty stage, ready to mate with the maiden Earth goddess. Both are honored at this time—Cernunnos (as well as Green Man, Pan, the Oak King) and the Maiden Goddess. Beltane honors our own unions. The Roman festival of Floralia seems to have influenced the way Beltane was celebrated. Beltaine, the Celtic Christian festival meaning “Bright Fire”, honored the release of the cattle into the fields. Standing directly across Samhain on the great Wheel of the Year, Beltane calls in light and lightness in the same way Samhain honors the dark of life. There is a focus during Beltane on life in all its sensuous and corporeal glory.

The celebrations of Beltane are joyous, raucous events with massive bonfires, dancing, singing and more. Beltane fires are said to have healing properties that were used to grant healing prayers and protection. The smoke from the bonfires were used for purification and for vitality. The ashes then were placed in the fields for fertility. Celebrations at Beltane, sometimes called May Day, involved the Maypole—a tall wood pole, a phallic symbol, placed in the center of the festivities. A flower wreath placed on top of the pole served as a yonic symbol of the feminine. Brightly colored ribbon hang from the top of the pole to the ground. Maidens and boys were placed around the pole, grabbing every other cloth or ribbon (men facing one way while the women faces another, so they could look at each other.) They danced, weaving in and out of each other, symbolizing the sexual union of masculine and feminine.

When we look at the world through the agrarian calendar, or the Wheel of the Year, we often find some antiquated ways—particularly around the masculine and feminine. Around Beltane, the idea of the masculine and feminine coming together really meant bringing fertility to the fields for a good harvest. A good harvest meant the difference between life and death. It also meant expanding the family and bringing children into the world. Childbirth brings both the feminine and masculine together forming new life, and in this way, Beltane honors the way sexuality brings together the light-dark, masculine-feminine for new life. We can certainly expand our idea of sexuality now, but the symbolism of Beltane remains in the phallic and the yonic.

During Beltane festivals, couples stayed out in the fields all night, engaging in sexual union, particularly in the fields, to encourage fertility in the crops and soil or in the woods, where they would bring back greenery and flowers to decorate for the celebrations. Babies conceived during these couplings at Beltane were called merry-begots and thought to be blessed by the gods. These couplings were not the only celebrations of unions—marriages and hand fastings often were celebrated during this time.

Magick is thought to be easy to access around Beltane. All manner of people engaged in divination and magickal behavior from the grandmother to the cook who threw his soup bones in the fire to read in the morning. In fact, the two Greater Sabbats of the year, Samhain and Beltane, lying across from each other on the Wheel of the Year, honor the thinness of the veil between the worlds by encouraging us to dive into our Tarot and oracle decks, our runes, and scry into bowls of water, another yonic symbol.

I have been reading Tarot for many moon cycles. As a pagan and an earth medicine practitioner, I have created tarot spreads for each of the points on the Wheel of the Year to help us easily tap into the energetic and magickal work important around these different points on the Wheel of the Year and in our life. Beltane’s sexy energy encourages us to connect with the light, lusty, fertile energy of Beltane and May.

I wanted to share my Tarot Layout from my book the Complete Tarot Layouts. Because the energy of sex and creativity is so intimately tied together, you can use this layout for either. If you are more interested in a creative project, you can also think of that birthing out of the same energy of Beltane. Remember you can do this reading at any time you want to check in with a relationship or project of any kind, not just Beltane. Remember you can use this and any tarot layout with runes, oracles decks or any Tarot deck.

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

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.

Episode 9: Introverts & Spirituality with Alison Truitt

Today’s episode features my friend Alison Truitt. I met Alison a few years ago in a Tarot class I was teaching where Ali was the only student. We went deep really quickly, as tarot forces you to do. We share many of the same practices and rituals and especially our way of being in the world, because we are both Introverts. That might be surprising to some of you, especially because I am so public with my work. But I think the defining aspect of being an introvert is where you draw your energy—alone or with others. Alison and I decided to explore this topic today, talking about being an introvert, a highly sensitive person or an empath and our spiritual journey. I really wanted to have a conversation about this topic, because those of us in the spiritual realms often talk about the power of community and circles, but this is not everyone’s comfort zone. Many of us introverts are solitary practitioners and practice our own religious or spiritual practices that are separate from organized religions. So, I wanted to ask Alison: What is circle like as an introvert? What is your practice like? We also explored the tarot archetype of the Hermit, the introvert’s guide in a spiritual world. So, Alison was born and raised in the ridges and foothills of the Appalachians of Pennsylvania. As she describes in the podcast, she finds immeasurable solace in and inspiration from Mother Earth. She believes that Nature’s happenings are a reflection of one’s own rhythms. Alison is also guided by the cycles of the seasons and the moon and is strongly connected to both her Celtic heritage and the Divine Feminine. She seeks to honor all that has shaped her path as she looks inward to reclaim her soul's purpose for this lifetime and outward to manifest beauty and share it with others. Alison writes at her blog the Hermit’s Handicrafts at wordpress (I’ll put the link in the show notes) and she sells beautiful jewelry, malas and artwork around the journey of pregnancy, motherhood and beyond at her Etsy shop the Hermit’s handicrafts. Hope you enjoy this episode of Centered.

https://thehermitshandicrafts.wordpress.com/

https://www.etsy.com/shop/HermitHandicrafts

Episode 4: Tarot's Gatekeepers of Shadow with Kyra Paules

You know, I love good conversations with laughter and insight. Kyra and I always seem to have these interesting wandering conversations that are enlightening and interesting. This one started as a conversation about the “dark cards” of the Major Arcana. We were basically using the Rider-Waite-Smith deck for reference and start with the Hanged Man and end with the Tower, talking about this part of the spiritual journey through the Major Arcana.

Episode 2: What is Tarot's place in this moment? with Kyra Paules

Oh, boy, I was looking forward to this conversation with Kyra Paules so much. I have known Kyra for a number of years, and she has become one of my go-to Tarot friends who I talk to about cards, life and ethics. In fact, I called on her when I was working on my June reading, because I just did not know if any of this was relevant or useful in this time. She and I talked about it, and I thought…this might be a useful conversation to have on the podcast. So, I hope you enjoy it!

Saying the wrong thing

from the Chrysalis Tarot by Toney Brooks and Holly Sierra

from my June 2020 Newsletter, which you can subscribe to here.

I don’t always know what to say when the world is in turmoil. And particularly in this moment when there is violence and righteous anger. When people are so polarized and afraid, it feels like chaos. This is another Tower moment for us as a nation. First COVID-19 had us tumbling out of the Tower. My friend Sharon Muzio said we are in a Tower moment with COVID-19, but we still are in mid-air, not in the Tower and not on the ground yet. And now, the country faces nationwide protests. The president calls for militarization and more police presence, while peaceful protests move forward. It is as though we are still falling out of the Tower, and now we are seeing the Tower collapse underneath us as we are still in mid-air, unsure of where we will land.

We are razing the beast, hopefully. Kali, the Dark Mother, comes in for this work. She is a goddess of death and rebirth. The tall Tower of oppression and systemic racism needs to fall. But it is all we know. Truthfully, I am here for it. But in this way? Seeing black people genuinely losing their freedom, arrested or worse, facing bodily injury to speak the truth of police brutality and racism in the streets. Tanks rolling into town. The infamous pictures of police with raised batons hitting people, black people, injured faces from rubber bullets and fear. We are hearing mixed reports of who is causing the looting and rioting—protesters or implants to make the protesters seem violent. We honestly do not know. It suddenly seems like we have woken up in another world. We were isolated in our homes, and now the streets are filled. But this is OUR world. We created this. So, we watch it come down, frightened and unsure how to move forward. We ask Kali to guide this destruction so we can rebuild and rebirth into a different world where we no longer have to say Black Lives Matter, because of course, they do. We see that sentiment in action in our government, in our actions, in our consciousness. 

I really struggled with my monthly offerings this week. Is Tarot silly in lieu of all this? What could I possibly offer right now? Is it spiritually bypassing this suffering to talk about woo-woo energy healing, earth medicine allies, tarot, journeying...I talk a little about this in my monthly reading (See below). But I mostly really struggled with speaking at all.

 - I want to say my heart hurts, but I know it is not enough and, besides, my heart is not at issue here.
 - I want to scream when I see another black man killed, but I am afraid of showing you my anger. 
 - I want to cry and throw a tantrum about all the pain black people in this country have suffered for 400 years, but I don’t want it to be about me (I am afraid you will comfort me and not do anything else.)
 - I want to walk away from the news and media and forget this is happening, but I don’t want to fall back on my privilege to be able walk away from this pain since black people cannot walk away from this ever.
 - I am afraid of saying the wrong thing in the wrong way. 
 - I am afraid of saying the right thing in the wrong way. 
 - I am afraid of saying the right thing in the right way. 
 - I am afraid you will see my own wounds around racism and being a Latinx womyn. 

I have always tried to be vocal about my dedication to anti-racism and intersectional feminism. But I feel vulnerable showing these things as a spiritual teacher. There is a belief that we need to be above politics and not in the fray of polarized views. We are not supposed to watch the news or care about this stuff. I hear it all the time. the news is too toxic and full of fear-mongering and low vibrational energy. We are just spirit, right? Heaven forbid that we show anger. Anger is so demonized in our metaphysical community. So, yeah, not talking about peace and love and light is scary.

And yet this time is calling for us to move into the fear and talk anyway. We cannot be afraid to make mistakes, to be corrected, to lose people offended by anti-racist views, to say something perceived as racist or oblivious or privileged. We cannot know what we do not know. So, I am trying to remain fearless and teachable.

I believe wholeheartedly that Spiritual work is about justice and balance. We need to be speaking out and connecting the Spirit with the physical body. Spirituality is not for the privileged few who are not in physical danger or threatened with injustices. In fact, I would argue, that is EXACTLY who we are here for. So, if you are wanting to learn more, welcome BIPOC (this stands for Black, Indigenous, People of Color) into your circles—spiritual and secular. Do the work you can do around your own internalized racism and subconscious racism. We can do this, not by asking black people to explain it to us, but by reading about it. Some great places to start:

Layla Saad in the Guardian put together an Anti-Racist reading list

Buy from black owned bookstore if you can.

Layla Saad has a wonderful course/workbook/book called Me and White Supremacy that is such an eye-opener.

This piece by Layla Saad is SO IMPORTANT. It is called "I need to talk to spiritual white women about white supremacy (Part One)”

Dr. Robin DiAngelo on White Fragility and Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

If you have some money to donate to causes, here is a list of good organizations to support right now.

Support BIPOC teachers, educators, and writers. Often Black teachers will have a paysite (Venmo or PayPal) linked on their bio in Instagram so you can directly support their writing and work. They often do so much free education on Instagram and Social Media outlets for people who want to learn how to be allies.

* * * * * * * *

This month, our June allies came forth strongly, and as I have sat with them for a few days, I realize that they are so apt. If you are a membership subscriber, Tiger came through as an ally for us this month, so your shamanic journey with tiger will be emailed out. June 5th is the last super moon. It is in Sagittarius, and there is an eclipse. Plus, Mars is a perfect Square and June is facing 7 planets in retrograde. So, hold on for the ride. For us spiritually focused folk, our medicine allies can help us navigate these crazy times, so practice exquisite energetic hygiene and self-care. Ask me if you need some help.

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May 2020 Monthly Tarot Reading

Moving into the lusty month of May, I did a one card Tarot reading around the energy of this month, along with the earth medicine allies that came forth for us. Let me know what you think. I am going to be doing readings at the beginning of the month for my readers and subscribers. If you want more check-ins with me via tarot and earth medicine, please subscribe to one of my membership levels for more readings and check-ins.