agreements

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.

  1. 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!

ice

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,

all about me, again.

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.

understanding the medicine, even when it is disturbing

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.

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.