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,