EP94 Changes and Endings with Stacking Skulls and Theresa Reed

The Stacking Skulls Crew (Aidan, Fabeku, and Andrew) are joined by Theresa Reed this week. In many ways this conversation circles around endings. They talk about Marie Kondo and letting go. The process of know when to change in life. And the ways our energy shifts what is going on depending on how we show up. 

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Andrew

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ANDREW: Welcome to the Hermit's Lamp podcast and another episode with Stacking Skulls. I'm here today with Aidan and Fabeku, and joining us is Theresa Reed. So, you know, everybody probably knows who we are, but, Theresa, for those who don't know who you are, who are you? What are you about?

THERESA: Hey guys, for those of you who are not familiar with me, my name is Theresa Reed, but I'm better known as the Tarot Lady. I am a professional tarot reader and I've been working in my industry for close to 30 years. And that's me in a nutshell. 

ANDREW: Awesome! So, the last episode dropped about three months or so ago. What's new? What's going on? What's changed? 

AIDAN: Hmm. I actually reopened the shop ...

ANDREW: Yeah!

AIDAN: After many months off, and that's going very well. Under the new model. It seems to be working well. That's pretty much it for me. It's been winter. Not a lot goes on except the cold. 

ANDREW: Right. And a lot of snow apparently this winter. 

AIDAN: We did get the blizzard, which, thankfully all of our neighbors tell us happens every seven to 15 years, cause otherwise our 500-foot-long driveway would have been perhaps not the choice we would have made! [laughing] We were only trapped for like two weeks. 

ANDREW: Yeah. That's fair. Well, you don't have to get your kettlebells off the mat, then. You can just shovel snow every day? 

AIDAN: I really don't do that. That's why we were trapped for two weeks. We saw it coming and went shopping and stocked up the house, and said, "Fuck it. We'll leave when we're done, when it's done." [laughing]

ANDREW: Excellent. Nice. That’s awesome. Well, how about you, Fabeku? What's new in your world? 

FABEKU: Yeah, what's new? Ran a few classes, finally wrapped the super long divination course that I've been doing since the summer, doing a thing now on some hyper sigil stuff which has been fun and kind of intense. Managed to survive the holidays, thank God. That was great! Yeah, writing like crazy, just writing like crazy, for some reason. I'm not sleeping a lot, which is fantastic! And so, I'm taking advantage of the long evenings and turning out piles and piles of words for a few book projects. So, it's fun. It's cool. 

ANDREW: And how about you, Theresa? What's the start of your year brought you? What's going on with you these days? 

THERESA: Just busy with work but also, I have two books coming out this year, and actually today, I just got the pdf version, and so they want me to go over everything and check everything and doublecheck it, and make sure every i is dotted and t is crossed, and recently I saw the cover of my third book, which is coming out in November. So I'm in the phase right now of handling all my regular work, and also with these two books coming out, starting to do all the proofreading to make sure things are right. 

FABEKU: That's a lot. 

THERESA: Yeah, it's exciting. 

ANDREW: It's a lot of work, right? 

THERESA: Oh my god. But I like the editing part better than the writing part. 

FABEKU: Really? 

THERESA: Isn't that sad? 

FABEKU: Well, no, it's fascinating. I think it's ...

THERESA: I love to read, write, and I love to spill out all my ideas, but I think it's because I have those three planets in Virgo. Going back and editing gives me a real special jolly. 

FABEKU: Wow. That's cool.

AIDAN: I kind of got that with Six Ways. I had a blast going, kind of taking in all the information I got from the various first readers and my folks to kind of dive in and tighten it up. That was a pleasure. 

ANDREW: Yeah. I don't dig the editing at all.

FABEKU: Yeah, me neither. 

[laughing]

FABEKU: Totally hate it!

ANDREW: Yeah, it's interesting. When I did, I wrote the book for the Orisha Tarot, I sat down and just, I wrote the book just straight through, just piled it all out and whatever. And because there was some changes around the timeline and I had to deliver it a little bit earlier, I was like, all right, I'm just sending it, I'm not even going to reread it, I'm just going to send it to you this way. Cause it was already a contract, right? So it wasn't like I was trying to get the deal. I already had the deal, but I just didn't have the time to finish everything up for their timeline that they had moved it to, and still sort of like sit and really reedit it, and I was like, doesn't make sense to re-edit part of it or all of it or, you know. So I just sent it in. And, yeah, it was, most of ... The thing was, “please just go through and fix the typos.” [laughs] And I was like, "Sure!" [laughing] And then there were a couple other, very few comments, but then the editing was almost nonexistent for it, so. 

FABEKU: That's great.

THERESA: Wow. But they liked it, so you know, obviously you're a good writer.

ANDREW: Yeah, it just kind of. By the time I get to writing something I usually have thought about it a ton. And then it mostly just kind of emerges pretty intact, you know? And sometimes I need to adjust stuff, mature things. Most of what they wanted me to change or edit goes back to, the biggest challenge for me around writing historically, which is: why write 50 words when 10 words will do? But the reality is, those 10 words do when you know what the subject is, but they don't actually do it for everybody else. So learning to sort of expand everything into sort of a more, yeah, a more thorough explanation, so you kind of use a lot more words for it, that's been one thing. And the edits that came back for it were kind of, "You might know what this is, and I might know what this is, but there are lots of people who are going to read this who don't, who won't understand. So add a couple of paragraphs explaining this and this and this, and stuff." So.

FABEKU: I always think it's an interesting thing when you're communicating stuff to people--so, my version of that is, in this hyper sigil class that I'm doing now, there were things that to me were super obvious, and so I essentially said, "Hey, do this and do this, and go have at it," right? And then people were like, "Wait, fuck, what? What about this, and what about this, and what does that mean? and can I do this? should I do this? should I not do this?" And I was literally like, "What the fuck is happening? Just do it!" And when I realized it was like, oh, right, okay, so all of the shit that in my head was super obvious, apparently I need to circle back and kind of spell out in way more detail than I thought. So it was kind of an interesting experience for everyone involved. 

Yeah. [laughing]

ANDREW: Yeah. For sure.

AIDAN: This is why the lifer magicians shouldn't probably be the bounce-offs on whether you're coherent for anybody else, right? [laughing] I was like, dude, got it, boom!

[incoherent laughing]

AIDAN: Fabeku comes back around like, "Why is everyone confused?" I'm like, “uh, oh, cause they haven't been doing this for 30 years? I don't know!”

[laughing]

ANDREW: Yeah.

FABEKU: Yup.

THERESA: And words have power, but that power doesn't always transmit to everyone the same way. You know years ago when I used to teach astrology, it all starts out fun. But then you start getting into the math, which you know is another interesting ... I think math is very magical. And everyone, all the tears came. All the tears came. People don't get it. And so, explaining astrology to laymen is actually, it's very artful, it's very hard to do. 

FABEKU: Mm-hmm. 

ANDREW: Yeah. I think teaching stuff is complicated. Right? And I think that, you know, when … A couple years ago I was in Portland and I taught this class on calling in the person-who-was-getting-the-readings' guardian angel, to feed into the reading process, right? And, you know, in teaching something like that, there's the words, right, which is one part of it. You know? It's like try this, do this, think about it this way, but then, like you say, it's also how is everyone receiving that, what's going on? And a whole bunch of people came up to me after the workshop and basically said, "I've never experienced anything like that before in my life, you know, and I've been doing my own practice," or whatever, and the secret was in that case that essentially I expanded my energy to encompass everybody in the room, and I was modulating everything that was going on, to some degree with everybody there, right? And like, seeing what felt wonky in the space so I need to go over and talk to that person, or maybe I just needed to like, put a little extra energy there for them, and you know, there's so many layers to transmitting something, right? That go well beyond book-learning and words and you know, straightforward things like into another level, right? So.

FABEKU: You know, we just had this conversation in the hyper sigil space this week or last week or whatever it was. Somebody was talking about an experience that they have. So I call, instead of calls, I call them live transmissions, cause I do that, cause for me, that's what they are, it's not some marketing shtick, but you know, they were talking about experiences they had listening to the transmission, and I said, "listen, like, I call these transmissions for a reason." Like, the delivery of information is actually the smallest reason why we're on the phone at the same time doing this. There's a million other ways I could deliver information. I don't really give a shit so much how it happens, but it is that kind of energetic maintenance of the space, of creating currents that people wade into and then you navigate their experience with the current with them while delivering the information and for me that's 90 percent of it, the information, I mean, fuck, I could send out a pdf, I mean it's, you know, who cares about the delivery of the information? In some ways. I think, to me, the real key, and I think the thing that, like you said, give people that experience, is that current, and to create it, and kind of lead people skillfully into it and out of it and you know, yeah, that's the whole thing, for me. 

THERESA: Do you guys feel when you teach that you're doing it from an altered space? 

FABEKU: Yes. 

AIDAN: Yeah, totally. 

FABEKU: Almost every time. Like as soon as I kind of dial in, sit down, like I'll  start to sweat. As it goes on, by the time I’m done, like I feel like I ran a marathon. And that's not a thing that I do. 

[laughter]

ANDREW: Yeah, for sure.

AIDAN: That's a definite thing, and it's interesting. I got an invite this morning to teach at 2020, and that was one of the really odd things, was remembering live teaching, cause I haven't done that since the 90s, and that's kind of a really strange concept to think about revisiting after 25 years. It's like, okay let's wander into a conference space, and do my thing. Cause to me it's always a super altered state, it's not subtle. And that's a, it's a very . . . It is an odd thing.

ANDREW: And for me it's the same doing readings as well, you know. It's the reason I don't dig asynchronous reading processes that much, is I find that the energy's harder to manage . . .

THERESA: Really?!

ANDREW: Yeah. It's way easier for me to sit with somebody and just go anywhere, do anything, whatever needs to happen, but like, to do readings and ... You know, for a while I've been offering these channeled readings, where I channel one of my guides and stuff, and I'm actually going to stop, because channeling without the person being synced in somehow just wears me out. It's really kind of ... So like a 15-minute session of doing that like, and recording it and sending it to somebody, is like ten times more fatiguing than channeling for an hour with the person sitting here. So. 

THERESA: See for me, when it comes to email readings, energy is energy. You know and I always like to say I'm an energy reader, so it's the same energy that I'm tapping into, it doesn't matter if the person's sitting there and with me. I prefer when I'm doing, I prefer the phone readings, because I really feel like we're directly connecting with each other. But the email readings work just as good, the only difference is I think sometimes when people send information via email, they're not completely tuned in. 

ANDREW: Mm-hmm.

THERESA: You know, and so you have to, maybe this is why you feel double the work, is you're having to like, you will have to do double the work, because maybe they'll just send a vague question or whatnot, so it's different. 

ANDREW: Mm-hmm. Yeah, maybe it's so. 

THERESA: Yeah, I don't know. 

AIDAN: It's interesting. When I think about doing the, you know like in the Six Ways Facebook group, the best thing I did was I decided to start shooting video, just cause it seemed like it would be an easier way than writing everything? And what I find is that that's the  . . . it's way easier for me to be talking and transmit kind of clearly is writing. And, like we're doing this on Zoom, and I think if I get around to starting the online classes I'll do them on Zoom for the same reason. It's okay that not everybody will be present but if I've got a body of people present that I can be directly feeding with, it'll work better. 

THERESA: My problem with the typing is, my arthritis. I mean that's the biggest problem. I find it's more like, it's labor intensive for my hands, it's not the transmission of the energy. You know when you're just talking and teaching like that, you're not using that same physical processes as you're doing with your hands . . . So I think that's where I find it to be harder.

AIDAN: Right. I think that for me it's just that I can't type very well. 

[laughing]

ANDREW: That's fair. That's totally fair. I'm actually going back to writing, a series of blog posts and stuff.

FABEKU: Oh, cool. 

ANDREW: I feel like I haven't typed much for a long time. In terms of doing that kind of work. But I feel like--for two reasons, I like to make everything accessible, so I like to get transcriptions of stuff done, like this podcast will be transcribed, and that's a time-consuming process that comes with its own expense, and two, I feel like I'm planning on getting a book proposal in over the winter, and I sort of slide more into that writing space. And when I'm already in that writing space, then it's easy to like, you know, write for a couple of hours, grab a coffee, change gears, and then write something else for an hour, for me, so I can kind of just stay in that space, whereas the recording transmissions and stuff like that, you know, since the separation and divorce that happened in the fall and winter, with my new schedule with the kids and stuff like that, it's a lot harder for me to find a time that's actually quiet to sit down and record something, it's not nearly as simple as it used to--my schedule used to be a lot more flexible, so. Now it's like I can sit and write just fine, and they can be doing whatever in the house, it's not a big deal to me, but to record and then have them, you know, their shenanigans in the background, it gets a little complicated, so.

FABEKU: Yeah, for sure. 

ANDREW: Mm-hmm. And I guess that's been the big change for me, right? You know, my relationship of 21 years ended, I think we talked about it some in the fall podcast . . .

AIDAN: Yeah, we did. 

ANDREW: Yeah, and mid-December, my ex moved out, and so I've had sort of almost two months now, I guess, or a month and a half of settling into what it's like to be independent half the time and with the kids half the time and you know, kind of going through this process of going through everything that I own and reassessing it, and seeing what do I want to keep, what's important, what's not important, and, you know, kind of extending that further out into like lots of things, I'm kind of reevaluating where I'm putting my time on kind of every front right now and trying to see what feels like it makes sense to me or doesn't make sense to me, you know? I had a great time watching that Tidying Up show with Marie Kondo. You know? Me and the kids and one of my partners watched it, and you know, it's like, that notion of what's exciting and what's not has continued to kind of fuel a bunch of decisions in different directions. Like looking at my work life and thinking about what am I, what am I really really inspired by? And what feels either burdensome or kind of to make it even more to the point, if the thing that I want from it is not a thing that it can give me, you know, there's kind of like an incoherence of the agenda, you know? And where I'm recognizing those shifting agendas kind of going along, I'm not going to get that from this, so I really ought to reconsider my investment in this. If that's not going to happen, what's the value to me then, you know? or is there a value to me then? You know? So. Yeah. So it's a lot of pruning going on, a lot of throwing out stuff around the space and sifting back through a bunch of stuff. Yeah. 

AIDAN: Yeah, that's definitely been going on over here too. 

ANDREW: Yeah.

AIDAN: That was what led to the change in the shop, cause that process just clipped a ton of the work that I didn't like around the shop, it's just gone now. And then that's kind of feeding in. Like the shop itself, which as y'all know  is a tiny space, is just way less busy. There's a lot less in here now. A lot of like, who are the helper spirits that are actually helpers? And who are the hangers on that are sometimes helpful but not really, not paying freight, and let's cut ties there and simplify it. It's definitely the season for it, I think. 

ANDREW: Yeah.

FABEKU: Yeah, that's been the same thing here. I mean on all fronts. The work front, you know, there's been stuff I've been contemplating for six months, nine months, longer. And kind of finally brought some of that together. Like this thing that I used to dig? I don't dig it as much anymore. So I'm not going to do it. And this thing that I still kind of dig, I'm going to change it, so I can dig it more than I do at the moment.

AIDAN: Yeah!

FABEKU: You know, on the personal front, there was a long relationship I was in that was kind of agonizing over longer than I needed to, and end of the year, it was like, yeah, no, this doesn't make any sense any more. Like you said, that--I like that language, Andrew--the incoherence of agenda, cause it was like, this is never going to fucking shake out the way I want it to shake out, no matter what the fuck I do, it just doesn't make any sense, and you know, at some point it was interesting and thinking, about the mundane stuff I could do, the magical stuff, and it's like, why? it's just, what the fuck, it doesn't make any sense, just pack it up and move on. 

ANDREW: Mm-hmm.

FABEKU: You know? I don't mean it just in the context of the relationship but with a lot of things, you know? And I think for me it feels like a time when it's kind of important to reduce, to pretty radically reduce the noise, to amp the signal even more than it has been. It seems like, I don't know, kind of midway through last year I started to realize there's--not even more noise--but there's just more shit in the field to manage. And I just don't want to do that. 

SOMEBODY: Yeah.

FABEKU: I just don't want to do it. 

AIDAN: Yeah. 

FABEKU: Let's get the few things that are solid signal and crystal clear and right fucking on and amp the shit out of that, and the rest of it? I'm just not interested in it. I'm just not into it at all at this point. 

THERESA: I've been doing a major decluttering too, so I watched that same Tidying Up thing. And, you know, we have a real problem with clutter around here. My husband's an artist, first of all, and you know, I know how artists are, and you guys know how artists are. 

[laughter]

THERESA: Artists collect a lot of stuff, and we have a lot of things, and this is a really big house. So, it got filled. You know the more we took over the house, the more he found things to fill. So we went through stuff and we're still going through stuff, and you know, my big problem is my books issues. 

ANDREW: [laughing] There are only about 30, right? 

THERESA: Yeah well, that's not going to happen, guys!

[helpless laughter]

THERESA: Cause you know, most of the books are stuff that I use. The thing that I have to go through, though, you know, right now, the clothes are done, I'm not a big clothes person, I'm not a big shoe person, I'm not one of those chicks, I have very few shoes, I don't care about shoes. You know I used to have a lot of purses, I don't care about that. I was hoarding lipstick--you know, this is my new lipstick, guys!

FABEKU: It looks fantastic! 

THERESA: Thank you! 

[chuckling]

THERESA: But also, my books and, you know, cooking gadgets, so, slowly little by little we've gone through things and, you know, the biggest thing we have left to do is the books. And Terry right now is upstairs and tearing through the cooking things, which is kind of horrifying me, because he doesn't know exactly what I use to create that magic in the kitchen, but, I'm just like, you know what, I don't have the time to do all this decluttering, go declutter it. But it's also making us a lot more mindful about the reasons we keep on holding on to our clutter. So we've had long discussions about that, and we've come to the determination, it's because we both grew up poor. There's that tendency then to want to hold onto things because it's the fear that you're going to need it or you may not have it again. So that whole way of growing up, it really does then create that energy where you hold on for dear life and then nothing else can get in that's worthwhile. So why am I holding onto this stupid thing, this Hello Kitty spatula that's too small to even turn over an egg? Why? It's got to go! It's not serving the purpose.

FABEKU: Yeah, and for me I get that probably the most with the books, right? Because, you know, in the past I managed to scrape together cash, get a couple books, and then when I was broke as fuck, had to sell the books, and now that I've got them again, it's like, "I'm never getting rid of these books," which of course isn't the smartest thing. But it's exactly that thing. Like I remember having to box up, you know, 12 boxes of books to take ‘em to Half Price Books and they give you ten fucking dollars, you know, you have grocery money . . .

THERESA: Yep. 

FABEKU: And it's like yeah, I'm never doing that again. So for me now, I've got thousands of books, which is madness, but, yeah, I think there is something to that, I think that that experience of either not being able to get it, or not knowing if you'd be able to get it again, I think for me anyway, it does, it creates a thing of wanting to hold onto shit way longer than makes sense.

THERESA: Yep. 

FABEKU: … is the case, for sure. 

ANDREW: I really feel this intense impulse that I want to make things, versus own things. 

FABEKU: Mm.

ANDREW: If that makes sense? You know? Books have a way of creeping back in, you know, partly because people give me a lot of books, because of the store, because I'm friends with them, and my friends publish books and that's fantastic, and I love looking at what my friends are doing, and that kind of stuff, but like, even I'm looking at the books that are on the shelf in the reading room here. I don't even know like, other than maybe two or three of them, I don't even know the last time I opened any of them. 

THERESA: Wow. 

ANDREW: Like it's been a long time, right? And you know, somebody was ... having this conversation about having tarot books and being a tarot reader, and whatever, and I'm like ... I don't, I mean, I read my friends' books, cause they're my friends and they wrote them, but I don't really read books on tarot any more. You know? Not because they're not good and not because maybe I couldn't learn stuff, but you know, I was, I listen to this podcast called The Moment with this guy Brian Koppelman, he makes movies. And there's some really great ones. The ones with Seth Godin are really interesting. And he has one with Salmon Rushdie. Which is fascinating. But one of the things that he talks about is how, when he drops into a project, he doesn't want his ideas contaminated with other things. And because I'm sliding more and more into being creative, visually and with words and these things all the time, I don't really, I really want to express what I want to express, and that brings about this place where I don't really want to bring stuff in. Because it's easy to get in my head about it. It's easy to think too much. It's easy to be like, "oh, this person said this thing, what do I think about that, do I need to address it?" It's like, it just slows the process, it creates drag in the creative process for me, so I kind of move away from that. You know, most of what I learn about card reading I learn from, you know, just doing more and more readings all the time. Or sometimes hanging out and talking with people about card reading, more so than actually sitting and reading books about it and such, you know? 

FABEKU: Yeah. I think one of the--

THERESA: [simultaneously] Sometimes I like-- Oh, sorry.

FABEKU: No, go ahead, Theresa. 

THERESA: I was just going to say, real briefly--sometimes though I do like looking at what other people write about tarot, because I 'll look at it and say, "well that's interesting." You know I'll probably discard it anyways, because I'm very stubborn about my methods . . .

ANDREW: You? 

THERESA: [laughs] But I do like-- But I do sometimes like, just like, you know, looking and saying, "well, that's very interesting.” It's still not going to change the way I'm doing things, because I've been doing things for so long, but it might at least give me a little different perspective. Okay, Fabeku, sorry about that!

FABEKU: No, no, you're fine. I think for me, one of the best things I did in my business, maybe six or eight years ago, I just stopped looking at all the business shit. I didn't . . . I haven't read a business book in six or seven years. I haven't read business blogs, I unsubscribed to everything, and again, it's not that I didn't give a shit, really, but I kind of didn't give a shit. And it was mostly because of that, that noise thing. 

You know, it's like I just, like you said, Andrew, I want to transmit my thing, like I don't want--not that there's anything wrong with anybody else's thing, I just don't want their signal mixed in with my signal. And I think the results of that, and the same has been true for me with magic, with divination, with everything--it feels like the more I reduce that noise, the clearer I can get to my signal and transmit it, and then I think, the better that is for everybody that's on the receiving end of it. You know, I think that--and people say, well, you know, do you miss, do you miss being up to date on what's going on? Not really. I mean and again, I'm sure there's brilliant stuff out there. it's not that I-- I'm not acting like it's all shit--I just--for me, I think it's the processing power that's required to read it and then still keep it isolated from what I'm doing. It's just too much. It just--I don't, I don't want to do it--I just would rather get down to whatever my thing is. Whatever that means. 

THERESA: See, Fabeku, you need my way of doing things. I'm just so fucking stubborn . . .

[laughter]

THERESA: It doesn't matter how brilliant it is! I'm still going to do things exactly the way I'm going to do things, and I've always been that way, and it's ridiculous. But again, I'll get the little information, I'll get the feedback, I'll look at it, and I still do everything exactly the fucking way I'm going to do it. 

FABEKU: Sounds familiar! 

[laughter]

AIDAN: Hear ye, hear ye!

THERESA: That's the key!

ANDREW: You know I remember talking to Enrique Enriquez, and we were discussing this in one of the podcast episodes that I did with him I think, and we were talking about how we'll be reading something, and we'll just get to a sentence and be like, "Huh, I just need to think about that for a month now." You know? And so like--there's a reason--I haven't finished Six Ways yet! Because, I get through to a certain point, and then I hit an idea, and I'm like, "Huh. Huh." I just put it down and just sit for a while, and just like chew it over for a while, you know, and maybe it gets misplaced for a little bit after that, and then I find it again, I'm like, "Oh, I should really finish that book," and you know, it's, when you told me that my name was in there somewhere, I was like, I haven't even gotten to that yet! And it's like, you know, kind of halfway through the book or so, right? 

AIDAN: [laughing]

ANDREW: And I'm just like, huh. And I'll get through it, but for me I like to digest things really thoroughly if I'm going to let them in, and I think that's part of it too, right? You know it's back to like my own thinking, and that kind of stuff and how much of that, not even willingness for that to be let in, but where there is stuff that's really thought-provoking, I only have so much space for that too, you know? 

AIDAN: Yeah. I have, you know, it's interesting, once you put out your book--I imagine, you've all done this, I think, so you have had this experience. All of a sudden you become a book guy who has done this thing. And so, I get a fair amount of like, review copies now, pdfs of books that are due to come out to see if I could write for them, and most of them I just have to tell them I can't, cause it's just not, I wouldn't know, or want, to read your book on goetia [laughing]. I wouldn't know how to review it if I did, cause I have no interest in that kind of spirit interaction. 

But like I've been really lucky to get two books, recently, one from Devin Hunter and one from Matt Auryn, that are really great, and part of the reason that they work for me is that their approach is really like a psychic clairvoyant take on witchcraft. So it's like witchcraft with the kind of traditional psychic components brought way to the forefront. Which are not my strong point. So it's one of those things that I can read and go like, “Oh, yeah, I can see how I could grab this practice here and use this to develop something that I don't have,” you know. And so they've both been really good for that. But in general, kind of reading within the field gets harder and harder for me as time goes on because I'm so stubborn that it's like, I'm reading and kind of just going, nah, nah, nah, or I've seen this so many times, it's an interesting balance. But ...

THERESA: Can I just say this to you? It's not that . . . I know this sounds terrible, but I don't get my inspiration, you know, from reading tarot books. The inspiration that I get from life comes from way different sources. You know, I'm more likely not to get inspired by reading your tarot interpretations but by, you know, maybe listening to a Lil Wayne song. I get my inspiration from very very different places, so . . .

AIDAN: Yep. 

THERESA: And I think it's because too, I mean every day I'm in tarot. I'm like in tarot and in astrology every day of my life. And so I do still like to read the books, but my creative inspiration rarely comes from that. It rarely comes from reading someone's tarot or astrology book. It's going to come from a very very different source. Cooking is one of my main ways . . . And watching cooking shows and cookbooks, I actually get a lot more inspiration from that. And one of the things I love about cooking--Cooking is very magical. You know I'm very superstitious about food. I won't eat food prepared by somebody I don't like. Food has to be prepared with intention. And what I love about the whole process of cooking, because in another lifetime I should have been a chef, is I love to cook because you're creating and then you destroy it immediately!

AIDAN: Yeah.

THERESA: It's gone. Boom! It's done. I mean it was there. You know that the remnants are still there because it's showing up either in your waistline, or the indigestion, or the pleasure that you're feeling, but it's gone. It's all gone. I mean, food is magic.

FABEKU: It is magic. It always reminds me--first of all, I agree about the source of inspiration. To me, art has been a bigger inspiration on my magic than magic stuff has. 

AIDAN: Absolutely.

FABEKU: Cooking has been a bigger inspiration on my business than business shit ever has. The ... all of that stuff. Cooking, and I remember there was one time I was eating this really fantastic meal at a restaurant that did amazing food. It was the place you and I ate at, Theresa. 

THERESA: Mm-hmm.

FABEKU: [00:33:33] When they, when they brought the food out, as I was eating it, I had that moment where it felt like, you know, when you see the mandalas that the Buddhists create, right?

THERESA: Yes!

FABEKU: They spend fucking forever making these things and they're amazing and they're beautiful and you see them and it's this experience of awe and they're gone--

THERESA: Yes!

FABEKU: You know, they just they just wipe them out in a moment and it's like this is what this feels like. it was--and it felt like taking in all of that. Like you said, the creation of it, the attention to detail, the care, the creativity, the magic, and then making that a part of you, and literally it's gone in minutes. It's . . . 

THERESA: Yeah!

FABEKU: It, to me, that's the kind of thing that that just wows me every time and it does, it doesn't have . . . shit, I don't care whether it's an expensive meal, it doesn't matter about that at all. It's just that thing of something that's been amazingly created and you know that they spent all day in the kitchen prepping for that and literally in a matter of minutes the plate's empty. 

THERESA: Uh-huh. 

FABEKU: It's, it's phenomenal.

AIDAN: Yeah.

THERESA: That's like true magic. I mean when I go to when I go to Portland every year there's a restaurant called Castagna that I go to. They now know me because they know I'm nuts about their rolls. and they serve weird stuff. I mean, but it is meticulously prepared and it comes out and I mean I grew up Catholic, so when you eat it, it's like communion. You're taking it into your body, the soul of that chef, and their creativity, and there is nothing more magical than that.

AIDAN: Well, I think that that also sinks into another kind of concept that ties into some of Fabeku and I's experiences recently, because we've both been playing [00:35:03] with hyper sigil work. Is that . . . that element of like, you're doing this for right now? And then you're going to do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. I think is missing from a lot of people's approach to magical arts, that they're like, they're somehow want to use this kind of technology of radical change to produce a static state that will always work for them, is what comes to mind, thinking of that, which has really never been my take. It's like, no, I'm just walking, right? And I'm going to choose where I go. I'm going to . . . but I'm not walking down the street to then stop at that house and then live in that house forever. I'm just walking and sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's snowing, right? but it's very much like that food concept that you bring up, Theresa, and I like that, because it is, it's like, there's not, it's not working to an . . . a permanent end point and I think that all the really cool stuff is like that. For a lot of it, you know.

THERESA: Well, a lot of people think they're going to get a permanent result from magic. Same like from a tarot reading, that it's going to be a guarantee of your future and there's no guarantees. I mean, I always say you can have a perfectly great astrology chart and be a complete schmuck. You can get a great reading and you can decide to make different decisions that change and alter what's coming. And when it comes to magic, you can do all the magic in the world, but nothing's going to be permanent, nothing's guaranteed. [00:36:33] And, so again, it's very much like eating. You make something, you make a beautiful ... you put all of your intention and your energy into it, then you've got to like, destroy it and forget about it and see what happens and keep that kind of an attitude about it.

AIDAN: Right, or you go on the three-week nothing but dark chocolate binge and you discover you don't feel great at the end of that.

THERESA: Well, I do! 

AIDAN: Right?

THERESA: I have a dark chocolate emergency stash!

[laughter]

THERESA: We have dark chocolate every day and we always feel good.

[laughter]

ANDREW: For me, it reminds me--

FABEKU: Yeah, go ahead, Andrew.

ANDREW: Go ahead, Fabeku.

FABEKU: No, you're good. Go for it. 

ANDREW: Okay. Reminds me, you know, one of my teachers when I was in the Aurum Solis, we had this big conversation about students and neophytes and people coming in and you know, how people, why people drop out, why people don't follow through, you know, and all this kind of stuff. and you know, I think that some of the reasons are for the reasons we talked about here. I think there's a variety of reasons, you know, people are, people are in the wrong place, people need something other than the actual longer term arc of it, you know, many reasons that aren't even to do with failure, for why people drop out or don't pursue or stick with these things over time, but I think that one of the things that I realized about myself in that conversation was that at some point along the way I had decided that I was I [00:38:03] ... I was committed to being ready to give up who I thought I was . . .

FABEKU: Mm.

ANDREW: In order to discover who I was now.

THERESA: Mm.

ANDREW: You know? And somewhere, and I don't even know where it started, this sort of notion of an anchored identity or an anchored sort of concrete sense of self or practice or other things. I just . . . you know, I just decided that that wasn't useful. And so I stopped thinking that way and started noticing those moments where that slip in the gears or that incongruousness emerged, you know? And then later on when I, you know, when my godmother was still alive, we'd have these conversations, you know, about something or about my reading for a year or whatever. You know, I just remember there were a number of times where she started laughing, she goes, “Well, it's a good thing you have a flexible ego, Andrew, because blah blah blah” whatever. I'm like, “Oh, yeah, all right, [38:59 or so: for change, for change?],” you know? But I think that that stuff is so important and so hard to come by and even at that, you know, I mean, I don't think that it's always easy, right? Like, you know, I mean, I went through a divorce last year. It went well as far as those things go, it went really well and I've changed my ideas around it or I have emerged sort of more clearly who I am on the other side of that. But the . . . all those things take time as well. Right? So even at that, there's no magic to something to be like, all [00:39:33] right, boom, you know, done, changed, whatever, right? Because really if I had that kind of magic, I would, I'd be summoning those goetic spirits and having them finish sorting all the stuff at the house that I'm still trying to sort through. You know?

[laughter]

AIDAN: Totally.

ANDREW: How did Solomon make that happen? How did he get them all working? Right? That's my problem.

AIDAN: [39:52 Reblendo? What?]

ANDREW: I can get one of them working. But all of them at the same time? I never got that trick down! 

[laughter]

FABEKU: I think for me what . . . And what you said makes total sense to me, that, that, that fixed sense of identity to me feels really problematic as a human being, and it feels even more problematic as a magician. You know, I think that it feels like, in a lot of ways to me, at this point, magic is just kind of just perpetually riding a wave like Theresa said, there's no, there's a fixed point. There's no done. There's no finished static, got it, nailed down. It's . . . this is what the wave looks like now and now here's what the wave looks like and maybe it's fast or slow or big or it's crashing or whatever the fuck it's doing. But to me, it feels like the most effective thing I can do as a magician is learn how to ride the wave more skillfully and learn how to direct it in, you know, whatever ways that we can. And yeah, I think if you expect something fixed and static, whether that's an experience of yourself or an experience of the world, magic will kick you in the fucking teeth with that stuff.

THERESA: And also, if you look at this from a scientific perspective, not that I'm some scientist, I'm not, but . . .

ANDREW: Please [00:41:03] ignore the lab coat.

[laughter]

THERESA: But think about this, you know, everything is changing constantly. We get a new body every seven years. Our cells are constantly changing. So we're not looking the same as we did seven years ago. I mean, I wish I had the same body I had 20 years ago. I don't! Because every seven years your cells are completely regenerating. So when you think about that from a magical perspective, there is no way in hell, you're going to get like some kind of a permanent thing, because everything is always evolving. And my friend Joe one time said to me, and it really pissed me off when I was younger. He said, “You know, the only thing, kid, that's unchanging, is change.” And I'm like, “What the fuck kind of logic is that?” It took a while for that to sink in, but it makes sense. Nothing is going to be an absolute permanent thing. And so when you're doing magic, like you said, Fabeku, it's more about riding with that energy, working with the energy. You can still enact change, but you still have to find a way to move with it. 

AIDAN: Right.

FABEKU: Yeah, I think for me, my initial interest in magic felt like it was about control and fixing things. And fixing things, I don't mean as in fixing problems: creating a static state, right? And that was all based on my anxiety.

THERESA: Yeah.

FABEKU: If I can, if I can magic the shit out of this, I can get it solid enough, the way I need it to be, where I need it to be, where I'm going to be fine. And then at some point you realize: even if you can pull that off, tomorrow, it's a different thing. [00:42:33] 

THERESA: Yes.

FABEKU: Next week, it's an entirely different thing. And so I think for me I spent too much time figuring out: Okay, what's the magic that I can use to create the static state, which of course is bullshit. And now it's: what magic can I use to ride this fucker as effectively and as skillfully as I possibly can, and you know, hopefully keep my head above water in the process. 

AIDAN: Yeah.

THERESA: I think a lot of us come into magic though, around that whole notion of trying to fix things or control things. Because I know when I got my first introduction to magical things I was a little girl and I would see the ads for The Magic Power of Witchcraft with Gavin and Yvonne Frost in the back of the National Enquirer that my mother used to get. and I would pour over those ads and I thought, “You know, if I get this book,” which, I didn't have the money to get the book, but “If I only could get this book, we'd no longer be poor and then everything would be magically fixed.” Which as you guys know, that's a very childlike way of looking at things. We all know that, let's say we do the magic and get all the money. It's no guarantee that you're not still going to be a loser, you know? So but in my childlike mind, I would look at those ads and that was like, this is the answer I need, to do this witchcraft stuff. I need to get this magic, get rich so I can get out of this household and everything will be better.

FABEKU: Yeah.

AIDAN: Right, and it's funny because then I think, you know, I . . . It kind of sinks it all that [00:44:03] stuff. Whereas the reality is, like, well, when you get out of that household, it'll be different. 

THERESA: Yeah. 

AIDAN: And that will probably be better, just because it will be different, right? 

SOMEONE: Mm-hmm.

AIDAN: And I think that that's one of the games that people can get fucked up by, is not realizing like no, no, no, that's . . . You're looking at an end step that might really be step one. Like if your situation isn't working, it may not be that you need to do magic. It may be that you need a different situation. Which is often really hard and really uncomfortable but you can almost always have one. 

THERESA: Yes!

AIDAN: You're not incarcerated, you can walk out of your life right now and do something different. And everybody goes, well no, there's all these things. You go, no, those are all real things, but none of those is stopping you from walking out your front door and having a completely different life.

ANDREW: Yeah, I think that . . .

AIDAN: And it may be ugly as hell, but you can do it.

FABEKU: Yeah.

ANDREW: Yeah, I think that, you know, if you're, if you're caught between those things, right? You know, like between sort of starting a new life and not. You know, magic isn't necessarily the answer either, right? Because, like thinking back to sort of like this time last year, you know my ex and I decided to call it--in July right on one of the equinoxes--or, one of the eclipses [00:45:33]--that happened, right? So, you know and . . . but like, the first half of that year leading up to this was just sort of like, clear noticing on both sides that stuff wasn't right. And this notion of like, well, what if we do this, what about this? What about that? You know and then trying those things, and a lot of that stock is predominantly, in this case, you know, not in everybody's case, because there's many different experiences, right? But like a lot of that stuff was psychological, right?

THERESA: Mm-hmm.

ANDREW: And that kind of clarity, you know, comes from processing it, right? Not from, not from a magical act, be like. All right, give me clarity, you know, like not even from like, you know, I mean, I could have asked the Orishas, and be like, hey, should I, should I, should I get divorced, you know? And they would have given me an answer, you know? But, but even that, if we're not clear in ourselves and we're not ready to make a change, the question is not, the question needs to move away from do I stay or do I go, but how do I get clearer in myself about it? And how do I get organized and acknowledge what are my concerns, what are the real-world challenges? What are . . . you know, all that kind of stuff so we can actually get ourselves to a place of clarity and some of those smaller steps might be susceptible to magic. Like hey, you know what? Maybe if I, if I had more money, I [00:47:03] would make a different decision here.

THERESA: Mm-hmm!

ANDREW: Well, I could do some magic around that, but that's not the same as making a piece of magic to get to that clarity necessarily, or to carry us through this idyllic state on the other side, you know? Does that make any sense?

FABEKU: Yeah, it makes . . . It makes total sense to me, because when . . . So I got divorced five years ago, five and a half years ago, whatever it was, and it was a long process for us. It wasn't . . . Nobody just woke up one day and said, “Oh shit, I'm done.” Like, it . . . little . . . years of it in some ways. And I've thought a lot about like, why did that take so long? Not in a bad way, but kind of in a curious way. And what I realized is that she and I were both, like you said, kind of inching our way toward that clarity because it wasn't clear: be done, stay, whatever. And so we would try this and then that didn't work. So that moved us a little, a little forward in terms of clarity. Okay? Well, let's try that. That didn't work. And then you kind of reach the end of those things and then you feel clear and it's shitty. It was for me. It was shitty, it was devastatingly sad for her as well. But I think that's the thing. There is a process to that clarity and like you said, how do you magic that? I don't, I don't know how to magic that shit. I mean there was, you know, we both did work around capacity to be open to, let's try this. Let's try that. And also, at some point I said, I think maybe we should also be open to the fact that this might not work in a way that we want it to, right? So not just capacity to fix it but capacity to say, I think that what we need to do is just move in different directions, you know, and that was, that was a process that took a couple fucking [00:48:33] years for us. I mean that was not a fast thing at all.

THERESA: But sometimes magic can support things that we're going through, but you still have to do your work. 

FABEKU: Yeah.

THERESA: You don't ... And that's one of the things I think too, a lot of people, you know, when you first come to, like magic and stuff, we just think it's going to suddenly make our lives better, but it doesn't always work like that. Years ago, when I lived in New York, there used to be a shop called The Magical Child and it was run by a guy named Herman Slater and you can go in there and buy these little magical kits. So my roommate and I were both convinced we had bad luck. So I said, “Let's go ahead and get one of these kits.” And so we got the kit, we did the magic rituals together. I got to tell you, the whole energy in the room shifted. I mean it was weird. It was one of the most intense magical experiences I've ever had. And I looked at my roommate after that and I said, “Did you feel that?” And he said, “Yeah, I felt that too.” 

Well, what's really interesting is after that experience, my life did start to change for the better. And a lot of it was me becoming more conscious about: How did I get in the, how did I get into the situation? How can I get out? Whereas even though my roommate and I did that ritual together, his life continued to spiral in terrible directions. And the thing is, you can do all the magic in the world. But if you're still making crappy decisions or not being conscious of the process of getting yourself into a better place that magic is going to be not very effective. 

AIDAN: Right. One of the things that I've been ... I've got a piece that I think will be coming [00:50:03] out in the next collection. It has to do with that idea and it's a ... it's a talisman that's focused on the idea of effective power. Like, you know, you can have the stick, you can have the rock, and you can beat them against the other rock and not much happens. But if you know how to set it up as kind of a fulcrum and a lever and you do that on the right side so that once that thing breaks free, it doesn't roll down on you or something, you know, then that's what we would like to have happen more often in our lives. It's like where do we ... And so I think magic can absolutely help but it's, you have to have enough sense of clarity or use it to get enough sense of clarity or use divination to get enough sense of clarity. Whatever gets you there to go: Okay, I want this to change and here is a point that I could apply some pressure where that will happen. And then I'm going to have to probably do follow-up to keep that moving in the direction that I want to because again, nothing's static. It's not like that you pop that pop that spell and then everything is done. 

THERESA: Wouldn't that be nice?

AIDAN: It would be awesome!

[laughter]

AIDAN: But it might give you that that that initial push that gets over the inertia that allows you to then kind of keep working on a more, you know, easier level or a less stressful level to get where you want to go.

FABEKU: I think one of the things that, that I'm always thinking about and talking about is this idea that magic forces coherence, you know, it's ... It sounds fine to sit down and [00:51:33] enchant for a partner. And then let's say that partner shows up and you've got all kinds of emotional baggage. You've got unresolved bullshit, you're not as available to being loved as you think you would be. So what the fuck happens right? This person shows up, if they show up and then you get to eat shit sorting out your stuff. 

So, I mean the magic works right? You got the person, you had the money, you got the job, you got whatever the fuck it is. And then I think it also highlights all of the things that you need to shift in order to be coherent and that's usually not a magic. I mean, sometimes it's a magical thing, but sometimes it's just like “Oh, yeah, I just need to deal with my shit.” Like, “I've got a bunch of stuff. I need to deal with my shit.” Or “I've got money, but I'm really shitty at managing money. So I need to buy a book on managing money.” Like that's the thing. It's ... I like that idea of that fulcrum thing. It will move things in a certain direction and then you have to figure out what the fuck to do as it moves in that direction and if you're unskillful at that, magic's not going to fix that. It can't fix that. And I think that, in a lot of ways this goes back to what Andrew was saying about that fixed sense of identity, you know, so I think that magic in order to change things has to also change who we are and if that doesn't happen, I think we're either going to not have very effective results with magic or I don't think we're going to be able to sustain stuff over time, you know? And most of ... most of that forcing coherence shit fucking sucks.

AIDAN: [chuckling]

FABEKU: It's not great. You know? It's not a delightful thing. Nobody's like, “Oh great. My new person showed up, now I get to eat shit sorting my stuff.” Nobody wants to fucking do that. [00:53:03] It's a mess. It's a total mess. 

THERESA: It's kind of like when people win the lottery. They often think that their problems going to resolve but the money actually brings out more of what they really are. And if they haven't resolved who they are, they end up either blowing it all or doing really awful things with the money. 

FABEKU: Yeah. Yep. 

THERESA: You've got to resolve who you are because all the magic or tarot cards or astrology or you know, whatever, none of it's going to work if you don't resolve who you are, you have to go there and do the work on you.

AIDAN: Yeah, I have a ... I have a guy that I knew through a friend who won the lottery. And I've known a couple of people through friends that have had the usual win, a couple million dollars and just fucking crash and burn and end up in a much worse state than they started and he was like ... I think he was like 16 years into his military career and he was like the perfect guy to win the lottery because he kind of went like, “Oh, that's nice. I will now spend the next four years till I get my pension from the military figuring out what to do with this four million dollars.” He like didn't really do anything because he knew he was not the guy to figure that out, but he could become that guy and was disciplined enough that he actually ... He's doing fabulously as far as I know 25 years later because of that. And he was just set. And he was not carrying a ton of wreckage and he knew where his problems were and he applied himself intelligently [00:54:33] and I think that that's the game. 

ANDREW: Yeah. The person who runs the pizza place near where I lived a long time ago. They won the lottery twice. I don't think like a million dollars but like hundreds of thousands of dollars several times and they just kept running the pizza business. Right, like they just kept showing up and making pies and you know, whatever. Like I don't know what they did with the money but like they just never stopped, you know, the place still runs now, you know, and it's like, yeah, life continues, right? 

AIDAN: Totally.

ANDREW: I think, I think it's actually, you know, I look at ... I look at different people in my profession. And there are some people that I see and based on conversations with them and based on how I see them approaching work, I see them like working to get out of it, you know, they're working to retire. They're working to get enough money or they don't even have a plan to retire maybe and they're hoping that they'll somehow hit it a certain way and get out of it and whatever and, and I think it's, it's really problematic, right? You know, it's like, it's fine if you know, that's what you're doing and you handled it really well, but I think that if you know, like if your buddy in the military had been like, “Ah, I can be late for roll call or whatever because I got a million bucks in the bank,” if ... that's not going to go well, right? you know? 

And for me, like [00:56:03] people have asked me a number of times like, “Well, what would happen if you won all this money?” and whatever. I'm like, you know, well, I'd still run the shop and I'd still do readings and I'd still whatever. It would change a bunch of things and it would change how I went about it and maybe how much of it I did. but it's not going to change anything else, because, because I'm in this and I see myself being in this for, you know, indefinitely, you know, as opposed to an end, right? And just with a sort of periodic re-visioning of it to suit where I'm at that point, you know? You know, I'm sure in 10 years I'll have a different approach to being in the store and doing readings than I have now. In 20 years, I'll have a different approach again, but like the notion that I'm not going to be somehow doing what I'm doing in that amount of time just doesn't exist, you know? and I think that it's very, it's very interesting. Like the way in which people think about their future or think about, you know, like now, sort of, you know, not being ... well, I was always polyamorous anyway, but like looking at dating and stuff and it's a hundred percent find [not sure if I heard this right: find?] that people are on OkCupid or Tinder or whatever to meet their person and get off of there. But it's such a, such a complicated energy to bring to something to be there only so you could not be there anymore. You know?

AIDAN: Totally.

THERESA: I always think when I work that ... Oops. I always think: I get to work today. I [00:57:33] never look at it: “Oh, God, I got to work.” It's always: “Yay, I get to work today.” So I come from a long line of people who love to work and everyone in our family has a good work ethic and we love what we do. So I can't imagine a full retirement. Sorry Aidan. I didn't mean to jump in.

AIDAN: Oh, no, I was basically going the same place. You know, I did 30 years of retail, which I didn't love. And so now that I'm able to do something that I do love, I have no intention of quitting. And yeah, it's like you said, if you give me a couple million dollars, I will probably get a warehouse nearby and have somebody build me a half pipe because I'll be able to afford the insurance and going to Panama for the stem cell treatments to repair my injuries instead of just being fucked up. And I will skate a lot more, you know. But yeah, I don't see it changing the whole thing, you know, it's not a ... It wouldn't be a ticket out. It would be like, okay now I can really just kind of chill and go crazy on: What is the best form of this thing that I do if I'm not as reliant on it being somewhat reasonable for people to be able to play with me? You know.

ANDREW: For sure. And, you know, and obviously we're not talking about, you know, like I worked at 7-Eleven in high school. If I was still working at 7-Eleven...

[laughter]

AIDAN: Totally!

ANDREW: You know, like, like, you know, we're all definitely in different positions than that, right?

THERESA: Right.

ANDREW: Like you know, you said you worked retail for [00:59:03] a long time. And that wasn't your jam, you know, and that's completely fair too, right? So like, you know, I don't want anybody feeling bad because they're like, “Oh, I have this job that sucks.” It's like some jobs suck, you know, I mean, you know, some jobs, you know, and whatever, but, and that's where, you know, maybe working some magic to start making some change and see what else you can do to kind of move in different directions, right? Like none of us got where we were and where we are and not that I'm hanging us up as role models either in that sense, but like all of us got where we are over a long period of time, right? 

THERESA: Yeah 

ANDREW: Lots of changes and lots of acts of magic and acts of dedication and practice and discipline and whatever, different things, luck maybe even, right? you know, like there are lots of ways in which we got where we are. So yeah.

FABEKU: And you know, I think, I think a lot of that--going back to the identity thing. I... For me, the reason I keep going back to it is because it seems like such a critical piece, because if you have a fixed sense of identity and you're in a job you hate or you're in a relationship you hate or whatever it is, and you keep telling yourself: “This is who I am. This is what my life looks like. This is what I can do. This is kind of it.” How the fuck do you ever change that, right? 

So I think that if you instead kind of look past, this is not the easiest thing to do, but if you, if you can stretch past that and look at the things, like what am I telling myself I can never do that's impossible? The shit I could never have. Why am I telling myself that? Where the fuck did that come from? Is that actually true? If it's not true, what could I do now, that's different, [01:00:33] to get a different job, a different person, a different amount of money, and start looking at those things? But I think it ... that for me, the identity piece and the possibility piece are so intimately connected, I don't think you can separate them. 

And you know, if somebody that ... because I think about my dad, like he wanted to be an artist. He wasn't an artist. He spent his entire job in some high-level government corporate bullshit thing that he fucking hated. He was miserable, but that's who he told himself he was. That, that, that was his thing. He couldn't be an artist. He couldn't have a life he loved. He had to go to this place. And he died that way. It was fucking terrible, you know? And almost all of that came back to this identity stuff. And I wonder, you know, if he had, if one day he had said to himself: “Hmm. Is this really true, the bullshit I'm telling myself? It's probably not.” Like I wonder how things would have been different for him. So I mean, I think ... You know, I think those are just important things for people to think about when they find themselves with shit they don't dig. 

THERESA: Mm-hmm.

ANDREW: Yeah, I was you know, I live, I live on the edge of a really fancy neighborhood in Toronto. And there's, there's this design store that sells, you know, fancy designer stuff. They do interior design for all these like multimillion-dollar homes and stuff like that. And I was looking for, I've been looking for a chair for my bedroom, so I have a spot where I can go and read and be away from, like if my kids want to watch TV and have their friends over, I can be like, that's cool. I'm going to go to my room. You have the main space and I'm going to be comfortable [01:02:03] and relaxed and not feel like I'm like forced to like sit on my bed like that, you know, whatever, right? Because I don't want that resentment. Right? 

And, and I was walking by this place and they had this beautiful armchair in the window and it had this amazing bird print fabric, like just these huge finches printed on it. And, you know, being a really fancy store, the fabric was cut perfectly, and the relationship of the birds, the shape of the chair, was amazing. I was just like, “Oh my God, that's such a beautiful chair.” And then I went and looked at it and it was like two and a half thousand dollars or something like that. And I was like, “Huh,” and I walked away. I'm like “Man, such a nice chair, I could never have a chair like that.” 

And then I caught myself, because I had to walk past it over a while, and it's like, “Man, well like I can't afford it today obviously, like that's not a thing,” but I'm like, “What would it be? Would I... What would it be to be a person who could afford that chair? What would it be? What would I need to do to be able to afford that kind of chair, you know, and like not just like crack the credit card or whatever, right?” And then, and then I kind of noticed that momentum of it opening up possibilities, right? And then I was like, “Wow, well, what would it take for me to be the kind of person who just had enough cash around that I could just buy that chair when I saw it? And like just be like, oh, I have that money, I could just drop that right now. I want that chair enough to spend this money.” 

And, and it [01:03:33] took me back into like some basic business stuff, which I hadn't done in a while, which was like, all right, how many readings am I doing a week? How much sales are the shop doing? how much whatever? What are the goals that I might want to set? You know, and so on. And you know, and working a bit of magic in that direction, you know, so there's a sort of like multi-layer stuff and that identity shift and the possibilities as you say. It's not necessarily massive, right? Like it's not like, all of a sudden I need to go all, “You know what, I've decided I need to be a hedge fund manager,” and that's like this massive switch. It's more like: What are the limits that I've placed on myself or inherited or ancestral or cultural or you know, whatever? And, you know, why do I ... why do I not give myself the space to think that I'm a person who would have that kind of money in the bank? And then, how do I get there? 

FABEKU: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So.

AIDAN: Yeah, I think that it's a... it's a... that's... it's... The hugest game for me in the last 10 years probably has been that that some things happened that did shift me from a really open mindset to a much more closed mindset. There were a few events that just ate me up in the mid-2000s. And it took a long time to get out of there and it's still that process of exactly [01:05:03] what you said, is all go like, “God, I would really like to have my own skate ramp,” right? And I could either go, “Well, that's impossible.” Right? Or I can go, I got two and a half acres. I really could do that.

ANDREW: Yeah.

AIDAN: It's viable. It's not an impossibility. And it doesn't necessarily mean that I have to become super rich guy with his own skate park, either, right? It's like, there's all these layers but I do have to then begin to address that like, what would I ...? And the thing that I think Fabeku and I've been talking a lot about lately is kind of tapping into the feelings behind those things more than the intellect behind them is often the hardest part. Like what would it feel like, as you said, Andrew, to be that person that has three grand in his pocket and could walk by that store and go, “Dude, send that chair to my house.” That's awesome. 

ANDREW: Take delivery immediately! [laughing] 

AIDAN: You know, what would it feel like, and what would then you have to kind of... How different would you have to be and in what ways? How would you have to see yourself differently to allow that as a possibility even, is often the first step right? I think we can also jump steps and not deal with our shit around these things, going like-- No, okay. So for most of my life money was a struggle and part of the reason that it isn't now is simply because I've like [01:06:33] learned to downsize right? I live in a very small space, I don't spend a lot of money. So things can work for me doing what I want to do. 

But if I wanted to shift that, what are those changes? And I have to kind of go back and go: Well, where did I get used to the idea that I was it was always going to be a struggle? What messaging did I get about that? And is that in any way legit or was that just my opinion in a moment or someone else's opinion in a moment? And can we change that? And I think that that's, that identity key is, you can't do that and stay quite the same person as you are for those possibilities to be different. You have to really be different enough to see those possibilities, is different. And that's, I think, a freaky concept, because I think that we're sold kind of the bill of goods that it's like, we see it all the time, people saying people don't change right? And yet there's tons of evidence that some people do quite a lot. And can you begin to see yourself as one of those people? What's that process look like? And what does that allow ...?

ANDREW: That was the starting point of this podcast actually. Six years ago or whenever I started it. the first six episodes started out with the with the question that I took to different tarot readers: Why do some people change and others don't, right? And so if you're, if you know, I haven't re-listened to those episodes in a while, but I think there's still a lot there from what I remember that [01:08:03] are, you know worth checking out. If you're listening to this, you know, go back to episode 1, they're all up there still, you can go listen to them, you know, people like Lon Duquette, and Mary Greer and a bunch of ... Rachel Pollock and you know, people having these conversations about, you know, why, why, why do some people change and some people not? You know? And I mean, obviously I think there's no clear answer. I'm sure Theresa could look at our chart and be like, “Oh, you're never going to change, you're done!”

[laughter]

ANDREW: “Good luck!”

[laughter]

THERESA: I believe everybody has the potential to make a change. And I believe everybody can succeed. It does not matter, you know, I mean, of course, let me just say one thing. There are some situations that are very very hard to overcome. There are people who have situations that all the magic in the world and all the affirmations in the world are not going to change it. So yes, there is that. 

But for a lot of us, we can change, we can evolve, we don't have to take the hand we've been dealt and say “This is good enough, this is who I am.” This is how I've been defined. You can change. You know, if I listen to all the messages that I grew up with and believed any of that crap, my life would look markedly different, markedly. It would be completely different. You know, I was always told: “Oh, you know, you're funny-looking, you're not going to get married,” you know, “Guys don't like chicks like you,” you know, and “You got to work really hard,” and you know, and I remember hearing all these horrible things that my parents would say. And I was like, I don't believe that. I [01:09:33] don't believe that and I knew there were changes I needed to make around that mindset stuff and around my life and my life turned out very different than how my, then what I was told, and what a ... the predictions my family made for me. Because I ... 

And also, you know, the way they grew up, and I look at my parents and I look at my siblings: My life is very very different from all of them, because I wanted a different life. I did not want that. I wanted to change and not follow the same patterns and that requires also-- For changing, this is what I think about changing: We all have the ability to change, but you have to be conscious enough to really recognize that you need to change and conscious enough to be aware of what that change would look like, and conscious enough to then take the steps to make that change. You have to be conscious. A lot of people sleepwalk through life. They just think this is my lot in life. I'm meant to be this or that. If you are really truly awake at the wheel, you can look around and say you know what? I don't need all these books, I can Marie Kondo the hell out of this and be done with it and have a minimalist life. I can make that change. I'm not going to make that change guys, but you know, I can. I can be conscious enough to really look around and recognize. Why do I have all this crap? What can I do to change it? You got to start with being really super conscious and from there, I think you can make a change. If you're asleep at the wheel it's going to be much harder to do that.

ANDREW: And again, you know, I just want to reiterate too, I think everybody would agree. [01:11:03] You know, there are, there are situations that are way harder, you know, and there are circumstances around poverty, gender, race, violence, abuse, like there are lots of situations where... 

THERESA: Health. 

ANDREW: Yeah, exactly... where the required effort for that change is much higher, you know? And none of that is to say don't work on it, because like, for sure, but you know, it's not, you know, not everybody is on the same playing field. And I think that that's ... It's the only danger that I find in these conversations. I think that they're... I think that what we're talking about is absolutely true, and I think there are a lot of people who put out this kind of message that don't acknowledge that, and so I just want to make sure that it's acknowledged.

THERESA: Yes.

ANDREW: And you know, I remember, I remember somebody talking about--something I was listening to, you know--and they're talking about this change they can make and whatever. And you know, and they're like “Well, yeah, all you need to do is like, you know, take $200 and do this with it.” And I was like, “Are you kidding me? I don't have any money in the bank.” Like I don't, you know, I don't have whatever, because at that time I was very very close to the line, you know? And so, you know, those possibilities, those kinds of possibilities change with who you are and with your circumstances. but they definitely don't need to define you in in in a way that prevents change from happening, just that change looks different depending on where you're at.

THERESA: And we have to be very conscious when we're [01:12:33] talking about magical and spiritual practices and all of this, of really acknowledging, and this is where the Law of Attraction people really piss me off. Don't get me started on that conversation.

[laughter]

THERESA: You know, because we'll go on a completely different tangent. But you know, as somebody who grew up poor, I know how hard it was to get out of that. There was no magic that was going to change everything overnight. And I know people that have situations that, it isn't quite that simple, you know. If you are somebody who is disabled, for example, and you have a very limited income because you're on SSI, you know, there's no amount of magic in the world that's going to make it automatically that you're going to be like able to be a millionaire. You can't just change your thinking and it's going to happen like that. Your circumstances are going to require a very very different thing. And I really think that it comes from a place of privilege for people to just go with this Law of Attraction or yeah, just do this magic. Yes, changing your mindset helps. Yes, doing magic helps. But there are still some situations that you can't quite explain away that easily and you can't change that easily. So we do have to acknowledge that, because otherwise, you know, we're putting out a message for people and some people are going to feel very excluded or maybe they're doing the magic and like, “Well, you know, I'm doing all this but nothing's working, there must be something wrong with me,” and sometimes it's like no, your circumstances are really fucked up. It's going to take longer and that's okay too.

AIDAN: Right. And I think that... and I [01:14:03] totally agree with all that. And I think that it comes down to that if I have a kind of messaging about this stuff that is like, just make sure that you're not stuck in a belief of what is reasonable for you for whatever reason that's not real. 

THERESA: Yes!

AIDAN: I've never... I'm never one for trying to move into kind of fantasy land which I do see a lot with some of the Law of Attraction stuff and it's not to say that that's entirely garbage. There's aspects of that that are right.

THERESA: There's aspects that are right but we have to be really really careful with that Law of Attraction. 

AIDAN: Exactly.

THERESA: Not just with the privilege thing and the circumstances, but also a lot of us are wishing for the same damn thing. I mean, look, I would love to have Jason Momoa sit... I'd love to be sitting on his lap. Now I could do all the magic in the world, but it would take a lot to make that really happen. I would have to first of all change the way I look, he's with Lisa Bonet, I would have to get a divorce, I would have to figure out how to go to LA. Maybe I could make it happen, but it's going to take a lot. I have to be realistic. Jason Momoa?

AIDAN: Absolutely. 

THERESA: Probably not going to happen. That's a humorous example, but... [shrugs]

AIDAN: There's a great quote that I think I shared on... I shared on a podcast, I don't know if it was this one, that's related to him, that I love, that there was a... somebody had written Mark Twite who trains Jason for the superhero movies. You know, that one of the guys that works with, for him starts laughing at the desk and Mark is like, “Okay. This means it's the email of the week. What did we get?” He said, “I want to look like Jason Momoa. [01:15:33] How do I do this?” And they sent back a note that said, “First, are you a hot Polynesian guy?” 

[laughter]

AIDAN: Right? It's like, there's shit you can't work around. And this means that maybe your targets have to be different. And this is always--what I think about this stuff is yeah, you can't change reality to suit you, but you can change how you interface with reality usually in ways that work better. And I don't think that we get to choose targets that ... like I have no reason to think that I could ... I mean there's a gazillion things I would love to have happen that I don't believe are pragmatic. It's not that they're entirely impossible but they're nothing that I would work for because they seem so non-pragmatic but there's a ton of little shit that I can do that improves my quality of life. And I think that that's true for most people. If we're ... where the Law of Attraction folks go is to go, “You can have anything you want.” No, sorry. Not a reality.

FABEKU: I think that for me, you know, you hear people say “Well, you know, everybody has 24 hours in the day.” That's true, but not everybody has the same fucking resources, right? Whether that's the financial resources, the physical resources, the emotional support, the, the, the societal support, whatever the fuck it is. So yeah, everybody has 24 hours in a fucking day, but you have different levels of resources available to you. 

And again, I think the key is what we're talking about is, first of all absolutely acknowledge that, because if not, I think we've landed in bullshit waters, [01:17:03] and at the same time, to also realize that even if you have those limited resources not to build that into your sense of identity in a way that lets you think: “Well, this is it, there's nothing I can do.” Right? Right. So, you know, I've had health stuff going on, there's all kinds of physical stuff happening. Like if Aidan and I wanted to run right now, we have different physical resources available to us in the moment. The problem I would make is if I said, “Well, I can't do anything. I can never do what Aidan can do right now, so I'm fucked, so forget it, who cares?” That's not true. I can't do what he can do right now, but I can still do something to advance things forward from where I am now. and I think that that's the piece. It is that you know, that idea that you can just have every, listen because I could sit and do Law of Attraction all day on getting up and running a motherfucking Marathon. That's not going to happen right now. That's not going to happen. There is no magic that's going to make that a doable thing. But if I, if I ...

ANDREW: We're going to get Jason Momoa to back you the whole way. That's the deal.

[laughter]

FABEKU: That might work!

[laughter]

ANDREW: I think that's really important though. Right? Because like I've been one of my, one of my things this year that I've been really going back and looking at everything that I'm doing is... So I have a store, which is awesome and I love having a store. And I have kids and I love my kids. All right, and I have my kids half the time now and those two pieces place [01:18:33] a lot of constraints on what makes sense for me to do around business now, because when I look at other people who are doing stuff, and there's lots of other people who are doing great stuff, and you know, realizing over the last year, I've been looking what they've been doing. I've been trying stuff out. And the people that I'm looking at what they're doing and wishing that I could do some of what they're doing, they don't have either of those constraints. 

FABEKU: Yes.

ANDREW: And that, you know? And that's not even... like this, not even, those things aren't even a burden on me in a negative sense, right? But, but with those constraints in place, doing things like going around and having, being at a bunch of shows and, spiritual shows in the city doesn't make a ton of sense, you know? Being away, you know, like leaving town and stuff like that, you know, that requires a lot of extra shift for me, you know, and I need to weigh all those things out, so, really looking at, you know, it's like if, you know, Aidan decides to suddenly start swordsmithing in his little shop that he's got there, you know, it doesn't necessarily make sense. It's not big enough. It's not set up for that. It might burn the whole place down, you know, whatever, right?

AIDAN: [laughing] Totally.

ANDREW: But like they're those limits and if you want to change those things, maybe you can, possibly, you know, maybe you should, you or me or whomever, but they require moving a bunch of stuff, but that also requires seeing and acknowledging those limits and saying: Okay, what [01:20:03] am I going to do it within that limit? What about that limit do I want to change? Can I change on what time frames? There are so many things like that, right? 

FABEKU: Yeah, I think that's a great example, because you know, when friends or clients or whatever have asked me how I've done certain things in my life and my business, part of it sure. There's been identity stuff. There's been magic stuff part. Part of it is I worked my ass off. All of that's true and, I also don't have kids, right? So I have... I have an amount of time and energy and resources available to me that people that are attending for... tending to young humans that require their attention to stay alive. I don't have that and that's that. And you know, whether that's good or bad whatever, but the... I have again, I have a different sort of resource available in terms of time and energy and money that I wouldn't have if I have kids. I've got one asshole cat to manage. That's it. You know.

ANDREW: And a basement full of blinds.

FABEKU: [laughing] Right. You know, if I had a kid or a bunch of... It changes the game and so that's the thing. The idea that if you just buckle down and work hard... Listen, I get it and it's different when you've got kids or when you've got a health thing, or whatever the fuck it is. It's an entirely different thing that people have to think about, this idea that you know, that everybody's... everybody's possibility is equal if you just do X. I think that's an incredibly ignorant perspective to take on things. It's fucking not true at all. 

AIDAN: Well and that, and that is that thing you brought up. The 24-hour thing is really true. It's like you have 24 hours and you make all your money in 20 hours a week, right? You got 24 hours and you got six [01:21:33] kids. You got 24 hours...

ANDREW: 24 hours and you're working like a hundred hours a week at your job...

AIDAN: Exactly. 

FABEKU: Everybody's 24 hours are not the fucking same. 

THERESA: Exactly. 

AIDAN: When you're in an abusive relationship, who controls your money? 

THERESA: Right. And also some of those people that they talk about who have 24 hours also have the resources to hire assistants to do a lot of crap for them. 

FABEKU: Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah.

AIDAN: Absolutely.

ANDREW: All right. Well, I think we've reached the end of our time for today. So let us summarize to say “Hey, go see what you're up to and change what makes sense to change.”

[laughter]

ANDREW: Thumbs up, one minute, done! Mic drop over here.

ANDREW: Let's go around: for people who aren't already following us in our orbits: Fabeku, where can people find you? 

FABEKU: Fabeku.com and Facebook. 

ANDREW: Perfect. Theresa?

THERESA: They can find me at thetarotlady.com and on social media. The one I spend the most time on is Twitter. My handle is thetarotlady.

ANDREW: And Theresa has a lovely new website, you should definitely go take a peek at that. 

THERESA: Thank you, Andrew.

ANDREW: Aidan?

AIDAN: AidanWachter.com and I'm generally all over Facebook and social media as Aidan Wachter.

ANDREW: Perfect. And I'm at thehermitslamp.com and either as myself or thehermitslamp on all the medias. All right. Well, thanks for, everybody, for having this conversation today. It's been a delight and yeah, I'm going to post [01:23:03] in the show notes, links back to our previous episodes, including episodes with Theresa, everybody by themselves, and so many Stacking Skulls episodes that I've lost track.

AIDAN: [laughing] It's ridiculous.

ANDREW: Yeah. All right. Thanks so much, everybody.

THERESA: Thank you.