In an era of alternative facts, Girlboss.com editorial director and Moon Club member Jerico Mandybur is committed to making real news, and giving every voice an equal platform to be heard. Just like the righteous “witchy bitch” she is …
Banging on the system … Women and femmes have so much knowledge, centuries of wisdom, and life experiences that have yet to really be accepted widely, let alone embraced. So I’m all for banging on the system to make that happen in whatever way I can.
I’m a firm believer in amplifying the voices of ‘othered’ people in media, rather than speaking on behalf of anyone. I hope to contribute to making that the norm. Rather than the prevailing cultural norm that a straight white male TV presenter is the only arbiter of objective discussion and ‘rational debate,’ I hope to cultivate spaces for marginalized voices online and make those voices the norm.
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Speak for yourself … My best advice for anyone looking to use their voice? To quote Nike (lol), ‘Just do it.’
Ignore your fear, allow yourself to be uncomfortable, always question your own assumptions, and don’t speak on behalf of anyone whose experience you haven’t lived.
Be yourself. And to quote the Gumbainggir activist and academic Gary Foley, remember that, ‘The battle begins at home.’
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Key issues rocking our world … Consumerism has an amazing way of co-opting countercultural sentiments and protest movements into a system of domination, by using them to sell us more ‘stuff’ and/or distraction. This is the greatest challenge for new age and spiritual movements too, and I’m not sure it’s one that can be overcome while capitalism is still a thing. At least until something catastrophic happens …
Suffice it to say, the extent of humans’ environmental destruction is becoming more and more apparent. This is one area (of so many) where Indigenous people’s knowledge of— and relationship with—the land is something all of humanity needs to learn from and respect right now.
Spiritual activism is bigger than we think … Spirituality means you have an understanding of what you’re defending that’s ‘bigger’ than you, and your lifetime. It connects you with people, and with life, in a way that goes beyond what you can see and touch.
Also, you can’t call yourself a spiritual person if you turn a blind eye to other’s suffering. That’s not a thing! But I also really believe you have to heal yourself before—or, as—you heal other people.
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Moon Club is a sisterhood of witchy bitches … Moon Club is my way of bringing more structure to my spirituality. It gives me that extra nudge to maintain a deep relationship with the Moon. I really enjoy feeling part of a sisterhood of witchy bitches, who have each other’s backs, even if they live on opposite sides of the planet.
It has inspired me to give less fucks about being my bizarre, woo woo self publically.
I used to be nervous about telling people I read tarot cards and studied astrology, at work, or online. It was my last frontier of authenticity. Now I don’t shut up about it. And that’s pretty powerful!
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Jerico Mandybur is a Sydney-born, LA-based writer, and the editorial director of girlboss.com. She’s previously been an editor for sites like Mashable, MTV and Oyster Magazine. She’s a passionate tarot reader and astrology student who takes inspiration from her Egyptian heritage and queer feminist identity, and a trauma survivor who sees nature worship and spirituality as a key to healing, separate from the confines of western pathology.
**Want to start your own revolution? Sign up for Moon Club and join our tribe of cosmic change makers at Moonclub.co.
Think you have to drop out of the mainstream to tap into soul-deep healing? “Real world” mystic Michael Ventura chats with Alexandra Roxo about infusing the corporate landscape with cosmic creativity …
“Yes, I’d have a hard time smudging the conference rooms of some of our clients without getting some serious side-eyes, but we can ‘smudge’ in different ways … ” – Michael Ventura
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During the height of my Saturn Return at age 29, I felt like the world was caving in on me and I sought a LOT of healing assistance. Peyote. Ayuasca. Reiki. These were dark days for me, and served as my own initiation into the underworld, into becoming a healer myself, and as a woman.
When I stumbled upon Michael Ventura during this time, I had no idea what to expect. I went into this dark ad agency late at night, empty except for a treatment table and a tall bearded man.
In the years I worked with Michael, he helped heal my own relationship to masculine energy, and my grudge against the patriarchy and my own dad, in addition to giving me courage to see myself as a healer and step into that path.
Michael models something I preach about in Moon Club and aspire to myself- by day, he runs a creative agency in the “regular” world, and by night he does magical healing work on the top floor.
Through these double worlds, he’s helping to create a new world where instead of us all quitting our jobs to become healers and yoga teachers, we bring conscious healing work to all the industries that need it.
I sat down with Michael to chat empathy, healer archetypes, and changing the corporate world from the inside out …
Alexandra Roxo: You are the CEO of a creative agency that works with mega brands and you are also a healer! What are your thoughts on the different types of healer archetypes that are awakening within so many people as they bring those practices to a diversity of industries?
Michael Ventura: One of my teachers once told me, “We don’t need more monks in monasteries, we need monks in our cities.” I’ve always loved this notion and have hung onto it.
I wholeheartedly believe that as our own intuition and gifts are awakened, we have a great opportunity to help bring our full self to the communities we serve. For me, bringing myself to a board room is no different than a treatment room. I am the same person. I have the same tools in my toolbox.
Yes, I’d have a hard time smudging the conference rooms of some of our clients without getting some serious side-eyes, but we can “smudge” in different ways. With different tools. As we learn and increase our capacity to work with energy, to work with people, and to work with the elements, all of this becomes part of our daily expression of our self.
As the saying goes, “not all heroes wear capes,” and to the same effect, not all healers need candles and sandals to work their magic.
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AR: I always describe your work as energy work that combines Reiki, shamanism, and Chinese medicine. What kind of traditions and modalities did you study?
MV: I often refer to my work as “indigenous medicine.” My practice has roots in both traditional Chinese medicine as well as the Mesoamerican shamanic traditions of the Nahuatl indians.
But what’s also true is that part of my work is derived from that which is most indigenous to my own spirit. As I have refined my work over the past decade, I have come to trust my oldest, innermost voice, and to use that trust to help expand the work I offer.
Whether we are in the mountains of Peru, the river lands of China, or simply in the depths of our own spirit, there is powerful medicine waiting to teach us. We don’t always need to travel around the globe to find ourselves. Sometimes, our true self is right here beside us, waiting to open up and teach us something new.
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AR: I used to be very private about my spiritual work while working in the commercial directing space, but now I’m more open. How do you bring your energy work into the advertising world?
MV: Interestingly, what’s happened a lot over the years is that a mutual friend of mine and the client’s will come and see me for a session and then share their experience with the client in casual conversation. I often then get an email or text that says something like “I’m with so and so and they told me you do energy work. I want some!”
To me, those are great moments where worlds collide. And that’s how it should be. We are all living in a real world and have real lives and are trying to not just get by, but to thrive. If I can be of service to someone in that way, I can sleep well at night knowing I did something right with this existence.
More practically, I also find that some of the work we do for clients allows us to bring a sense of integrity, wellness, mindfulness, or simply kindness into their brand. And while some organizations just aren’t ready, I encourage our team to use those projects to help put more fuel in our collective gas tank to do more with the communities we serve. In some long karmic loop kinda way, I have to believe that it’s all worth it in the end.
AR: Do you think everyone has an inner “healer” archetype that wants to come out? Or just some of us?
MV:Everyone is a healer. 1000%. I have no doubt. It is just that many of us lose touch with – or never explore that side of – ourselves.
The capacity to heal comes from YOU. I’m just a pair of old jumper cables helping you to get your car running smoothly again. I recently read a quote from a Chinese medicine practitioner who said that he calls everyone he treats his “student.” He said that every session is an opportunity for them to learn more about themselves, for them to learn how to heal themselves. I loved this idea and think it’s absolutely true.
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AR: You’ve created a beautiful deck that displays what you call the “archetypes of empathy.” How did you create these archetypes and how do we embody them?
MV: Over the span of about 6 months, myself and a group of colleagues here at Sub Rosa (my design firm) explored behaviors that allow us to understand each other. We looked at our own habits as well as those we worked with and admired.
We started to see a variety of themes emerge. Once we felt like we had found a strong group of seven behaviors, we utilized a spectrum of questioning called the “whole self” that’s based on the chakras, among other things. These archetypes explore the physical self, the emotional self, the aspirational self, and others.
Each archetype helps us see the world from a different vantage :
The Sage: Be Present. Inhabit the here and now. The Inquirer: Question. Interrogate assumed truths. The Convener: Host. Anticipate the needs of others. The Alchemist: Experiment. Test and learn at all costs. The Confidant: Listen. Summon the ability to observe and absorb. The Seeker: Dare. Be confident and fearless. The Cultivator: Commit. Nurture and intentionally grow.
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AR: I’m feeling a personal move from the “alchemist” archetype (major curious human who will try anything) to something new. Do you think we move through different archetypes as we grow?
MV: Actually, I believe that all of us embody all seven of these archetypes – just not in equal measure. Some we feel very comfortable with, but others are daunting. That’s the point. The cards and the questions within them are meant to help you “limber up” a bit and stretch your perspective in order to make you a more well-rounded empath. Your desire to shift to another archetype is totally normal. You are all of them. Keep trying different ones on and you’ll see how all of the perspectives start to emerge from within yourself over time.
AR: What’s the role of self-work in your healing practice? What does being devoted to your path mean to you?
MV: In the past decade, I’ve observed that more and more people are realizing that the best service they can provide to others is to start with healing themselves. Years ago, many people would be mortified if others knew they were seeing a therapist or a Chinese doctor. People’s reactions would immediately go to “what’s wrong with them that they need someone like that.” That era is long gone and self-work is no longer taboo.
But the pendulum can also swing in the other direction. It’s not uncommon for me to hear about someone doing an ayahuasca ceremony, followed by a week of intensive Rolfing, then doing a 10-day cleanse of some kind, then this, then that. It’s important to walk the spiritual buffet line from time to time, see what’s on offer and what you’re called to, but it’s also important to commit and focus on the things that work. To go deep and not be tempted to just try the next thing that comes through the door.
For me, the balance of freedom and discipline in all of this self-work is where the real medicine resides.
Listen to Michael and I chat more on his podcast Applied Empathy, buy the cards for your next date or dinner party, and book a session with him in NYC here!
Want to make space for your deepest desires? With her new signature offering, “Room Service,” Moon Club member Morgan Greenseth is using her interior intuition to design healing hotels …
Morgan’s design for the 11 Howard Hotel, Soho
A healing hotel is … “A hospitality space infused with intention and sprinkled with playfulness that allows guests to maximize well-being. Combining 12 years of interior design experience with feng shui principles and sheer intuition allows me to identify and create energetic shifts that bring the space into alignment with growth and dreams.
Everyone should have access to spaces that support them and encourages exploration and expansiveness. I use design as a an intuitive would use Tarot cards; I look to the aesthetics to tell the story of its owner’s deepest desires.
The project started while I was assisting friends in upgrading their apartments. As I helped them move, purge, or add to areas of their rooms specific to bagua and feng shui principles, things shifted in their lives. While working with my mentor, Elana Kilkenny, I realized that I should be combining this with my other passion—hospitality design.”
Morgan’s design for The Rum Cellar, Bermuda
Spaces are energetically alive … “Spaces are living and we are directly affected by the spaces that surround us.
When it’s working well, design and structure help the flow and contain gentle guides that activate the space in specific ways. When a space does not have this thought or energy behind its birthing, we feel it. It’s a stagnant, almost “dead” feeling and people do not want to be there. We may not be able to point specifically to why we don’t feel comfortable or energized in a space, but our innate nature tells us.
Just as we change and grow as individuals, so should the spaces around us. By working with space to align with our intentions, we are utilizing another modality of healing. We infuse more of what we want and love, and more of our ability to grow in our environment, which helps thing manifest.”
The big mission … “My mission is to bring life and energy back into hotels—to transform them into living and healing spaces. What’s better than to fly off to vacation AND have a hotel room that aligns with your intentions? A space that assists you in furthering your dreams, while you play, swim, and renew.
We tend to focus more on ourselves when we’re on vacation, which makes it all the more important to stay in a space that supports us. In turn, having happy, healthy, healed guests creates wonderful community relationships between the hotel, the guests, and the locals. It’s a new format for a retreat-style stay, but where the guest is in charge of the length of time they need, whether it be a weekend or a full week.”
The Moon Club inspiration … “It’s inspiring to have a community of people that support you. Even if it isn’t in person, you feel it. It’s a space where I can ask questions or come to understand why I might be feeling a certain way.
I personally love working with the Moon phases and encourage my clients to purge, set intentions, and align their spaces with these cycles. The reminders of these phases and the circles that are provided are a wonderful way to bring about community and awareness, especially during these challenging times.”
Morgan’s design for The Rum Cellar, Bermuda
Discover more about Morgan’s spatial magic by contacting her here and follow her divine design inspo on Instagram. She also offers vision board services, Goddess circles, and private home consultations by request. **Want to start manifesting your own dreams? Sign up for Moon Club and join our tribe of cosmic change makers at Moonclub.co
From public shaming to private comparison—enough is enough, says Alexandra Roxo. It’s time to figure out why women trigger each other, stop throwing shade, and turn those triggers to gold …
Photo: Alexandra Herstik
As women, we have been taught to compare ourselves to others women from the day we were born …
We’ve been presented with images of people we’re supposed to look like, dress like, love like, and work like. We’ve talked shit about other women and not only has it been acceptable, it has gained us allies.
And then we reach a certain age where we hold the shit talk in, because it doesn’t make us look good … but the shit is still shit. And it stinks.
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WHEN JUST BEING IS BEING “TOO MUCH”
I’ve been triggering people since I was young. I was 12 when people started calling me “Slut” and “Whore.” Though I hadn’t so much as seen a penis at that time, I was expressing as a feminine being, and people were pissed. I eventually saw that the way I expressed myself made people uncomfortable, and so I stopped eating, changed my hair, and did just about everything I could to attempt to deflect the hatred and jealousy of other women.
But as hard as I tried to squash down my power, it always leaked out. I’d piss someone off and they would tell me I was “too much” or call me “Slut” again. Thankfully, at age 33, I have had enough therapy, sat in enough plant medicine ceremonies, and done enough inner work in general to know that it’s safe to reclaim and express the power I attempted to shove down for so many years. But it’s always a work in progress.
As an adult, I’ve split with business partners and besties because of triggering behavior—and received death and gang rape threats because of the creative work I do.
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WHEN WE DO OUR WORK, NOTHING REMAINS UNSEEN
But now, because I’m more aware of EVERY fiber of my energetic alignment, when something even just feels slightly off, I can tell.
When we develop our witchy and magical powers and do our own work, nothing remains unseen. And negative thoughts or jealousy towards another person creates a hook or cord. An energetic connection. Now, more than ever, I can tell when I am triggering other women, and they are triggering me.
I can see the look in their eyes when I’ve said something too bold or too big or too sexy or too powerful. I know when I don’t hear from them for a while and they aren’t speaking up, that I’ve triggered the part of them that wishes they could. I used to avoid those looks in people’s eyes. They hurt too much. But now I won’t sacrifice myself at the altar of someone else’s shit.
And I know when I’m triggered too. When the tall skinny blonde women in my life bring up my own body issues from the past. Ones I thought I was over (ish). It’s like being an alcoholic and walking into a bar. Why do it? But I can’t just get rid of the beautiful blondes in my life because they unknowingly trigger me! So I keep working through it …
Photo: Alexandra Herstik, Dress: Forgotten Feather Vintage, Styling: Haley Francise
FROM PUBLIC SHAME TO PRIVATE COMPARISON
As adult women most of us no longer publicly shame each other. Instead, we compare quietly behind closed doors. Remember when we had private eating disorders and hated our bodies? Anybody? Now many of us are all talking about that, thank Goddess! But we still aren’t talking about the fact that we’re quietly judging each other all the time …
It’s a wild world out there ladies and I know that the endless sea of triggers is never gonna end. But we CAN own up to our triggers, speak honestly with one another, and start CLEANING UP OUR SHIT!
Digging in to why women trigger each other and what we can do about it, here’s what I propose …
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DO honestly challenge yourself to come clean. Pretending will get you nowhere! Recently, I felt very triggered after hanging with a friend. At first I thought, “Maybe I shouldn’t hang with her!” But I challenged myself to come clean. The next time I saw her, I spoke directly: “I felt very challenged the last time I hung out with you. It triggered the part of me that thinks I must hustle to be successful. I know this is all mine and it was a beautiful and painful process for me.” She received my words and it was so loving, and there was nothing ANYONE did wrong. FUCK YEAH.
DON’T lash out and say “You trigger me! Every time you complain about your weight and you wear a size 2, I feel awful that I’m a size 6 and I want to kill you. Fuck you!”
DO take space. When you need to, step aside, take a moment, breathe. Journal. And come back to the situation when you are grounded and in a productive place rather than a REACTIVE one.
DON’T use excuses about taking space to avoid necessary confrontations. Ask yourself, “Am I just running?” While I’m definitely not suggesting that you contact everyone in your life who’s triggering you, notice when you can’t ignore that heavy feeling inside. Instead of ignoring that text, DM, or email, craft an honest reply.
DO start taking responsibility for throwing internet shade. If you’re sending jealous, envious, or angry vibes, sometimes to complete strangers, it’s time to come clean. If it’s a trigger you can confront, then DO that. But if it’s not, unfollow, block, and stop engaging. If Kim K triggers you and you keep thinking hateful things about her bod, then stop looking at photos of it. When we start to learn energy work and ritual, we must take responsibility for EVERY little bit of our energy that gets thrown around. Whatever you send—even unconsciously—is going to come back to you three-fold.
DON’T try and “fix.” As women we LOVE to sit and “fix” each other. When you share a trigger with someone, or someone shares one with you, let it hang loose and messy and bloody for a moment instead of trying to solve it and make it neat and pretty and clean. For example, after hearing the statement “I am triggered by the fact you have more followers than me,” just sit and hold that energy instead of suggesting your fave social media strategist and marketing plan and sending 10 helpful emails. Feel the feelings together about what was said. Holding the words and trying to fix are two different things.
DON’T throw out a good friendship just because the person triggered you a few times. In the past year, I’ve been in multiple situations with women where our friendships have ended because we haven’t chosen to just sit and talk and face the triggers together. Instead of giving it time and space and facing the dark depths together, we have both run for the hills!
DO look at the why. “Were they intentionally hurtful? Or is them being them just triggering for me?” If you find the fact your new friend can walk into any bar or yoga class and turn all the heads in the room incredibly triggering, look at the part of you that desperately wants to be seen. Instead of thinking about her—spend some time on YOU. Work on how you can begin to turn heads.
DON’T let it eat you alive. If we walk away from friendships, and block people on socials again and again because we are triggered, we are walking away from incredibly valuable lessons about ourselves. But if we stick it out without acknowledging the facts, it will become an elephant in the room that becomes cannibalistic and eats the friendships. Usually in an epic and mythical way that warrants trips to psychics and energy clearings to clean up the mess! We don’t want that either.
What we need, if we want to revolutionize this reality, is a new era where vulnerability and truth have real value. It starts with us.
Want to make sure you move towards your fullest expression and don’t get lost in a sea of triggers? Join me in Moon Club for powerful communion and mentorship.
Numinous founder Ruby Warrington introduces a very special Moon Magic Retreat with her and Alexandra Roxo—a weekend deep dive to get aligned with your soul purpose (for real!)
Last year, Alexandra Roxo, Elyssa Jakim and I teamed up with Maha Rose North to host our very first Numinous retreat—a weekend deep dive into our love stories, and a celebration of sacred sisterhood. This year, Alexandra and I are back July 21—23 with a very special MOON MAGIC RETREAT: A DEEP DIVE TO DISCOVER YOUR SOUL PURPOSE.
To say last year’s weekend upstate was life-changing is an understatement, as that weekend kicked off a year of the most profound growth for me. In the following months, I collaborated with Alexandra to create Moon Club; I have overcome my fear of public speaking; I published my first book (!); and I have got clearer than ever about my unique gifts and contribution to humanity.
Most recently (and most importantly, actually) I received an email from my mom telling me how she believes the work I’m doing with my life now is healing the “mother and woman” wounds for the females in my family lineage. This note came from out of the blue, and I know in my heart, soul, and bones, that it was our retreat that fully aligned me with this very personal mission. (You can read more about how and why I know this here.)
Never before have I experienced such spiritual alchemy. Sure, Alexandra, Elyssa and I were the anointed “leaders” of the experience, but the circle of love, support and growth we created with our retreat sisters affected me to my CORE. It also made me understand how any time a group comes together with the intention to truly create a shift, we are all equal participants in the process. We each have a unique and vital role to play.
And this year, Alexandra and I have set the stage for a weekend that takes this theme even DEEPER. The big important message of my book, is that the time has arrived in human history for us to become equal participants in healing the mother & woman wounds of our Mama Earth. And that this mission, should you choose to accept it, will bring you more purpose, more fulfillment, more abundance, and more ADVENTURE than in your wildest dreams!
So, are you with us?
The full itinerary for this year’s retreat is below, with pricing options and details of a special FULL MOON DISCOUNT that’s valid through midnight Friday June 16!
Accommodations at Maha Rose North
FRIDAY NIGHT—Opening Ceremony: FINDING YOUR SOUL PURPOSE. Ritual with Alexandra and Ruby to open the container for a weekend spent deepening your relationship to your purpose and your mission with ritualized intention. Set your intention for the weekend and drill down into your Soul Purpose, with a group ritual and 1-2-1 coaching.
SATURDAY MORNING—MATERIAL GIRL, MYSTICAL WORLD: ASTRO 101 with Ruby Learn how to open up astrology as a tool for aligning with your Soul Purpose, using your birth chart as a blueprint to tap your unique mission in this incarnation! Ruby will also share insights from her own journey of marrying of the material and mystical, and living a life of total alignment.
SATURDAY AFTERNOON—HUSTLE & FLOW WORKSHOP with Alexandra How to do your Spiritual Hustle while keeping the Mystical Flow alive! Alexandra will share her medicine on helping you align with you Soul Purpose through partner work, writing work, and some deep investigation of your path. We’ll finish with a Shamanic Journey that takes the work offline and majorly deep. Some things we will touch on: How to Run a Spiritual Business, How to Deal with “Haters,” How to Keep it Mystical in a non-mystical workplace, and all kinds of other goodies!
SWIM BREAK!
SATURDAY EVENING—NEW MOON FEAST + FIRE RITUAL. Ritualized plant-based feast to celebrate the Leo New Moon! We will break out into groups to do some deeper work on our Soul intentions, finishing with a Moon Fire Ritual to anchor in what energy has moved and what we need to release moving forward. After dinner we will do a potent releasing ritual with an outdoor fire.
SUNDAY MORNING—STORY MEDICINE: TIME FOR A NEW STORY. Share your story. We want to hear from your heart. You blocks. Who you wanna be. Who you’ve been. Throughout the weekend you’ll have found the story you want to share today. Could be letting go of an old one or calling in a new one. Ritualized, intentional story-telling is both a cathartic release and an opportunity to feel connected to others by our shared human experiences. Let’s close our experience using the power of words as spells, to create the lives we want to live.
CLOSING BRUNCH. A final festive feast to fill our cups and share about the weekend before we return home ready to shine bright like a DIAMOND.
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:: EXCHANGE :: GET 20% WITH THE CODE “MOONMAGIC20” THROUGH MIDNIGHT FRIDAY JUNE 16th! Payment plans are also available. Contact [email protected] for details.
$750 for workshops + food + lodging. ($600 WITH DISCOUNT)
$650 for workshops + food + camping. ($520 WITH DISCOUNT)
In search of the deepest act of spiritual surrender, Alexandra Roxo gets bound and discovers boundlessness with the ancient art of Shibari bondage …
“Shibari (Japanese Rope Bondage) can be erotic, intimate, loving, sexy, quiet or raucous, meditative, artistic, insightful, transformative—all depending on the people engaged and how they both feel at the moment” – Victoria Blue
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I am always on the hunt to find ways to get free, to go wild, to let loose, and to go deeper into myself. Over the last 15 years, my search to explore the depths of my sexuality and spirituality has taken me everywhere from witch camp in the woods of Oregon, to working as a dancer in a truck stop strip club in New Mexico, to banging a drum at a Rainbow Gathering in West Virginia, to an orgasmic meditation circle where I had my clit stroked by an old Indian man … and SO many other places and practices.
Drugs. Sex. Spirit. Art. It’s been a lifetime of exploration that started the first time my mom pulled Louise Hay off the bookshelf when I was 7, and the first time I kissed a boy, and girl, at 8 …
So for an explorer of depths who hasn’t left many stones unturned, I am always seeking something new to try and am always ready with a big fat YES!
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WOMEN TYING WOMEN My next yes fell straight into my lap after my dear friend Kyp Malone (who played the “urban shaman” in my web series “Be Here Nowish,” and whom I consider a Yoda of sorts), took me to a dinner party, introduced me to a woman in the corner named Victoria Blue, and said “You two should talk.”
It all remained a mystery until months later. I was on the bus back home from 3 days of steeping and soaking in the magical Orr Hot Springs of Northern California and I suddenly thought to myself: I want to be tied up. This was especially random after spending 3 days in a tub reading a book about Jesus’ mystical life. But the words were clear and from my heart.
I’d been tied up by lovers before and engaged in a fair amount of BDSM in sex, but I knew there was something more here that I wanted and I began to investigate the ancient form of Japanese bondage called Shibari. Whereas other types of BDSM include performed dominance or submission, or the giving and receiving of pain as practice, Shibari is a fine art. Comparing a “50 Shades” rope scene with Shibari would be like comparing an IKEA rug with one from a Moroccan souk.
Interestingly, when I googled “Shibari LA” and the first thing to pop up was a workshop called “Women Tying Women” with none other than Kyp’s friend Victoria as teacher! The next day, the magic continued when I walked into my 5Rhythms class and a cute woman ran up to me, handed me a card, and said “Come to ‘Women Tying Women!’ My friend Victoria Blue is teaching!“ “She has one private session left. Do you want it?’
FULL. BODY. YES!
Victoria in a state of calm, suspended surrender
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GOING OFF LEASH So why did these words spring from my soul and why did I even want to be tied? Perhaps there is some past life witch healing there. But really, I think it’s because I crave deep surrender. And I crave deep catharsis. And I long to become art as often as possible …
How many places in your life can you TRULY surrender in? By surrender, I mean LOSE YOUR MIND. Let go of the reins. My friend Andi calls it “going off leash.” When you go “off leash” you slip into an altered state of ecstasy and sometimes agony and the mind goes quiet. Void.
Mind-blowing, expansive sex is a place one can find surrender. Meditation can be. Some good old fashioned tequila and a night of all night dancing with some MDMA licked from a tiny plastic bag in a Brooklyn bathroom worked in my late 20s. Plant medicine ceremonies too. Dance can be ecstatic and deep. But being tied up seemed like a depth of surrender and catharsis that my soul needed now.
Even though I’d been “off leash” many times, I was still nervous before going to see Victoria. Because not only was I going to be tied, I would also be suspended. Not like suspended from school—like suspended from the ceiling off a rope. Yes, this may conjure some morbid images of hanging corpses, but I thought of it like making myself into an ornate chandelier hanging as a centerpiece.
I told Victoria I wanted to be tied in a pose of expansion—heart opening, if possible. She quietly blindfolded me …
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BOUND & BOUNDLESS I closed my eyes and Victoria began to play a German instrumental album that was integral to my sexual awakening in my early 20s. Out of all the music in the world she chose the goth band that the first person who ever tied me up used to play, and whom I had learned some of the most beautiful and fun things about sex at the age of 23. This moment of kismet softened my heart like butter, and as she tied me I felt myself starting to relax after being reminded of the divinity present.
She bound me tight, hands up and open, back arched up, heart to the sky, one leg extended, and one folded. I let the ropes hold me. They were tight. Not soft and sweet. I began to turn into pliable flesh with no other option but letting go. I was like an infant. Helpless. Paralyzed almost. But the more and more I was tied, the more and more relaxed I felt. Like someone was caring for my soul.
Then she hoisted me up and I lay back, being held only by this rope around my waist, floating in the air. The whole of my weight resting on one piece of rope. Completely bound. Angelic even.And that’s when the full surrender and deep catharsis began …
Tears streamed down. Then they broke into deep, deep sobs from some place inside me that I had never met before. And moans of pain mixed with joy. Of release. Of heartache and heartbreak. I hung there. The pain escalated until the discomfort quieted the mind in the most nurturing way. The only thing possible to do was breathe.
I sobbed and breathed until I reached that edge that I have loved to flirt with for so many years. I whispered to her: “I’m at my limit” with tears streaming down my face and my chest. And then, ever so gently, Victoria pulled me down. She stroked my head and told me that I stayed up there a very long time and that I was very strong. As she pulled the ropes off me, my body felt lighter and freer than it had in ages. I felt my consciousness move into every cell. I could breathe into corners where breath hadn’t touched. I felt alive.
Victoria and @sophiashibari
Discover more about Victoria’s private sessions and group classes HERE, and join she and I this October for a two day overnight retreat in Topanga that will bring together Shibari, Shadow Work, Storytelling, and Sexual Healing. If you’re interested in this deep work, add your name HERE and we’ll send out applications and full retreat info in a few weeks.
Meet cosmic creative Jayme Gray, one of the Moon Club members working the magic with her daily lunar updates on The Wild Moon Society …
“I think we can all agree that it’s time to do some Shadow work for ourselves and this planet.”
The Passion Project As far back as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by the mysteries and energies of the Moon. Even at a young age, I was drawn to the unknown, subconscious, and shadow work. I found comfort in the night and felt as though the Moon’s presence resembled that of a grandmother’s hug.
I was raised by spiritually wise women who helped teach me the Ancient ways of Earth and the Cosmos. I had my natal chart read as a child, and have been seeing an astrologer ever since! During my early 20s I studied my soul and dove deeper into astrology, spirituality, and the New Earth ascension process we are now experiencing. I was fascinated by the Aquarian Age that was making her way to the planet, and realized I had to help those around me.
Even though I studied and experienced many spokes of the Spirit Wheel, I saw the Moon as an opportunity to invite people back to themselves. This is what motivated me to start The Wild Moon Society! I wanted to get together with people on Full Moons, go live every week about the energy on the planet, and write helpful guides that folks could benefit from.
Jayme’s Art for the Leo Moon
Unlocking the Ancient Calendar The Moon transits through the Zodiac Wheel every 28 day cycle, landing in each sign for about 2.5 days. This is the layout for the 13th Moon Calendar, which is how I view the year—and how we cycle on Moon Club. (I’m soo over the Gregorian calendar … anyone else? LOL!)
Like many folks, I was sick of feeling exhausted, out of control and downright crazy. Once I started to align my energy with the Moon, everything fell into place. I’ve used Lunar astrology for years to help me manage my energy levels and create abundance all around me.
The Lunar year helps us to unlock our hidden abilities, which empowers us to open up to the mysteries of the Universe. Doing this helps raise the vibration of the conscious collective, healing the planet as we go along. Working with the Lunar phases teaches us how to design our months for the best outcome of current life situations.
It’s time we bring back these Ancient calendars my friends! So get outside, look into the sky and absorb this cosmic wisdom …
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What Everyone Should Know about Lunar Astrology In astrology, the Moon represents our subconscious, emotions, and shadows. These are foreign realms that are avoided by most people, including energy and light workers. I think we can all agree that it’s time to do some Shadow work for ourselves and this planet.
Regardless of what your Sun sign is, the Moon helps explain the surge of energy you’re subconsciously moving through and why you feel totally different than you did last week. After you get comfortable with a few Lunar cycles, you may start to notice patterns within each sign. That’s when the magic happens …
For example- I use Virgo and Capricorn moons to get organized and restructured. Pisces and Scorpio moons to get deep into emotions and feelings. I avoid arguments under Aries and Taurus moons, and instead wait for Libra to roll around. I cook up a storm on Cancer moons, use Gemini days to be social, and get dolled up on Leo nights!
Jayme’s Lunar Art
The Moon Club Inspiration When I got the first email about Moon Club, I screamed and signed up immediately! Being part of Moon Club has offered me opportunities to listen to pioneers like Miki Agrawal, who have motivated my life. Not only was I feeling the need to be part of a community, but membership in the club also validated my energetic signals to start one here in Rhode Island.
In a world where we feel so disconnected and lonely, groups like this are changing everything. So find yourself a community that raises your vibration and inspires you to live your true authentic life.
Peace out Moon babes!
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You can find Jayme’s Lunar writings, gatherings, and teachings at TheWildMoonSociety.com
Want to start working your own lunar magic? Read more about Moon Club here and join our community of cosmic creatives.
The higher the hair the closer to Goddess! Alexandra Roxo chats with hair shaman Andi Scarbrough about gem combs, crown chakras, and beauty work as ministry.
“Your hair becomes an offering to spirit to catalyze the internal change”- Andi Scarbrough
Hair identity is a HUGE part of our self-expression, especially for women. Our hair reflects our cultural and ethnic background, the subcultures we are a part of, and even our spiritual and political beliefs. Hair has both been part of sacred and ancient rituals, and has been used to repress and humiliate women. Through all of it, our locks have held incredible power.
But like most things sacred , hair rituals have been commodified. We see a Super Cuts on every corner and the mass homogenization of hairstyles that’s been dictated by celebrity and popular culture more than anything.
So what about reclaiming HAIR as another sacred as hell space for ritual, transformation, ceremony, tribe, and lineage? Stylist and hair magic maker Andi Scarborough is doing just that!
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I’ll admit, I was nervous (aka panicked) about letting someone cut my hair. But when I arrived at Andi’s salon, she scooped me into her chair with a quieting presence. As she began to run a rose quartz comb through my frizzed out mop, I felt myself loosen. I realized just how tight the control I had around my hair was.
As she gently asked me a few questions, I found myself revealing my whole “hair story” to her. I shared all the times I was ridiculed and the shame I still carried. All the times I had tried to tame this hair and the point when I started making my hair red.
As she counseled and intuited my hair story and my hair needs, the tears began to flow. As she snipped, she reminded me of all the old Loves, the stories, the pain, everything that was releasing with the hair falling to the ground.
I cried for the rest of the day. I was shedding. I let myself shed the old layers. I let myself release.
Post cut, I sat down with Andi to hear more about her work …
Andi:Women’s Health just quoted me saying “I believe this work is a sort of ministry.” Part of me still thinks this is hysterical! I had an experience when I was a little girl where a woman faith healer came to the church and told me that I would go into ministry. Then, I promptly left the church.
It’s funny to me how your purpose finds a way through you, no matter what you try to do instead. Your ministry is the vehicle that you use to deliver your message and in that sense, mine is a beauty ministry.
My work is about clearing out the shrapnel from the crown chakra. That clearing allows you access to the divine wisdom you already have. You don’t need a guru. You don’t need any of that. It’s about remembering the god source within.
Alexandra: That’s beautiful. I love that.
Andi: This is the part where I do feel like it becomes more of a ministry, rather than energy work.
Alexandra: After your work clears the crown chakra, how does it help align people with their soul curriculum?
Andi: I was talking with a client recently about her curly hair. She was telling me how she straightens her hair because she wants it to be more manageable. So, I asked her “What part of you feels like you’re hard to manage?”
It’s interesting because the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. The way you choose your hair color or your hair texture are all echoes of the stories that are already in place. We’re only choosing what we think is available to us.
Alexandra: I can talk about my hair without it being emotional, but the actual physicalizing of the experience brought things up that were very emotional. When you were doing my hair, I felt safe enough to share my hair stories and history- it felt like a ritual and like a therapy session.
Andi:Like ceremony. We do our hair so that we can be seen the way we think we need to be seen, and it’s the piece that we correct externally. It’s like makeup over a blemish. Rather than clearing out whatever the clog is, we wanna just sort of gloss it over and cover it up and make it look sort of nice from far away.
But our hair is actually a time capsule. You’re literally carrying around a diary of every experience, every hormone flux, everything you’ve eaten, everything you’ve not eaten, every time you were sick. It’s all physically there with you.
Alexandra: Wow, yeah. I never thought about it quite like that.
Andi: That’s why you get haircuts when you have big life stuff happening, or you want big life stuff to happen.
Cross culturally, the hair symbolizes so much. Whether it’s the Native Americans wearing their hair long and braided to ground them back into Mother Earth, or not cutting your hair in Kundalini so that you have a longer antennae to spirit, or in the way it’s cut in some Tibetan rituals and Hindu rituals. It’s a sacrifice. One of my favorite examples of this ritualistic aspect is when girls go to college. Often, they’ll sacrifice that high school long hair as they step into womanhood.
Your hair becomes an offering to spirit to catalyze the internal change, or to let spirit know how serious you are about the internal change.
Hair Shaman Andi Scarbrough
For appointments with Andi in LA, please call 310-751-4484 or email [email protected]. Due to the sensitive nature of this service, online booking is not available. More information and service pricing is available at www.andiscarbrough.com. And be sure to follow @crown_works for hair rituals, treatments, and processes!
Meet fashion creatrice Diana Wassef, one of the Moon Club members elevating the game with her poetically evolved approach to sustainable fashion as healing …
With her eco-conscious “Kao-Kabi” collection for Emily Cremona, creatrice and Moon Club member Diana Wassef is challenging the fashion community to dress our planet in sustainable threads.
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“From fabric selection to garment creation, these are healing garments disguised as ‘fashion.'”
The Passion Project I wanted to create a sensory experience: one where you feel elevated and transformed … that feeling when putting on a robe after a Moroccan or Turkish bath. This is the feeling I imagined while creating the Kao-Kabi collection.
Kao-Kabi is Arabic for “my planet,” and with this collection I hope to meet the delicate needs of today’s modern wearer through garments that are kind to the skin and to our environment. I work exclusively with natural fibers, including bamboo, hemp, linen, and pineapple.
All the garments from Kao-Kabi have been bathed with Reiki light and love; from fabric selection to garment creation, these are healing garments disguised as “fashion.”
Dressing to Honor the Spirit When I was younger my style was very eccentric, layering my skin with lots of accessories and clothing that embodied a lot of mythology and symbology. This style reflected my fascination with the history of costume, and how each period influenced the image of how the self was portrayed.
After moving to Brooklyn in 2013, my transformative healing journey began: the cleansing and purifying process … shedding skin and tuning in to the core and essence of the delicious self. Now, I dress to honor my spirit by radiating the light within me outwards. In doing so, I find myself surrounded by similar radiant entities.
I really do enjoy wearing white, and a lot of that is influenced by my Kundalini practice. Yogi Bhajan’s idea about the color white resonates with me. Not only is white an auric color therapy, but wearing white is an exercise in awareness, as it takes more consciousness and care to keep white clothes clean!
The Futuristic Fashionista Vision Kao-Kabi offers a glimpse into the eco-conscious world I envision for fashion. Moving forward, I intend to create my own sustainable, innovative textiles from which my future collections will be designed—a sustainable material that honors our planet by being gentle to its resources.
The Moon Club Inspiration It has been a huge inspiration to be part of this community—Moon Club is a sacred space for all the Luna lovers out there. As the astrology fan that I am, I get an insightful dose of what’s happening astrologically, the Moon cycles, and their impact on us. Moon Club guides me with my creative process by reminding me to pause, clear my mind, and MEDITATE in order to dive deeper.
We’ve had such incredible coaching sessions with innovators and healers, like Sah D’Simone sharing the “Happiness Equation,” and powerful female entrepreneurs like THINX co-founder Miki Agrawal—I’m all about the divine yoni power!!!!
I’d also like to share here the Forgiveness Mediation from Moon Club founding member Eddie Stern, which has been particularly inspiring for me in my creative process:
“For anyone I caused harm, knowingly or unknowingly, I ask for your forgiveness/For anyone whom has caused me harm, knowingly or unknowingly, I offer you my forgiveness/For any harm I have caused myself, knowingly or unknowingly, I forgive me.”
Diana Wassef in Her Element
Feeling ready to up your manifestation game? Read more about Moon Club here and start working your own lunar magic!
When Love is our teacher heartbreak can be the most powerful medicine, says Alexandra Roxo in her latest Holy F*ck column…
So maybe just maybe some mega shit has been hitting the fan during this Venus Retrograde? Or perhaps it’s minor pieces of shit for you. Little annoying pieces of shit you thought were gone…but are still stinking up the place? Perhaps it’s around romantic love, rejection, partnership. Or perhaps self love, worth, value.
Chances are you’ve been stung. But guess what??! This means your heart is open—that it’s accessible, soft, tender, growing, reshaping, adapting, expanding. THIS IS A GOOD THING. Heartbreak can be the most powerful medicine.
Committing to living with an open heart it is not an easy road. It can mean letting your heart break and break and break, but each time it breaks it swells and becomes bigger and messier and wider and has the capacity to hold more.
Love has always been my personal teacher of choice. When I was 20 and all my friends had gurus, I was secretly writing the words “AHEM PREMA” (I am divine love) on my hand and telling folks, “Love is my guru!” I’ve been obsessed with Love for as long as I can remember. I’ve been in Love MANY times and rejected MANY times more, and still I keep on going for it.
How do I define Love?
Love is that which we were made from and that which we will return to. The primordial ooze in us. The ever present God-Goddess sparkle living in each cell. Which we feel when we”fall” in Love. Really what I believe happens is that this “falling” is us OPENING to the Love that already exists within us. What if you could feel that without an other person? This is what I’m talking about!!
And because I also never quit being curious and doing things that scare me, I signed up for a two-day intensive last week called “The Yoga of Intimacy” with Londin Angel Winters and Justin Patrick Pierce (who also may be the hottest couple on the planet. Major #RelationshipGoals.)
Arriving at a beautiful inn in Topanga I prepared myself to be “crucified by Love.” (My ideal Saturday!) Standing across from a man whose name I didn’t know, who wasn’t “my type,” I let Love show me where I was guarded. And I let it make me feel safe enough to pull down the walls and completely open to said stranger.
I looked into his eyes and cried. I shared my depths. And it felt as powerful as an Ayauasca ceremony. If not more powerful! With eyes open and locked onto someone else’s, instead of eyes closed solo-style like in plant journeys, I couldn’t escape my demons or pain or shut down or dissociate. Justin said it perfectly … “If you think ayahuasca is crazy, try love.”
I could literally NOT form a sentence afterwards. As a writer and wordsmith I was kinda freaked out by the temporary mush in my brain. But I was assured that this meant I had surrendered to the pure-as-hell-delicious Shakti/Divine Feminine energy that resides outside the mind.
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99 HEARTBREAKS & I DON’T WANT TO SOLVE THEM
At the workshop, I also had to go on a practice dinner date with an older doctor from Beverly Hills who talked like I imagine Freud would have sounded. I did NOT wanna get vulnerable with him but I did, and I broke into tears across the dinner table as I revealed to him my deepest desires. He was beyond grateful that I showed him my Heart.
As I cried and told him of all the times I had broken my heart, he said “At the end of your life would you rather have loved and had your heart broken 99 times and on the 100th found someone special, than hidden your heart and not loved at all?” It was true. And all 99 times of heartbreak are heart opening and “special” in my book.
Two days at this intensive rocked me to my core. It was SO terrifying to let go and let Love do its thing. Yet I felt more delicious than I had in ages.
SO HOW CAN YOU WORK WITH LOVE’S MEDICINE?
When Love becomes a skill and a medicine, you can hang out with a close friend and feel deeply nourished and fed when you leave them, like you just got 10 hugs and a bowl of soup from your Grandma.
Or you and your Lover can be in a constant state of divine communion, and one glance feels like 1,000 gourmet raw chocolates for your soul.
A solo Love practice means at a stop light in the car you can feel the depths of Love swimming through your body and yoni, and you have the power to release a warm honey glow throughout your body that feels like you are cumming. Try walking into a meeting from that place!
Here’s how to start …
– Love and be loved. Identify the 5 ways you feel most Love(d). I do this with all my clients. Perhaps it’s petting your cat. Or watching your fave film. Meditating. Chanting to Goddess. Get to know the direct path to your Heart, if you don’t already, and start feeling the Love vibes often by using those tools.
– Connect to humans/animals. The internet doesn’t count unless you are one-on-one on Skype with someone. IRL is the best way to go. Make this a priority. It is the remedy against overeating, loneliness, indulging in bad habits, overworking … I’m talking real connection! Even one solid hug and “Good Morning” from a roomie is something.
– Let your heart get naked. This is where you get vulnerable. If you can practice this daily, you’ll either deepen your already existing partnerships or tenderize the nest of your heart to get it ready to let love in. Call a new friend and share something intimate. Write a poem and share it online. Ask someone for help. Practice vulnerability and practice receiving some Love. (Like let the guy at Trader Joe’s help you to your car already!)
– Feel, feel, feel. Sounds obvious, right? But how often do you feel your feelings in the moment? Practice vocalizing your pain. Frustration. Sadness. As you’re experiencing it. Let yourself feel the depths of your yearning/your rage/your sadness/your joy DAILY.
– Daydream. Do a little bit of daydreaming each day. Imagine your lover caressing your neck. Imagine your lover giving you that “I wanna fuck you” look across the room at a crowded party. If this sounds cheesy to you then work on the vulnerability of your heart.
Whether you are in partnership or flying solo, you can play with Love every day. You can become more and more conscious of living in your full beauty and radiance and sexiness the more and more you release the fear of getting hurt. You can just open. The pain becomes part of your practice too and, trust me, you even start to love that! WHAAA?!!! Can it be?!!! Yeeeep.
Get inspired by this month’s Mooners & Shakers, the Moon Club members making waves and fueling their passion projects!
HEBA TALLAH, LUMINOUS FEMME “The medicine is in the remembrance. Cutting through the BS and the noise – going straight to the truth, and calling on it.”
The Project A Luminous Femme is a woman who has remembered that her greatest power, beauty, and strength, have been within her all along.
She knows that her trials and tribulations are opportunities for more self-awareness, growth, and compassion. And she jumps into this journey of deeper and deeper self-love and self-awareness with gusto and no apology. She cultivates a deep love and respect for her Femmebody, for the way she waxes and wanes, and for her inherent superpowers along the way.
The Medicine I have been called here to anchor the Light and the Divine Feminine (in the Middle East, no less) and across all borders on Mama Earth. I feel the deepest honor and gratitude for carrying this calling. And such reverence for this life!
Being a woman (or a human, for that matter) in today’s world can feel so draining, confusing, and sometimes downright infuriating. Claiming who we inherently, truly are—and our connection to Source that is right here, in our heart space, in our every cell, at any given moment—is the fast track to inner peace. The medicine is in the remembrance. Cutting through the BS and the noise—going straight to the truth, and calling on it.
The medicine is also in knowing that the divine feminine that is within us all is awakening en masse—and she is not to be tamed, or quieted, any longer. I created Luminous Femme as a container to facilitate a woman’s return to her inner core, which is already perfect and whole, and to remember how to live from that space on the daily. Because there’s nothing juicier or more healing for the world than a woman in her divine feminine element!
The Birthing Process It has been at least five years (more like my lifetime really) since I’ve had this luminous gift and voice pulsing inside, wanting to be expressed. This has meant healing myself and my blocks, my stories, and working through them all. It’s been knowing I had a message to share but having life keep throwing me curveballs to fill in all the blanks and help me get over whatever held me back in the past.
Discovering yoga at age 18, becoming a teacher 12 years later, and the journey it takes me on a daily basis is humbling and so fulfilling. My mat is my healer, my sanctuary.
The Moon Club Inspiration It really feels like the coolest place to hang out on the web. I’ve been a Numinous reader for years and a lover of all things Moon related, which is a big part of Luminous Femme philosophy—cyclical living and connecting to the Moon phases.
When I see how this conversation is so normalized in the club, and the presence of all the women in the group who are so strong and healing and brave, it fills me up with so much juice and passion for this way of life. We’re all so connected and willing to do the work—to show up, to accept, and to self-realize. It’s not only deeply informative, it’s also so much fun, like a cosmic pajama party! It’s such an honor to walk this way with you all.
Meet this month’s Mooners & Shakers, the Moon Club members using their spiritual practice to fuel their passion projects!
ABA GYEPI-GARBRAH “This was a lesson in openness, patience and curiosity. It was also lesson in being present.”
The Project Aba Love Apothecary is a handcrafted, small batch collection of plant-based skincare products and healing aromatics tailored for those who wish to experience the magic of plants in real life.
The Work as Spiritual Activism I love this question. Thinking back to about my first experiences with aromatics, I made a choice to listen with all my senses and to let each essence unfold in their own time. This is how I began to create when formulating. I would approach each ingredient blindly and experience them without judgment. This was a lesson in openness, patience and curiosity. It was also lesson in being present.
It made me realize, wow—this is something we hardly give to others, sometimes not even ourselves. If we could practice the same openness, patience and curiosity with ourselves and others, we would be more connected to our uniqueness, our dynamism, all of our parts, sweet and not so sweet, and still value ourselves completely. This gave me a refreshed perspective, which I would gladly call my spiritual activism!
The Vision I see Aba Love Apothecary becoming a beloved brand known for its artistry in plant-based skincare & healing aromatics. To continue to support and collaborate with other like-minded women owned businesses. It’s also my wish to engage small farmers, growers and distillers of organic, wild crafted and sustainably farmed ingredients in US and abroad.
The Moon Club Inspiration The most beautiful thing about Moon Club is that it inspires me to show up for myself wherever I am at, plan by the cosmic clock, and go with the flow!
Shop the Aba Love Apothecary here, and follow Aba on Instagram.
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AMBER ADAMS “Birth work is my calling. I have this ache in my heart that drives me forward.”
The Calling I never planned to be a mother, so when I had a positive pregnancy test I felt my whole life crashing down. I had been preparing to move to New Zealand for a study abroad program in the fall, and having a human baby was definitely never something that crossed my mind. Despite my initial trepidation, I loved being pregnant and when it came time to give birth, I was relaxed and excited. I had never felt so powerful and divinely WOMAN as I did in those first precious moments after birth. Not only that, but because of my doula, I had felt for the first time in my life deep sisterhood and the magic of women helping women to give birth.
When my son was about a year old, my best friend and his girlfriend were in a similar situation, and I became their unofficial doula. She would come to me with questions and I had answers. I empowered her to follow her gut when choosing where to give birth and encouraged her to be an active participant in her process. I missed their birth, but three months later I attended my first birth as an official doula. After my second doula birth, I knew I wanted to be a midwife.
Birth work is my calling. I have this ache in my heart that drives me forward, pushes me through school, and keeps my feet on this path. I don’t think I could walk away from this work, even if I tried.
The Leap I have been working at the customer service desk of a grocery store for the past 8 months. The pay is good and initially they offered enough flexibility that I could go to a birth here and there. Very practical…and ultimately very soul sapping. On February 18, I was lying in my bed with the simple intention of being very open, a sort of modification on a Moon ritual. There was a sensation of my heart opening and with it the thought: “Quit your job.” Along with the realization that if I truly want my life to become, then I must jump into the unknown.
The Future I will be working toward the goal of owning my own birth center. My desire is to have a place where mothers of all stages can go for support, especially during pregnancy and postpartum. In the immediate future, I am expanding my birth doula practicing by adding childbirth education and placenta encapsulation to my services offered.
The Moon Club Inspiration Moon Club has helped me by strengthening my connection to my spiritual self, as well as helping me to cultivate self care in my daily life. I love our community and how uplifting the entire Moon Club experience has been. My favorite part of Moon Club are the coaching events and live calls. I am always working on homework so having the calls helps me to get out of my own brain and connect in real time.
ALMA GROOME “As I have started to awaken spiritually, I’ve felt drawn to look outside of the conventions I had limited myself to in the past.”
Alma Groome, with her oldest son Zachary
The Project The Moon phase stained glass panels were the result of a friend encouraging me to make pieces that spoke to me. Six months ago I took a a class at a local glass crafters shop. I began with small sun catchers and little pieces but after a few months I began to lose the spark. On mentioning that, a friend asked me what type of projects I really wanted to work on, and I stated without a waver that I really wanted to do a big piece with all of the phases of the Moon. “Why don’t you then?” she asked. My only excuse was not having a window at home wide enough. She shrugged and replied “I have a window.” At that moment, a charge ran through me and it was all I could focus on until I had something on paper.
The Intention The intention is simply to provide myself with a creative outlet, a way to express a side of myself I had long felt non-existent. I work in bookkeeping and Quickbooks consulting and consider myself a fairly linear thinker. But as I have started to awaken spiritually and explore the metaphysical realm, I’ve felt drawn to look outside of the conventions I had limited myself to in the past, to be open to new things and experiences, and to push my boundaries even, in those moments anxiety knots so hard in my stomach I can barely breathe.
Stained glass work, and this Moon phase piece in particular, has provided an outlet for me to let go and refuse to be bound by self-placed limits. It’s exhilarating, allowing myself to leap into things I never remotely considered as possible.
The Magic Tonight, I delivered the phases of the Moon stained glass panel to its new home, hanging it in my best friend’s window and admiring the flow from left to right as the moon transitions from new to full and back to new again. The beveled edges caught the light brilliantly and projected rainbows of color. It’s an incredibly surreal to experience seeing something I created in another person’s home, to hear the excitement they have for it, and to know that it resonates with them on a deeper level than “that’s pretty.”
The Moon Club Inspiration I knew in my heart the pieces I was being almost called to make were of the Moon phases, the triple Moon goddess, representations of the Divine Feminine, and sacred geometry. Being part of Moon Club, I have connected with a group of women who embrace these things as part of their path and inspiration. That connection has given me the courage to take hold of these ideas and go with them. In the past, perhaps I would have shied away from the challenge of being out of my comfort zone, but being a part of this community left me invigorated and inspired to go for it. I could not be happier with both the tangible and intangible results.
The Moon Connection Recognizing a connection to the Moon has been a fairly new thing for me, and I’m very much still learning about what that can mean on a personal level. I’ve always felt drawn to the Moon often searching the sky for its position, phase, color, or the way the clouds might be playing against its reflection. Now though, instead of merely appreciating the beauty of the Full Moon, I’ve started to tune in to my feelings and emotions around each Moon phase, journaling to begin connecting the dots around each cycle. I look forward to continuing to expand my knowledge and deepen that connection.
Check out more of Alma’s stained glass work at her Etsy shop, and follow her on Instagram.
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Woah, heart swells! Discover more about Moon Club here, and get inspired to bring your spiritual practice out into the world!
Reclaiming your sexual power and potential is part of the collective awakening happening now. And it’s never too late, says Alexandra Roxo…Portraits: Alexandra Herstik
I’ve taken a few months off from really diving into topics of sex, eroticism, and partnership here in my column. Why? I must admit, I’ve been distracted by politics and found myself thinking: “How can I dare talk about sex, as the world is seemingly in dire need of discourse about so many other things?!”
Well, as my passion for sharing about love and sex wandered around my brain like a disenfranchised child with no home, who else but Sigmund Freud swooped in to validate it—and shove it back into the world!
Freud said that sexual repression is the chief psychological problem of humankind, and the root of many crimes, illness, war and woe. As if I need a dead white man to remind me of something I already knew! But I did. Touché Dr Freud, touché.
And his theory reminded me that it’s okay to continue sharing about love, sex and partnerships—even in a time when ICE raids are being done to innocent people, families are being separated and deported, and the whole structure of a country that felt like it was moving towards progress is being threatened.
Because this includes LOVE and SEX.
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THE SEXUAL LANDSCAPE YOU WERE BORN INTO
Let’s take a very brief tour of history. Some say that we once lived in a “partnership” society, where people co-existed in some states of harmony. This shifted into a “dominator” society. Have you seen the movie or read the book “Mists of Avalon?” In the book there is a battle between the “old” religion—a religion honoring nature, The Goddess, the many faces of the Divine—and the “new” religion, a religion honoring ONE man.
Pantheistic to monotheistic. This shift changed everything for humanity. When the Goddess religion/pantheistic religions went out, so did our connection to nature, to ecstatic states, to sex, to the Feminine. By denying sex we denied nature! As Terrence McKenna said in his book Food of the Gods: “The dark night of the soul for planet Earth began.”
The “Wild Woman” (seen as a reflection of nature herself) was then sought to be tamed. We saw the literal possession of women. Burning of witches. Corsets. Chastity belts. Women’s rights being taken away in many many cultures. The polarization of “the virgin” and “the whore.” And this, my dears, is what YOU were born into.
Fair enough, in this country we got it about the LEAST bad—we are able to vote, get an abortion, wear what we want. BUT this also created a dichotomy that can be VERY confusing.
You were told you can speak up and be you. But you must also be sweet and pretty and skinny. You were told it was slutty to enjoy lots of sex. But you were told also “Claim your sexuality!” You were told you could wear what you want. But when you wore it you were treated differently. At least when it was scandalous to show an ankle it was very clear. ANKLE = SLUT. Now the dial is all over the place.
If you were born into any religion that is monotheistic and patriarchal then whether you want to accept it or not, you probs have internalized all kinds of sexual repression with a side of shame, and a dash of guilt on top. (If you somehow escaped all this then…GODDESS BLESS!)
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SO, HOW THE HELL DO WE MOVE BEYOND THIS?
It’s going to take a lot more work. See my piece from last year about “Sexual Healing” for a refresh and jump start.
The biggest thing we can do is keep QUESTIONING. Everything. In sex. Redefining our experiences as our own. Making our own rules. Reclaiming what is our human right.
FOR EXAMPLE. Perhaps by society’s standards it’s not acceptable to sob uncontrollably during sex. HOWEVER, the energy of sex is MAD powerful, and when used to it’s full conscious potential can be a shamanic experience. So, if you are having conscious deep deep sex, and start releasing trauma or shame or guilt from your body you will probably sob. This can cause more shame because we’ve been taught that’s not okay.
My first girlfriend was a shamanic mover of energy and she knew it. The orgasms I had with her moved massive amounts of shame I had internalized growing up in the Christian south, out of my body. She held space for me. Made me feel safe enough to completely release into my body and use the energy of sex for deep healing. Sometimes that meant opening further and further when I thought I couldn’t anymore, but she helped me keep going, much like in a plant medicine ceremony, or even running a marathon. The altered state that one enters during sex can be a place where so much work can take place.
So how do you allow yourself to let go enough to work with the energy of sex, or even love or partnership, for healing and ecstasy?
HOW TO LITERALLY RECLAIM YOUR SEXUAL POWER
Create a conscious container. By container I mean a defined space. Whether you are coming together just for sex or also for a certain amount of time weekly for sexual exploration define the rules, the terms. How long? What do we do if someone wants to scream or cry?
Communication! If you want to have a soul sob with a deep cervical orgasm you have to make sure your partner can “hold” you through it. Instead of saying, “Hey babe. What’s wrong? Don’t cry,” educate them to hold the space for you, and say instead: “I’m here. Let it out. Stay with it. I love you.”
When you release some of the pain in your body that’s hidden deep within your cervix or womb of COURSE there will be tears, shouting, laughing—ALL OF IT! But you will feel so much lighter and freer afterwards if you let those emotions come out and you don’t hold them in. Not worrying about what you may look like or sound like. Instead, being like a raging river, embodying Kali, embodying Venus, the rivers of Oshun, the energy of a storm, the energy of the ocean. She is never ashamed for her moods and needs. She just IS.
If you look at sex as expansion beyond the “get in and get off” vibe we’ve been taught by movies and TV our whole lives, you will see it has massive healing potential to clear through chakras and move blocks—while increasing your radiance and attraction levels in a major way! It’s a super power and that’s why it has been repressed and controlled for so long.
If you think back to how you “learned” sex it was probably mostly through media. Women “sound” like this or that. They make these faces during sex. They lay on the bed in this or that way. What if that was all learned behavior and in order to reclaim your full sexual potential you get to go on the journey of FINDING OUT what your natural sexual state is?
What faces you make. What sounds. Maybe you sing when you cum! Or make low guttural grunts. Maybe you sob uncontrollably for A YEAR as you release shame from your body. Does that mean something is wrong with you? NO. HELL NO. Maybe you find your fantasy and realize you like to be flogged or spanked. Does that mean something is wrong with you? NOPE.
It’s a choice. You make the choice to embody Bridget Jones. Or Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. Or Carrie in Sex and the City. Or…Venus emerging from the ocean. Kali emerging from a fire. Persephone diving into the Underworld and coming back renewed. You choose.
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RE-WRITE THE SEX SCRIPT
Here are some practical ways to begin to rewrite some of your sexual programming…
– Be Curious! Read books. Listen to podcasts. Don’t be ashamed if you want to learn about polyamory. Or multiple orgasms. Or whatever the hell you’re into. Nothing is too strange. Nothing is too weird. As you begin to delve, protect your little seed of curiosity before sharing with everyone. You don’t need anyone’s opinions about your desire to learn about 1950’s Occult Sex Parties or prostate massage. It’s your exploration. Keep it sacred.
– Look at your demons. Your shadows. Your shames. Have you engaged in healing around your sexual history? Chances are your first sexual experiences were rather “unconscious,” maybe with alcohol attached and not centered around heart opening and connecting. And if not, well, kudos to you! (Mine were pretty dope with candles and a fountain and fairy lights and soft music and eye gazing even when I was a preteen cause I was #BornThisWay. But then I’ve also had about 100 that were NOT like that at all…) If you feel you have work to do around love and sex then start journaling about your programming, stories, traumas. Engage in conversations. Do the healing work with a coach or in a group.
– Create the space to explore. If you’re in partnership then consciously communicate with your partner about wanting to make the sex more conscious and expansive, and work to bust through some of the cultural norms together. Perhaps this means engaging in some connecting work before sex. Eye gazing. Doing some tantric breath. Giving each other space to hear fantasies without judgement. That means if your lover says “I’m turned on by watching horses fuck” you have to listen and hold space for that and not be like “EW!” immediately. Trust is very important when opening in this way. If you’re solo then start getting in there and doing your own exploration work with your self. Learn your fantasies. What feels good and what doesn’t.
– Be aware of your words. Stories you perpetuate with your words which can cast magical spells. Sometimes I catch myself talking like Samantha from SATC and I stop myself. Some of that languaging and programming is NOT conscious at all. Sure, it’s fun, but it’s creating a reality that I picked up from TV. Not my own heart.
– Question everything. This can be fun! “Do I actually like to wax my puss? Or do I do it cause someone told me to?” Hmm well for me honestly I think it’s the later. “Do I actually like lingerie and Agent Provocateur?” Resounding YES for me on that one! “Where is my sexuality at on the Kinsey scale?”
– Talk to your friends. THIS IS HARD. One time when I brought up the transcendental power of fisting to catapult you into an altered state in a car of women there was RADIO SILENCE. It was awkward. But without discussion things continue to be taboo Unspeakable. Hidden away in dark corners. So moving past that awkward silence with some laughter and humility is enough to open the floodgates. Before you know it someone will be sharing how they once used a cucumber as a dildo and you won’t feel alone.
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If you want to work with a group on this, I’m doing a monthly HOLY F*CK workshop starting on the New Moon of 2.26! This is a little different than the salon I did last year as this is deeper work, and enough to keep you busy exploring and reprogramming and rewiring your sex energy until the next month’s workshop! Sign up HERE. And as always I do one on one mentorships and coaching sessions which you can book HERE.
Alexandra Roxo meets radical thought leader Daniel Pinchbeck, to talk spiritual materialism, future planetary solutions, and the rise of the extreme right…
Photo: Alexandra Herstik
Daniel Pinchbeck is a writer, thought leader, speaker, and one of few modern radical voices that come from a grounded, realistic, and holistic perspective. Today we are in dire need of leaders and thinkers who can articulate and envision a path towards union and healing that includes our political, environmental, cultural, AND our spiritual state. Daniel speaks of the whole picture, with a balance of right/left, masculine/feminine, science/art.
His new book How Soon is Now REALLY resonated with feelings I’ve been having for years about the nature of the world we live in, which I have explored in my own writing here on The Numinous and in some of my films. This includes the need to make a shift from focusing on the personal, to focusing on the global. To overcoming spiritual materialism. To escaping hyper-individualism and coming together.
Also, how plants may be aiding in our evolution on multiple levels. How our approach to love and sex is so heavily politically guided and conditioned. The need for rites of passage and the need for ecstatic connections to the cosmos and to each other, through experiences like Burning Man, with psychedelic experiences, and a reconnection to the Earth.
Beyond all this, Daniel’s book reveals to us how we can engage with the planetary shift and initiation that we all know at soul level is in progress, and in doing so be a part of the healing of our planet.
Even better, Daniel is going to be LIVE with us for Moon Club this Sunday Feb 5, which means you can join and ask him questions too! Click here to sign up.
I sat down with him for a little prelude to Sunday’s talk…
ALEXANDRA ROXO: So you’re an author, a TED speaker, a radical thinker, a writer. You wear a lot of hats in terms of your work. What’s the common thread? DANIEL PINCHBECK: I think that the core of my work is a philosophical quest for the nature of reality.
AR: Word. Was there was a clear point at which this search began? DP: I had a major spiritual crisis in my mid to late 20’s. I’d been writing for magazines, and it just began to feel very nihilistic. I felt this kind of total emptiness. I also realized ultimately that when people believe conscientiousness is only based in the physical hardware of the brain, then life has no particular meaning. I was like, ‘okay, how can I actually inquire into this?’ I remembered my psychedelic experiences in college as having suggested that there were these other layers of psychic reality that I didn’t really understand.
So I went back to them and went to West Africa, to do Iboga and I went to the Amazon to work with a tribe in Ecuador with ayuasca and so on. These travels informed my first book Breaking Open the Head, and then new questions kept opening up—because these experiences had completely transformed my world view.
AR: The subtitle of How Soon Is Now? is: “From personal initiation to global transformation.” To me it feels like that is what we’re all being called to now, on a micro and a macro level. DP: I came from a leftist background, and I always had this uneasy feeling about our culture and the direction our society was headed. And then when I looked more into the ecological disaster that we’ve constructed and the amount of poverty and inequality that the system creates, I also saw this whole “new age” spirituality thing, with the meditation and the yoga, as kind of like a trap—because I felt that people were using it as just another distraction, getting so obsessed with their own little healing journeys.
AR: There is definitely the idea of: “I’m entitled to my healing and my enlightenment and I gotta just focus on that.” Healing individually is very necessary too—but how do you see us then finding a way to integrate this into healing the Earth? DP: It would require for those of us who’ve been on this evolutionary initiation path to reach another level of our capacity to…hold a new frequency, to express it to people who are out of the loop. One thing that really began to upset me overtime was Burning Man. When I first went I was like ‘oh of course, this is the model for this new society. The point is to now bring this out into the world.’ But overtime I saw it become more like another entertainment complex. I saw the people who run Burning Man being really kind of pleased with themselves because all these rich people wanted to hang out with them.
But I think a shift is actually happening, because of this geopolitical emergency that we’ve unleashed. For example, I saw a really good thing on Facebook—this guy wrote that he used to have three different groups of friends that didn’t really integrate very well. One was artists, one was meditators, and the other was activists, and he was, like, thanking Donald Trump because now they’re all in the same group. We’re basically confronting a very, very severe existential emergency with this situation, that I think people are beginning to comprehend in kind of waves.
AR: In the book you use Burning Man as an example to show how if society praises you for good behavior, like cleaning up your own trash for example, and if we praise each other for good behavior, we can start to rewire the conditioning that says it’s somebody else’s responsibility to ‘do the right thing.’ DP: I feel that what Burning Man reveals and why it was such an ‘aha’ moment for me is that our social nature is extremely malleable and changeable, and humans will conform like putty to whatever reward system presents itself. So, say you get laid by becoming a Neo-Nazi and hating on the Jews, a bunch of people will do that. If you have lots of lovers or one lover or whatever you need, as a result of being generous, altruistic, and sharing your gifts open heartedly, you’ll do more of that that.
AR: So how did things tilt so far to the extreme right? DP: Unfortunately, the extreme right has managed to marshal a lot of collective intelligence by expert use the media system, whereas the progressive community has been much more slow and much less strategic and tactical.
There’s actually been a phenomenon of people on the coasts in LA and New York having greater freedoms, better lives, more opportunities, but we haven’t really taken care to transmit these benefits to the rest of society. And, rightfully in a sense, the rest of society realized they were just being shafted and got extremely angry. I think that theoretically, the more conscious we are of this, we have to bear the blame when things go this wrong.
AR: That’s a tough wake up call for people. If you’re living in light and love all the time, you don’t want to hear “hey, this is your fault, take responsibility, step up to the plate.” DP: But this awareness is spreading rapidly right now. In a sense, what I am trying to show with the book is that the progressive mystical counter culture hasn’t done a good job of articulating the world that we want to bring into manifestation, beyond our individual process.
For example, let’s take The Beatles at their word: “All you need is love.” But how do you actually create a society centered around altruism and sharing and empathy, what does that look like? In the book I am pretty rigorous looking at this in terms of love and relationships, in terms of monetary systems, even questioning whether private property is good for us. I’m sure many people will disagree with some or many of my conclusions but that’s good. At least we have something to disagree about, which can lead to debate and innovation.
AR: I write about sexual healing quite a bit and you share an anecdote about the community, Tamera, in Portugal, that’s so moving—how a young man’s first lovemaking happens with all the group gathered around the house, celebrating and holding space for him. I cried. There is so much internalized sexual shame in our society. I grew up in Georgia in a very, very Christian space and I was totally shamed from a very young age. When I heard that story, I was able to envision people not “losing” their virginity, but embracing this as a rite of passage—leading to us totally flipping the way that we approach love and sex. DP: One of the founders of Tamera in Portugal said that sexuality is a superpower that radiates throughout all different facets of society, and we can totally see that with this last election. We saw it with Trump and the grabbing of the pussy, Hillary and Bill Clinton, Roger Ailes who was the Fox News head who was taken down in a big sex scandal, and all of their connection to Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile…
In a system where sexuality is oppressed, alpha male types seek power and wealth (versus creating a system that spreads wealth evenly) so they can have sexual access, you know? Since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, society is more open about sexuality, but it’s actually been reintegrated into a system of domination and control. So it becomes MTV Spring Break or Sex in The City, that type of vibe.
AR: Yes, those pop culture markers reveal that on one level we can “have sex” and “be sexy” but on another level it’s absolutely not okay as a culture to accept our sexual nature. DP:Rupert Sheldrake writes about the idea of “morphogenic fields” or “morphic resonance”—that actually, when a small number of a species is able to fully discover or integrate something new it can become generally available to the collective sort of non-locally. So if there’s a small number of communities that have shifted into this different frequency of collective care and responsibility and kind of a truly liberated Eros, or attitude to love and sexuality, then that could really propagate quite quickly. I mean Neo-Nazism didn’t seem to exist two years ago…and now it’s all over the place. Or look at something like Facebook, and how quickly everybody began using it. Ultimately, I think it’s fully possible that positive shifts towards empathic and responsible social system could also happen rapidly.
In the face of heart-wrenching challenges that left many of us feeling very troubled (read: angry, confused, and afraid) we remained committed to the deeply magical acts of connecting and co-creating. From transforming difficult emotions into empowered action, to the pure pleasure of crystal dildos, we give you the Best of The Numinous 2016. Cause we gotta have faith, cosmic crusaders…
6. Cosmic Calling—Astrology for Entrepreneurs:When it comes to astrology for entrepreneurs, it’s about knowing your cosmic career signature, and following a few hard and fast rules, says Rebecca Gordon.
7. Empowered Action in the Face of Trauma:Recent world events have stirred up many intense emotions. Louise Androlia shares her wisdom on how to use our feelings as a catalyst for empowered action.
8. Fashion as Self-Love: The Story Behind KE7H3R: “Everything, even fashion, is a transference of energy.” Janelle Corpuz Hethcot talks sartorial style as self-love with Ruby Warrington.
9. Hello Chakrubs: Yes, That’s a Crystal Dildo: Forget the battery-operated vibrator and pick up a high-vibe, soul-opening crystal sex toy. Chakrubs founder Vanessa Cuccia shares her story with Gabriela Herstik.
10. Casting My Spell—Confessions of a White Witch:“I see writing as a spell, decorating my home as a spell, singing as a spell. Whenever I express myself I am casting MY spell.” Shaheen Miro shares what it means to grow up and embrace being a white witch.
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