Several years ago, I found myself scouring Shopstyle in search of the perfect wallet. I was looking for one that was red, gold, or green, three colors that would make my wallet a money magnet. I had learned about this theory from my friend Gala Darling, and as an entrepreneur living in NYC (huge rent! no regular income!), I was like, “what the hell?”.
It took another year or so for me to find a red wallet that also fit my personal style—one by Philip Lim that was even embossed with a subtle dollar sign. Flawless! Whether it’s played any role in my never missing a rent check as I’ve juggled building this platform, writing a book, and launching Moon Club, I can’t really say. But what I do know is that a recent Skype meeting with a woman known as The Modern Money Witch (a.k.a. Lara-Rose Duong) took the concept of using your wallet to actively attract cash to a whole new level.
And OF COURSE she reached out to me during Venus retrograde! The planet ruling love and abundance has been in a backspin since March 4, 2017 (resuming direct motion today, April 15!), during which time all things concerning love, money, and self-worth have been up for review. And according to Lara-Rose, love is money. It’s the grown-up symbol for the nurturing (food, shelter, hugs) we receive as “love” when we’re babies.
Step one in Lara-Rose’s system for receiving more money in your life is to create an actual abundance altar in your wallet. Fun! And what better activity to get active with your manifestation process?
Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating an abundance altar in your wallet:
1. Take everything out of your wallet and smudge it with smoke from white sage or Palo Santo.
2. Hold your empty wallet with both hands and set an intention. Something like: “I am open to receiving abundance so that I may share it with the world,” would work great. Say it as you hold your wallet.
3. Choose a space for your abundance “altar” in your wallet—it can be an individual pocket or an entire section.
4. Place items in your abundance altar. Some classic things to include: an image of Lakshmi, or other abundance icon (I chose a card of prosperity Goddess Abundantia); a piece of citrine, a silver dollar, or an abundance spell, sealed with a pentagon sign. Feel free to choose items that are meaningful to you.
5. Also include a paper money offering to your abundance icon. This bill is not to be spent, but can be refreshed annually on a date that resonates with you (like the Spring or Fall Equinox, Beltane, or your birthday).
6. Toss our old receipts, business cards, etc., and return only the items you absolutely need to your wallet. Commit to regularly clearing out any unneeded items to keep energetic pathways of abundance clear.
Discover more about Lara-Rose Duong and her work at Lararoseduong.com
This post first appeared as part of my new weekly column over on Horoscope.com! Check out what else I’ve been writing about here.
Think love should be like a screening of “The Notebook”? The truth about soulmates is dutch ovens, stretch marks, and past life pacts, says comedian and energy healer Jessica Brodkin.Main Image: Mariano Peccinetti.
Want to learn the truth about soulmates? Then listen to a psychic healer who’s had two divorces and a broken engagement. Trust me—I’ve met a lot of soulmates. But after massive heartbreak, and seeing my own clients through theirs, the same patterns and solutions have begun to emerge.
And I’ve discovered that real soulmates aren’t like the people you see in The Notebook. They’re more like my Mom and Dad, who believe they are soulmates…and who make fun of each other. “I must have been a real jerk to your father in a past life to have to put up with him now,” my Mom frequently quips.
With Venus retrograde until April 15th, we have an opportunity to re-examine our relationship with love, and to determine what is and isn’t working for us. Here are the five things I wish I’d known about soulmates ten years ago…
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1. Your Soulmates are Not Just Your Lovers I think of incarnating (being born into your current life and body) as traveling with a plane full of your friends to Cancun, with only a few vague plans. “Marissa—see you on Tuesday in Tulum. Mark—save the last night for me, we’re going dancing and I wanna make out in the sand. ”
As someone who has always believed in past lives, I was one of those creepy kids who remembered how I died. I have a strong conviction that we travel throughout our lives with some of the same people in order for our souls to grow. Your mother, your siblings, your nephews, your boss, and even your roommate can all potentially be your soulmates.
2. The Person You Think is Your Soulmate is Probably Healing Your Parental Issues If you feel that your partner is tormenting you, he or she is probably helping to heal your parental issues. According to a lot of psychological theories, we choose partners based on the hurts we either experienced or witnessed as children.
In the summer of 2015, my then husband and I were planning on having a child. Two healers had something to say about this—the first that things weren’t going to work out as planned, but I wasn’t ready to hear that my marriage was going to end soon. However, the second healer convinced me to do a detox in order to have a healthy baby and halfway through, I realized I could not have a baby with this man. His issues, and our issues, were unresolved stuff from my childhood. He was definitely one of my soulmates, if not necessarily “the one”…
3. Love the One You’re With We all like to think we’re royalty, but we’re more like Princess Fiona—expecting some charming prince or princess, but falling in love with Shrek instead. While Fiona became a green ogre in order to love him, when I got married and ruined my credit rating. Which is to say, your soulmate may not come in the package you expect, and he or she may be more into dutch ovens than you’d like.
What if the imperfect partner you have right now is your soulmate, and what if soulmates didn’t have to be forever? All of our partners are teachers—and some are here to show us our shadow side. If we abandon our current partner without doing the inner work they ask, we’ll find ourselves repeating our relationship patterns over and over again.
There’s nothing more important than loving yourself. Trust me—I’m trying to get a crystal sex toy company to sponsor my radio show. This isn’t about arrogance, or attention-seeking behavior. It’s about accepting yourself where you are, and seeing the perfection in your imperfection. So love yourself so a partner can meet you where you are in life—the partner in your life is always a vibrational match for how you feel about yourself right now.
Write a gratitude list of all the awesome things about you. Talk to your stretch marks and scars, and tell them that you love them. Think of all the fun you had creating them! Practice self care. What makes you feel like a queen? What brings you bliss? Follow that joy.
5. And Finally … Trust Your Intuition I once went to a psychic who told me I had a ghost baby living inside of me…and that I needed to pay her $700 to have a ghost abortion. I told her that for $700, I was going to keep the ghost baby. When I was in the middle of my divorce, another psychic told me that a new suitor was my twin flame (a.k.a. super soulmate). After being stood up multiple times, I started to think differently.
If I could give only one message to people who feel any sort of fear or insecurity about their love lives, I would say “Don’t go to psychics!” Even though I’m also a psychic and medium, I work primarily as a healer because I want my clients to develop their own intuition instead of relying on something outside of themselves.
People usually go to psychics to calm their fears. But one of the most difficult (and beautiful) parts of being human is to embrace your life despite those fears. To live your life, and love with reckless abandon. If your heart gets broken you will survive, eventually heal, and then learn to love again!
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Jessica Brodkin is a Reiki energy healer and stand up comedian based in New York City. She is an MIT and Johns Hopkins graduate who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 11 years, and has been featured on the cover of the New York Post, and on TruTV, AMC, and SiriusXM radio. She also has a weekly radio show on Journey Into the Light. Follow her on Instagram and discover more about her energy healing here.
In her final Holy F*ck column of 2016, Alexandra Roxo has 5 ways to jumpstart your love and sex life in 2017…Portrait: Alexandra Herstik
2016 has been a wild year for the planet and for America. For me it’s been a year of change and growth and reshuffling and purging and mourning and planting seeds and learning. I also hadn’t been single in 10 years, and have spent this one being VERY single. I’ve used this time to have a giant rethink of ALL my ideas, values, and beliefs about love and sex.
I’ve done some dating, sure, but I put the brakes on things in the name of some deep diving and learning and observing of myself and my clients, which is hard for a Piscean princess who loves to dive into romance. My birthday is just days from Anais Nin (if that means anything to you you’re prob my tribe!).
Last week, in search of my culminating thoughts about love and sex and spirit for the end of this year, I called my friend Gala Darling, whose latest love story is one of my faves! After a divorce, Gala met her adorable boyfriend online a little over a year ago and I’d been swooning over them via Insta for a while. I wanted to hear the dirt…Did she believe in soul mates? Manifesting the man of your dreams with spells and rituals? Making a list of important things in love and meditating on them? I had a lot of questions for her.
Gala said many things but what stuck out the most was: “Relationships are not meant to be easy. Marriage is not easy. They are not meant to be comfortable. They are meant to push you to see things about yourself that are not actualized. Having a soul mate is not a party!” This sentiment is way too overlooked in the twin flame/soul mate discourse. Where’s the footer that says “Hey BTW this shit hurts”?
Gala Darling and her boyfriend Garnett shot by Juliane Berry
She also reminded me that there is no certainty. Like ever. In marriage. In relationships. In any of it. People who are single think “Oh when will I meet that special someone?” And then people who are in partnership may be asking “Is this right? Is it supposed to hurt this much? Be this hard? Do I still love them?” There is no certainty but our devotion to ourselves, and our practice of keeping aligned with our heart’s needs.
So in order to do just that I’ve prepared some writing exercises for this column, to help you too rethink/ rewrite / jumpstart your love and sex life in 2017…
So get out your journal. Put on a kimono. Or silk PJ’s. Select some quiet tunes. Burn some incense. Make yourself a cozy nest. I rec bed surrounded by blankets and pillows and some rose tea and a few candles.
RETHINK YOUR “LIST”
We all make these grand lists of what we want in a partnership and we often forget that the human we imagine coming into our life will also be flawed. Just like us! Do you have some list you’ve been working on for years? Fantasies in your mind about how your partner should or shouldn’t be? This can change as you grow so def revisit every six months. So use this time to make a list of HARD YES’s and HARD NO’s, and to really meditate on them.
Ask yourself big questions like: “Could you be with someone who doesn’t believe in God? Or do you absolutely need to be with someone who wants kids?”
BROADEN YOUR IDEA OF A SOUL MATE
Do you have people in your life you have let see the whole spectrum of your madness and beauty? Your most ugly side and your most beautiful? I believe all the people who can hold all of us and push us to our edges are our soul mates. If you’ve never let your darkness come out with anyone I say deepen a friendship with someone who you can do that with. Not in an abusive way, but in a way where the connection can go deep under the surface. That will get you ready for partnership, and if you’re partnered it will keep you deep diving into yourself.
My friend Rebecca and I really did NOT like each other when we met. I thought she was a dirty hippie and she thought I was a stuck up goodie two shoes. 15 years later we are best friends. During that time we’ve hated each other. Not spoken for a year. Had the most heinous of fights. But had the most enlightening and fun and hilarious moments together too. She knows me in a way no one else can. Our love is as deep as the ocean.
Ask yourself: “Who are my soul mates now? Who has pushed me to the edges and helped me grow? What can I learn from these relationships about myself?”
COMMIT TO A PRACTICE AND STICK WITH IT
If you haven’t dated in a while, will you commit to a dating practice? Perhaps you and a friend can buddy up, open an online account, make a ritual of creating your profile (which Gala says is “like casting a spell!”) Practice connecting with strangers in a non-attached way. Go on coffee dates with no agenda except chatting with a stranger. Maybe 1 out of 10 will be someone you’re actually attracted to, so keep it chill. No expectations. Treat it like a morning yoga practice!
If you’re in a relationship commit to a growth practice. Is it seeing a relationship coach once a month to make sure you are growing? Does your sex life need a reboot? Can you commit to an afternoon every other week of sexual exploration time to keep expanding there? If your relationship has become too dependent can you commit to developing and nurturing solo space?
Decide what practice you want to commit to in 2017 and break it down over the months and weeks.
GET TO KNOW YOUR LOVE STYLES
How do you like to be loved? (If you need some inspo you can do the 5 Languages of Love quiz.) I know I mostly need to be loved with touch and kind words, and if I feel I can communicate that to my next partner they don’t waste their time buying me gifts or giving me rides or cooking for me. I told Loulou (one of my besties) about this, and now we know that we both highly value a solid compliment we pay each other loving compliments regularly! It just takes knowing and asking.
Make a list of ways you like to be loved, either within a partnership or solo. Do you need more touch? Schedule a weekly massage or trade with a friend.
LOOK IN THE MIRROR
Don’t make me quote Michael but um…he had a point! If you were a potential partner meeting yourself for the first time what would you think? What would you want more of? Less of? This is good to look at whether you’re single or attached. Would you prefer someone who is more available? Someone who is more financially stable? Someone in better shape? Someone who meditates daily? Well, this is a great way to see where you need to make changes on yourself.
For example, I was thinking I would just love a partner who can chop wood—so fuck it, I guess I’ll learn to chop wood in 2017 too! You can also be the partner you want to your friends. I mean, don’t make out with them passionately or anything (unless that’s how you roll!) but love your friends like you wanna be loved. Cook for them. Write cute notes. Romance your friends and yourself!
Set some goals for how you can become the best partner and self and friend.
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If you want to go deeper with this work sign up for my Holy F*ck course where we will be using creative writing and storytelling to dive deep into our habits, tendencies, hopes and dreams in love and sex in a conscious way. I also see clients one on one for six month periods of mentorship and on off coaching sessions. More info here.
Alexandra Roxo is a critically acclaimed filmmaker, writer, entrepreneur and mentor currently residing in LA. She recently co-founded Moon Club with Ruby Warrington (founder of the Numinous) and has been featured in Well + Good, Nylon, Out Magazine and more.
Regular new post alert! Every Friday we’ll be featuring a different Material Girl, and the things in her Mystical World. To kick things off, it’s me! Your Chief Numi Ruby Warrington. Plus a round-up of what’s been rocking my Universe this week. Portrait: Thomas Giddings
Just chillin’ at home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Chakra shirt…coming back soon!
Has this been the weirdest week or what? On Monday I posted about how I like to use Mercury retrograde to revise and re-evaluate key areas of my life. But man, it’s been like scheduling spaghetti out there – for pretty much everyone I know. Head-spin!
I’m gonna blame my inability to concentrate on anything useful for the fact I had a total retail therapy moment on Matches Fashion. New Isabel Marant jacket, check. New Marant sheepskin-lined booties to match, check check (see below). I don’t shop that often since I found a more spiritual path to fulfilment, but when I do, I do it properly 🙂
This was also the week I totally cried at Under The Electric Sky, a documentary about EDM mega-rave the Electric Daisy Carnival (WTF) :: discovered THE most beautiful “intention setting candle” (and fell in love with it’s creator – watch this space for a collaboration!) :: picked up my lapsed meditation practise :: finally watched the Vagina Monologues :: and got stuck into Launch by Jeff Walker – essential reading for anybody running or starting a business online (thank you Gala Darling).
So what have you tried distracting yourself with while Mercury does it’s thing? I actually do wanna know, so Tweet me or connect on Facebook!
So here it is – all the things that make me a MATERIAL GIRL, living in a MYSTICAL WORLD…
:: MATERIAL GIRL ::
My Look When I went to get a hug from Amma with Gabby Bernstein, I wore Lululemon yoga pants, a vintage rock-chick tee, biker boots and a Marc Jacobs bag. Gabby described my look as “rock ‘n’ roll yogi” – and I’ll take that, thanks. So lots of yoga pants from brands like Teeki, Vie Active and Vimea, and lots of fashiony, grungy tops. And I love a good Helmut Lang blazer.
My current fave Sacred Feather yoga pants made from recycled materials, Teeki.com
My Shoes Isabel Marant shoes (specifically boots, actually) consistently make me feel pretty special. My friend Psychic Betsy has this meditation where you meet your highest self, and you’re meant to visualize “the best version of yourself”. That’s how I feel in my Marant boots – sexy, cool and powerful.
My Fragrance My ego hates the fact it’s not “cooler”, but the one that gets me the most comments is Sensuous by Estee Lauder – I think it just mixes well with my pheromones. I also love stealing a squirt of my husband’s Patchouli 24 by Le Labo.
My Jewels I always wear the Numinous necklace my husband got me, and this summer I also acquired a pretty special ‘Lemurian’ crystal from Vega Jewelry. Buying myself my first pair of diamond studs (they’re about a millionth of a carat, but still) at ABC Home last year was also a pretty special moment for me.
‘Dem jewels…Charging up the Lemurian crystal at Rockaway beach this summer
My Pampering I have one of those bodies that “needs” a monthly massage, and I go to Lorraine at Greenhouse Holistic in Williamsburg. She does the best deep tissue and barely speaks a word the whole time. I’m also deeply into my Theraputic Balancing Oil by Vered Organic Botalicals right now, which feels super special and nurturing.
My Movie Anything that makes me cry. Most recently that Electric Daisy Carnival docu (seriously, WTF…)
My Food I could eat salmon and avocado, prepared every which way, for days. Ditto the Montana salad at the Jivamukea café in Union Square. And a scoop of vegan peanut butter ice cream from Lula’s in the East Village for dessert.
:: MYSTICAL WORLD ::
My Awakening I wake up with my cat’s meow at about 6.30 or 7 am, make myself a HUGE mug of hot water with lemon and then “try” to meditate for ten minutes. After that I get right onto my machine to write, while my brain is still clean of email static.
My Sign Aries Sun and Sag rising with a Cancer Moon thrown in to cool things down a little. I read it this way: Sun = mind (self-directed and impulsive), rising = body (outgoing and active) and Moon = soul (super sensitive and security oriented). #confusing.com
My Mantra “You’ll never know unless you ask.” And most days, at some point: “I forgive myself.”
My Healer Acupuncture with the amazing Lisa Levine at Maha Rose in Greenpoint, custom flower remedies from very special Kerri Aab, and, recently, breathwork with Numi contributor Erin Telford. But some of my greatest healings have happened on my yoga mat, if you subscribe to the belief (as I pretty much do) that all healing begins at a spirit / emotional level.
Burning Man 2014. Image: Simon Warrington
My Reading I wish I could say there was one book that really shifted my perspective, but maybe I just haven’t found it yet. I read every night before I go to sleep though, preferably fiction. It helps my mind shift gears from the material to the mystical realm (where sleep happens).
My Transformation The second half of 2014 has been ALL ABOUT transformation. Beginning July on a retreat with Taryn Toomey in Martha’s Vinyeyard, I then hit up Burning Man for the first time, did the Landmark Forum and also just completed Gala Darling’s Blogcademy. Each of these experiences has made me stronger and more resilient, more certain of myself and my place in the world, more comfortable expressing myself and more confident about my goals.
My Home Is wherever my husband Simon is, something I became aware of from the moment we first met. Past life connection for sure…
If the contents of your closet reflects who you really are, what to do when nothing’s working any more? Call in your friend Psychic Betsy to help intuit what should stay and what really needs to move on.
“Who IS she?” Photograph: Megan Gustashaw
The past two years have been a time of major transition for me. A move to NYC, a radical change in my daily working life and a slow and steady slide to the other side of 35 are the obvious, surface things. But internally, things have been shifting too. With Pluto (planet of transformation) squaring Uranus (the future, individualism, radical and progressive ideas) since June 2012, I get the feeling I’m not the only one (you can read more about THAT whole situation here) but one of the major tell-tale signs that I’m no longer the woman I used to be is that peering into the labyrinth that is my closet, I often can’t find anything to wear.
In fact, it’s more like taking a trip down memory lane in my Facebook photo archive. That dress I wore to rave the summers away in Ibiza. The jacket that felt so sharp when I landed my first proper newspaper job, but which I haven’t actually worn since 2007. If what’s in our wardrobe is really a reflection of the person we are, at times it’s been like grappling with a case of multiple personality disorder. I look inside, and it’s like…who IS she?
It had got to a point where I’d just wear the same things ALL THE TIME, waiting for precisely the right meeting, party or dinner date when a 1980s sweater covered with gold sequins would obviously be just the thing. In the meantime, with so many perfectly good clothes waiting to be worn (I mean we’re talking a lot of designer goods here too people) I hardly felt justified buying new stuff to bridge the gap. Clearly, it was time for the closet clear out to end all closet clear outs. But where to begin?
Ruby, are you in there?It makes me look like Kate Moss, right?
Our personal style is ruled by Venus, and in my case that comes with a serious case of Pisces sentimentality, not to mention a heady dose of fantasy and self-delusion (of course I looked like Kate Moss circa Glastonbury 2005 in that vintage beaded vest). I was going to need external help with this – and who better than my friend Psychic Betsy? A gifted intuitive who specialises in finding practical tools to aid in your personal and spiritual development, I felt that with her help I would finally be able to cut the crap and find the real me.
Before she arrived, I did a brutal edit – anything I hadn’t worn for 12 months or more was up for the chop, as was anything that had been making me feel like an imposter in my own skin. Together, we then did a short meditation to set an intention for the session – basically, to make space in my wardrobe for the new, updated Ruby. We also visualized all the clothes I got rid of finding their way into the hands of women who would rock them like they deserved to be rocked.
And as we began working through the pile, several things quickly became clear. No. 1 – I am no longer the good time girl who danced her way through my 20s and early 30s in a blur of cocktails and fashion forward frocks. “’I used to wear this in Ibiza’ is coming up a lot,” Betsy pointed out. And having got deep into a decade-long love affair with the infamous party island (to the point I even edited a magazine there for two whole summers), there was obviously part of me that still felt very attached.
Taming my inner hedonist has been a conscious choice – mainly because these days I want to be more present for the highs that show up in my life– “but I don’t want to say goodbye to the fun times forever,” I whined. The answer from Spirit? “But you have fun in other ways now, and don’t you need new clothes for that?” Sayonara, frilly pink mini dresses and tiger print crop tops.
The old me: cocktails and frilly pink frocks
It also became obvious that in certain cases my “sentimentality” was masking some serious lack mentality. We unearthed numerous “placeholders,” things I was hanging onto for dear life because I might need them one day – rather than setting the energy in those particular items free to come back to me in new and frankly waaaay cooler form. Now this was a concept I could get my head around. But in some cases, saying goodbye to things that had been with me for years was as painful as kicking old friends to the curb. “So take a photograph. That way you can keep the energy of them close, but make room for new friends too!”
Anything I spoke about in the past tense was also a straight up “NO,” but of course there were some things I was seriously on-the-fence about. “So let’s do a little intuition 1-0-1,” suggested Betsy, who then had me close my eyes and picture another woman wearing and loving the item in question. “How does that feel, in the space right below your belly button?” Well good, actually, expansive and happy. “And now imagine yourself putting it on.” Stifled, stale and tight. This was getting easier by the minute.
As little as an hour later, virtually everything on the pile was ready to be packed up and shipped off to my local clothing exchange store – save for a few items I had got a very strong sense I should pass on to my friends Gabby and Gala (the three of us recently formed a sort of fashion maven holy trinity on an impromptu trip to Gabby’s favourite store, Reformation, on the Lower East Side). Maybe it was Betsy’s presence, but I just *knew* they’d love them.
The sense of clarity, lightness and relief I’ve been feeling since has been liberating to say the least – as a friend recently confided to me, “purging (as in, energetic purging) might be my secret favourite thing.” Of course there are huge gaps in my wardrobe that now need to be filled, but how much fun is THAT going to be?And of course, there’s a fittingly serendipitous P.S.
When I took my haul to the exchange the woman next to me was unloading a job lot of Helmut Lang samples, including just the black jacket to replace my faded “placeholder.” I walked out wearing it, with a cheque for $142 in my pocket for the rest of my swag. And when, the next day, I found myself with five minutes to spare in Soho, I wandered into the Jerome Dreyfuss boutique. I’ve been on the hunt for a new wallet, as Gala has a theory that an upgrade can help attract abundance into your life.
#abundance
And what do you know, after weeks of searching (it had to be red and the right size for my mini Marc Jacobs handbag – not an easy score) it turned out they had just the thing. But it was from last season so they had to fetch it up from out back, and it also happened to be on sale. For precisely $142.
Betsy Cohen is available to assist with your psychic closet clear out too! To make an appointment, go to www.newyorkcitypsychic.com
Enlightening chats with the oracle of all things mystically glam, Gala Darling: apparently, the colour of your wallet can make a big difference when it comes to the kudos of your credit rating. Time to splash some of that precious cash on an upgrade? Continue reading “MAKE YOUR WALLET A MONEY MAGNET”
