Joy Thompson Music Tarot-Reading Songbird

I win the Oscar for longest title!!! Thank you so much, it's such an honour I'd like to thank Systemic Collapse, Capitalism, Attention Deficit Disorder, Discombobulation and Circumlocution personally for all they've brought to my life. Now back to that first thing, Crystals and Energies, I bet that you didn't know crystals held different energies did you? Or maybe you handwaved or poo-pooed it thinking it was for those “wacky crystal hippies” that were always banging on about how they needed to realign their chakras or clear their energy or something. In fact, everything is vibrating at some sort of frequency, we know from science that in order to form a solid mass atoms need to move quickly/vibrate and any time you have a vibration you have a frequency and being that we are all different we tend to vibrate differently so too do crystals. 

In point of fact here's what a rose sounds like musically….. All this to say that crystals are rocks that come from the Earth and the Earth is a living breathing thing (that we are most unfortunately killing at a disturbingly rapid pace) and as such that means these rocks, crystals resins are and hold energy and different energy depending on where they originate, how close or far they are from Earth's core what's around them as they heat up or cool down, how long they heat up and cool down etcetera etcetera. At any rate there are tons of books out there that can help you break down what each stone/crystal/resin's primary functions are, 1001 Crystals: The Complete Book of Crystals for Every Purpose by Cassandra Eason is one of them and there are others that focus on Crystal Healing: meaning how you can use  and work with crystals to supplement your own healing process. 

The funny thing about this is so many of us and our Ancestors were already doing this long ago before Capitalism reared its ugly head and declared anything of the Earth not of value and anything and everything man made, like money, (literally printed paper ironically which originated from trees in the Earth) as of the utmost value to the point where we are supposed to sacrifice our mental, physical and social health to get more and more of the stuff while suffocating in a world of pointlessness, exhaustion, burnout, debt, financial obligations and terror that keeps the capitalistic wheel a-spin-spin-spinning. 

Any time someone implies that Chakras, Crystals or Astrology are silly endeavours tell them first, that's racist. The concept of Chakras comes from Eastern Philosophy which has been around a heck of a lot longer than North America, (two fake countries created on the genocide of Indigenous Children and Stolen Land) second Crystals and Astrology are what so many of our Ancestors have been following and using for years. In fact much of the world revolves around astrology, systems were created to follow when the Sun rose and set, where the Moon and Stars and Planets were in the sky would inform people about crops, seasons, weather changes etc. People were connected to the Earth because people knew that we had a symbiotic relationship and we could only exist and thrive insofar as the Earth herself was thriving. Capitalism's job was to disconnect you from that, to make you forget that you need trees to live and that they are far more fundamental in your life than a Taylor Swift concert.

Capitalism wants you to believe that you are an island entirely without need for anyone or anything else, it wants you to believe that Israel's destruction of Gaza has nothing to do with you, that children being forced into the mines for your phones and tech in the Congo is not your problem or that you personally can't do anything to fix it.

None of this is true, at all and I'm not trying to make you feel like shit by saying it, although I suspect if your heart is beating and your eyes are somewhat open you probably already do feel pretty shitty. If it all feels overwhelming to take it all in then just know that to start the first step is and will always be connection and community, going to a local coffee shop instead of Starbucks (who btw is in partnership with ElBit Systems who are currently bombing at least 4 countries) taking an interest in Gardening or Pottery or Painting or Witchcraft or Crystals by going to your local library or local bookstore instead of treading hard on the planet by ordering from Amazon and feeding a billionaire even more money than he already has. Checking in on your friends and stepping outside of your nuclear family to make connections within your local community, looking around and seeing where you might be of service, where your unique skills might make things a bit better for someone else and applying them. 

You are not trying to change the WHOLE WORLD, you are just trying to make a tiny little dent in your corner of it and you do that by connecting with other people around you. You don't need to connect with the WHOLE WORLD, just your tiny corner of it and the ripple effect is that which you can never fully measure. Coffee walks in nature wearing your Green Aventurine necklace that your friend Emma made for you from tools at her local crafting shop, days feeding the birds at the beach or in the park, nights stargazing trying to identify the planets, medtiation with a piece of Rose Quartz to work on your self love. Do what you need to do to remind yourself that you are here, on this living, breathing planet for a finite amount of time and it's NOT to provide value for shareholders.

Joy

(I talk about and post this interview a lot because I feel like it just gets to what the true point is of being a human being, this is the stuff that makes you want to get up in the morning, the creativity, the expression the longing for knowledge, to be seen, the be known and to be understood)

Honestly guys, the push towards indiviualism has got to stop and to that end please stop using self-checkout. The greedy bastards are training you to believe that your labour has no value. If they were to offer you a 10% or 15% discount with your labour that would be one thing, but the fact that they are training you to do free labour and framing it as convenience for YOU has a deleterious effect on the working class,  your labour value and how the working class and middle class are perceived within society. They have tricked you into doing labour for free and convinced you that it's easier for you, all in a bid to make them more money than they are already making strying to starve you.

Just think about the repercussions, if someone had told you in the year 2005 that we would have Security Guards in every grocery store you would be laughing them off the planet. If someone told you that you would be paying for shitty (non-waterproof) bags AND checking yourself out with groceries that cost nearly 3 times as much you would probably laugh yourself into an asthma attack. Then if that same someone advised you that you would be doing all this while toilet paper cost $12 and eggs $8 a carton you would probably recommend them a therapist. But here we are, and here we stand and so in light of that, please stop using self-checkout. Your labour has value, as does the people who work at these stores, don't help corporations and CEOs, who are profiting hand over fist from your wallet, profit off your labour as well. 

Yeah that's trite, I know, I'm sorry but the human race is really missing the point and we're not getting out of this mess until everyone does the reading. A warm home, a good meal, an opportunity at education and a decent life is the right of every single individual living on this planet. 

Which Witch is Which?

The stars are having their say, as they always have. We are in the Age of Aquarius, along with technological advances (or devolutions) the spiritual community is expanding. Have you felt a stronger need to connect with nature and your loving Ancestors? Have you noticed conversations surrounding witchcraft and ritual have increased? Have you noticed more people talking about energy and spellwork and the fact that words are spells and the fact that a tree is magic and the fact that the earth is a living and breathing thing? 

Have you noticed your intuition getting stronger. Maybe you think about someone and they call, maybe you get a bad feeling about something and you skip it and find out you dodged a bullet? Maybe you decide to take a different route on your walk and run into an old friend? The connections you may be feeling, the rootedness, the pull to what you've always wanted to do or be or see, the yearning towards creativity, or education or books or music or art or gardening or building or sewing or cooking or baking or anything creative, it's very real, it's not imagined. The dreams you dream, the hopes you carry, the sorrows on your back from abandoning what has meant most, all of this is coming to a head. All of this is a reminder of who and what you truly are.

The real you is emerging, the one you've been hiding from everyone all your life for fear of ridicule or censure. You're here on this planet to do what you are pulled to do, to do what you do best in the very specific way that only you can do it. The most important voices to listen to now are the heart of the collective and your own intuition, and the more you listen to that sweet, little voice the louder and more confident it will become and the more you lean in to the connectivity of all life the more rooted and centred you'll become. 

We've wasted all these resources, depleted and pillaged the earth, killed and harmed our neighbours, animal and plant friends and brought Mother Earth to the brink of destruction only to learn that the key to our connection was inward all along. Only to realize that the truth of it all is we must go inward to connect outward, all this pain and suffering only to understand that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." These are the lessons, this is the path towards care, contentedness and love and you know what? The longer we take to learn these sacred lessons, the more unnecessary pain we will endure.

******** STRANGER THINGS SPOILERS AHEAD*************

I know, cryptic much? I was talking about the state of things and the end of Stranger Things, pretty dark hey? Well horror fans tend to feel a certain comfort treading on the dark side, it's not that we like it more, it's just that since we know we're going to have to go there eventually anyways we may as well make ourselves comfortable.

All that aside I finished watching the last episode of Stranger Things, I thought I would cry, I mean heck I cry every time I watch Season 4 and El finds out Hopper is alive as he walks into her room at the cabin and I HATE Hopper. Season 1-3 every single time El or Mike cried, I cried. El cries, I cry that's how it goes, or that's how it went but things have changed. I was lucky to have hopped onto the show when Season1-3 had already come out, so I could enjoyably marathon 3 full seasons without waiting, I mean I did do some waiting in between like, sleeping, working, socializing and whatnot, I'm not a sociopath, but there was a fun curiousity to that and I enjoyed that as my first Stranger Things experience, I have the Tarot Deck to prove it. 

I grew up on A Nightmare on Elm Street, V, Dark Angel, Buffy, Angel, Monster Squad, Star Wars etc etc etc all things I could see heavily influenced Stranger Things much to my delight but the second half of Season 5 (the last 4 episodes) lost the human connection that meant so much, save for the plot involving Max and Kali,nothing really moved me in the back half of Season 4 because it felt for some reason like the heart had been sucked out. I can't help but wonder how much the showrunners (and some of the actors) zionist leanings may have pulled me out of the plot. I really couldn't tell you who has loved pop culture more consistently over the pre-internet years to now than me. Movies and music and TV Shows have carried me through some of the darkest, loneliest, most hopeless times of my life, that's why it was so wonderful to see an amalgamation of what I loved so much in Stranger Things, Nancy Wheeler was clearly based on the greatest horror heroine of all time IMO Nancy Thompson, Eleven was clearly a composite of ET and Max from Dark Angel and Eleven's siblings and their experiences and even the briliant Matthew Modine as Papa were clearly based on the X5s and the cynical Donald Lydecker. The four boys were Goonie and Stand By Me-esque and the great and timeless Winona Ryder, well let's be honest, embodied the spirit of WInona Ryder in the 80's which was far more beautiful and badass than that extraordinarily humble woman will ever know apparently. 

All this to say, Stranger Things Seasons 1-4 were like a dreamy amalgamation from my amygdala which is why it hurt even more to think of the nefarious intentions of the showrunners and producers and to understand that even though they felt, narratively, that saving the world was important that in reality there are only certain people in certain places in the world that they feel that applies to. I also really fucking missed Argyle, dude. That kid was fucking dope. 

It just seemed in Season 4 that their genocidal tendancies took over and the heart of the story got washed away. It just felt angrier and bigger in a capitalist budget-y kind of way not bigger in the sense of story. For example, The Matrix Revolutions, a trilogy ender, is bigger in budget but it's also big in story, (and in Neoplatonism apparently) and while the budget is large the characters throughout the series still get these small beautiful moments, like the moments with Sati and Neo or Sati and the Oracle or the incredible conversation between Neo and Councillor Hamann on the bridge and the realization by Morpheus that Neo was fighting for the city of Zion. 

In my opinion the back half of Stranger Things missed all that made the show so special, the incredible, funny, heart-warming moments of Scoops Troops in Season 3, the touching moments between Mike and Eleven from Season 1-4 when he would prove again and again that he had her back and that she was never far from his thoughts, the deep friendship of Steve and Dustin which was foolishly sawed and hacked at so much for the first half of the season that it barely registered when they quickly made up in less than one episode, 4 episodes of sniping  and bizarre apathy towards one another and the payoff was cheap.  It seems the only standout moments that really resonated for me in Season 5 were in the first half with Will and Robin (who I was so glad finally got to connect)  Will finally accepting himself and owning his connection to Vecna and of course the long awaited return of Max. Episodes 1-4 delivered but aside from Max's triumphant return and Holly's incredible leadership as Mike, the storyteller, foretold it really felt like the back half of Season 5 felt empty. I swear I got more closure from the 2hr credit scene in Breaking Dawn Part II than the back half of Season 5 of Stranger Things and I wonder if my inability to empathize with the characters at the end stemmed from knowing how little so many of the cast and producers and showrunners would empathize with someone who looks like me or someone who looks like a little girl who just wants to play with her doll in a rain drenched, beleaguered refugee camp in Gaza. Maybe, maybe not but I can't rule out that it matters.

I cannot believe that something so hateful and profoundly signficant, in an awful way, was just never f*cking mentoned to cisgender women. Like why bother bringing up that when your estrogen depletes you may lose your hair, your muscles, your memory, your homonal balance, your WILL TO LIVE! Like you would think something that significant would get a little bit of press no? But because it's about not about men there's been little to no research about it whatsoever. Doctors, male and female don't know sh*t about perimenopause, because Medical School can't be arsed to teach anything about it. 

Menopause itself, (which is only one day btw) is reduced to the butt of jokes at the expense of poor Kitty Forman as though it's some kind of cosmic joke, when in fact it's actually more like this and this and this and this.

In case you haven't yet heard of this demonic enterprise, Perimenopause is what happens before menopause, which is literally only one day. Menopause is the day your period stops and perimenopause happens the 8-10 (give or take) years that lead up to it, your estrogen production slows down and causes all kinds of horrors. 

Often when you go to the doctor, because they are woefully undertrained and, in Ontario, woefully overworked, and if you have a male doctor, woefully disinterested you can get a very canned responses to your symptoms that basically handwave everything you are experiencing due to the fact that you are still having your period. This kind of response is useless and wrong. If your doctor tells you to come back when your period ends (as my friend experienced), find another doctor, especially for Black and Indigenous women who have been woefully mistreated, tortured, used and gaslit by the Western Medical Profession, it is so important to advocate for yourself and to listen to your own intuition. If you feel something is wrong don't let anyone tell you different, plow through as many doctors as you need to in order to get to the truth. In fact in a case as specfic as Perimenopause or Menopause, when doctors aren't listening Naturopaths are a wonderful solution because often in my life I've found doctors tend to treat symptoms where Naturopaths (especially female ones) tend to dig until they find the root cause of the problem which is what we really want to address.

Not for nothing but diet is also a factor, with diet of course comes money, financial depression is real when the cost of eggs is $10 just because Galen Weston and his despicable family (or whoever the Westons are in your town or country) want to be even more diabolically rich, but that aside (somehow) studies have shown that perimenopausal symptoms are in fact worse in North America compared to say….Greece or Italy for example who follow the mediterranean diet and don't shove hormones and pesticides in and all over their food like it's their personal goal to kill everyone. 

Two books I can recommend that are permanent staples on my bookshelf are Meals That Heal by Carolyn Williams PhD Rd and MenuPause by Anna Cabeca DO, OBGYN. If you choose to read these books please order them from the library or your local small bookstore, I beg you not to give that demon  Jeff Bezos nor Indigo money in my name. Find a small independent bookstore where possible and order from them as I did, or order it from your local library and take notes in your Perimenopause Journal. Both these books talk about the benfits of the Mediterranean diet and the importance of eating anti-inflammatory foods high in protein and omega 3 fatty acids like salmon and other fish, nuts, lentils, flax seed chips, arugula. You'll find that going hard on cardio in the gym isn't so helpful anymore, quite the opposite (that one was very upsetting for me) and that lifting heavy weights and doing low impact things like yoga or pilates are much better for reducing belly fat, which is triggered by cortisol which your body is making more of when you go cardio crazy in your perimenopausal stage.

A little side note to this, remember when Madonna (whose current zio incarnation we no longer acknowledge) was constantly snapped running every day then she released the Ray of Light  album and had stopped running and gyming and had gotten into yoga, remember the change in her physique from dancer/running back strong to swimmer body and toned. Guess how old she was when that transition happened? Yup.

Anyways, the first step to dealing with the nightmare of perimenopause is the opposite of Fight Club. Talk about perimenopause, in fact don't shut up about it because if you're in your late 30s-40s-early 50s and you feel like you are going absolutely bonkers chances are good you are not going bonkers you are just going through the horrible hormonal horrors of perimenopause. There's no shame in ageing and there's no sense in shame. Anyways Happy (as they can be) Holidays and take it easy as you can, this is the liminal point between the New Year (which is a silly time to start a New Year anyway if you ask this witch) eat well (if you can) do yoga, grieve what needs grieving and meditate but most importantly spend time with people you actually enjoy to keep stress levels low. It's very hard out here, sso do your best.

Joy 

Narcissists and Empaths go together like Vecna and Eleven or The Emperor and Luke Skywalker or Agent Smith and Neo. I really hope you saw the pattern there. If you are an Empath, actively engaged with a narcissist, baby, run. 

Narcissists feed on Empaths like, vampires. Frankly, I think Louis was the narcissist in Interview With The Vampire 1994, a covert narcissist who was perpetually the victim. Even though Lestat clearly gave Louis the choice to be a vampire or simply die Louis carried on for over a century whining and complaining as though he was damned and put upon when in truth he could have a) gone to a hospital and stolen blood  b) just eaten horrible people (any vampire who can't handle eating a serial killer or pedo is a total loser IMO) c) just walked into the sunlight if he felt that strongly about it. Speaking to the movie particularly not the book nor the tv show, Lestat did a number of things to try to put Louis at ease with his (Louis') own personal choice to be a vampire but nothing was ever good enough. Then when Claudia, whom Lestat made for Louis, (whom Louis was grateful for yet somehow still simultaneously resentful about) tried to kill Lestat, Louis helped Claudia bury him and when Lestat reappeared Louis attempted to kill him again.

Hidden resentments, passive aggression and powerplays are par for the course with covert narcissists.  self-victimization and martyrdom are the rule of the day as they take situations without conflict and create their own. 

Signs of Covert Narcissistic are creating drama for drama's sake, for example, you're going to a party with your covertly narcissistic friend and you agree to meet at a certain time, you show up to the rendezvous spot and they aren't there, you call and text but don't hear anything from them, 45mins after the meet time you get a message from them saying that they didn't know they were supposed to meet you at that time and place and they weren't sure if the plans were solidified and they lost track of time or are sorry they missed you because they were looking forward to it. Another example would be someone who always has some sort of physical or mental issue every time you meet up with them, everything is fine until it's time to go your separate ways and then they are tired, or have a headache, or they're freezing or they are too exhausted to walk or travel. 

Covert Narcissists like to set up situations to either cause worry or stress because their sense of self is so fragile they need a supply from others to reaffirm it, so they often find this supply in drama. A covert narcissist may puprosely put themselves in dangerous or untenable situations so that people will worry about them. They may suddenly “feel sick or have a headache” or other ailments to elicit worry for proof that other people care about them and proof that they matter. Because they do not have the wherewithal to self-regulate or self-validate all or the majority of emotional-regulation and validation comes from other people. Which means that they have no issue whatsoever draining you of all your energy and empathy if it means they receive their validaton because they haven't learned to emotionally regulate or validate themselves therefore other people's validation and regulation is crucial to their survival.

What does this mean for an Empath? It means that you are like an All-You-Can-Eat Buffet for them, which is why steering clear of them is absolutely vital to emotional, mental and physical health. Have you ever seen a couple where one of them has glowing skin, seems fit and looks healthy and the other looks like an exhausted, strung out blob? The chances that the person who looks healthy is a narcissist or has narcissistic traits and is feeding off the exhausted one are very very high. As long as a narcissist, whether covert, communal, grandiose or otherwise, has their supply source they will continue bopping along unhappily  in their empathy-less world with no regard for others aside from the outward glamour necessary to mask their nefarious intentions. If you've had someone in your life with narcissism or narcissistic tendencies that is no longer around then be grateful they've moved on to another source of supply. We can't stop narcissism, we can't heal narcissists, we can't teach empathy, all we can do is make dang sure that their source of supply is not us. If you are the target of narcissistic abuse I am sending you love and validation and I want you to know that your gentle heart is needing and appreciated and a narcissistic person is in no way reflective of the kind of treatment you deserve. There is love for you out there and there ARE people who are ready and willing to support and care for you as much as you care for them. So love yourself hard, stay tough, stay loving, stay sweet and keep your boundaries tight.

xo

So here  and here are my offerings but I only mean it a little bit. I do enjoy Christmas a great deal. I love the music, the wreaths, the scents, the food, the warmth, the coziness, the stockings on the fireplace, the presents, the chocolates and man, the expectation, the hope for something really really wonderful. But this year, dang it, everyone is in so much pain, myself included, and being clairsentient it really is amplified so it's increasingly more difficult to focus on the “joys” no pun intended, of the season knowing how much unnecessary suffering is happening for extraction and capitalist gains. The true beauty of life is found in connection and community and being so far away from that reality is really really painful, so this Christmas I am not going to pretend that everything is lovely, I will seek joy when and where I can find it but I will not be spiritually bypassing the pain of this moment.  It will be a painful Christmas for many and we can hold space for that and for them and for the parts of us that want better for our friends, our family, our world and ourselves. Be easy, be open and stay woke, people.

I know, soooo much going on. Tonight is the Solar Eclipse in Virgo at 29 Degrees that marks the end of Eclipse Season that has surely been a kick in the head for all of us. Just brutal. Tomorrow is Mabon/Autumn Equinox/ Libra Season/Autumn/Spooky Season, however you celebrate but regardless, stuff is HAPPENING.

So….would it be prudent to prepare for hibernation? Yes. Should you collect the necessary books to read for fall? Yes. Should you take long walks while listening to podcasts that teach you how to engage in the activism needed to change this effed up system and world? YES!! It's Libra Season dammit!! Beauty and Justice for all! And in the spirit of beauty and justice, take thou this and remember, you are a spiritual being having a human experience. It's all a simulation so whatever small thing you can do to help the simulation suck less for your fellow comrades in community and the oppressed folks out there….DO IT.

If you need to boycott, boycott. If you need to tell someone off, tell them off. If protesting will help people whose humanity is being questioned then protest, if educating others helps then educate others. As Jewel said your hands may be small but they're yours and….  “You never know when the good you do will come back around”

Since the Moon rules Cancer it couldn't be a better time to talk about the 5th Dimension. So, I made a video about it, like to hear it? Here it goes…. 

P.S the key is connection and gratitude….

Nowadays Gillian Owens panicked refrain is echoing in everyone's consciousness. Protection! We all desperately need protection from all the deeply disturbing things happening out there. Well it just so happens there's a witchy solve for that, and a stone and a resin etc etc etc.

If you've got the ghost of partner's past on your ass, some wack non-friend, frenemy, psycho boss or some other ail that is deeply disturbing you, there's a myriad of things you can do to protect yourself. Here are a few:

Incense, every self--respecting person should have at least 2-3 incense holders in their home in preparation to burn away the disturbances or just create a pleasant ambience. Incense for protection includes: Nag Champa (the old faithful) this has been used for over 60 years and is a spiritual failsafe. The protection comes from the Sandalwood, which has a delightful scent of its own to share. 

There's also Lavender which has been used for protection for many years although more known for cleaning (hence the name Lavender from the Latin word “Lave” meaning to wash) its cleansing and protection properties are not to be dismissed.

On the stronger and more potent side of things we have Frankincense Incense and Resin sort of like the Bruce Lee of killing negativity. Undefeated and seemingly innocuous yet oozing with power and mastery of control, if you don't have Frankincense for these trying times GET YOU SOME.

Finally we have Sage, there's regular Sage and White Sage. I recommend regular Sage with a mix of Lavender, (note, you are not smudging that is a practice particular to Indigenous People and the appropriation of that word by non-Indigenous folks is rather icky).

Now let's move on to protective stones, for there are many, we can begin with the Black Stones, all are protective, the strongest being Black Tourmaline. Black Tourmaline is what you use when “go away” just isn't enough, followed by (in no particular order) Black Obsidian, Hematite, Onyx, Shungite. 

For non-Black protective stones there's Tiger's Eye or Tiger Eye in yellow, red, blue etc, Citrine (which is a great one as it is also a stone for prosperity and good fortune and does not pick up any negative energy) then (surprisingly) Pyrite and Lapis Lazuli. Lapis is an ancient stone, venerated by ancient Egyptians, buried with Pharaohs in their tombs and mentioned in the Bible. Put any of these stones on both sides of your front door or windows to protect you from bad energies (or people) entering your home and burn these aforementioned incense at least once a week to clear bad energy. It's ugly out there people, hold onto your humanity, stand up for what's right and protect your dang energy like Anubis guarding a Pharaoh's tomb.