And I said, Okay, that sounds really good. And then it started, because I’m saying, Okay, fine, I’ll take care of it. It’s four o’clock in the morning, I’m just going to go back to sleep. And the universe says, Uh, no, you’re not. You’re going to sit down. As a matter of fact, you’re going to write the full intro. You’re going to write the first full promo, and it’s going to be a few minutes long. And I said, Alright, fine. So I got up at four o’clock in the morning, wrote it all out, and I started doing podcasts. I joined a group that both of us are involved in, and they directed me to Krystal. I asked Krystal to be a guest on my program toward a better life. And Wow, we hit it off and we just have so much in common. We have so many cool things to talk about.  

I went through the same thing with Krystal when she first came on my podcast saying, Okay, so when do we really start the podcast? And we had probably, I don’t know, know, 20, 30 minutes  on the phone before we actually started. So I appreciate Krystal’s insights into helping people, helping people where they are, helping people to help themselves, and learning that life really can be a truly enjoyable experience if you look at it that way. And if you choose to look at it from a negative perspective, guess what you’re going to get. And I said, You know, we have so many different things in common that we can do with that so this is cool. This is awesome. 

Krystal Jakosky:    I love you and I want to put you in my pocket and just carry you around with me. Thank you for the boost. One of the things that Kevin and I have the opportunity to really connect with and is dear to my heart is actually the native path. And so today, in the interest of bringing more awareness and more understanding about possibilities and different healing modalities that you guys can dive into, finding your peace, finding your direction, finding your life, I really wanted Kevin to come on and talk about his journey with that native path so that you guys can understand a little bit more, because some of us are really drawn to it. I can tell you that any time I hear those drums, I am bouncing and walking around right along with it, because there is something that speaks to my heart and soul, and it brings me joy to be in that area. So Kevin, what drew you to the native path? Tell me about a little bit of your background and what brought you to that new place?  

Kevin Pennell:    I became really curious about how the indigenous people worked in close harmony with the world around them. They saw the trees as their brothers. You see the animals as their brothers and sisters. They would call the trees, not trees, but they called the brothers, called them the tall ones. Would call the stones, the rocks, grandmothers and grandfathers. They would go into a sweat lodge or they’d call them the stone people because they were the wisest people, because these stone people have been around for thousands of years. And the only way that we have to communicate is if you’re really in tune with stuff. You’re walking a long garden past some place, maybe out in Colorado or Texas or Minneapolis or wherever you might be in this little stone. You’re just drawn to it and you say, I got nothing, but it looks cute, so I’ll pick it up.  

And you, and if you actually tried to tell that person, you do know that that stone just talked to you, Right? They’d say, Yeah, Right. What planet did you just fall off of? But I was always intrigued by the natural world, and I’ve always been intrigued by all the beauty of the natural world. And then I found myself just getting interested in that. And I started to say, Well, I wonder if I have any native blood in me. And I said, Well, you know, and at the time I was living in Broward County down in Florida, and we had a pretty big library. The library in Broward County was huge. And they actually had an archive section, and you could go in, believe it or not, Krystal, you could go into there and you can look up the original manifests from the original Mayflower.

Obviously they’re micro-fish, but it was amazing. We’re talking about handwriting Okay. That they had preserved from some place. And I’m going to just casually conclude the other, you know, and the curiosity part comes in. Oh, I wonder if Pinnell is in the right place. Yeah. 1637, third Mayflower, there’s a Pinal. I went, Oh my gosh. My family’s been here since 1637. And I know my dad had told me that, you know, the other crew came in from Wales, around sometime  in the mid to early 1700s, because our ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War. So, geez, you know, common sense will tell you, I’ve got to have native blood in me. Right. I’ve been around here for three to 400 years. It’s got to be native blood in me. Right? So I started that path and I started chumming around with different folks, and I was really drawn to a couple of folks.  

One of those people as a person, I wrote about. The book is Two Feather Spiritual Seed Planter, and it’s written by Kevin Laughing Hawk, which is my spirit name that he gave me. But when Kenny and I first met, and this is shown in the book, when Kenny and I first met, I went into that guy, and I’m just talking with him because I was curious, and at the time I was doing news for local a radio station, and I said, You know, I wonder, I’m not really into the idea of interviewing this guy for a program, but I did see him identified in a local newspaper, The Gainesville Sun, I think it was. I sat down and I talked with him, and I just said, You know, you’re an interesting man and I would really like to share a little bit more with you.  

He said, Sure, by all means, what questions do you have? And that short little time ended up being two and a half hours, difficult to do with you. Well, if you knew two feathers, you’d see that we’re on the verge of destruction here for taking up time. Oh, wow. Both of us just went on and on and on. And one of the most significant things that he said to me, he looked at me and he said, I do have a question for you, Kevin. I said, What’s that? He says, Do you know who you are? And I said, Well, sure. I know exactly who I am. I’m Kevin Pennell,  I’ve been a pi, I’ve been a cop. I was in radio, I’m in radio now, and you know, I’ve done this, I’ve done that. I’ve done, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Do you know who you are? And I said, I, I don’t. He says, We’ll go to that later. And he told me also, You know so you write news stories? I said, Yeah. He says, You know, maybe someday you ought to write a book about me or write a book about us. And I went, Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah. Like, I’m going to do that. 10 years later I did.

But, you know, so that’s the process. I was, you know, Kenny and I got together and I looked at him as my, my good friend, my brother, my teacher, my mentor. We are convinced that we were related in a past life, and we’ve got proof in our hearts and our spirits that that’s very, very true. And if I had a picture of him someplace, I would try to pull it up here to show you, because particularly in the cover of my book, and if you go to Amazon, you can see it. And people would look at that picture and they’d say, Well, it’s about Ken two feathers. Why did you put your picture on the cover?  

And I didn’t. That’s Kenny, that’s how close we looked like each other. And when I was living up in Maine I’d be on the street walking along and somebody’d holler across the street, and this is a little village up there called Bethel. He would holler across the street, and they would say, Kenny. Kenny. And I’m looking around Flood, trying to find Kenny. I can’t see Kenny anywhere,  I turned around and then said, Oh, wait a minute. You’re not Kenny  

They were talking to me. Things for a compliment. Yeah. Thanks for the compliment. I really appreciate that. Nice thoughts. But Kenny taught me so much about this stuff, and I was still convinced that I was Native American. You know, after all, I’ve been here for 300 and something years. My family’s been here that long. I mean, my gosh, I’ve got to be Native American, Nope. Few years ago, Vicky, who’s my partner, got me one of these DNA test things, and I found out that I am Scott Welsh, Irish, and a little bit of German. And here’s the cool part that I didn’t expect. I’m also a Viking.

That answered a lot of questions for me, because if you go into some of the history of the Carolinas and some of the Virginias, you’ll find out that a lot of the intermarriages that took place a couple of hundred years ago with the Cherokee people, and it looks like they would intermarry with Celtics. If you start looking at the Celtic traditions, and you look at them in comparison to Native American ways, both of them honor the earth, both of them look at the spirits of the world, the spirits of the animals, the spirits of the earth, the spirits of everything. And that’s enough common ground to cause a beautiful relationship between people. So instead of turning my back on it saying, Well, you know, I’m not Native American, I’m a human being.  

And that’s what Kenny would tell you. He says, there is no such thing as a Native American, an indigenous person, this, that, the other, we’re all human beings. And that is the essence of it, is to become a human being and a true human being as someone who not only honors the earth, but they honor people and they honor others’ ways. And that continued the journey. But it wasn’t until about a year or so before Kenny crossed over that I came to the realization that, Nope, I’m Scott Welsh and Irish mostly. And I’m okay with that. But in the midst of all of that, what I learned over a period of 15, 20 years of exposure to some of the indigenous people, particularly northeastern woodlands, Kenny was a penobscot and Sarney. You have Pinco, Mick Mack, Ma,  Paqua, you know, all that group that’s up there in Maine and New England. And I sat under his tutelage and learned a great deal about sweat lodges, about getting, giving a name about the significance of having a spirit named significance of the sacred pie, significance of the giveaway. All those beautiful stories and how I made them a part of me. And in sharing that book, I encouraged other people to do this as well, from a standpoint of not becoming a Native American, but to become a better human being. So there’s the short version.

Krystal Jakosky:   The question of, do you know who you are? Is a terrifying question, I think, for a lot of us. I mean, on the one hand, absolutely, I’m so and so, and this is what I do, but do you really know who you are? And to be sitting, you were drawn to indigenous people, you were drawn to the Native American ways. And to have this person sitting there asking you such a deep question You said, I’m Kevin Pennell, and I do this and this, and this and this, But inside, were you freaking out?  

Kevin Pennell:   Oh, yeah. 

Krystal Jakosky:    How did you move from, was it in just that one interview where you moved from where acquaintances and we’re checking each other out, and I wanted to know more about you that you automatically moved into, I want to take you under my wing. Or how did it change from just these two people meeting to, you need to learn more about who you are, and I want to teach you?

Kevin Pennell:   It was one step at a time. In the book I talk about asking for a teacher or looking for a teacher, and it was still a curiosity. And I’m a curious person. I’m a very curious person, underscore that several times. And curiosity can be a blessing, could also be a curse. In this instance, it was a blessing. And the curiosity continued that Kenny says, Oh, we’ve got a Native American gathering coming up. Next month they have what they used to call down around Dad city, They called it the full moon ceremony. And it was beautiful, and it was on the full moon. And you would, we would have all these different people come and, and it was intertribal and even those that were not native and yet called to it, and don’t let me forget, I want to go to that in a second. Their essence was drawing me toward a deeper understanding of these people that were so beautiful and so wonderful. And I said, You know, there’s got to be something here and I can’t quite figure it out. So I kept going back to Kenny and talking with him. This wasn’t just one conversation. And to answer your first question, I’m sorry, was, you know, did you at that point in time realize that you were the student and he was the teacher? The answer is no. The universe knew it.  

Universe knew, it’s taken us this long to get you two guys together crying out loud. You have no idea what a pia this has been.

 And as we moved along, I started hearing about gifting tobacco and asking for a teacher. And really what that means to ask an indigenous person to be your teacher. Kenny taught me a lot as far as being very traditional in some of this stuff, and I’m not dissing anyone for any of this, but, there were people that if you wanted a teacher, then you not only gifted tobacco, but you gifted money. And if you wanted a sweat, you gifted money. It just goes on and on and on. And I’m not I’m not dissing anyone because that’s just their path. But the way that I was taught is, if I want a teacher, I gift them tobacco. If I want a sweat lodge, I gift them tobacco. If I want them to awaken a spirit pipe for me, I gift them tobacco. Why tobacco?  

It’s bad for you. No. What it is, is, is it actually, the smoke is lifted with our spirit thoughts in the smoke to creator to the universe, to the ancestors around us, because that’s how the prayers are lifted. That’s why so often tobacco is looked at as a sacred herb, because its essence, the smoke as it’s burned, lifts our prayers and our intentions to the universe around us and the ancestors. So you would gift tobacco. And after a month, I’d say, I realized I really do want to know more about this. And I ended up gifting Kenny Tobacco and asking him to be my teacher. Part of that entailed, when you asked someone to be your teacher, you are like, I still use the term today. You’ve opened the door. You’ve opened the door to what you’ve opened to allow that person to share with you what they find to be the most benefit for you to be a better human being.  

And guess what? Some of those things they tell you, if you’re a good teacher, you may not and you probably won’t like. Because they tell you stuff that is better for you as a person. And I’m not going to sit here and tell you that it was all actually roses. As roses have thorns, Kenny upset me enough a couple of times that I wanted to punch him. I’m not kidding at all. It just irritated the crap out of me. And he had me, I’m gonna steal your term. He had me own my shit. And I really didn’t want to own my shit because it’s my shit. It’s not somebody else’s. And it’s so easy to say, that’s your fault. You just don’t want to admit to it because it’s your perception. Yeah. So after a while, I became his student, he was my mentor. So he was my student, I was his student, I was his man, he was my mentor. I’ll slip on that because the interesting thing is, when you get in deep enough with somebody, the roles do reverse. You establish a beautiful relationship that is beyond words.  

And as he would say, I’m not sure about our timeframe here, but if you can do this while we’re talking, I’m going to find something since it is going to be shown on YouTube, there’s a beautiful little story if I’m allowed to do this. Okay. 

Krystal Jakosky:    Yeah. This is your podcast. Well, it’s my podcast. You are my guest. You can get to do what you want. 

Kevin Pennell:    If I can do this in a camera. Okay. So I’ve got, There we go. I’ve got three dots here, right? Yeah. Okay, So now I’m going to take this, I’m going to draw a couple of lines here, and here it is again. 

Krystal Jakosky:    Further back, hold it further back so we can see it better. There we go. Okay.  

Kevin Pennell    So when we’re here, this is you and I talking to you, Krystal. Okay. Yeah. But the relationship that we’re forming also forms another relationship.  

This is our higher selves communicating and they’re communicating in terminology. We cannot identify, we cannot communicate because we don’t know, we don’t understand that language. So in a higher form, you and I are communicating. And that’s how Kenny and I were, and that’s how all relationships are. If you really look at it, and it’s when we have these types of relationships that people should understand that. I don’t want to go down this road because it’s a whole nother podcast. But if you are in a situation where you need to end a relationship, this needs to finish or not finish, but you’d redefine it.  

Because you’ve had that communication at that level. And so you have to figure out a way to make it real, to make it a good thing. And one of the things that we’ve used, I know some people think about affirmations, and I got an affirmation years ago, and this was not native, it was not indigenous, but it came from a spiritualist that I met down in Florida. He was an elder in a group down there. And the words go, you put a name or an object in the beginning of this affirmation, you’d say, Jack, I now release you to your good. The good of one is the good of all. Now keep those three little things in mind that I just showed you because Jack and I have had a relationship. But now we need to shift that relationship. So the I that I is the divine side of me, the higher self that I now release you to your good, I now release you to your higher self.  

I now release you to the good intentions that you have. The ultimate result of that is in doing so, you help everyone and yourself included, because the good of one is the good of all. And that’s how you do stuff. If we realize that it really helps our relationships a lot more, so you can see where I can, we can really go to town on that. So that information was shared with me in that it’s so important that we really do get the picture of what it’s like to have a relationship with someone and to be integrated with that person because we are not just linear, but the whole picture. Yeah. So we’re embraced together in that whole thing.   

Krystal Jakosky:    There’s a ton in there. And I was trying to quietly and discreetly take some notes because there are so many things that I want to jump back to. I do the same thing. So, I love the illustration when I am working with a client or when I am being taught with somebody. I have, I have for a long time, 20 years, been very aware of my higher self. And there have been plenty of times that my higher self has been talking with the other person’s higher self. Then I understand. So it helps me to see their perspective. It helps me to see their point of view, why they feel a certain way. When I’m working with a client, I make sure that the conversation between my higher self and myself is very clear. So that if there is information that I need to give to my client while I’m teaching them how to listen to their higher self, it’s a very sacred and beautiful connection that you can build and you can really honor like yourself with your higher self and understanding and trusting the information that you get from them.  

And as a teacher and a student connection, it’s even more sacred and special because of the added depth of the relationship that can happen because of the fact that you’re willing to spiritually connect together. My husband has this phrase, he says, the student becomes the master. And I think that goes to your comment that, that it does, we shift for a little while. We become, we are the teacher or we are the student. And after a little while, we are going to shift and we will be the other, we will be the student or the teacher on some level in some manner. And it’s a beautiful give and take because we’re all human and we all have experiences that we can share to help change lives in beautiful, gentle, and not so gentle ways. Some of the best lessons that I have learned are the ones where I just kind of want to flip the finger and say, Screw you, I don’t want to talk to you anymore.  

Kevin Pennell:    And then I have had those clients who they don’t talk to me for a week or two because what I ask them, what I am inspired to ask them from my eye or power saying, Hey, you need, you need a bigger nudge than what you’re willing to accept right now. So I’m going to say this. And it really upsets them. It’s really infuriating. And yet they always come back and say, thank you.  

I needed that. I wasn’t willing to accept that. And the way that you did that was so fabulous. It hurts like hell. It pisses us off. And yet those moments, as long as we’re still saying yes, and, and I’m going to choose into this, then we’ll see what happens and where it goes. And I’m really grateful for you, that Kenny was able to push your buttons.

Krystal Jakosky:    Am I? You have no idea. He, he came in, I’ll go ahead. No, you’re good. No, no, no. Please. You had a question. I want to because I will ramble forever.  

Kevin Pennell:    No, I was, what I was going to say was actually to the audience and the fact that oftentimes those people who are so challenging have the biggest lessons. They have the biggest opportunity for shifting, for growth. If we step back, take a moment and ask, Okay, what am I supposed to learn? What am I being shown? How can I deal with this? Instead of shutting down and putting that wall there and a million locks and everything else to push that person out of our lives, maybe we step back and say, Okay, how can I learn and how can I grow and how can life be better because of this really frustrating moment that I am experiencing? So friction is good.  

Krystal Jakosky:    It is something, somebody ought to come up with a line like breathe in and breathe out. 

Kevin Pennell:    Right. Thank you.  

So a little while back, I want to bring us back to this because I wanted to come back and you mentioned that you wanted to come back. The whole concept of you thought for sure that you had Native American blood in you, that you were somehow related to that. And then you go in with Kenny two feathers and you’re learning from him. And you said you wanted to return to this concept of the fact that you actually don’t have, and yet you were learning from.  

So in some work that I had done on my own and thankfulness to others, for what it’s worth my background, degree is in theology. And I did a flip some years ago and I will not, again, I’m not going to put anybody down because they go to church because that is the level of spirituality. That’s the way you achieve your level of spirituality that  you feel that you’re growing from and that you’re getting a lot of benefit from. And that’s fine. It’s just not who I am anymore. It was part of my process. I don’t regret any of that. But all that being said, I’m leading into something. And that is that I strongly believe in reincarnation Now, I believe in it so strongly that I can tell you that there were incidents in my life where dreams that used to come to me after I had made a shift and I had made a change that was needed in my life, Guess what happened to those dreams? They stopped because I made the change that was necessary. And I realized after I had had this one, I had one dream that was, it was to the point,  it would actually become nightmarish and it would wake me up. And it was scary. I’m sure people have had these kind of dreams where you would have a dream where you either you want to punch somebody and for whatever reason, everything goes into slow motion and you can’t quite get your fist into it where you need to go stops  

Yeah. Or you have the other situation, which was this one that I had a spear in my hand and I was native. I was a pueblo and I had my spear and we were being invaded and I knew that I had to do something and I just kept trying to move forward with this. And it’s, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to do this. And nothing will ever happen with that. I had a past life regression done by a colleague of mine and came to realize the reason why I had such a hard time with that is because that’s not what happened. Oh. I was a spiritual leader of that group, and I had taken the vow to be a peacemaker, and that meant that I didn’t raise arms against anybody.  

And the truth came out that I watched my family get killed. Wow. And that was tough. And after I realized what was involved with that, I saw for the first time in that juncture, a real essence of what I was in that life. Not only had it been that, but I also found that there were some roots in the Kwa Nation. And because I was, I talked with somebody one time and we were just having a great time, just like you and I are having a great time right now. And we started singing some wonderful songs and some of the songs that just came from the heart just came from Spirit. I’m just going at it. And the lady that I was with at the time, she says she just held her hand up and she was black feet and Polish.  

That’s a good combination. She said, You need to stop right there. And I said, Why? What? You know, what did I do? And I’m still, this is like three or four years into my, two or three years into my path on some of this indigenous people path. What did I do? Did I offend you? And she, No,  have you been around K people? And I said, No, I’ve never been around Kwa people. Where are they? And she says, Well, you know, up Midwest. And I said, Okay. So what? She says, Well, you’re singing in the K language. I got nothing. And again, I did some more work. And I’m, I’m comfortable with that, that Kwa. And some people say, Oh, you’re just one of those frilly, fufu people that just believes in anything and everything.  

But what I’ve got also down deep inside of me is a real sense. And it was brought into full light when I saw, and I heard from Kenny, but I heard about a story that was given down, I believe by the Hopi, and I can be wrong, but something about that there are so many souls who are out there from the 500 nations that occupied North America. There are not enough bodies for the souls that have crossed over. And so some of those souls went into the people of today, the white people, and those that have the hearts and the minds ready for this sort of thing.  Okay, I can accept that or not, all I know is this. I’m going to move along with the way that time feels. I’m the most comfortable. And so, I will talk about, you need to be very wary of being too comfortable because you know, you can get so comfortable that you no longer grow. But comfort in this act, I would say not comfortable, but content with the concept that I’m confident that I’ve been in native in the past. And that’s why one of the reasons I gravitated back to this is because I see the connection between my true heritage of the Celtic people and the inherited or reincarnated heritage of my native side. So yeah, it’s beautiful. It’s powerful stuff.  

I’m searching for the right words at the moment because there are a ton of thoughts and ideas going through my brain right now. And I want to say these words in the most respectful and honoring way that I can. We are drawn to different things. We are drawn to different ways of life. And it is all an opportunity to learn and grow. It is all an opportunity to find compassion and expansion with understanding a different culture, a different way of living, a different state of being. And this is, and I would like to mention that not by way of just Native American and indigenous pupils. I’m talking about people who live differently than us. Maybe it’s someone who chooses religion and the structure that that gives them over spirituality. Perhaps it’s someone who has a different societal belief, right? Whether you’re Republican or Democrat or all those things.  

Perhaps it’s someone who is lgbtq plus versus someone who is not unaware of it. Somebody who is deaf and in that community and culture and somebody who is not and is trying to learn how to respect and honor the different cultures and ways of living around us. And I think that by learning about it, inviting that in from a very respectful and honoring space, we learn so much more. And just like you are the student, you may also become the teacher and help people recognize that you’re not out to get them and that you are more balanced and that things are okay and whatnot. I think there’s this huge opportunity for all of us to come together in this compassionate, gentle space. If you are drawn to the beliefs and the feelings and the teachings and the culture of indigenous people, I encourage you to dive in.  

I encourage you to respectfully dip your toes and send out to the universe and say, Hey, can you send me a teacher and help me meet the people that I need to meet so that I can start walking on that path? Because the only way you will find that person is if you do open up. Kevin and I were talking about the concept right now. Kevin’s very much in this. Yes. And what else can I do? And if you say, yes, I would like that teacher, and what else can I learn? How many things shift? 

You bet it does. Just be ready for the ride. I think when you are working with someone within the native community, as an outsider, I would say this, I felt truly honored when I was living out in the southwest living, living in Arizona. And I found the sweat lodge to be so beneficial for me as a person. And it really did a lot for my heart, my spirit, my soul, and what a wonderful group of people they were that were there. It was on the Pima Reservation. And if you’re familiar with Phoenix, that’s pretty much really close within the city limits of Phoenix. But they were Pima, there were Pima and there were Navajo. That was pretty much it. Those two people, excuse me, there was Apache, there were Apaches there too.  

And the sweat lodges that I had been to up to that point were a big one for me was 10, 15 people. This sweat lodge alone was probably, I’m gonna guess it was, it was elliptical. So it was probably pretty close to somewhere between 16 and 20 feet long and probably a solid 12 to 14 feet wide, big sweat lodge. Wow. And I thought a big sweat lodge that we would have had a really heavy duty sweat lodge had 12 to 15 stones. No, we had somewhere between 48 and 52 stones in that sweat lodge. And everyone in there, you could just feel the spirit in there. And I faithfully went there for my own sake. I mean, because I needed that in my life at that time. I had drifted a little bit. I’m still on the path and still doing it, but I’m still being pulled into other stuff and we can maybe go into that later or go into another podcast. But we all will drift from time to time off of our given path. And sometimes it’s done for different reasons, but in this one, I felt really good that it gave me that grounding that I needed.  

And literally out of the proverbial blue, the leader came to me and parenthetically the leader and his wife actually helped young men and women on the PMA reservation with substance abuse. And they used the sweat lodge as a vehicle to help them overcome substance abuse. So it was pretty powerful. Yeah. He came up to me after I’d been there for some months, he put his hand on my shoulder and he said, Can I speak with you for a minute brother? And I said, Sure, what’s up? He says, You know, we have another sweat lodge. I said, Yeah, I, you know, coming next Tuesday, Wednesday, whatever it was, he says, No, no, no. He says, We have a family swat lodge every Sunday and I’d like you to start attending.  

Krystal Jakosky:    Oh wow.  

Kevin Pennelll:    That blew me away.  

Krystal Jakosky:    Literally invited you into the family.  

Kevin Pennell:    Yeah. And no ceremony. It just was what it was. And I also had the opportunity, one of the Apaches in the group came up, put their hand on my shoulder one day and then said, we have a very special thing. And we’d like, and this is after I had been invited to go to the Sunday sweats, because it was at one of those Sunday sweats that he came to me. And let’s face it guys, I don’t look native  

And he puts his hand on my shoulder and he says, Are you familiar with a very special Apache dance where a young woman is ushered into a young lady and is ushered into womanhood? And I said, Yeah, I’m a little familiar with that. He says, Well, we have a young lady who’s doing that. This, you know, whenever it is, he says, we’d be honored to have you. And this is the one where you would have the dancers, and the brain’s gone right now. Hopefully it’ll come back. Wink wink, nudge, nudge Krystal, maybe you can help me out here. But you have the special dolls that you can buy at gift shops and they’re the really cool looking dolls that you get. And they’re Hopi basically. Yeah, well the Apache have them too, just so you know. And  I went to that dance and they had the bonafide ones. They didn’t have the tourist ones because you can go to either one of those dances in Arizona and this one you were stopped on the road when you were coming in saying, who invited you?  

I told them and they said, Okay, you can come in.  

Krystal Jakosky:    Okay, fine. We’ll admit you. What I want to know, and I want my listeners to know, what is the purpose or the intention behind the sweat lodges?  

Kevin Pennell:    Good question. There’s a chapter in the book about that.

Sweat lodge. I attended the sweat lodge basically to– how do I start with this? Sweat lodge is an opportunity for us to bear ourselves to the universe and to cleanse ourselves from whatever is holding spirit back. Black Elk and his nephew, Frank FOLs Crow also had the same thing. And that is that with sweat lodges, you are given the opportunity to bury your soul and to go down deep inside and reveal to you what you need to change. Fools Crow talked about being a hollow bone and there’s a workshop that I’ve done before called Becoming a Hollow Bone. And interestingly enough, to me it’s also one of those central truths like love because the Dalai Lama talks about becoming, believe it or not, he uses the term becoming a hollow tube. But the hollow bone is just simply this.  

That you get rid of the stuff that’s inside that bone to allow more spirit to come through that’s unobstructed. And to give the analogy, they give the example of a plumbing pipe that if it gets clogged, the water can’t get through and you have to unplug it. And so the Sweat lodge is one of the vehicles that can be used to help rid ourselves of the stuff that’s within our being, within our bones that will help spirit to come through better. That’s one of the parts. But in most cases it’s  an opportunity to be cleansing and beautiful. That’s what’s done. And that’s another piece that I was taught if you want to have a sweat lodge. I was honored in being able to be taught how to do a sweat lodge and I’ve poured a few sweat lodges.  

The way that I would do a sweat lodge was somebody would come up to me, and this is how Kenny taught me and others chimed in with the same thing, is that you come up to me, you give me tobacco, and you give me a reason why. And I’m not trying to be a jerk, but if somebody comes up to me and says, Oh, I want to have a sweat lodge because I want to know what it’s like. No, why do you want it? It’s like the same question, Do you know who you are?

If you give me a good reason or if you give that elder a good reason and tobacco, there’s your way. And typically what I did was somebody would give tobacco or somebody would give Kenny tobacco and he’d say, Give me a few days to talk with the spirits. And that’s what you do. And my thing was, he taught me if I wait three times to come back through. And the third time it affirms that. In fact, if the third time doesn’t come at a certain length of time, then it ain’t going to happen. It’s just not meant to be. It doesn’t mean that you can’t have a sweat, it just means that I’m not supposed to be the one to do it. Or maybe you’re not supposed to have one. So there’s no money exchanged, it’s just your gift of tobacco. That’s the way I was taught. And you typically break bread afterward too. There’s a lot more to it than that. Does that answer the question?  

Krystal Jakosky:    No, it’s a fantastic answer and I very much appreciate it because it literally brings everything back to intention and spirituality and being connected with source, being connected with the universe, being connected with spirit, whatever that phrase is that works for you. So Native Americans, indigenous people, some people are going to do sweat lodges, and that is how they connect with that spirit. And other people are going to go to organized religion. That is where they have that connection with that higher power that brings them the peace and joy that they need. It all works for everyone depending on where you’re at and what you are seeking and what fills your heart and gives you the answers that you need in that moment. And so I love the intention behind it. I love the purpose behind it. It’s I am seeking, or I would like to connect or I need this, and because I need that, I am going to seek for answers. I’m going to seek healing. I am going to find somebody who can help me move forward and be better in my life than I already am right now. So thank you for that answer. Thank you for sharing.

Kevin Pennell:   Part of it is, the magic word that you used is something I used with students when I teach not only workshops, but  when I teach in massage school and when I teach whatever, intention is key. Intention is critical. So it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you need to look at the reason behind it. Yeah. And you need to really say, Am I doing this for the right reasons? What’s my intention? What am I really engulfing in this? What am I really putting into this? What kind of energy am I putting into this? Yeah. And if you’re working with someone, side note massage therapy is, is if you don’t have the intention when you’re talking with somebody, or excuse me, when you’re working with someone and you’re doing the massage with someone, you’re doing the body work with someone, any of the stuff that we’re talking about, even if you’re doing counseling or if you’re doing anything like that, and if your mind is not totally focused with good intention with that person, don’t think for a second that they won’t feel it.  

You don’t have to say it. Words don’t have to express what’s really going on. And if we’re human, we’re going to do this, but if my brain is on, well, geez, I wish this interview would get done because I’ve got other things to do. If I let that intention come out in that, going back to the little three globes I had, and if your higher self picks up on that, guess what? You say, Okay, that’s good. See ya. And I never hear from you again. But it’s the side. The other side of that is if you’re a body worker and you are totally committed to this person and you’re not thinking about your rent, you’re not thinking about, Oh geez, this is this person again. And you’re not thinking about, Oh, what am I going to do this weekend?  

And if you’re not, you know, all the little thought monkeys coming in and if you’re not sidetracked by all that, guess what? They know it. They know when you are connected to them. And then the magic really happens because they say, Wow, I don’t know what this is that you’ve just done with me as far as a massage is concerned, or whatever the case may be, but it’s the most fantastic, most beautiful, most awesome experience. And I will come back and you say, Okay, great. And I will, It’s just magical when you do that because people want that. I was talking earlier today with someone and they said, You know what people are starving for right now. I mean, we’re doing this on a podcast, we’re doing this on YouTube, but they really miss being together. Actually touching each other. And it’s that communication that is so important. But anyway, ramble on intention next.

Krystal Jakosky:    No, you’re good. I’ve also noticed for me personally, I have done ti massage, meaning I am a trained ti massage therapist. And so I have often found that when I am in it, and this goes for, I mean, you brought out massage therapy, but I think that this goes for almost any action that we’re doing. If you focus on the action that you’re doing and you are really in it, I am cutting these vegetables and I’m getting the same size. I’m sanding wood, I’m chopping wood, I’m working on a client. If you focus on that and let everything else go, it actually becomes a meditation. One of my favorite things was to be working and losing my mind in what I was doing and having that intentionality and the fluidity because I was just present in that moment. And that presence is what brought me peace, is what brought me more energy to continue with the rest of my day. And so intention, the presence and things are completely different. So Kevin, what are you doing now? 

Kevin Pennell:    I’m talking with you. You ask, I mean.

Krystal Jakosky:    Like these days, I mean you and I could shop talk forever, you guys, I’m telling you Kevin and I could do a year’s worth of podcast and probably not touch on the same subject twice. And that’s fantastic to find such a gift like that. So I sincerely thank you for having me on your A Better Life podcast. And then I really thank you for being here because I really wanted to talk about the native way of life and their love for the earth and their connection to the world around us, because I think it is so absolutely beautiful. I feel that draw and it is one of those things that speaks peace and joy to my heart with all of the other things that we have talked about, but not necessarily on this podcast. What else are you into these days? Like what else are you doing in life?  

Kevin Pennell:    Well, I do have to share one other little thought with Native American stuff. It just came to me and I would just want to honor that, that if you are a person listening to this, watching this, and if you’re being drawn in that direction, be you white or be you native. And if you are drawn in that direction and you start to seek out someone, know this, that eventually, if you’re doing it for the right reasons, with the right intentions, it goes back to the old saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. But at the same token, when you find that teacher or where you find that person, you don’t just run right out and give them tobacco right on the spot. No, just take your time, go slow. Take it to somebody who has been there. Oh dear. You know, I want everything and I want it right now. Because that’s the way you do stuff, right? No, take your time. Be patient would be one key word. Another key word to keep in mind is love, trust, and thankfulness.  

Honor sharing, caring, giving, loving. That’s the ones that I’m trying to run in my brain. But that’s what we would say all the time to love, to share, to care, to give. We’re coming up on a season called, of course, Thanksgiving. And I have a podcast coming up that’s going to be on the Thanksgiving address. And if you have an opportunity to look up on Google or listen to the podcast, it doesn’t matter to me. It really doesn’t. What’s most important to me is that you look and find the Thanksgiving address. It was as it was delivered by the Iroquois people. Because it’s beautiful. When I did it the other day, I got emotional. It just really hit my heart when I would listen to my really good friend Mike Douglas giving that information to me. He was the main preventative skill school.  

Hope you don’t mind my sharing that. But, thankfulness is so important to be thankful for the air that we breathe. Be thankful for the life that we have. Be thankful that we are old because we could have died young. Be thankful for the simple little things. Be thankful for the person in your life. Be thankful for the people in your life. So what am I doing now? Well, I am enjoying doing podcasts. You’re talking about being focused on stuff. People really, my partner can’t believe it about how I can sit down with my audition software and I can spend hours editing. You can share that information with Avery. I can just go away. I mean, hours will go by and I’m just sitting here going on. 

Yeah. But I’m such a big picture person and yet at the same time I can be very detail oriented when I need to be. In Native traditions sometimes that’s referred to as mouse medicine. But anyway, so I do my podcast, I do some instruction, I do some workshops. I am a massage therapist who sees people here in Asheville, North Carolina, Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, I have  people ask, even if you’re a massage therapist and your listener watching this, and some people will ask me, Well, how many massages do you do a day? And I typically am going to do two to four, and that’s my happy place. Yeah. Could I do six? Yeah, I could, but I wouldn’t last. I’ve been doing body work of some level or another for about 22 years, and it can be done.  

So I do the massage, I do podcasting. I walk in nature. I love to get out and about. I just like being when I can. Through our other conversations, Krystal knows that we’re into cars a little bit. And I do have another podcast called the Driving Experience. I’m really into BMWs, and racing. I used to race, but I don’t race anymore. Just because, you know, I’m not going to say I won’t because I don’t know, but I just like to live an active life. We are currently living in a senior community while we wait for our house to be built. And we tried this for a while and, Krystal, we can’t do it. And I’m not putting anything down, but I, I cannot be that old person. 

Just can’t do that. Nope. Just can’t. You’re not ready. No. And, I don’t know that I ever will be.  There was a teacher who taught, she was actually responsible forTrigger Point Therapy, and her name was Janet Trave. And Janet continued her work as a massage therapist and, and doctor up until about three to four months before she died at the ripe old age of 96. Oh, wow. I intend to beat her record. So I gotta go good. But just stay active. And if you’re older and if you’re a senior and you feel like, Oh man, I just know, just stop doing what you’re doing and go out for a walk in the woods, bathe in the woods.  

 And no, don’t take a tub with you for crying out loud. I’m talking about being one with the forest. But, you know, be active. Get around young people and, and just be and enjoy life because that’s what we’re here for. We’re here to learn. We’re here to be filled with joy. We’re here for contentment. And I mean, if you look at the Dalai Lama that still does live things on occasion, and I saw something the other day and I realized he’s pushing 90 years old. And you look at him and he’s still smiling and he’s still going around and he’s still happy and he’s not dejected, he’s not down. So yeah, let us see. What else do I do?  

I build things. I stay active and I let my brain stay active.

Krystal Jakosky:    In all of that activity, in all of the things that you’re doing and loving and enjoying, what is your favorite or most unique? 

Kevin Pennell:    Geez.  

Krystal Jakosky:    Activity for self care.  

Kevin Pennell:    Oh, good one. Yay. Wow. 

Krystal Jakosky:    I don’t know what you thought I was going to ask.  

Kevin Pennell:    You know, I didn’t. What’s your favorite one? Oh God. No.  

Krystal Jakosky:    No. What’s your favorite, what’s your favorite way to take care of yourself and rebuild, regenerate? Because you’re doing a lot. You’re out and you’re functioning. What do you do for you?  

Kevin Pennell:    I will answer this with a line that I’ve used for years. It’s four words, go with the flow. What I mean by that is, today I missed my run and I missed my walk. Because I’m doing two podcasts. One I did, and one I’m being done. What was that? 

So I could get all upset about that or I could look at this as an opportunity for me. Because that’s what this has been. Yeah. You know, I’m sharing with Krystal and this is me time, this is what I want to do. But the rest of that part is for self care, and I’ve taught, and I have a workshop that I do with this, but self care is one of the biggest things for self care is awareness.  

Krystal Jakosky:    Yeah.  

Kevin Pennell:    You know what’s missing? So I might fill that void with going out for a walk in the woods. I might fill that void with doing some Tai Chi and Chiang. I might start to do the ch style 48 and I might get through half of it and start saying, Oh, I’m good with this. Yeah. And you know, I want to go with the flow to what generates within me, the sense of being me and no one else. And if you look at that book that I wrote, one of the things that came up in that book was, I am a chameleon. True, true story. Or I have been where, because of my background, and this will really spin us off and I’m not gonna go there but because of the way I was brought up a long time in a residence or a place or a community was two years when I was growing up, two years mostly it was like 18 months on average.  

Wow. And we moved and it was no regrets, not upset, no problems. But it’s funny because what that taught me to do is how to connect with people like that. And I could make a connection. I could get that. But in order to do that, I had to be like them. Listen to that. I had to be like them, not like me, like them. Why? Because in the way that I thought, it made me more comfortable around them because I’m like them. But then is when I really got the message that Kenny was trying to ask me years and years and years before, Kevin, who do you think you are? Who are you? And I went, Wow. And that’s when the change really happened. And people say, Geez, would you do that again? I said, I would try to avoid it like the bubonic plague, but I don’t regret a bit of it because I had to go through that. I had to do that change. So back the to question, what do you do for self care? I listen to the still small voice in my heart. When I used to, when I’ve signed off on my books before, I would say something to the effect of, let your heart and spirit guide you because they’ll never let you down.  

Let your heart and your spirit guide you because they will never let you down your heart, your spirit, not the other persons, but listen to your heart within and go with that. And once you get that message, you can maybe find that what you want to do today for self-care is meditate. I do that. I can meditate for a few minutes or I can meditate for two hours. I’ve done both. I can go down that road and we’re not going to go there, but you know, meditate, Tai chi, Chiang Reiki. I can get lost doing massages. That can be, believe it or not, be my self care, giving a massage. And of course receiving a massage because that is also self care. But you’ve got to take care of yourself. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else is going to.

Krystal Jakosky:    You are, you are echoing so many things that I already say and I absolutely love it. It’s like these gigantic exclamation points coming down saying hello. Hey guys, remember self care is the conscious and intentional act of taking care of your own needs. And it could change from day to day. It does not matter. What matters is that you are letting your heart and your spirit be your guide because they’re not going to be false to you.  

I mean it’s like bam boo. Yeah. Bring it on. Meditation, you know, meditation is the moment that you tune out the world and tune into yourself. You tune into the breathing, you tune into the moment and you let everything else go. 

Kevin Pennell:    I think one of the things you should do with part of the self care is change it up. Don’t try to do the same thing every day. Because if you do the same thing every day, it becomes a habit. And before you know it, a habit becomes a rut and you are only different, you know, do you know the only difference between the rut and a grave? Both ends are knocked out. That’s the only difference when a rut and a grave is where you haver both ends knocked out.  

Krystal Jakosky:   Wow. Okay guys, let’s stay out of the ruts. I have one more question for you Kevin. You’ve already given us a really good one. So who are you is a great journaling question. I love to leave all of my listeners with a journaling prompt or a question that they can think about and really answer. And who you are is amazing. Is there another one that you can think of that you would love to encourage people to explore?  

Kevin Pennell:    What have you done for self care for yourself today? 

Krystal Jakosky:    Okay. Just today.  

Kevin Pennell:    For the whole week?  

Krystal Jakosky:   It doesn’t have to be huge. It’s one little thing today. 

Kevin Pennell:    What have you done for yourself today? 

Krystal Jakosky:    I have, I have loved having you here. I have loved chit chatting with you. I really hope that everybody out there listening has enjoyed listening to us as well, and that you’ve been inspired and that you are leaving this session of this podcast uplifted and smiling. I am. I love Kevin. I love just the way that it’s so free and easy to talk with you. How do people find you and are there any last tidbits of wisdom or words of knowledge that you would like to share with people?  

Kevin Pennell:    So I would say first you can contact me through my website, which is toward better life.com. If you want to reach out to me, just write to me at kevin@tortaboutlife.com. I am available to do consultations and stuff like that from time to time. I haven’t mentioned that, but I do, I have done that and I will be more than happy to do it. so that’s the two easiest ways to do it. You know, if I go into phone numbers and stuff. When we get acquainted, you can have my phone number and we can text. That’s fine. Yeah.The easiest thing is toward better life.com and Kevin toward better life.com. And that’s an email and the website. That’s the easiest way to do this. And if you’re in the western North Carolina area and you’re looking for a massage, you can still do the same thing. I’ll just direct you to who to contact to get a massage. I think I would leave people just with those same simple words that if I can get them again in my head properly, and that is listen to your heart and spirit because they won’t let you down.  

Krystal Jakosky:    Amen. Oh, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for sharing with me and starting my day off so beautifully. So Right. Thank you. 

Kevin Pennell:   Thank you. Pleasure’s all mine. We’ll do this again.  

I hope this moment of self care and healing brought you some hope and peace. I’m Krystal Jacosky on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. And I hope you check us out and follow along for more content coming soon. I look forward to being with you again here on Breathe in. Breathe out. Until next time, take care.  

Emily McGill: That? That’s a great question. I am still working on it. I’m looking for a publisher. I had been in talks with one and, that didn’t work out. So I’m trying to find a publisher and see who might be interested in helping me bring the Broadway TA to life.

Krystal Jakosky: Oh. But I’m, I’m excited and I really wanna be kept in the loop as you’re doing that. Because I think that would be really cool. Yeah. So I wanna know a little bit about what we’re gonna dive into, what Tero is. I want to know first off, what brought you toter and what other unique fascinations did you encounter along the way.

Emily McGill: I started my journey towards it or my awareness of my journey towards it in 2014. I had been working diligently on making my Broadway career happen and that summer my grandmother passed away and she and I were very close. She was a very complicated woman. She had a lot of family trauma that had been passed along that had continued to pass along. But we were very close and I loved her very much and there was a lot of stuff wrapped up in her transitioning. And I went to therapy for the first time. That was the first time in my life that I was like, you know what? This is the time. And I was really lucky. I didn’t have to date the way many people do when it comes to therapists.

Trying to find somebody that fits. On the first go I met, I mean, I still see this woman, not as frequently as I used to. I have somebody else that I see regularly, but like I still do sessions with my therapist because she was that impactful. She introduced me to tarot, so we would pull a card every now and again in a session if I didn’t know where to go with something or I wasn’t sure what was coming. I would just have a question, you know, and we sort of would talk through stuff and she’d say, well, why don’t we pull a card? And so we would, and that’s how it started. And then in, I would say probably like 2017, 2018, I was looking for a practice for myself, something to do every day.

It was just for me, didn’t have anything to do with anybody else. And she said, why do you pull Aero card? And I said, well, I don’t have a deck. She said, so get an app for your phone because there’s an app for everything I found. I got an app and it was $10, which is pricey for an app, but for a tarot deck is not much at all. I started pulling a card every day, cause I would just tap the button on my phone to get rid of that little red dot. And, before I knew it, I was doing a daily reading for myself. And so I was doing that pretty regularly. And I started using that for friends, doing readings for friends, on my phone and it was not very conducive.

Shortly before the pandemic started, I was gifted my first deck, my first physical deck. I was able then to start actually exploring, doing readings for other people. So I was doing that for a bit. And then of course everything went online. So I have shifted to doing online. You now have, now that we’re at the point we are in the pandemic we’re sort of learning to have to live with things. I’ve had many more opportunities to read in person, but, digital is still huge. So it’s been a windy journey.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. So question for you that first time, what had you ever encountered Tara before your counselor therapist? I don’t know what you wanna call her before she recommended that. Were there any preconceived notions that you had prior to that introduction to it?

Emily McGill: I didn’t really think much of it to tell you the truth because the deck that she had me use the first time is called the OSHA Zen deck. And it’s not as obviously a Tara deck, it has some Oracle deck aspects to it. Each of the cards isn’t just the queen of wands, it’s got a name, and there are words printed on each one. And so it was, it almost had as much to do with the word and the imagery as it did like Aero card. It felt a little more Orly in that sense. And so it was, I don’t know if that meant it was a softer introduction or what, but I didn’t have any kind of qualms or really questions about it. I was curious about it. There were other people in that therapy community that had started reading Tara, thanks to my therapist, you know, prior to me having my sort of introduction. I was very curious about what they were doing. And I started receiving readings from a few of the different people that I knew in that community and, that also helped fuel my interest. But you know, I had, of course, the preconceived notions that we get from pop culture. But it was really more curiosity than anything for me.

Krystal Jakosky: That’s cool. First off, I just want to say shout out to not having to date, to find a good fit I lucked into the same thing, like there is this heart, this spot in my heart for him and just how he helps to change my life and open things up. So congratulations on finding somebody that is so great. I want you to tell people because you were talking, you mentioned the queen of whatnot. Tell us about terror. What exactly is it? Tell us about the structure. Tell us about the deck, demystify it for anybody that has not encountered it or has those preconceived notions of that’s just a bunch of woo woo stuff and you probably shouldn’t be doing it.

Emily McGill: Absolutely. My pleasure. so I like to say that Tara is a physical or a visual representation of information that you hold within yourself. It’s something in your gut, in your heart, in your core, that hasn’t quite made it up to your head yet. And this is a way we can communicate with ourselves and translate that information for our brains. You know texting yourself and me, right? Like it’s, this is how I feel in this moment about this thing. So that’s how I like to look at it that it’s this sort of visual way of tapping into your intuition or of physically being able to see how you feel about something without necessarily having the language or the words to describe it. And the cards never lie, you know, and that has nothing to do with me or you or anything, but it also has everything to do with that because we are just here shuffling and picking up some cards, right?

There’s not more to it than that, but at the same time, each of these cards has a really specific meaning that the hero is built out of a sort of two parts. So we have the Major Arcana and the Minor Arcana and our major Arcana they’re like our magic cards. So when they show up, we pay special attention to them. There are 22 of them and they correspond to the human soul’s evolutionary journey. They give it like the hero’s journey, right? So it starts with the full zero, the number, and that’s like that fresh. And the way we go we’re off to see the wizard, right? Like we’re leaping out onto this journey, very trusting, very naive energy. And then as we move through all of these different phases of life and of this hero’s journey, we end up with the world, which is that very completion G so it’s whole healed.

Holy really like, right. The core of that word is wholeness. And so there’s this healing vibe of that. The Minor Arcana is more like a traditional deck of playing cards. So you’ve got four suits, ACE through 10, and then you have court cards instead of three. So you’ll have a king and a queen and a night and a page. Sometimes you’ll see a prince and princess. Sometimes it’ll be father, mother, son, and daughter because it’s all archetypes. So the court cards tend to correspond to the people in our lives or those qualities of that card within ourselves. And the number of cards tends to be more about situations or experiences. So I know that’s a lot of energy, very fast. It’s a lot of information to try and download, but it’s all to say that there is something there, right? There’s scaffolding that this is built on. Isn’t it just like this random card means this random thing.

Krystal Jakosky: Right. It’s not a willy-nilly kinda whatever. Hey, let’s just pick a yeah. There’s more structure to it, behind it, and supporting what’s really actually going on. I like that. You say it’s like you’re setting yourself a meme. How many times do we just scroll whoever’s on our phone? And then all of a sudden we stop because it speaks to us. We don’t really know why it does, but it does that right there in that moment is a little GIF, a little message a little, Hey, here you go. And Tara can be, is very much like that. It’s Hey, let’s just step sideways for a second and take a moment to look in and see and do

Emily McGill: Yes. And connect with yourself.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah.

Emily McGill: I think that that’s another thing there’s always this misconception of it being Satan or the devil’s work or whatever. Right. And there’s, I understand that people who are raised in a religious setting and with certain belief systems and faith practices have the ways they like to think. And by all means, please live your life. Don’t hurt anyone. But I just wanna invite you to understand that this has nothing to do with that. It’s really only about a relationship with yourself and how you can communicate with yourself and how you can listen to yourself. It has more to do with spirituality, which to me is about your own relationship with your highest power or God or the universe or a lot, or whatever you wanna call it. Right? It’s about your relationship with this thing versus more of a religious way of thinking of the structure and the community and the systems that we build in faith practices, oftentimes in religion.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. I tell people that we need to tune into our own inner guide, our own true self. And that is where we get the purest guidance and the purest love that could absolutely come towards us. Yet we’re not necessarily taught how to do that. We’re not taught how to open up. And there are so many different ways to describe it or to call it. Some people might just say I’m meditating. And that’s how I tune into my higher self and other people it’s terror and others will they go to somebody who helps them tap in, but it’s the buffet of life where we all find what works for me, what makes it so that I have the ability to get the knowledge that I need. I actually taught my son how to do terror when he was in high school. He was an intuitive and emotional kid and he could feel the kids around him. He struggled in trying to find that balance. And so I showed him how to use terror and he would come home and he’d be really frustrated with something and he’d pull three cards for himself and he’d be like, oh, that’s my answer. Great. And he could move on. And so it’s beautiful how people can use it for themselves and really find that added just such a gift. Mm-hmm.

Emily McGill: It really is. It’s just another modality that’s available to us. Another tool that we can use.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. Another tool. So I hear that. You’re gonna do one with me. Yeah.

Emily McGill: Yeah. Let’s do a reading.

Krystal Jakosky: I’m excited.

Emily McGill: Good. Is this a reading for you? Is this a reading generally? Is this, I think anyone who’s listening to this, like something is gonna resonate and if it doesn’t resonate, leave it. Cause it’s not for you.

Krystal Jakosky: Amen. I absolutely wholeheartedly agree with that statement. The first thing that came up for me was what do my listeners need to hear? That was like a question that automatically came up so we can totally go very open and generic and just say, Hey, what needs to be out there right now as the gift today?

Emily McGill: I feel like we must in honor of the show, do what you need to breathe in and what you need to breathe out.

Krystal Jakosky: Mm-hmm, that’s great.

Emily McGill: That just kind of came to me. So I think that’s what we’ll do.

Krystal Jakosky: That’s our higher power talking saying, Hey, yeah.

Emily McGill: Right. Here’s something: what do we need to breathe in? And what do we need to breathe out? All right. So I’m gonna chop these one more time and then I’m gonna have you, you cut this deck.

Krystal Jakosky: Okay.

Emily McGill: And now I’m a theater kid. So everything I do is very collaborative. So I will pull these cards, but we’ll also talk about them and I’m gonna ask you how things resonate and how they don’t. Since you know your audience so well, obviously you’ll also potentially be able to tell us what might resonate for them and where we might be able to find more clarity or deeper meaning, or maybe go down a different angle or path than the card could be saying to us.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah.

Emily McGill: All right. Are you ready to cut them?

Krystal Jakosky: Uhhuh.

Emily McGill: Okay. Tell me when to stop.

Krystal Jakosky: Stop.

Emily McGill: All right. So, folks, this is what we are going to breathe in. Oh wow. We’re breathing in the devil.

Krystal Jakosky: Oh.

Emily McGill: It is the devil card. And so I’m using a deck today. That’s called the wild unknown. It’s by Kim Crans, it’s beautiful. It’s all animal imagery. So in this card we see on a dark background, a white goat with big horns, four hooves on fire and it’s upside down. So we’re seeing that this is a reversal or an inversion. And this card is one of the cards in the major, which as I said, is that human souls, evolutionary heroes journey. Right. And the devil is card number 15 in the deck. So of 22 cards and we start with zero. So it’s the 16th card that comes through. Right? We’re getting close to the end there. Do you know what I mean? Like we’re moving through this journey, this path, and the devil oftentimes symbolizes our shadows, the things about ourselves that we’re not comfortable with, that we don’t like about ourselves. The parts that we see as icky, the way that we respond in situations we react instead of responding, right. The things that we don’t want to embrace, but we have to, because they’re part of us, right? Like if we want to fully be a human, we have to embrace these parts of us that we don’t necessarily like or love. Rather we have to embrace and love these parts of ourselves that we don’t necessarily like,

Krystal Jakosky: Yes.

Emily McGill: Right. And so this devil card is telling us it’s time to breathe. Some of that in, we gotta breathe in those parts that we maybe don’t like about ourselves.

Krystal Jakosky: I’m not kidding you. I just had this conversation with my mom yesterday. and last week I had this exact conversation with my sister-in-law about just that it’s there and acknowledging that it’s there and the power in recognizing that I may not be fond of this. And yet this is a part of me. Knowing that it’s a part of me means I can stop fighting against it.

Emily McGill: Right. Because when you don’t resist it, you are able to then use it.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. It becomes this. Oh, I recognize that you’re there and I can move on instead of this. Oh, you’re there. And now I’m scared into immobility because I cannot function with that in my face. It’s completely different, I love it. That’s so perfect.

Emily McGill: And this is what we gotta breathe in. Right? Like, let’s breathe in that ickiness, that stuff that we’re not proud of. And we don’t need to be proud of it. Right. Like we just need to say it’s okay that you’re here.

Krystal Jakosky: Just because here’s the thing, just because we accept that that is a part of us does not mean that we have decided that that is a part of us that we want to embody. And out to the world. It’s a, I get it. I see you. And you are welcome to be a part of me, which takes away some of its power. So instead of being this giant boogie me, that is all-encompassing. It’s just, yeah. I see you. It’s the man behind the curtain. Right.

Emily McGill: I like to name them. I’ve named my inner child. I call her Emmy. I’m like, oh yeah, Emmy. She came to play today because we just ordered chicken fingers and fries for dinner for the third day in a row. Do you know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. I can look and see when she’s been making the nutritional choices for the last couple of days. I’m like, right, right, right. That it’s a lot of burgers, whatever the thing is. Oh, there was a lot of ice cream this week. Emmy was really in charge. My inner critic, my inner bully, I named after my childhood bully.

Krystal Jakosky: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Emily McGill: I gave her a name to say this isn’t you talking to you right now? You know, this is a part of you that is there, but that’s not all of you. And that’s not the part we have to lead with, the part we have to embody.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. The part that I have personally, for everybody moment of vulnerability for you, my personal one has actually been a lot of social anxiety. It has been this experience where I’ve really had to step back and say, am I really that insecure? Did I really do something? Or is this another part of me that just wants to say hello? And so I am literally welcoming this little insecure, little K coming in and saying, I’m just anxious about absolutely everything. And I’m worried that I’m going to upset people. That is what I’m breathing in. So for my listeners, Hey guys, just take a moment. What is that part of you that is asking you to take it in, not in a negative way, but what is that shadow part of you that is just dying for a little bit of acceptance, and in finding that acceptance, will you actually create the self-care to heal and move forward? That was a good one.

Emily McGill: That’s only what we’re breathing in. We haven’t even taken a breath out yet. So let’s see what it is that we are breathing out. The four of swords. So remember I said, we have our four suits and of our four suits have wands, which is to fire our creativity, our passion, the stuff that lights us up. We have cups. That’s our water. That is our feelings, our emotions, our intuition, our swords are the air that’s mind mental. So that’s anything knowledge, wisdom, communication technology, intellect language, right? Like anything in the mind. And then the earth is our discs or Pentacles or coins. And that’s the physical, the material, the manifest. And you think about that ACE through 10 as another cycle, kind of like that hero’s journey cycle that we have in the major four is oftentimes about rest recalibration, revisiting, seeing sort of, or taking the time to integrate, right.

It’s like we’ve had the one, which is always like the really fresh out the gate, like ready-to-go energy. We’ve had the two, which are usually about balance or our crossroads, or like finding where we go from here. The three tend to be a little about structure or celebration. The four tend to be about resting and integrating and seeing what are the things that are working, What are the things that aren’t, and we can see, this is a beautiful little lamb here on a dark background, but there’s a lot of lightness that comes from its third eye that then lights up all above it, where we have four swords hanging above it.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah.

Emily McGill: And you know, you look at this, you think, well, there’s a lamb laying under four swords that does not look safe, but there is a serenity and a piece to this animal. Like there’s no sense of fear or any kind of lack of safety, it is just chilling.

Krystal Jakosky: There’s no unease. It’s just like, I’m here in the moment. Yeah.

Emily McGill: Right.

Krystal Jakosky: I’m gonna take a breath.

Emily McGill: Right. And it’s like these might be sitting above you. Right. You might feel like these ideas or these things, or the beliefs that we have about ourselves. Right. Any of these things could sort of drop at any moment. And yet we can hold them.

Krystal Jakosky: They are not in you. They are not of you. You can be separate from all the other crazy stuff that’s going on. All of the other things that are demanding your time and attention, no matter how big and scary and terrifying they may be in this moment, just take the moment to be in it, to rest, let your light, you mentioned the third eye and how it’s illuminating everything. And it’s like the beauty about that it illuminates the shadows. There are no more shadows to be afraid of to be running away from. It’s a serenity that seeing everything you have to deal with.

Emily McGill: And like getting these four swords into the light and seeing that it is okay, cool. So that’s just great. That’s what the handle is. That’s where I need to grab it.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. I just want to cuddle up with the lamb.

Emily McGill I know it’s so sweet. It’s like burning a third eye there. So beautiful. Super chill. How interesting that we just pulled two cards that were a goat and a lamb.

Krystal Jakosky: Oh.

Emily McGill: And I know sheep and goats are different animals. Right. There is this idea of similarity. And like the things that we maybe do not love about ourselves, like being able to see the moments where they came from. And how the things that we don’t love about ourselves did benefit us at one point in time. It’s like illuminating light on the tools that don’t work for us anymore, too. Breathing those out, is like breathing out the tools that did once work for us, but no longer actually serve us.

Krystal Jakosky: There you go. They’re fantastic cards.

Emily McGill: And it’s interesting too when we look at it, thank you. How we see that the color schemes are similar also, there’s that pop of red and gold and sort of orange in both the third eye and the flaming hooves of the devil. It’s like the lightness of both of their coats, the color, the light color of their coats, and the dark backgrounds.

Krystal Jakosky: So we’re breathing in those things that we don’t like, that we would rather not have. We are breathing out those things that we now see do not serve us anymore.

Emily McGill: That’s a daily practice, a daily struggle, a daily challenge, a daily quandary, however you wanna call it. It’s a thing that doesn’t stop.

Krystal Jakosky: It is a choice every day.

Emily McGill: And some days we might choose to go the other direction and that’s okay, too, right? It’s the choice you have. And you have to be able to embrace the days that that person shows up too, that you don’t like, cuz you want the other direction. That’s part of it. And then letting that stuff go,

Krystal Jakosky: Letting it go and being a piece. Can we pull one more?

Emily McGill: Sure. What’s this one for?

Krystal Jakosky: This is moving forward.

Emily McGill: Four of Pentacles, another four. This one is also about balance and foundation and how tenuous it could be. Remember our Pentacles, that’s our physical or material or manifest. And we can see these four coins here. Each of them is bound to the others with some very fine threads. There are several of them. It looks like it’s sort of a web being woven, but it’s still in process and it’s still in the early phases. So there is some, it does feel tenuous. It does feel fragile. Like it needs to be continued to be built and the structures and the systems really need to be put in place.

Krystal Jakosky: There’s also this moment of patience in what you’re building. Like, give it a moment. Don’t rush it. Don’t push it. It is happening. It is being built. Give it time if you break, if you push it, it might break. It might just collapse on itself. But if you just are patient and you take your time and you rest, when you need to rest, you breathe in that scary part. You breathe out that stuff that doesn’t help. And then just give it a moment. Just there is a balance to be had here. There’s self-care there’s taking care of you and your own needs. And then there is the rest of the world that needs you here and present and able to just bring about change and transformation. So find balance for yourself so that you can give to yourself and give to the rest of the world and be just an amazing human being.

Emily McGill: Yeah. That’s the reason they tell you to put your own oxygen mask on first, right? Like if you can’t breathe, how are you gonna help anyone else? But also, it’s hard to see, but this card is also upside down. This is an inversion, believe it or not. And so we can see that there could be an opportunity maybe to maybe allow yourself to go a little off-balance if necessary. To release that if that’s necessary, if like balance if you know if you’re a Libra and you tend to cling to balance, that might not, that going off balance might be what you need in that moment. So I think there’s an invitation in the inversion of this to explore the perspective of that, right? Like a lot of what you’re saying is so important, making sure that we are taking care of ourselves first and having that balance of the interior and the exterior. This is saying maybe if you tend to do more I hear your stuff like you need to get rid, move into more of the exterior balance stuff, and vice versa. So there could be a lot of different ways to sort it.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. I am sure that everyone listening has come up with some kind of way that these all apply to them. And I think that is so beautiful because the terror is for everyone. It’s not only for the people who like woo, woo stuff. This is something you can really absolutely tune in and find meaning and direction. You just have to give it that chance. Is there anything additional that you would like to just share with our audience?

Emily McGill: I always like to remind people that this might not be the thing for you, but it could be an opportunity for you to explore different practices or modalities or something else that might be of interest to you. It might help to plant things or crystals or, hypnotherapy or, sound bowls or whatever it is, right? Like there are so many different things, different meditation styles, guided meditations, whatever it is. There are so many modalities available for you to explore. So this one might not be it for you, but, perhaps this opened the door for you to consider another that you might not have thought of, but for now here is an invitation that all of these different sorts of tools that we use in the world in a more spiritually-minded, spiritually heart-driven world, that some of us are moving through. There is a lot available.

Krystal Jakosky: There’s so much out there and it’s just a buffet, guys. find what lifts your heart and just excites you. So can I ask you a few, just fun little questions,

Emily McGill: Absolutely.

Krystal Jakosky: Orange or green.

Emily McGill: Mm. Green.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. Okay. City or country,

Emily McGill: Both

Krystal Jakosky: Pine trees or salty ocean air.

Emily McGill: Well, I just went to Maine where I got both of those together for the first time also, but I’m still gonna go with pine trees.

Krystal Jakosky: Nice. Which season and why

Emily McGill: Summer, because I’m a summer baby and I hate being cold.

Krystal Jakosky: I hear ya. And then favorite kind of self-care that you didn’t expect to be a self-care for you.

Emily McGill: I have two of them. One is something that I’ve started more during the pandemic, which is my yoga practice. I’ve found that 20 minimum, 20 minutes. Maybe I haven’t really tried to go that low, but is the Shortt I’ll do practice daily for 25 or 35 minutes, chef’s kiss. It’s so perfect. And just doing that time it has changed. My body has completely changed over the last two years. I mean, I have more flexibility than I’ve ever had in my life. I feel like my system can feel like the supple supplements. It’s the yoga, it’s the eating, right? It’s all of these things that you don’t notice how it makes you feel when you do it, but then when you stop doing it or you don’t do it or you skip a day, why do I feel so off or wrong? What’s wrong with me? So I would say my yoga practice and then I like my daily shower is like a day for me to, it’s like a moment every day for me to just release everything that had come prior to that, whether it’s from the day before or whatever. So I very much like my showers, like an inner D cleanse experience too.

Krystal Jakosky: Yeah. You literally get to wash, watch it wash all down. It’s gone. You don’t have it anymore. You’re not carrying it. It’s all brand new everything. When you step out of there so fresh and you just get to start again. It’s fantastic. I love that. Thank you. So I just need you guys all to hear and understand and know that all of my listeners can get a 25% discount on a 30 or 60-minute reading using the coupon code cups on Emily’s website, which is www.emilymcgillentertainment.com. So she’s fantastic. She’s fun. She’s lighthearted. I highly encourage you to go and just check her out. You can find her at www.emilymcgillentertainment.com or she’s also on LinkedIn. So check her out and thank you so much for being here today.

Emily McGill: Thank you. This is such a delight to connect with you. And I always love chatting with people that are open to exploring things. So that curiosity is always a delight.

Krystal Jakosky: I love it. I love it. I really hope anybody out there that is even remotely intrigued by tarot, check in with Emily, check in with someone, find apps, whatever it is. However you want to put your toes in that water, dive in, and check it out. Find something new and we’ll see you again here next week on Breathe In, Breathe Out.

I hope this moment of self-care and healing brought you some hope and peace. I’m @krystaljakosky on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and I hope you check us out and follow along for more content coming soon. I look forward to being with you again here on Breathe In, Breathe Out. Until next time, take care.