Romanistan
The authors of Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling present: Romanistan! Do you love rebels? Do you want to live in a place where outcasts shine their brightest? Welcome to Romanistan! We're your friendly neighborhood Gypsies, celebrating Romani identity and outcast culture, and practicing good diplomatic relations with other marginalized communities.
We love the rebels who are living their truth, even if it clashes with tradition. We also love tradition and honoring our roots. This podcast is for everyone who loves and supports Roma & related groups, and anyone who feels like a misfit and wants to uplift others to create a beautiful community.
We feature pioneers in culture, fashion, art, literature, music, activism, cuisine, and everything good. We adore the intersections of gender, sexuality, spirituality, ability, and identity. We cover all topics, from the difficult to the glorious. Let's sit crooked and talk straight.
Hosted by Paulina Stevens and Jezmina Von Thiele. We reclaim the slur Gypsy, but if you aren’t Romani, we prefer you don't use it. xoxo.
P.S. The Romani people are a diasporic ethnic group originally from northwest India, circa the 10th century. Now, Roma live all over the globe, and due to centuries of oppression, slavery, genocide, and other atrocities, Roma are still fighting for basic human rights. We seek to raise awareness of who Roma are, and highlight Romani resilience, creativity, & culture.
Romanistan
Tarot for the Week of August 18, 2025
Check the weekly cosmic weather with Paulina and Jez with a tarot spread for this week ahead.
Thank you for listening to Romanistan podcast.
You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, BlueSky, and Facebook @romanistanpodcast, and on Twitter @romanistanpod. To support us, Join our Patreon for extra content or donate to Ko-fi.com/romanistan, and please rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us so much.
Follow Jez on Instagram @jezmina.vonthiele & Paulina @romaniholistic.
You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcast.com for events, educational resources, merch, and more.
Email us at romanistanpodcast@gmail.com for inquiries.
Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens
Conceived of by Paulina Stevens
Edited by Bianca
With Music by Viktor Pachas
And Artwork by Elijah Vardo
Welcome to Romanistan. We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies.
Speaker 1:I'm Paulina and I'm Jez and we are here for the tarot of for the week of oh, oh, what week are we going to be? What are we doing? What are we doing For the week of the 18th of august 2025?
Speaker 2:yay, so, paulina, you drew some cards for love, money and overall message yeah, the only thing is we did get some repeat cards, so I'm like what the hell? Like this is a real clear message that the universe wants us to focus on that, and my voice broke right at the clear message part maybe it's not that clear yet.
Speaker 1:Maybe we're still trying to figure it out. Oh, yeah, yeah. So what's? What's the card for love this week?
Speaker 2:so we get the king of cups. So I interpret it same way. We get this masculine energy kind of you know, king energy, water, energy, abundance, love flowy. You know, cups are very water element, so it's about going with the flow, seeing where it takes you, but also, I think, leading with compassion and being that like as a message for yourself. It's like about you know, finding a way to guide people and look past the chaos. Like of all the other kings, I guess all the other suits, water is very just like a flowy kind of you know, go with the flow element basically. And so I feel like that's kind of the advice, um, and just how to go about things try to be compassionate and patient and see where it takes you we do need a lot of compassion.
Speaker 1:I think I've been keep thinking about how compassion keeps us human, but compassion also keeps us like crying when. When are the people we love suffer? When we're watching the news or something, but it's how we know we're still human. So, okay, I'm really curious because we haven't really talked about this before. But as a non-binary babe, I like to try to figure out like other ways to talk about gender in the cards, because I think masculine and feminine energy is like a thing and also it's a spectrum, but people might identify with it differently.
Speaker 1:And sometimes I think about the king as like all the kings, as maybe being figures where you are doing the work of this archetype and you're sharing it or you're meant to somehow like teach it or like do it out in the world or, like you know, spread it around somehow, whereas the queen energy maybe she's doing that, but like the primary reason you're doing it is for yourself. It's a little more like self-contained, self-possessed or maybe inward looking, which is how sometimes I see those, like that difference between king and queen. What do you think of that? Like what makes the king of cups a different energy than the queen of cups for you?
Speaker 2:a different energy than the queen of cups for you. It's weird because I feel like I think I flow through myself, identifying between more masculine and more feminine, like with my own, like actions, with the way I dress, like just things like that. And I think there's a level. When I hear masculinity, I'm like yeah, like I'm definitely in my masculine right now, like what I mean and like I have to be. And then when I hear the queen energy, I'm kind of like okay, I am in my like fierce queen energy. Patriarchy has allowed for, or patriarchy has basically like created this, you know energy that, like a person in powers has this like masculine energy, which I I don't believe is true. It still just kind of feels that way. Like, even if I'm receiving a queen energy, there's still a slight level of masculine energy to it for me, um, personally, but when I'm looking at it, like towards other people, sometimes like it's different and I feel like the pages are more like fluid, I think for some. I don't really know why.
Speaker 1:I totally feel that, too, like a more natural feeling. Like you know what I mean, yeah, and they feel more childlike to me too, yeah, so so that's my roundabout way to also to give you my thoughts on this card for our love. This week, maybe all of us are thinking of ways to be generous and compassionate leaders and maybe model the kinds of communication or love and affection that we want to see in our relationships. It's like you might take on a little bit of a teacher or guide role, not to say that there has to be like a power imbalance between, like you and your partner or your friends or the other people you're in close relationship with, but if you are learning lessons about yourself, maybe you're taking the initiative to share that and like direct a conversation or initiate some, like learning or healing or processing.
Speaker 2:I really like that learning or healing or processing.
Speaker 1:I really like that. What came up for money? We got the page of cups. Yeah, I think these are two repeats from the last two weeks. Yeah, what is that for?
Speaker 2:you for money. So I feel like so what is interesting? So I want to talk about the next card too. Yes, I just found it interesting that we did get two pages Again. Did we have the Page of Wands last time? I?
Speaker 1:don't think so. I think it was the Page of Cups, I think.
Speaker 2:It's still interesting. We got two pages like Page of Cups, and then we get the page of wands. So I feel like I'm just thinking like for me, pages do represent in general, kind of this like free, spirited energy. So when we talk about the page of cups for money, again, cups are water, so it's telling you how to go forward with it, like it's telling you what to do, like the money's gonna flow in. Is it gonna trickle in? Is it gonna waterfall in? Is it gonna fire hose in? Hopefully we're praying for that, though. Wherever we want to be drenched, yes, um, so that's kind of how I feel about that. But then, when it comes to the guidance, it's a page of wands, which is fire, and wands are about control. So why are we getting fire like and water when it comes?
Speaker 1:to guys.
Speaker 2:Differencing in difference is very opposite, but I think it's like overall um lead when it comes to money and when it comes to love, let it flow, you know, let it trickle in, like you know, guide, be, do all those things with compassion. But when it comes to the guidance card, it's very fire, very wands, very control, but also still creative, childlike. So then it's like but don't go overboard with it. Like, don don't drown yourself, but allow that kind of passionate fire fury to come out when it needs to still be present, with your boundaries Still I guess I hate using these words because I sound like my mom but like, put your foot down when you need to.
Speaker 1:Mom, muslim is important, yeah, yeah. No, I love that, though, because okay. So I was just thinking, too, how I just learned that Mercury retrogrades, like they're always in the same element, and, uh, we just are. We're as recording now, um, we're still in mercury retrograde and then by the time this is released, we will be out of retrograde period. But, um, mercury went retrograde in a fire sign in leo and it was like leaving cancer and it was going from this like watery, kind of like expressive, um, intuitive, emotional sign into this like fiery action sign, and everything got like boiling, like the water was like heated up, and these little pages are kind of doing the same thing. And so, maybe around relationships and money, right now, it's important to be intuitive and heart led and really be guided.
Speaker 1:I was giving readings all weekend and a lot of people were asking about career and relationships and for whatever reason. The theme was very much like what do you feel? Like you should do? Because sometimes my readings are very much like okay, this is what you should be doing or thinking about, but a lot of the cards were redirecting people to really think about like, what are you actually feeling? Like, can you tell? Like, can you tell what you're feeling, called to and we talked a lot about like how do you distinguish between anxiety and intuition in the body? They're definitely different feelings or experiences. You might feel them in different places and at the same time. It's supposed to direct us to take action, but because it's still a page of wands for our overall guidance, it's still like playful and experimentative and like you're still like testing things out and maybe it's relatively light, it doesn't have to be so serious, but it does have to be a little feisty and a little like boundaries bitch totally.
Speaker 2:I totally agree with that and that is really interesting what's happening universally.
Speaker 1:I'm having fun learning more about astrology. I did not grow up with any kind of astrology study. This is just something I'm enjoying as an adult. Did you do astrology in your?
Speaker 2:household. My mom loves astrology and I dabbled in it. But it was kind of that same thing Like astrology. It wasn't all astrology, it was more like it was trickled in, pieces of it were trickled in within. You know horoscopes and like, and the page of cups and you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:That's more familiar to me too, like my family definitely like cared about our sun signs and things like that and we'd talk about that or talk about, you know, associations with cards, but I wasn't like doing anyone's chart or anything.
Speaker 2:I have to tell you something. Okay, I was doing laundry with my girls and right outside the laundromat, like they were arguing with each other, and my littlest one was like of course you know you have to try to take the front seat because you're a stubborn scorpio, and everyone in the parking lot was cracking up and I was like, well, you're an airheaded aries and I'm like, of course they keep doing it, they keep saying this, and she's like and you're not even compassionate, because all Scorpios are not compassionate and like just all these bad things about each other's sign, like over and over again. And I was like, I was like I'm actually proud of them right now.
Speaker 1:I was laughing so bad, so accurately laughing so bad. That's so funny. Yeah, you know, I kind of that is a really fun way to roast, though, because the like quote-unquote worst traits of all the science. They really are like rough, obviously like not really reflective of how people but that is so fucking funny. I am like a crybaby you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I relate to some Leo behavior. There might be a little vanity and pride here, yeah, so we hope that you all have a wonderful week and if you have any questions about divination or anything kind of even related to what we talk about here, we are having fun doing these little short weekly week ahead forecasts, so feel free to write in if you have questions. We can also answer a question if you have them. Otherwise, we'll just tell you what to look forward to in the next week.
Speaker 2:Thank you guys, we love you, thank you.
Speaker 1:thank you for listening to romanistan podcast you can find us on instagram tiktok blue sky and facebook at romanistan podcast and on twitter at romanistan pod to support us, join our patreon for extra content or donate to our coffee fundraiser, ko-ficom backslash romanistan, and please rate, review and subscribe.
Speaker 2:it helps us so much follow jez on instagram at jasminavantila and Paulina at Romani Holistic. You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcastcom for events, educational resources, merch and more. Email us at romanistanpodcast at gmailcom for inquiries.
Speaker 1:Romanistan is hosted by Jasmina Vantila and Paulina Stevens, conceived of by Paulina Stevens, edited by Victor, bianca and D'Aluna, with music by Victor and artwork by Elijah Vardo.