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 September 8th, 2025
A big week for meeting our inner devils and focusing on our foundations. Tune in for some guidance going into the week ahead, and let us know what you think!
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.
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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 Viktor Pachas, Bianca, Dia Luna
With Music by Viktor Pachas
And Artwork by Elijah Vardo
Welcome to Romanistan. We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies. I'm Paulina and I'm Jez, and we are here with your tarot readings for the week of September 8th. We are pulling a card for love, money and guidance, so three cards total. I think that it's always good to remind folks, just in case you're new here, that we also wrote a book, secrets of Romani, fortune Telling, which you can get anywhere. If you're into this whole thing, we have some really fun interviews coming out soon, also on the podcast. We're really excited to have you, do you want?
Speaker 2:to hear the cards for the week.
Speaker 1:Yes. So for love we have the four pentaclesacles, for money we have the eight of cups and for overall guidance we have the devil. Oh, I love that. What do you think about the four of pentacles for love this week?
Speaker 2:I feel like the Four of Pentacles represent like control and stability, and four in general is about like four, like four legs on a table. You know it's about that having that foundation. So, for love, I feel it's about, for one, just having a foundational kind of strength. Whether you are going into something new or you already have something established. I think you need to have, I guess, that like stable foundation yourself first, which I feel like is always generally good advice anyway. So that's kind of how I feel about it, I guess.
Speaker 1:I agree with all that. It's so important to be taking care of your well-being so you can show up for the people you love and you know, be filling your cup as much as you can and not expecting others to all the time. You know they should sometimes. But I'm also thinking about the element of greed in this card, how the person is like clinging to one of the pentacles and how it's important to be abundant in love and generous in love and also receptive. But it might be worth thinking about greed around. Love Is there. Are you on the receiving end of that, or maybe the not receiving end of that? Or is there a way that you're approaching love where you're holding on really tightly and not letting things flow as they need to? Back to your point about control, I think this could be inviting folks to notice any tendencies to want to control their loved ones, even if it's out of love, like if you're trying to take care of people or trying to take care of them. But this card reminds me to loosen my grip on things sometimes.
Speaker 2:I really like that. I definitely agree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a hard thing to do, but it's an important thing to do. The eight of cups is money. What do you think about that?
Speaker 2:I feel like the eight of cups is a perfect card to have in your financial life when you're thinking about letting go of something unfulfilling and something that's just not really feeding your soul at all and basically pouring more of your time and energy and effort into just something purposeful that gives you feeling in life and not everybody has that luxury, so that is a really big luxury. But at the same time, maybe if we just kind of, if you just you know, I don't know delegate something, even if it's just a few minutes out of your week, to pour into something creative or fulfilling that can still be lucrative. I feel like that's kind of the advice. But you still have to let go of something and even if it's absolutely horrible I know I hate saying this, but you know how harsh I am like I'm really harsh and like I always say that like if you guys want to cancel me, cancel me.
Speaker 2:But like sometimes you just have to like get really fucked up for a little while, like quit your horrible job, like the people are so evil and like get another job and even if the people are just a little bit better, like go for that. You know, like people are just a little bit better, like go for that, you know, like something just a little bit more fulfilling, whether it's for survival or for creativity or for purpose, and I also feel like it's not all about like just working a regular job, but just kind of building your career and your lifestyle in general, like that's kind of how I see it.
Speaker 1:I think that's such good advice because you really can't always do it all Like you can't hold on to everything. And it's so interesting because that was also kind of a theme in the last card. We were talking about creating stability and abundance and letting go, and this is a different way. I'm also thinking about how the Eight of Cups. Sometimes it's about letting go in your heart, like if you're in a situation at work where you've done all the delegating and you've done all the boundaries making and you're still feeling invested emotionally in something and let's say you don't want to or can't leave right now.
Speaker 1:There is an invitation to just stop caring Like as much as you can, just like it's not your problem what other people think of you? If people are going to be wild, let them be wild, just like. Take a few steps back, it's not your problem. You are on your journey. Look ahead at the road and see where you want to go, but you don't have to waste your time with people who are depleting you, and I think that this can be a reminder to that. Space can look like a lot of things. It can look like leaving, and sometimes that's the best thing to do. When this card comes up and other times it just looks like having super clear boundaries or taking a step back or just not taking the responsibility for it, and all of that is up to you listeners. If any of that resonates, you get to decide the degree to which you take the Eight of Cups.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, 100%. You know, I like to throw everything away and restart fresh, new.
Speaker 1:I think it's good, though, because sometimes that's exactly what you have to do, and it's so hard to do that it helps to have someone say it to you, which is why we do these readings. I was reading at a bachelorette party, which I love to do, it's super fun and one of the people there had a bunch of cards that were pretty challenging right off the bat around relationships, and it just sort of looked like do you really want to be in this relationships? And it just sort of looked like do you really want to be in this? And so I asked her like okay, we only have five minutes, because sometimes these readings are really short. I'm like are you feeling like you need to leave? And she was like no, I'm not feeling like that. And I was like okay, well then, let's think about why this might be coming up.
Speaker 1:And it turned out that she was so afraid to address anything that made her uncomfortable because she didn't want her partner to leave her, and she's like I know this is my own thing that the cards were inviting her to imagine what if you just left, what would happen? And so, like, for a different person, maybe it's like leave him would be the answer. But for her she just need to imagine like how she'd be okay if she left, if they broke up, it would be fine. And then she felt better. But she must have walked in and told her future mother-in-law, because then her future mother-in-law came out and the mother at the person who was reading and she was just like did you? So you told her that she might need to leave her partner because he's going to propose next week and I'm like listen, that's We'll.
Speaker 1:You told her that she might need to leave her partner because he's going to propose next week and I'm like listen, that's, we'll do this. I didn't say that. I told her she needed to talk about her feelings. That's all I'm gonna say. Because then she was like I mean, I'm sure they had a moment's word and her the woman I've read for probably thought it was kind of funny that I said that and um, but you know it's, it's all about framing things. That might also be a part of the eight of cups. It's like what if you left? Just imagine that. But yeah, also say you're burn it all down. I think people need to hear that if they're on, if they are considering leaving and kind of looking for signs. It's like take this as your sign 100 so the devil as our overall guidance.
Speaker 1:What do you think about the devil this week? I am the devil this week the devil's been coming up for me a lot as well, so I was not at all surprised to see this. Tell me how.
Speaker 2:Tell me how you're the devil paulina oh, because look at this shit, okay, I did a reading, like in person reading, just now, like literally maybe an hour ago, and I just put the whole cards like I put, I like put the deck on the table real quick and, of course, like it was the devil on the outside, I'm like, okay, great, but I feel like it. So it's coming up for me too, and now it came up in our reading and I'm like, of course it did. They always show themselves until we really address them and I feel like it has to do with everything. I feel like for me personally, there's temptation and this and that, and I know it might not sound like a lot, but everyone has a different temptation. Some people it's biting their nails, sometimes it's cocaine. Everyone's different.
Speaker 2:But like right now, I've been feeling like really good with like not like scrolling. I had to delete TikTok because I have a serious issue with TikTok and randomly today, before the devil came up, I like went on my phone and I was like looking for the TikTok app, which I haven't had for like over a month, and and I'm like that's really weird, but I noticed myself doing that when I get like super stressed out, and so I feel like it's this like, I think, reminder that we are, we're not immune to like our unhealthy patterns patterns or the things that keep us stagnant.
Speaker 2:For me it's coming out and I feel like it's about breaking those possible patterns or being materialistic, or whatever it may be for that person. For some people they can do that and that's fine. Maybe something else is their toxic thing. Everyone has a different thing, but basically I feel like it's about temptation in general, whether it's for us or even the people around us, like being aware of the people around us. I've had to cut out an insane amount of people because I just felt like I just wasn't resignating, like with that energy anymore, and so, yeah, that was difficult to do, but like I think it's helped me grow personally, that's so powerful.
Speaker 1:It's hard to do that and I think the devil brings up all the hard work. It's everything that we feel chained to, it's ego out of control. It's the unhealthy cycles that also somehow feel so good even though they feel so bad. And I always like to think of the devil as a folklore archetype and how the devil in the hero's journey and folk stories is usually some sort of obstacle. Sometimes it's literally some sort of devilish figure, other times it's more of an obstacle of devilish nature. But it's meant to hold up a mirror to all of your deepest fears and make you work through them. If you're going to succeed, you have to face them. It makes you check your values and make sure you can really live by them, and I think that the devil appearing can sometimes mean that you're on the brink of success, but you just have to push through the temptation of falling backwards.
Speaker 1:And I'm looking at it in relationship to the other cards we pulled too. How that maybe the four pentacles is asking you to take good care of yourself and be stable and like address the devil's bad behaviors. Or to like let go of your grip and not make it about you in relationships, and like let people make their own decisions, and the eight of cups can absolutely be the fear of walking onward to the next, next project, but it can also be about if you have to walk away from something or create boundaries or step back. That also means that you don't get the pleasure of being a martyr either, and that would be a very devil card thing where it's like your ego is caught up in it, though everyone needs an ego death please so, yeah, I think the devil is good guidance for this week where it's just like yeah, are you?
Speaker 1:are you doing what you should do for your freedom and well-being, and what is in the way and what is so scary? Can you sit down with the devil and have a cup of tea and be like honey? What's going on? Why? Why are you kicking all this up? Because you know we don't have to slay the devil in us. It's, it's just a part of us, it's part of the ego, For sure.
Speaker 1:Yay, well, thanks everyone for joining us. We love doing these. Please let us know what you think in the comments. We'll post this on Instagram to let us know how you connect with it. We kind of sporadically post on TikTok so you'll more consistently find us on Instagram. But yeah, we love you and we appreciate you and tune in to our interviews and our readings coming up.
Speaker 2:Yay, we love you, Bye.
Speaker 1:Bye.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to Romanistan Podcast.
Speaker 1: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 Ko-Fi fundraiser, ko-ficom backslash Romanistan, and please rate, review, review and subscribe. It helps us so much.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1:Email us at romanistanpodcast at gmailcom for inquiries. Avantila and Paulina Stevens. Conceived of by Paulina Stevens, edited by Victor, bianca and D'Aluna, with music by Victor and artwork by Elijah Vardo.