Sensual Being

Ep 107 - Your Divine Spark Needs No Oracle Cards

• Jolene Whiting • Episode 107

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What if the key to spiritual connection isn't acquiring special tools, but stripping everything away? In this profoundly liberating exploration, we challenge the notion that spirituality requires external validation or specialized equipment.

Having recently decluttered my home of eight years, I experienced firsthand the extraordinary freedom that comes from letting go. Despite considering myself mindful about possessions, I was astonished by how much stuff had accumulated—and how releasing it reconnected me to what truly matters. This experience mirrors our spiritual journeys perfectly: we often believe we need special tools, artifacts, or practices to feel connected when the most profound spiritual experiences come from simplification.

From childhood, we're conditioned to be consumers—collecting toys that "we must have" evolves into adult patterns of accumulation, even in our spiritual practices. We convince ourselves we need the perfect crystal, the latest oracle deck, or specialized equipment for meditation when everything essential already exists within us. While tools like oracle cards or ceremonial cacao can serve as bridges to connection, they become problematic when we believe our spirituality depends on them.

The truly powerful spiritual practices are often disarmingly simple: journaling with pen and paper, humming a melody that resonates with your soul, or speaking intention into ordinary food and drink. Remember how your mother's cooking always tasted better? That wasn't just nostalgia—it was the power of intention and love infused into something ordinary, transforming it into something sacred. This same magic is available to you in every moment.

Ready to deepen your connection to your innate spiritual nature? Follow your highest joy, lead with your heart, and watch as life becomes a beautiful dance of alignment and flow. 

- If you would like to connect further you can find me on Instagram @jolenesensualbeing
- You can sign up to my mailing list here: Sensual Being Mailout
- My Youtube channel: SensualBeingJolene

I hope you enjoy your day.
Jolene
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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the Sensual being podcast with myself, your host, jolene Whiting. I have been a pole dance teacher for nearly 20 years. I'm also a yoga instructor and my favorite pastimes are connecting to my own sensuality, connecting with the world and connecting with animals as well. In this podcast, you'll find new and inventive ways of how you see yourself, connecting yourself with others, and also how you see and view the world around you. Today, we are diving in to things that can help you on your spiritual journey and also why you might not even need them. Hello, sensual being, and welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode today. We are going to be covering a lot of different areas today, pretty much to do with spiritual practices and possibly tapping into a little bit of religious ones as well, and I want you to take everything I say with a pinch of salt, but I'm very much going to be coming at it from the angle of your own inner power. That is the most important thing Now when we are looking at spiritual practices, and they can range from anything from like, say, doing yoga, or even just your morning wake up routine, of like oh, I normally, you know wash can be ritualistic activities that you do like oh, I feel good about myself when I go about my day, once I've done whatever it is, once I've had my coffee, once I've gone outside, once I've done my morning workout. So when I say spiritual practices, a lot of the time I'm not necessarily saying, oh, you've got to get on your mat and meditate and pray and it's. This is different for everybody, and you can also look to like, think, okay, well, you know, I want to increase my spiritual awareness a little bit more. What can I do? And you might then choose to do other things, but if you feel like, whatever you're doing in your life, you feel connected to who you are, you feel aligned with what you're doing in life, that is spiritual, that is a spiritual path. There is no I'm more spiritual than you are. That doesn't exist. It is about what makes you feel most aligned, connected, connected in to yourself, connected into nature, connected into the love that surrounds you. That is spirituality.

Speaker 1:

Now, how we get there, like I said before, is all different and it's very unique for each of us, and you might find some of these words are like trigger words and you're like, oh, I don't like when she says spirituality. I don't like when she says religion. It depends how you've been brought up, what you've come across in your life so far. You may be very adverse to those words, but actually we have all been given the divine spark of life. We have all been given this gift of being here on this earth at this time. And even if you think, oh, it's not spiritual, it is, whether you choose to believe it or not, it actually is, and all you have to do is just look at your life and how you started, from being a baby to growing up to who you are now. It doesn't get any more spiritual than that.

Speaker 1:

And this is where I feel people can get derailed because they think things should be more complicated. They need to make it more complex, to make it more real. But I would argue the complete opposite, when you start to strip away. Strip away things in your life as in, like material possessions, is a really good one. This episode comes to you very much from my own sort of upgrade, if you will, in the past, like week or two, because me and my partner have decided, yeah, okay, okay, the house isn't sold yet, but we're gonna move a load of our stuff out, because he's been in his place for 10 years, 11 years now, I think.

Speaker 1:

I've been in mine for nearly eight years and it's like there is a lot of stuff. Even though we don't collect a lot of stuff, I mean, we do a lot of events and things like that. So there's a certain amount of things, like a great big bell tent that I'm not going to get rid of. You know, there's some stuff like that which is like it's just big and it's just we have to just deal with that. But there's a lot of stuff and even though I wouldn't say we're minimalist, but we are quite conscious of what we bring in, but still we have had so much stuff to go through and a lot of the stuff I mean, you try and give it away or sell it and people just don't want it, people just want new, new, new and it's really sad. Anyway, that's a that's a different topic, but I have felt like taking so much stuff out of my house I don't want anymore. So, liberating, it feels so good and it just made me realize that all this stuff doesn't mean anything. I know what means a lot to me and it has got nothing to do with stuff. It really, really doesn't, and we are so, so caught up. We are brought up to be consumers.

Speaker 1:

Look at all the toys. Look, I remember I used to love Sylvania families. There was hundreds to collect. And if you're not getting kids hooked into consumerism from a young age, you're not going to get people who want the next pair of shoes that come out. Oh, I have to have them in all the colors. Oh, I need to go shopping. I can't be wearing the same thing twice now, can I? You know we are brought up with this. But when you look at children and toys, it's just. You know. I remember I used to love popples. If anybody's around in the 80s and remember popples, those, um, cuddly toys used to fold into a ball. I wanted all of them. There was a lot, there was a lot and I couldn't have all of them. I think I had three, but you know I didn't need three. To be fair, I probably didn't need one. I probably played with something else.

Speaker 1:

But this sort of need for more, more in our life, has us striving for the wrong things and distracting us from what really means something. And this is why when I say you know, when you start stripping things away from your life, you feel liberated because that stuff literally bogs you down. You know, I have a lot of envy for people who can like just put on a backpack and then travel to the other side of the world. I'm like whoa, how do you do that? You know not only the travel side of things, but how do you work out what to take? You know, and it's just that to me seems so far away from where I am now. But I love the idea. I love the idea of just being that minimalist. But then I also know that because of how I run my businesses and what I do for events, then I know I'm going to have more stuff.

Speaker 1:

So okay, but you know my own personal belongings and it really, really got me thinking, because I think when we are diving into, like, say, the spirituality world, and we're diving into the world of like, oh, I really like my yoga class, I'm going to do some at home, brilliant. Oh, I need to get the latest thing for you. I need to get the latest outfit. I need to get this so it looks right when I'm on my mat. I need a new mat. Actually, I haven't got one in this color, so I need one in that color and I'm using yoga as an example, by the way. But it stems on further than that and you think you've got to have the next thing. But it isn't about that. But you can get so caught up in this even in a spirituality world.

Speaker 1:

Now, an example as well is like crystals Crystals. I love crystals. I think they're great. I absolutely love them. You don't have to love them. And do you know what? Some of my favorite crystals are? Ones I just found outside on the street, just ones I picked up that look like a stone, until you turn it over and realize, oh my God, that's a bit of rose quartz or a sparkling pebble that you find on the beach. These are like gold dust to me. I think they're amazing.

Speaker 1:

It's whatever makes you feel like more connected, and the reason I want to talk about this is because you don't need any stuff to make you feel more connected. But I want to sort of touch on the fact that it can help in ways only in some ways, because I feel like once you start tapping in to this sort of thing, you can end up buying into like a lot of stuff that you think you need, but you don't. You really, really don't. The main thing that you need is yourself and a way of tapping in. Is that going for a walk in nature? Is that doing a meditation? Is it going to a class? Is it having sex? What is it for you that makes you feel like you are connected, tapped in, aligned, living with purpose. And I don't mean you have to go and try and find an exact purpose, but living with that feeling of belonging is living with purpose, and that is the feeling that we want to try and tap into.

Speaker 1:

But there are so many different things that can actually help accelerate you. I mean books. I love books, but you don't have to read every single book to tap in. It's a bit like Oracle cards as well. Again, I love Oracle cards. I kind of have this dream of making like sensual being Oracle cards cards one day.

Speaker 1:

But you don't need them. And tarot as well. You don't need it. It's a nice to have, it's nice to have, and when you use like oracle cards, you might use them and like pick a card and then read the full reading for it, or you might just look at the card in the picture and see how it makes you feel, or you might just like read the tagline of what it's called. You don't have to do this like in an exact way.

Speaker 1:

But the reason why I think Oracle cards are good and bad, I think they're good because, if two things one, if you've not really done a lot of work, where you tap in to your own energy in a real kind of like deep way, then I find that oracle cards they have a way of just telling you exactly what you already knew. And you might think it's a waste of time if I already know it, but there's knowing and knowing you can know something. But it's different when you really feel it and sometimes I find with oracle cards and tarot they really tap me straight in, they plug me straight in to you know what you're supposed to be doing or you know the answer to that, and the answer would be there on the card and I'd be like, oh my god, I knew it. I did, I had a feeling. I've been feeling like that lately and the cards will have a way of like drawing you in in that way.

Speaker 1:

Now that is amazing, particularly if you don't do a lot of work with yourself in this sort of way, because a lot of us haven't got time for it. I would argue you should make time, but that's for another, that's another episode. But our lives are so busy and they're filled of what I call distraction. So rather than tapping in, we tap out. Rather than connecting, we disconnect. We've got stuff going on around us. There's no time for us. Let's put ourselves to the side, and I don't want to do that. I want us to tap in.

Speaker 1:

So oracle cards can be really great and I also find, again, this is good and bad. I find when I'm at a time of despair or discomfort or you know a challenging, I will turn to cards a little bit more, because I find that they really help to rebalance me and also, to be fair, you don't have to take what the card says as gospel either. But the reason why I say that these are good and bad is they're not really bad. But you just don't want to get locked into. I can only do spiritual work if I've got oracle cards. I need another deck. I need another deck. You don't need that. You don't need that.

Speaker 1:

It's more important about how you are feeling and I find that like journaling or even just it's almost like free writing, where you just get a bit of paper and just write, write, write and it is amazing what comes out on a piece of paper. You can do it on your laptop if you want, but there's something very grounding about actually having pen to paper and doing it that way, because you actually unravel a lot of what's in your mind and you know. You know what's going on in your mind more than any card or any person. So to be able to tap in without having to use oracle cards is amazing and you can do that, and it doesn't matter how much of this you've done. You can do that and it's trusting. Somehow, when we see that on the card, we almost trust ourselves more because we've seen it on the card and I've done this too. But if that's what it takes for you to learn to trust yourself, then go for it. Just go for it, because that sort of trust and awareness within yourself is something that actually needs to be, like developed, and you'll find your flip forward and back to needing to develop it, to just flow in with it.

Speaker 1:

It will change because our situations and circumstances change in our life and other things like like I love having cacao, I don't need it, I enjoy it. And the thing that I enjoy about it is because, particularly the way I make it, I like the process of making it. So I will set intention into the water. I will connect with the energy of the cacao by putting my hand over the cacao and the other hand over my heart and I will just make that connection in. Now am I connecting to the cacao or am I just connecting in? You can decide, but that's what it gives me. It gives me like a start.

Speaker 1:

When I'm doing a ritual myself and I don't always use it Sometimes I find, to be honest, I just love humming and then singing and toning and chanting and I find that that gets me to a place that is just such a high frequency that I just feel so divine and I love that. But you don't. It's the difference between needing it and when you're having like the cacao. It's like if you're I'm talking about speaking intention into it you can speak intention into any drink or food. It's like when you're growing up.

Speaker 1:

A lot of the time people will say that nothing tastes as good as my mum's cooking when I was growing up, and that's something that I kind of feel is very strong within me. I feel like my mum's cooking was always so, so good. It's because she put love and intention into it. It didn't matter what the meal was, it didn't have to be like a sacred meal. It didn't have to be like a sacred meal, didn't have to be like a birthday cake, it was just a meal, but she was putting so much love and intention into it that that has energy behind it. That energy goes into what she was creating and then I'm eating it, thinking this tastes so yummy. No one makes it like my mum does, you know, and this is where this stuff is so powerful, which is why I said at the start of this episode that I wanted to be tapping in to your own inner power and if you don't really understand what that is, and hopefully by me saying, like, the intention around food and things will help you understand that a bit more.

Speaker 1:

Because we don't. We don't need plant medicines, we don't need oracle cards, we don't need crystals to make an altar based on what is around you. I always have feathers on my altar that I found in the garden and at the moment, because my roses are in bloom, when I de-head a rose, I put it on my altar for a bit, and every time I walk by I smell it, you know, I hold it. I've even been holding one as a microphone this week and singing into it, because it was cute, you know, and it's it's realizing the sacredness of everything that's around us, because all land. You don't need to go to a sacred space. I love going to Avebury Stones, I love going to Stonehenge, you know, I love going to places like that, or ancient woods like Savanac or Puzzlewood. They're great, brilliant.

Speaker 1:

But don't forget that all land is sacred. It doesn't matter where you are, even if you're in a concrete jungle, in a flat, all land is sacred, all of it is. There is no one bit that's more sacred than another. All of mother nature, all of mother earth is sacred. And this is where we want to get into that appreciation of the land and really, really connect into where you are.

Speaker 1:

So don't think, oh, because I don't live in the countryside, I can't be connected to nature. If I don't live by the sea, I'm not connected. I get, you might be drawn to different places, like I'm very much drawn to the forest, my partner's very much drawn to the beach. You know we don't live in either of those places, but that doesn't mean to say we can't to attach in and connect in to the land that we are actually physically on, because if you think we have only been, this is very up for debate. But we've only been on earth, like you and me. We haven't been on this earth for very long in this body. Well, how long has earth been going for? There's the debate no one, no one knows. It doesn't matter what scientist tells you anything, nobody actually knows. We don't know. And so you think of that land that you're on. What has it gone through? What is buried underneath that land? What goes down through all the different layers of the earth beneath your feet? You are literally tip of the iceberg.

Speaker 1:

You don't know, and that, I think, makes earth so magical, no matter where you are, and that is something that I'm very, very passionate about, and it's also when we try and strive for, you know, the perfect moment. You know, oh, we've got a perfect day, everything's got to go right, all moments are holy. Every single moment is. Every single moment you take a breath is absolute magic, and you can't get away from that, because that's just the magic of life. You're not making yourself breathe, you are breathing unconsciously, and that's even more amazing. Even more amazing and I said also that we touch on like religious a little bit as well. Well, I was saying you know you don't need Oracle cards and things like that. I'm looking forward to the emails that might come in after I say this next statement.

Speaker 1:

But if you follow a religion, you don't need to go to church to be religious. If there's a religion that really you connect with, you don't even have to know why, but you connect with it, you don't need to go to church. You can go to church. You don't need to know why, but you connect with it. You don't need to go. You can go to church. You don't need to to still be religious. You know who you are inside again comes back to that own inner power. And here's the kicker you do not need to have any religious script to follow to be religious, because I'm bringing this all together into spirituality, into the divine spark of yourself.

Speaker 1:

You came into this world with nothing, so you can still continue to live in that way. You don't need to be following the Bible, you don't need to be following Oracle cards, you don't need to be going to church, you don't have to be getting the latest crystals that you can find. You need any of that stuff to tap into the magic that is you. And as soon as you realize I'm not saying you can't do all that, but as soon as you realize that the magic actually comes from within, that nobody can take that away from you, that is with you wherever you go, and it's that that is trying to get taken out of us through all these distractions consumerism, tv, netflix, gaming, vaping, smoking, alcohol, drugs it's all designed. It's perfectly designed to take you away from yourself. All of it, because there's even consumerism within, like spirituality, of all the stuff I've just said. You don't need any of that.

Speaker 1:

All you need to do is work out what brings you into this moment, because this moment is the most important one when we have. When we think about our past, that is done, it's gone. When we think about our future, well, it hasn't happened yet, has it Like there's an element of planning to do for the future? Okay, I get that. And there's an element of maybe learning from your past or, you know, trying to go forward in a better way. Okay, but the most important part is to come back into the present moment.

Speaker 1:

Where are you now. Where are you in your life now? Do you have a body? Do you still have two arms and two legs? Because not all of my friends do. I've known two friends in my life to have lost legs. I know somebody who doesn't have an arm. I know quite a few people who have lost their hearing and it doesn't mean to say that if you haven't got any of those parts, I've just said that you're less than the chances are you might be able to tap into more appreciation, to appreciate what you do have if you are one of those people. But if you are someone who thinks, well, my body's all right, you're, oh, my God, you're lucky, like we are all lucky. We're so lucky to be here, we are so, so lucky.

Speaker 1:

And, if you can, you know my intention that I leave you with on every podcast is to lead through your life with your heart and to live with intention, because you can apply that to anything. When you lead with your heart in your life, you're not a walkover, because you also love yourself as well. You love others and yourself. You see and wish for the best in people, in humanity, your loved ones and yourself. That's how you're leading through your life is with your heart. In that way, you believe in the goodness of other people and their actions.

Speaker 1:

And living with intention, intentional living is living on purpose, with purpose, and I don't mean all this crap about oh, you got to find your sole purpose. No, your purpose is just you being here. And this whole sole purpose thing really winds me up and it will change throughout your life. You know, one moment it was your. You know your purpose was to like, leave school and go out and get a job. And you know, know, oh, I want to buy a house. That's your next thing. Oh, you want to have kids. Oh, you want to have two kids. Those are all different purposes and they're all relevant, but the main thing is to know that those are doing things. But you being here is your purpose. You don't need to rally around and try and find something.

Speaker 1:

What I suggest doing is, if you are at a crossroad and you think you want to do something else and you're not sure what it is, you've got to find your purpose, all that joy and lean into that and just see what happens in your life when you follow your highest joy. Actually sink into that and then just watch what happens in your life. You'll find I guarantee you'll find so many things just start to fall into place. Life becomes a dance and you just start to align and flow within your life. So I hope you've taken lots from that today.

Speaker 1:

So I hope you've taken lots from that today. Remember, as always, to lead through your life with your heart and to live with intention. Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with your friends and on social media. If you have the time to rate or review this podcast, I'd be ever so grateful. If you'd like to follow me on instagram, you can find me at jolene sensual being. The links to my youtube and to sign up to my mailing list will be in the show notes as well. I look forward to speaking with you again very soon.