Shamanic Earth Wisdom and the Medicine Wheel with Author Diana Kessler

This is a video about Shamanic Earth Wisdom and The Medicine Wheel with Author Dianna Cuatto Kessler

www.shamancestors.com.

Diana Cuatto Kessler on Shamanism, Earth Wisdom & Her Sacred Circle Spirit Animal Oracle Deck

Host Tanya Roundy interviews counselor, writer, and retired ballet director Diana Kessler about her post-retirement focus on shamanism and Earth wisdom and her mission to bring Indigenous wisdom from North and South America into modern life. Kessler describes creating the “Sacred Circle Spirit Animal Oracle” deck and detailed guidebook based on the North American medicine wheel, inspired by a 2002 near-death appendix experience and developed through a six-month journey around Sedona and the Verde Valley. She explains the deck’s structure (creator cards for lower/middle/upper worlds, lunar cycles, spirit pathways, stones, and cardinal directions), shares example cards and haiku, and discusses oracle work as guidance rather than prediction. The conversation emphasizes healing, integrating light and shadow, gratitude, joy, grounding in nature, and practical elemental practices like simple candle-based fire ceremonies.

00:00 Welcome and Introductions
00:46 Diana’s Shamanic Mission
01:44 Medicine Wheel Oracle Deck
03:10 Near Death Vision Origin
03:48 Ballet Career and Retirement
05:01 Sedona Vortex Creation Journey
06:33 Oracle Work and Ancestral Gifts
09:36 Deck Design and Guidebook
10:46 Medicine Wheel Explained
13:13 Tree of Life Realms
15:43 Earth Mother Card Spotlight
17:26 Firebird and Transformation
19:34 Elemental Wisdom and Fire
21:36 Ancestral Gifts Healing
23:26 Grounded Joyful Service
25:12 Indigenous Simplicity Tools
26:24 Many Paths One Light
28:04 Dance as Spirit Path
33:15 Nature Gratitude Practice
36:30 Fire Ceremony Intentions
39:29 North Haiku Blessing
40:28 Where to Find Diana
42:36 Final Takeaways Farewell

In a world full of uncertainty, how does one cope with unbearable loss and pain? A Christmas tragedy finds Steve and Maria struggling to find hope. With the love and support of family and friends, will they find peace as they walk through the fire of Uncertainty?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Hello everyone and welcome to round reviews and counselor today. And I'm going to talk about it. And today we're gonna talk about what Diana has been working. Yeah, just saying okay. Like my brain.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Okay, you probably do a thousand of these.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

No, I'm just like all of a sudden, like I'll just start second guessing myself and like, is that right? Is that right? Making sure I'm right. So today we have Diana Kessler here, and we're gonna talk about what she's been working on. So Diana, tell us a little about yourself and what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Well, since I retired in 1950, well, twenty not nineteen fifties when I was born, 2020. Just I retired, I was planning to retire that year anyway. I got to retire a couple months early, and I'd been on the path that I'm on now, which is a path of shamanism and earth wisdom for a while, but I was able to really focus on that. And so what I've been working on with my writing, because I'm an artist, I was a dancer in my other life, and now I am a writer and a teacher. I've been a teacher since I was 16, really. So that's just always been a stable for me. But I decided I work on indigenous wisdom both in North and South America. So one of my real missions is to bring the ancestral wisdom of those two indigenous lands into everyday modern life to help people. And so the first thing that I've written since that time, and I'd been working on it for longer than this, but I really started working on it in 2020 when I retired, is a card deck, an oracle card deck that focuses on the wisdom, in this case, of North America. And I'm also currently working on one for South America, which will take me a couple more years to probably get out. But I wanted to because the shamanic wisdom of the North American medicine wheel in this case really helped heal me through a lot of difficult times in my life and helps to bring me back into balance when I get out of whack. And I think that's the whole purpose of the medicine wheel, is a vortex of different life path things that we all go through in life, whether it's conscious or not. But when we can learn to go through it consciously and apply it to our lives, then we can come back to the center, which is where source or God lives and where our inner voice, which is our authentic voice, actually lives. And so I wanted to do that and I wanted to get it out both to people that have never done anything with it and also to those that have been on the path for a while. So I wrote a pretty detailed guidebook to go with the card deck because I wanted it to be able to service people in all levels and phases of their journey. And so I've been really happy so far with the result. But what got me on the path of the card deck in the first place was in 2002, I almost died of an appendix attack. It had burst and they didn't know that it had, even with their tests. But while I was under, I had a dream. So people may say it was a hallucination, whatever. But I saw this, I saw a vision of a medicine wheel with different portals opening, and I saw haiku that I could write to open the portals. And it really stuck with me when I woke up. And so I started writing the haiku back then, but I was very busy with my dance career. At that time, I was a coach at the Richmond Ballet, which they call it a ballet mistress, but it's it's a coach. And really, literally, one year after that, I took on the directorship of the ballet theater of Maryland, and it was it's it's still there. I passed it on to one of my dancers when I retired, and but I had to turn it around. It was like over a hundred thousand dollars in debt when I took my and I didn't know it, their board didn't know it, and so I'm like, oh, did you guys know that you're in debt? And so we couldn't hire a lot of staffer and all of that to help with the office part. I felt it was more important to pay the dancers, and um, so it took me a lot of hours and a lot of work to turn it around, and I was there for 18 years, so I could only work on this very sporadically. So the one of the first things I did when I was retired was go back into my notes and all my haiku that I'd been keeping for years and start to really write more seriously this card deck. So it means a lot to me, and I was fortunate because I lived in Maryland at the time, where the ballet was, but we moved in 2021 to Arizona. I live near Sedona. Sedona either calls to you or it doesn't. It called to both my husband and myself, even though he's on a very different journey than I am. Uh-huh. I couldn't be in a better place for it. And I did infuse every card that I wrote with a different Vortex Center, either in Sedona or the Verde Valley where I live, which is also full of Native American archaeological vortex sites. So I went on a six-month journey to do all that as well, which the whole thing was just very enlightening and very fulfilling for me. I took a young chiropractor who was apprenticing on with me on part of that journey, and I think it really had a profound effect on his life as well. I now work in the center where he is the chiropractor. So we still have a pretty strong connection in all this, and so yeah, it's been quite a quite an exciting and fun journey and a powerful one too. And I don't really feel like they're my cards in a way. I believe they believe belong to spirit, and I think a lot of writers probably feel that way about their work. So I can say that, and the process for me is very similar to choreography, which I did a lot of in dance, and that I do a lot of research, but then I pray and put out my intentions, and I see what spirit brings, and that's what I end up with. And so that it was really fun. I had a I had such a great time. I use the cards myself. I'm doing oracle readings at the center and some shamanic work in terms of healing. And turns out I didn't know it at the time, but I should have guessed it. But because my grandmother was, I guess, what people would call a medium. Uh she was on a farm, so she didn't think of it like that, but she was like that every day of her life. And my grandfather is what a lot of indigenous people would call uh weather shaman. And so I found out that in my mother, my grandmother's line that I have an ancestor that goes back to about 500 BC that trained with the oracles at Delphi. And to me, there's a lot of people might not know that I think there's like there's quite a few scriptures in the Bible that actually do talk about oracle in a positive way. And and I don't believe that oracles should foretell future unless spirit really instructs you as a prophet or something to do that. But I do believe it should give people tools and give them an idea of what their life can do and what they can do to change and make things better for themselves. So I like to call it predictive, not predictive. I like to call it helpful guidance and helpful messages from spirit to just help people do things. And I think if you read about even the oracle at Delphi, she spoke in riddles a lot. It was for the person to be able to interpret it and bring their own power and tools to whatever their questions were. And I think that's really what it is to nudge people and help people on their path. A lot of times people really know the answers, but we don't trust ourselves, we get scared. And so I think the real key to it is to give them the confidence that they need, to trust the messages that they're getting. And just I have observed through several years of doing it as a now as a profession, but before it's just for fun, that it always is telling people what they already knew inside, what they already knew inside of themselves. And I think that's really how Spirit intends for it to be. So I think it's pretty powerful. And when I read the scriptures and see what the Bible says about it, that's pretty much how it talks about it, too, uh, in the few scriptures that are there. And some people just have a gift. My grandmother had a much more powerful gift than I believe that I have, but I'm grateful for the many blessings that have been passed on to me and my cousins and my brother from the lineages that I do have, and just a joy to be able to use them and now share them with people through this card deck. And I'm working, like mentioned it earlier, on a companion deck for the Andean cosmology. So I think they could either be done used separately or they'll be able to be used together too for a larger scope of wisdom that can come to people. But it's really fun. I got to work with an artist. I ended up with an artist in Sri Lanka that I wasn't expecting, but I really had a great time working with him. His artwork's beautiful and show you the box. So gorgeous. Oh my god. And that's his design based on all my instructions. The spirit pretty much had pretty specific instructions, but I can't draw. I can but I can tell you exactly what I want. And then just the the box itself is beautiful. It's my favorite type of box. It has a magnet, but I also have a haiku for the beginning right there. And then when you open it, you have a haiku for the ending of a journey. Oh, I love it. And then in the center of the box, there's one that talks about the vortex and the medicine wheel that's in with all of us that connects us to the light in all the universe. And so I really liked that. And then the guidebook, this is the guidebook. It's about, well, they say it's 200 pages, but it's actually about 190 marks because they count the front and back at the printers. Um, but it has, I did a lot of instruction on how to use a medicine wheel in the beginning for people because I really wanted them to be able to do that, how spirit animals function, because the name of the deck is the Sacred Circle Spirit Animal Oracle. The medicine wheel is divided into a center circle. The center circle is really consists of all of the elements that can that actually comprise all of creation. They're the ones including in the very center is the creator. And in this deck, I have three different phases, three different cards that represent the creator. One for what they call the lower world or the subconscious world, one for the conscious world, and one for the upper world or what we most of us call heaven and the divine. And there's one of one of the spreads that I put in the book. You actually just draw those three cards for the center to start to see which world is affecting you the most right now, and then the other cards lay out around it. Then there's an outer circle that is comprised of the lunar cycles, the 13 moons of the year. In Native American time, there were 13 moons every year because of the way they counted the calendar, but now they follow the Gregorian one. So we actually wind up with a 13th moon every two years. But it has all the other moons, and then there are the spirit pathways, and they lead from the outer part of the circle back to the creator, so that all things take us back to the center of all life. And they have just they have all of the outside cards, the moons and the spirit pathways have a spirit animal guide. The center, the center, the creator encompasses all creation, so he doesn't have a spirit animal guide. And the 13th moon doesn't either, because it is influenced by whatever moon is in the month that it occurs in a year. So it would have that spirit animal guide for that year. And and then that there are seven stones that go around that center, the creator, those are the building blocks of creation, as are the four cardinal directions in the outer circle. So they each have two cards, and one is just for the medicine of the vortex, and the other one is their spirit animal guide, is connected that way. So you're really working with the medicine wheel, not just spirit animal guides and other things in the deck. And actually, I can show you. I put these are this is represents the tree of life, and it's the lower world version of the tree. And you can see it has a hole or a cave that goes deep into the roots of the earth because it includes all the spirit animals, all the animals from the earth, it includes the earth mother and that part of creation. And then this one is the middle world. And it's the world we're in now. So you go through it portal in a dream or a journey or meditation, and you can go anywhere in the world to gain information. You can go at different times to past, present, and future because it's a place where they come together in the center, is here in our world. And it's also the physical material world, so it represents all of the creations here, and then it also even any spirits that may not have crossed over yet, because they're still here on the earth plane until they do. And so it represents all that. And I did a I had a tree, I wanted a tree of life for all three, and then this one is for the divine. Hard to see, but there are some constellations. I was gonna say I see um several in there already, yeah. Yeah, I picked Orion and Sirius and the Pleiades because they have the most meaning in the most indigenous cultures around the world, and a lot of them believe that we traveled through those portals to get here once we were created by God. So that's one of their beliefs. And Orion's kind of considered the gateway, so I put it on the center in the top. And in their journeys, they journey instead of meditate, but it's very similar to meditation. But when you journey, you I like to go through the tree of life. And if I go down in the tree through its roots, then I'm going to visit the lower world. If I go through the center of the portal in the tree trunk, then I'm visiting our current plane of existence. And if I climb up through the roots and fly on a bird or an angel to the divine realms or the celestial realms, then that's how I get there. So I think that's not all of them do it that way. Some go through caves, which is why I had a cave on this first one, and kind of at the root of the tree. But but it's a similar thing to meditation, it's a way of praying. And it's not the only way they pray, just like it's not the only way. We don't just meditate nowadays, we do both. And then I think this was the card I sent you. I love this card just because it is the Earth Mother, and all of the indigenous cultures are very earth-based, and they believe that we need to honor and respect the earth as good stewards, and that's in the Bible, too, that is there. And yeah, so you know, you the truth is truth wherever it is, it's all part of the gospel and part of the higher realm's truth. I believe that. And so I think we need all the pieces of it to be whole. And I love this card because you can see her dress is made of all the life on earth. There's some animals around the bottom and some trees, and then there's a great hand. That hand could be hers, but it could also be the creator's hand holding the planet, almost like a crystal ball, which is where I think it will evolve to someday. And she has the justice scales. Um, and when you think about it, at least on the physical plane, she provides us with food, clothing, she provides us with everything that's here. And that's the gifts that she was given by the creator to help all of her creations, not just humanity, but all of them. It's probably one of my favorite cards. And the haiku says, Mother Earth sings her sacred songs of power to those who listen deep. I like it. And so I have the haiku on each card because if people don't have time or don't feel like reading the whole book in every aspect of its meanings, I wanted them to be able to have something they could ponder, right? And connect on a daily basis. And so I'm really happy with that. And and I have a lot of favorite cards in here. One of my favorite right now, if I can find it here, is the Thunderbird because everybody's been talking about the year of the fire force. We just went into that year, and it's the first time in 60 years, and it's the only time in a thousand thousands of years that we might go into it with Saturn and Neptune, which are polar opposites. And our world right now is really feeling polarized. And so I really think the signs that the creator's giving us is it's time to bring those things together and not remain so polarized, and to start with ourselves interweaving the things that feel very opposite within us together as one whole. So this is the firebird card. And when I did the deck, it was the only mythological animal in it, but the Native Americans have always said there was a real firebird. Well, in this past year, archaeologists have discovered an actual firebird skeleton, and it's huge. So now they're trying to figure out how it actually could have flown because it definitely had bones, and it looks the bones look like they could fit in this creature here. So I find that really fascinating. But it's all about fire is about transformation and healing. It can be harsh, but it can also be gentle, like a candlelight. And it also is about purification, which is where we are right now, no matter what belief you have. It seems like a lot of cultures are in the same place with the time that we're in, which seems to be a very huge time of transition for the planet and for all of us as well. So I I've always liked this card. The haiku for it is bird of intense flame swoops with passion to transform me with its fire. Wow. So beautiful. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

So now you've seen two of my favorite cards. You guys have to buy the deck to get the rest. It's so beautiful, you guys. Oh my goodness. I love what you said about fire and transforming because with my book, Certainty Walking Through Fire, it's some of it has both sides of that, right? It has all the sides of what fire is internally, metaphorically, the literal fire and how damaging can also help the transformation and the peace and the warmth it can bring too. And so some people it's like some people are like, oh, it's so hard to read. And I'm like, but have you got the other part of it, right? That fire is more than just the destruction. And so I love that that you bring up that part of it because to me, that's been a very big part of my life and my journey as an author and stuff is that transformational aspect. And so it's beautiful than that.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

We do tend to be a little bit afraid of fire because we fear the destructive side of it, and it's a little easier to accept, I think, in our thoughts, the destructive side of water, but they're each they're all the elements are equally powerful on both sides, but the side that we want to bring into our lives the most are the sides that are most positive. And fire also is about vitality and passion. The passion I had as an artist and that you have as an artist comes from fire, more water or earth or air. And yet we need them all, at least in the physical form. They are those four elements, plus I believe light is the fifth one that ties us together. And then I guess you could say gravity is the sixth, and the seventh is resurrection. That's how I see them leading together. And we have we're so blessed to have five that we can five six, almost all of them we can work with in some level on the earth here, and so that we can achieve the rest of them, including the resurrection. I think I think that the blueprint or the map God put right here on the planet, and we don't always make the connection. So I'm really happy that you uh love the fire too, because it's a very necessary element for us to be able to continue to grow and thrive, and not even just in the physical form, but in the spiritual form, and that's where transformation comes from. So it's really powerful. And I think it's important at this time for us to go back to our ancestral roots. And one thing I've learned because there's so many. Much there's more emphasis than there has been in the past on healing our past through the ancestral lineages. It's really important. But something I learned when I was been working on healing mine is that if you can stay stuck in all the things that didn't work, the most important thing you can do is to identify some of the gifts from the lineage and bring the ones forward that feel good to you, that you resonate with. That's the best way to heal. And it's much more positive and less stressful, is what I discovered in my journey. That bit of wisdom is really important. And to me, we on earth are a bridge between the ancestral and the cosmic wisdom, or at least we're meant to be. So as we awaken to being able to be that and to be able to do that, there'll be more joy in our lives. And I know the Andean shamans teach that we really came here to experience joy. So, yes, we do have duality here, and so we do experience the other things, but the more we can shift into joy with the tools that the earth and body and spirit has given us, the better. And the more that our ancestors have given us of those things to do that. And I have found I'm still working on that. I'll probably be working on that till I pass from this plane. I definitely am in a better space than I was at one time. And I really think a lot of it's that, and just taking time to connect with the physical beauty of the earth because a lot of a lot of the people in the new age communities here where I am in Sedona are just so focused on ascension. That's important. But I think what really is important is for us to materialize our spirit here in our physical form. And that will automatically take us to wherever ascension is when the time comes. But that's why we came here. And it's really important for us to stay grounded here and to do service here, whatever that is. Service can even be as simple as being joyful and sharing that. It can be much more. A lot of people are like real heavy duty servers. It doesn't matter what it is, it's that it brings you joy and bliss, and that you can honor it with gratitude. If we learn that lesson and work on it more, we will have much more light and ease in our lives and much more joy. And then all the other things that come now and in the future and after we pass from this life will be so much easier. And it's it's hard to do that. I make it sound easy, it's not easy. It's thus the tools of things like your books and my cards and all of that, they're all important because we're also here to share what wisdom we have with others so that if it can help them, it will help them. And vice versa. We're not here just to give either, we're here to receive. And I think that's really hard for us in our culture because we've been taught that give just giving is important, but it's it's a world of paradoxes and dualities. We have to find that balance between the two so we don't burn out with fire, since we talked about the fire. And and a lot of that, I don't know, it's just it's very simply expressed a lot of the time in Indigenous cultures, and it plows through the heavier, more thought-provoking intellectual thoughts that we have and brings it down to simplicity. And I think that's one of the things that I really like about it, and yet it can also be very complex too, but there's always a kernel of the simplest truth in everything in Indigenous wisdom. And I think it's there in our culture too. I just think we've forgotten how to see it sometimes, and we've created more and more things around it without taking the moments to breathe and to take it in as it was meant to, and so then we just get more balled up and stressed instead of being able to be calm and relaxed and peaceful and full of joy. And I think the medicine wheel is one tool that can really help us with that, not the only one, there's many, and people should gravitate towards what they resonate with because we're all different and we're all unique, and different things will work to help each one of us as we move in our life, and different things will work at different times in our lives too. Right. I went through a lot of different phases. I've always been a student of ancient philosophy, I guess. I studied, I was Catholic, Greek, Ambian Mormon. I love all of them, and I've I have worked in, I really studied all of them. And for me, they're all part of the same, they're all part of the truth. And so you bring in the truth, some may have more truths for you than another, and that's fine. But you bring them all in and you use them to be the best version of yourself that you can and to step in the light of who you really are. And we all are children of the light. We are children of God. Some people say of the great central sun, which is where God lives. Whatever you call it, we are still all from that same place. We all carry that light, we're all different sparks of that same light. And I think right now, because things are so polarized, we need to remember to look for that spark in each person because everyone carries it, no matter how old, how young, no matter what ethnicity they are, we all carry that. We are all children of the same being. And we are all meant to be here at this moment in time, for better or worse, for easy or hard, to add what we have that no one else has as a gift of that particular spark. So that in the end, all the sparks come together as one whole, but now they would come together improve because we will have learned so much more having come here and experienced things in the physical form. And so that's how I feel about it. I don't think I knew where I was going with anything when I was young, because I really started this journey when I was a kid. I was two years old and I felt very strongly about these things. I remember telling my mom, and then I also remember telling her, I knew I was supposed to be a dancer. I for me, I always knew dance was an expression that came from spirit for me, and that I should always honor it that way, or I couldn't really produce what I needed to, because it should come that spirit should come through mine and out to the world. And so I always I tried to revolutionize things that I saw were wrong when I was in the ballet world. It was very it went from one body type in 1964 to a completely different one in 1966. And they even rewrote a couple of the books to change the description of it, but the answers were the same, and it was causing so much stress and making people get sick because they were getting too thin. So I changed that everywhere I went that I could, and of course, where I had the biggest impact was in Maryland because I didn't have to adhere to a specific body type because I was the director and I had the power to do that. And I can say one thing for that community, they supported it. And it we had a lot more healthy dancers as a result, and my successor was important to me because I wanted someone that would carry that part of the vision on that was more important to me, and also to me, dance isn't the only path, which we're somewhat taught as a young dancer, and it's very time-consuming, but it's it's also a language of light if it's used right, and that's what it's meant to be, and it's just a path. So if you're on it for a while, it's great. If you're meant to be on it longer, that's great too. And if you're not, there'll be a new path that's even better that opens up. And so I did try to teach that to all my dancers, and so I feel to me that was my biggest contribution, not all my choreography, not all the other stuff. It was really that, because that affects the human soul and the human life more than all the other stuff. And so I was very grateful that Spirit seemed to always manage to find a way to put me in a place where I could make a difference, and I was always very grateful for that. I didn't make it easy. I worked my myself very hard in the ballet company. I worked 120 hours a week. Oh, yeah, easily because it is, you have to do that, but I was so grateful because I knew why I was doing it, and I knew why I was there, and I knew when it was time for me to end my time there and pass it to someone else. And so I'm just really grateful for all of those opportunities, and they all have made me the writer I am for sure. So everything we do informs that we are as writers or or not, and I've had a lot of experiences on all ends, the wide gamut, like I think everyone does. So I'm grateful for that too, because I know I signed on for that when I came to Earth Life, and it's been so far a great journey. It doesn't mean it's all been easy, some of it's been terribly hard, but if you can find the lessons in those hard times, then you have really made gain. And that it takes time and effort sometimes to do that. So I can tell you some things have taken me. I'm still working on them after all these years, and I I turn 76 next month. You love it. Good girl. Stay complain. I think I have to thank my genes for that and probably dance, but dance definitely probably helps a lot, yes. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, so that's that's who I am, and I think a lot of people said they can feel my spirit in the cards that have bought them so far. So that's good. I hope they feel their own spirit more though, and I want them to feel the creator's spirit and Mother Earth's spirit and and all of that, because it's all part of who we are too. And so I'm excited about all of that, and I'm happy.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

I'm so glad. I love a lot so much of what you've been talking about, has been a lot of what I know of this world is the needing, like you said, healing and coming together and bringing things together, especially joy, this idea of joy. I I to me it's different than being happy. And so many people just think of joy as being as happy, but I think joy, and I did a podcast where I talked about this, it's like it is that dichotomy, it's the bad experiences and the good experiences and the wisdom and the being okay and grateful for that. It's so complex, this idea of having joy. It isn't just the simple superficial happiness, but it's a deep appreciation for the hardships and stuff and being okay with it. So I really appreciate what you talked about with joy and that we're here to have that joy. And again, that comes from so many religions and so many faiths and so many cultural things as a simple truth. And I really appreciate that too. I love how you're talking about bringing all these things together into that simple those truths that are in the core of so much of our world, if we just look for it and see it.

SPEAKER_00 35:58

Yeah, and we have a lot of distractions in our current culture that move so fast, so it's really harder for us to stop and take a look. But it's there. And one of the easiest things to do, not just two weeks of the year when you go on vacation, but is to get out in nature, even if it's just going out and breathing for 60 seconds on your lunch break. Those little things can really add up because our culture makes it it's very difficult. If you're living in a big city like New York, you have to go to the be able to get to the park or get out of the city to feel like you're in nature. But truly, nature's still there. It's just deeper under the ground and you can still connect with it very quickly. And it can be short because everybody feels the pressure of being so busy. Just five seconds, five minutes of breathing in that air and thinking about it and trying to connect with something in nature, whether it's under the ground or in a park, or if you're lucky like me, I live on out on the desert in a small town, so it surrounds me now. And I'm loving that because even if I don't get outside, I see it around me all the time. So I'm very blessed that way. And gratitude, I think, is the hardest part of joy for all of us to wrap our heads around because we get the negative things seem so big when they happen that we get pulled into them so much that it's harder to see and feel the gratitude that's there. And I was thinking just the other day, because my job in Maryland was really hard. There was a string of people there that were very supportive and appreciative, but there was also a bunch that really fought you tooth and nail. So I felt like I was pushing it uphill the whole time I was there with not a lot of appreciation sometimes. And I was thinking, well, what did I get out of that? I got perseverance, I got tenacity, I got the chance to have passion in what I was doing because it was what I believed in. And I know it brought joy to those people, even though they may not always have been the easiest to work with or the most supporting or whatever. And I have no idea what all they got out of it. It provided my husband with a good job and a good place that allowed us to be able to retire well because the dancers don't make that much money. And truthfully, I put a lot of my money back into the ballet to make it work for the dancers. And it's just I had to really think about some of those things to remind myself. And it it might not be the overwhelming big thing you're thinking about, it could be something very simple. But I've always had, I've always been able to feed myself. I've always, even when I was single as a dancer, one time I went through a period where I didn't get any cash in. So I went fishing and I caught the limit every time. That was spirit helping me. But if I was sitting at home brooding about it at that moment in time, I would have missed that opportunity. And I definitely have done that several times in my life. So I've been trying to look at those more. And I also I've been, since we talked about fire today, and I brought up the fire card, there's a really simple exercise that you can do to put things that you don't want and things that you do want, your intentions, into the fire. You just blow it into a wooden stick, put it in the candle flame, let it burn for a few seconds, and then put it out, and then pull the light of the candle into your forehead, your heart, and your solar plexus. And but what lately I've been doing that I has really found has helped is I've found like if one of my issues is feeling unlovable, I put it in as unlovable teddy bears because you can't really you smiled right away, right? Right, exactly. You can't not smile if you think of it that way. So I've been lately trying to think of ways to write those negatives like that, with two or three or maybe four words that are lighter and fun. And it really has helped me a lot more than any other way that I've tried to do it before. So if anybody needs that, I offer that to you with blessings and love because it really has helped me. And it can actually get fun to try to figure out some fun light words, like featherweight heaviness or burdens. I think it's just whatever it happens to be. But I have definitely found that to help a lot. And I feel like that's very much in keeping because that fire ceremony is from the indigenous cultures, and it's one that you can do without having to do a big fire. Like here, we're in such a drought, we can't really do a real fire. Right. So I do most of my fire ceremonies that way, or I do send it in the river, or I'll put flowers out on the land as an offering to the Earth Mother. But that's fire's not a good idea. So the candle works great. I can use the fire element that way, and it's a soft, easy process. And yeah, all of these things help, and it's a way of bringing nature into your life too, even when you're sitting in an apartment or in New York City or something like that. You can we can all light a candle, we can all connect to the fire element that way. We can all connect to water with the water we drink every day. We can all connect to the we all connect to the air whether we are aware of it or not, because we breathe it. So it's just making it conscious.

unknown 41:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

And of course, the earth, the earth there, even under the biggest concrete. So you just have to imagine your roots going down deep into it when you're walking on it. And give her gratitude for the gifts that you get. They all come from the creator.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

No matter where which it's from the city or somewhere else, it came from there, right? The light that comes down no matter where we are, still comes down too. Yeah. I love it. This has been so beautiful. Is there a message or one thing that you think everyone needs to hear that we can leave them with to take with them today? Something that they that we feel you feel is most important for us to take with us today.

SPEAKER_00 42:13

Yeah, I'm gonna use one of my card haikus. This one's from the north. Kibibinoca is the spirit keeper of the north, and the north is the place of the elder and wisdom, but it's also the place of renewal and regeneration and rebirth. But it also speaks to the darkness. As we all have darkness, it's a matter of integrating it with the light and making it whole. So that would be the first part of the blessing. And the haiku says, In the darkest night of winter, my hollow bones sing the silent songs. The songs are there, we just have to remember to sing them and not get stuck in the darkness of the shadows.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

I love it. It's so beautiful. And I think something all of us definitely can take with us. And that card is oh my goodness, you guys, you have to go get these cards. They are so gorgeous. They're beautiful. I love it. Thank you, Diana. Where can we find you? Where can we find your cards in your book? Where can we follow you for more inspirational wisdom and seek out these things?

SPEAKER_00 43:21

You can find me at shamancesters. It's all one word, S-H A-M-A-N, like the word shaman, and then Sesters from Ancestors, C-E-S-T-O-R-S.com. I have an Instagram account on that. And I post every week I post nature pictures with haiku for inspiration. I figure we need that more than we need the other stuff right now. There's enough of that other story going out. Um, but also my website is www.chumancestors.com. And if you go to slash store, but there's also a button on the very top that leads you to the books because it has my other offerings on the front page more. But yeah, you can just click on there and you can order the book from there. I'm hoping to get a store up on Amazon soon. I haven't yet, but it's on my bucket list. So it might make it a little easier for some people.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

But for now, shamancesters.com is I always say buy direct from the authors anyway, because it supports them better than Amazon. I mean, and we all have to use it, but man, support your authors by buying direct from them if you can for sure.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah, we all try to do that in our group, I know. Oh yeah. And also, I have a YouTube channel that you can find under shamansisters.com. I'm just finishing up this week. I think might be the last lesson I have on planetary grid work because I do a lot of grid work with light and ley lines of the earth. But then I'm probably gonna do a segment on my cards. Some people have asked me, well, how else can I use them? And can you explain this more? That'll probably be the next thing I do on there. And before that, I did a whole thing with the cards in the Native American medicine wheel. So that's probably still out there. But if anyone's interested in that, the longest one shamancesters at on YouTube as well.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Could we just search that?

SPEAKER_00 45:05

So you can find me under that shaman sisters word pretty much anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

I love that it's shaman and ancestors just blended with those first two letters. It's like like I had to think about it. Like, oh look at this. So yeah, that's beautiful. Oh, you guys, this has been so powerful, and I have been blessed by it. I hope you guys have been too. Thank you so much for joining us, Diana, and you guys get in touch with yourself, get in touch with nature, and find the path that helps you the most. And remember to breathe. We'll see you next time on Randy's Rands Raising Views. Thank you so much, Diana. I appreciate you. Thank you, Tanya. I really appreciate you. Take care. Take care.