Episode 1: A Reiki Master and a Witch Walk Into a Room....

Mystical Musings: Conversations on Spiritual Growth and Healing

In the first episode of the Mystical Musings podcast, Tava Baird and Jennifer Taylor introduce themselves and set the tone with an invocation. They share their personal journeys into spirituality, discussing topics such as energy work, Reiki, Wicca, and connecting with divine beings. Jennifer leads a grounding and healing invocation through song, and Tava recounts her experiences with channeling the seraphim Samael. The episode encapsulates themes of worthiness, connection with nature, and the universal truths found across various spiritual practices. With humor and sincerity, they invite listeners into a supportive community aimed at exploring and deepening their spiritual paths.

Thank you joining us today, remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE to keep up to date with your tribe.

Connect with your Hosts!

Tava Baird: tavabaird.com or https://darkflowerbooks.etsy.com.

Jennifer Taylor: Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts https://www.willowridgereiki.com/

Transcript

Tava Baird: Well, hello and welcome to the first ever mystical musings podcast. I'm Tava Baird. I'm Jennifer Taylor. And before we get started today, we want to have Jennifer lead us in a little invocation to set the mood for our conversation today. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. So I invite you to just close your eyes for a moment, unless you're driving, please don't do that.

If you're driving, if you're in a safe space to be able to do that, then you can close your eyes and just Just feel into this present moment, just coming present right here, right now, letting go of anything else on your to do list or all the things that fill our minds. Just breathing in this present moment, and I invite your higher self join us today.

I invite my higher self to join us today and really be present in this moment in time. I invite all aspects of the divine, third heaven and higher, to join us and be here with us today. I ask that we may be vessels for divine light, love, healing, truth, wisdom, and transformation. And that our thoughts, words, and actions may be divinely inspired and led.

We ask that all that comes through today be in the service of those who listen. That we may bring through the next step on your path. That we may illuminate things in your life, the next areas in which to grow and thrive. And that this may be a bastion of hope and love and compassion, acceptance and joy.

And I'm just going to kind of sing us into this place for a moment and it's going to shift audio here for a second to make sure you can hear me.

Um, uh, ee, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Whoa,

home. Ah, amen. And so it is.

Tava Baird: Well now I'm definitely having a good day 'cause I got to hear you sing live . you. Now I just, I feel like my soul just dropped into a big fluffy armchair. That 

Jennifer Taylor: I love that feeling at the end of an invocation where everything, everything shifts. It's like all the things that were spiraling around just sort of settle. And I'm always amazed at what happens when I do that.

Like, Why don't I stop a million times a day and just do that? That took maybe a couple of minutes, you know, but we're in this totally different space now. 

Tava Baird: It's incredible. Like I, I'm, I want it to happen in public places. Like you're pushing the grocery cart down the frozen foods aisle at giant.

And all of a sudden I hear that and I'm just like, and now I am consciously doing my grocery shopping. It's beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's so much of the day that we walk through when we're, we're on routine and we're not conscious that just having that little bit of music to center you and call it in the ancestors is a really, really a blessing.

So 

Jennifer Taylor: yeah, one of my goals is to have lots of little. Recordings like that, that people can access. And then I can access, I half the time, I think I probably use the recordings more than anybody else, but to have little things like that, to where it's like, you know, it's on your phone and you're walking through the grocery store and you're feeling frazzled and you go, Oh, I'm just going to push play real quick, just for a few minutes, even without the volume on the energy comes through.

So yeah, it'll have to be more on the to do list there. 

Tava Baird: I think that's one of the things we don't get enough of as adults. When we're children, there's a lot of singing around us. You know, you, you go to a campfire and you're singing or you're singing in school and you have playground songs and, you know, teenagers have so much music that really is part of their environment that, you know, that they're always listening to.

I mean, I remember being a teenager and I just couldn't live without This will give away how old I am. I couldn't listen, you know, make it through the day without hearing Duran Duran doing save a prayer, and as an adult, I find there's, there's less of that and less of me letting in new things.

Instead, I'm playing, you know, The exact same, you know, like six songs. But yeah, that, that song, that's going to be, that's one of my goals is I'm so lucky to have copies of some of the recordings you've made where, Now I'm trying to reintroduce that into my life I'm singing in the morning or I'm singing at night or I'm listening to you sing and I'm starting to try new music and singing in the haunted house where I excavate, which I'm sure we'll explain later in future episodes of this.

But you know, just that having that song back is so, so important. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But here we go now we're already talking because we're so used to talking to each other without telling anybody who we are. Would you like to go first a little on your background and, and why we're together here on this podcast?

Jennifer Taylor: Sure. So I am, as, as we said at the beginning, I'm Jennifer Taylor. I often go by Jenn or affectionately known as Jennn Tay. And so I have kind of a varied background. I started in. Dance and art in college and actually to use all of that as therapeutic tools in the community to help people to move through things in a different way and in a more embodied way.

And then, after college discovered that was not the easiest thing to instantly implement back in what like 1997. So. You know, worked with traumatized children and extreme kinds of situations and then became a massage therapist and did a lot of more kind of really diving into how the body responds to stress and our environment and what's happening.

And that was the first time I was introduced to energy work. And I remember thinking, This is amazing. Oh, my goodness. The fact that and we had actually explored that some even in dance was really actually the first time I'd explored that where we were just exploring energy work and how we could transfer energy from each other and how we could take pain. From someone's body with our intention. And the little bit of energy work that we did in massage therapy school and craniosacral work was just incredible. It was like, there is, there's this other world of stuff that's happening. And I really, really wanted to explore it more, but again, You know, real life, like I had to, go back and start working. And so I started working as a massage therapist energy work, at least in this area was really not, it kind of wasn't a thing. I mean, there were probably people doing it and I just had no idea, but it wasn't so mainstream that I could just say, Hey, I'm going to do energy work as a part of my massage practice at the time.

And so that kind of fell back out. You know, life, life went on and we had , adopted Children and then had Children But there was a point when all of a sudden things were, really desperate. I was desperate for help, desperate for something. And I'd recognized I was profoundly depressed.

And I , said that morning, , I'm going to get an appointment and I'm going to go get on antidepressants. And I was so depressed. There was a farm tour that day and I stopped by with this one place and there was a woman there that had a tent and was doing like 20 minute, really inexpensive, just, Hey, try out energy work.

And the woman said, I really, I think you need to do this. And on a whim I said, okay, I'll do it. And I laid down on that table and she put her hands over top of me. And I felt. Just incredible amounts of weight lifting off of me. It was unbelievable. I couldn't get over it. And she ended up sitting there for 40 minutes.

I didn't realize how long it was, but she was like, I couldn't leave you like that. Like I had to keep going. And I got up off that table. And thought my depression is gone. Like it's gone. All of the weight, all of that feeling of, I just can't trudge through the day was gone. And I was at that point in an extremely acutely critical stage in our lives with our family.

And there was, there was some really extreme stuff going on. And yet I felt like, I can do this. I felt hopeful and we started getting energy work sessions. My husband and I both and things started shifting and changing. And we didn't really even understand what was happening or how she was doing it or what was happening.

But she kept saying, I work with angels. The angels are doing the work. We were like, okay, I, it doesn't matter what it is. This is incredible. And I ended up then taking Reiki courses, thanks to my horse getting having issues and manifesting and seeing incredible shifts come through with him and she was like, well, you can keep paying me to do this or you can just do Reiki.

And I thought, well, all right, if I can do this for him. I'll do that. And so my whole, everything started shifting and my, my health started shifting my outlook on life, my ability to function and start to feel like I wasn't. Just surviving shifted and changed and this whole world of everything opened up where all of a sudden everything was energy and I started becoming aware that there are beings around us offering their support and love and healing.

All the time. And I stopped feeling so alone and well, I did not expect to get all chipped up. It's that it was so profound, like this feeling what having, having Reiki and having the knowledge and starting to feel into, I became more energetically aware of what I, what was around me and being able to actively call in and say, You know, angels, please come and help me.

I need help and feeling the help and seeing it manifest around me. And then, you know, that's kind of expanded to goddesses and all these different aspects of the divine that I didn't even know. I didn't even know existed and to feel that and know that. I'm not alone. And to see how profoundly different life can be when you walk through it with that awareness.

So now I am a professional Reiki practitioner and that led me to sound healing. So I do sound healing and Reiki and really all kinds of energy work in my sessions. They're called Reiki, but really. It's bringing in all kinds of things and all kinds of aspects of the divine are coming in. And then recently have added Chakradance as another way.

And so I feel like I've really come home to where I started. I'm painting again. I am dancing again and using art and dance and Reiki and all these different things to bring through ways of healing. And so I started this journey a long time ago.

Tava Baird: Um, let's see. So to go way back when I was a little child, I was Roman Catholic. I was brought up in the Roman Catholic Church, and I wanted to be a priest. And you can probably guess, based on the fact that I have she her pronouns, that I was not going to be successful in that endeavor.

And so somewhere in my early teenage years, right before I was about to be confirmed in the Catholic Church, I realized that I felt like it was disrespectful to the other practicing Catholics if I confirmed myself in that faith when in fact that wasn't the faith that was right for me. And so I set out on this course of action.

I basically read the entire 100 section of my high school library and public library and met everybody. I could have different faiths to try to figure out which one I belong to, because I definitely. could feel energy moving through me and felt connected to nature and to the wider world. And then along the way, I met someone who was Wiccan.

And I thought, Oh, no, you know, I thought I'd be, I thought I'd end up Transcribed You know, part of some large organized religion where I could go to potlucks every Saturday. And instead it appears that my belief system is smack in line with this little tiny half hiding in the broom closet faith because, you know, back in the eighties witches weren't as out and proud as they are now, It's still hard to sort of profess your faith along that way.

I've been, you know, I've had places that I teach classes and things protested. And, but the long and short of it is, I have been Wiccan for, this is terrifying, almost four decades. The Wiccan part isn't terrifying. The fact that I have been alive a lot longer than four decades, it seems impossible to me.

But so I've been a practicing, which for about 36, 37 years, but who's counting I I was also a Montessori teacher for about 20 years. And I also have a degree in archeology, which I am currently putting to use with a volunteer team at a. historic tavern just outside of Winchester, Virginia, where we are excavating.

And I'm sure there'll be more about that on the podcast. I also run a little pagan education business called Darkflower Books and Folk Art. I'm a painter. I am also a poppet designer and I have published 10 books. Some of them are fiction set in Scotland in the 1720s and 1740s with Lots and lots of Pagan overtones but I also publish nonfiction.

And along those lines, there's a name you're probably going to hear us refer to at times. One of my books is titled The Book of Samael. I had a, an experience that I was starting last October that is ongoing and that I'm still trying to wrap my head around. I had. For lack of a better word, I guess it's channeling, although I hadn't had any experience with that before.

But I have a particular, very lovely entity who comes and speaks with me and his name is Samuel and I've transcribed a lot of what he has to say into one book and book two will be out later this year. , so he when I when I first started having experiences with him, he tended to show up at a particular time of day have his say, I would write it down and then he would move on.

And now he pops in and out of my life like a teenager looking for snacks. I'll just be in the car and suddenly, he's making commentary on things or, I also have been in public places over the last couple of months, where I will have people walk up to me and say I'm sorry, I hope this doesn't disturb you, I don't know you at all, but there's an extremely powerful presence there to your left.

Do you know someone named Samuel? And I'll say, you're really close, the vowel is wrong. So, I have other people who are frequently sensing him around me. And so I am sure that he will have things to say on this podcast because as I like to say, I'm basically a glorified secretary for a divine being at this point.

Jennifer Taylor: So, and a seraphim at that. So I realized I was like, you'd said entity, but I was like, just to clarify of what. Kind of what, by level of vibration we're talking about, he is, is a seraphim. So he's very powerful, but incredibly powerfully, beautifully light filled, wonderful 

Tava Baird: divine being. I can't, I can't wrap my head around that.

Like I always thought if anything did come to talk to me, it'd be like some 19th tier demon that got kicked out of the house. You know, like, It'd be some guy named Barney with a tail who was probably like drunk half the time and that's who, that's 

Jennifer Taylor: I'm glad you didn't start channeling until a Seraphim showed up because this would be a very different podcast.

Tava Baird: One morning and you wake up one morning and you know, when you're a 52 year old witch, you don't expect to have, you know, a gentleman sitting at the foot of your bed, discoursing on the nature of sin in the Garden of Eden. I mean, my first thought was, Oh my God, who are you? And my second thought was, I think you're talking to someone of the wrong faith.

There must have been an error in your, you know, angelic GPS. So, but he keeps showing up. So I guess I'm being helpful. Um, and, uh, I just hope I can keep, keep being so I guess that's who we are. Um, oh, and how we know each other. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. So my daughter was in toddler class.

And when she was at Montessori and I was totally in awe of, of her from the second I met her, I was like, Oh, she's so cool. I really want her to be my friend. But I was like, well, she's, you know, she's her teacher. There's probably some sort of rule about her being allowed to be friends with me.

, I waited. Is it like two years? I think 

Tava Baird: she was out of my class. We were like, we're back to school night. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. And I saw you sitting up there, you and you, she'd given her like, obviously eloquent, amazing speech as usual that like made everybody cry. And I was sitting there going, I can do this, I can do this.

And afterwards, she was sitting up there talking to my daughter's current teacher. And I thought, all right, and it was totally a like handing a little note. Like, do you want to be friends with me? Check yes or no. I walked out and was like, um, I, now that you're not her teacher anymore, do you think you would maybe want to like have coffee or something?

Like, could it be okay for us to be friends? 

Tava Baird: Which I thought was hysterical because, you know, this just goes to show you what perceptions you have of yourself versus other people. I don't think anybody in my life has ever described me as cool, like I'm the biggest, weirdest nerd you would want to meet.

And, and the fact that you were like, Oh, I, I, you know, I would love to get together for coffee and you were so sweet about it. I was like, Oh, she, she doesn't know what a disaster I am. You know, like she doesn't know that my laundry sits in the dryer for weeks at a time and would still be dry. I would just take clothes out of the dryer if my husband didn't have a fit about it.

And like, she doesn't know that I, you know, don't vacuum my house as often as I should. Or, you know, all of these things that you, you think about yourself instead of thinking the best things about yourself. But I guess the story was we started having coffee. And then the next thing we started doing, although it took you like a year to get me in the habit of it, was we started using the app Marco Polo to leave messages for each other, and I am.

There's something in my brain that's broke when it comes to technology. So for like a year, Jennn was patiently going, I sent you a Marco, all you have to do is hit the button and listen. And then I like, and it just, I would listen. And then I just, I couldn't get my act together to like respond. And somewhere like a year ago, it clicked and now we're leaving these long, 

Spots on all sorts of things for each other. And we were like, we just need to turn this into a podcast. You know, it's like a reiki master and a witch walk into a room and what happens after that? 

Jennifer Taylor: Exactly. Yeah. And the Marcos have really, it has, I think it's been one of the most transformational experiences for me in my spiritual and energetic growth and, and life and healing.

We'll go on there and more and more we just start, pouring out just totally raw. This is something I'm experiencing. This is something that happened to me. And what do you think, you know, what do you think about it? And we'll just toss , back and forth or, yeah, so this angel showed up and started the middle of the night and started telling me things and talking about the nature of God.

But it's just, it's been such a beautiful thing. And yeah, I think at one point we were like, these are kind of like podcasts in themselves. And I think there are a lot of things that we talk about that we realized would be beneficial for other people to be in on the conversations because, you know, we, it is, it's, it is very raw and very real and also incredible divine.

Inspirations and things will come through where we'll be talking to each other on a Marco and it'll just, something will just come through. And the other one will say, Oh my goodness, that's exactly what I needed. That's the piece. It's like, that's the nugget that I was missing to get me to the next step that, that kind of pushes me to that next part in my journey.

And so we, we've really felt like we were meant to find ways of sharing this with others. And. 

So here we are, 

Tava Baird: and one of the things that's so good about it, and that one of the reasons why we wanted to share this too, is that, you know, most of us are brought up in a culture where we're taught not to trust the, the things that we feel called to, or the messages that we receive, even if we've been practicing for a long time, you know, there are still moments when I find myself You know, I'm in the parking lot of a Kentucky fried chicken talking into the Marco and saying, Jenn, am I having a spiritual experience or am I crazy and I need to go to the hospital?

like you have those moments of doubt, even when it's so clear, like everything is lining up. Everything is happening for a reason in front of you. Doors are opening and it's, you know, you're like, okay, this is obviously happening, but you've been conditioned to believe that little voice in the part of your brain that goes, you're not worthy of this.

It's not happening to you. I think the first time that Samuel showed up, I think I literally said to you, do I need to go to the emergency room? something is something happening to me that I'm hearing this. And, you know, still months later, I mean, that's, it started last October,, 

I still can't fathom that it's happening to me, even when. Other people walk up and say that they can see or feel his presence around me, even when sometimes he gives me messages to write down that I look at afterwards and I don't remember writing them, but I pass them on to someone else, and they tell me that it was like a life changing experience to read them.

That's, that's not me. It's evidence, like it's, it's absolute evidence, but I still, you know, at times, even being what somebody would call an old crone of a witch, you think, how, how do I fit into this? Am I good enough for this? And the reality is, is that we are all good enough for it.

We are all divine. In our souls and we are allowed to talk to angels and goddesses and each other. And so I think that is one of the underlying pinnings of this podcast is if you're sitting in your car today in traffic, or you're, you know, on your way to the dentist in a couple of hours, or you feel like you are walking through the world alone, you absolutely are not.

The things that you are feeling bring you light are there for a reason, and you do have your ancestors gathered around you. You are being watched over. Sometimes it just takes a slight adjustment of reality to be able to see and hear it again. And that's what we would like to help people do. And so I got super deep there.

Jennifer Taylor: I love that. And I'm so glad that you address that. That element of worthiness because I think That was really one of the first things I think that we worked through together in the Marco Polo's. And I realized for anybody who doesn't know what Marco Polo is, it's an app where you leave each other like video messages.

And then the other person can watch and respond to it at any point. And we just can kind of go back and forth.

But yeah, I think that's one of the first things that we really started digging deep in was worthiness and that feeling of recognizing that we both had a lot of feelings of, I am not a person. That is really deserving of the kinds of information and the kinds of healing that are, that come through me and how much then, you know, as I teach Reiki classes and I, , work with so many people that come in thinking, I really want to be able to do this.

I hope I can do this. I really want to be able to send healing through my body, through my hands. But, and it absolutely happens for every person, you know, whether it's in a Reiki session, where you receive the ability to transfer this light through you in a specific way, or just Just. I'm just sitting here on a bus feeling lonely and I can just say, I call light, I call light to myself or angels, please come and just surround me and wrap your wings around me and help me feel loved, or any aspect of the divine.

That you are worthy of that and it will come through you just from the just by virtue of asking and opening , if you're not feeling that around you, it's not because it's not there, but it's often because we're not opening ourselves to the awareness. that it's there. And my life is so different now.

And it's not because there weren't these divine beings around me all the time pushing and leading and guiding me. And I can look back and see the evidence. Of that throughout my entire life, but that I wasn't aware of it. I didn't realize I could open up and and I could call it in when I needed it.

And I didn't really trust that anything would have been there specifically for me. Yeah. , it's like, oh, well, they're, busy. I'm sure they have more, you know, more important things to do than come and help me with this test or help me with the anxiety about this meeting I'm about to have, or, you know, help with this.

interaction that I'm going to have. And I think the biggest thing that I witness in others in classes too, is that feeling of, I don't know that I'm really worthy of bringing through healing for others, or I don't know if I'm really worthy of receiving this level of support. And I can tell you.

Absolutely. Everyone is. We are not meant to be here trudging through things alone. And , we still struggle with it. , I just sent you, what, a song last week where it was like, I don't know, 10 o'clock at night.

And I just felt this song come through me. And then I, recorded it into voice memos and sent it and said, is this good? Make sure Samuel listens to it first to make sure it's good. You know, because somehow as much as I bring through things and, and Samuel will come through and say, You know, this is good.

It is healing. Use your voice. And yet, you know, I still have that doubt of could I have really brought through something that that's that healing and good. So we're still, we're still on this path with you. And I think that was one of the things, , we talked about beforehand of, we wanted to really get across to everybody.

We're not in some place where we have figured it all out and we have fixed everything and we are healed and, , just floating through our days, as some sort of enlightened being, but that we're, we're on this same path that, you're on and, , we're just, we're holding hands. On it.

And we're just offering this as a space for you to walk with us. And, you know, if there are things that we know or have experienced that can inform your path and support it, that's why we're here. 

Tava Baird: It was really interesting because, Once I released the, book of Samuel, I started getting emails from people very far away who had found the book through Amazon or through my Etsy shop or what have you, who had read the book and they would write me.

And I had a whole bunch of them that said, I've had experiences with him too. And, you know, to hear someone, you know, 10 states away from me, tell me of an experience that sounds very much like some of the things that he says to me, you know, I was just like, he's, he's literally always saying to me, how much proof do you need?

And unfortunately, I think because, As a child, I was in an organized religion that said , there needed to be an intermediary. They needed to be a priest for me to talk to God really. Right. Or to receive forgiveness through, confession and stuff like that, that there had to be this other being there that I didn't learn to trust my own instincts.

And so one of the things that always saying to me and always passing on to Jenn too is trust. Trust, trust, and I think a lot of that extends to our relationship with nature. As we've become more technological and, , you know, a lot of us have moved away from really connecting with nature, with the wild.

And that is, , one of the things that Samuel talks about. That is where we find, , for lack of a better word, God, that's where we find The power, the energy of creation that flows through all of us and unites us. And, , the more we dive into our apartment buildings and our technology, And the less in touch with nature we are, and with seeing ourself as a part of it, the less we hear.

Wicca is an earth based religion and that, the way you start to learn to sort your way and walk your way out of your troubles is to be able to hear the divine. And the way that you start hearing the divine is to get your butt out there in nature.

And we'll have you know, we'll talk about sit spots and some other lovely nature exercises in future podcasts. I have no idea how long we've been talking because I could talk to you for days, obviously, as we have. 

Jennifer Taylor: I really, I really don't either, but I feel like we just maybe talk until we feel like it is whole and complete.

And I think I think this is good though. And I think I realize as we talk, I realize how many different little parts would be helpful to share with others too. your background with, you starting out Catholic and, finding Wicca. And, my background is, you know, my father's a Methodist minister 

and I've gotten kind of in and out of levels of intensity of, of religion, and more maybe Unitarian Universalist at this point, you know, I believe in God and the divine and all sorts of different ways, but I'm not sure it fits into any sort of category. And it's really it's interesting though I.

I think I'd kind of thrown the baby out with the bathwater when I started saying, I don't agree with the way that things are said in certain, , aspects of , Christianity and feeling levels of, judgment and sin and right and wrong. And there were a lot of things that were not sitting, with me.

Right. And so I think I'd just sort of thrown a lot of it out and. Interestingly, it was Reiki that actually brought me back to more of a sense of God and source and connection and it's really interesting to me because I've had people in Reiki classes say that the feeling of being connected to Reiki and using it, it feels like prayer.

And I think that's so beautiful because it is, it's like, we're connecting to the source of all. It is the source of creation. And I think it's the same when you're out in nature and you feel that incredible presence of beauty and peace and power and wonder and awe and we all just, have different words for it and we have different perspectives and different cultural.

Perspectives that give us different words for it. But I think one of the things that has been really interesting is that as we have these conversations, we've realized that we're really both kind of in the same place with our beliefs and things we have different words for them.

We have different ways of connecting with the divine, but that, you know, seeing the divinity and everything in the, the leaf, in the flower, in the, the fly. And the eagle and the elements and, you know, connecting with all of that, the more we step into nature, the more it connects us. With who we are and how we're meant to live on the earth.

And, part of my background then too, and a lot of the study that I've been doing over the years now has been, shamanistic ancient Tibetan wisdom Peruvian and Brazilian indigenous wisdom. And so we have a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of different kind of influences in the things that we bring through.

And I think one of the things that I really enjoy the most is finding those connections, you know, those, those connections between what. , Tibetan wisdom says, and, you know Quechua wisdom teachings, and, , your tradition , and even what is said in a lot of organized religions, and finding that thread of truth, Emanating individually from all of these different places throughout all of the span of humanity and all coming together and illuminating those just core truths, regardless of what we call it, or regardless of what our backgrounds are.

So our hope is really that regardless of your personal background of your, , religion or lack thereof, that This is a space where there will be these elements of truth that transcend any kind of dogma or any bounds really at all. And I think we're continually expanding into recognizing more and more layers of those universal truths.

Tava Baird: It was so funny way back when we had like our first coffees together and you started, I had no idea what Reiki was. Like I'd heard Reiki because, you know, I, I'm in the Pagan community and I'm, I'm pretty active there and so, you know, I know a lot of sort of the European pagan practices, because that's what kind of swirls around in my circle.

And I'd heard people talk about Reiki, but I had no idea what it was or that, it started in Japan and all of this. And it was so interesting to, as you were explaining it to me the first time that I was like, Oh, she's using this word for it, but I use the word magic, you know, like it's that, that I was like, Oh, we, we completely agree on this stuff.

We just have very different sort of, Cultural content for how we're explaining some of these same things and I love what you said about, you know, throwing the baby out with the bath water, I think if you've been in a situation where you've been. You know, protested or hurt or forced out or made to feel like you don't fit or like you can't do something.

A lot of times the instinct is to protect yourself and to go, okay, I don't want anything to do with that faith now, nothing, but those faiths all started because someone believed and had their own experiences with the divine in the beginning. And unfortunately, what some of the larger religions have had happened to them is, you know, they started off with a great groundwork and beautiful messages, then the quest for power of the people who organized them as they grew and grew and grew started to bury.

That beauty and soon they become, you know, these, these machines that are running for power and domination. And that's the point where you're like, I don't even know what this is anymore. And this isn't good for me and I need to pull away. You know, it's, it's very interesting because when I teach introduction to witchcraft classes or I teach a class on runes or I teach a class on bone casting or anything like that I always ask everybody at the start of class.

Well, why are you here? And so many people have had a negative experience with a larger organized religion, but it wasn't necessarily the groundwork or the original teachings that they objected to. It was the way that the powerful wanted to stay in power by giving them a place and putting them down.

And so, I'm always trying to encourage people. There, there is beauty in a lot of these things. What we then have to look at, and this is one of the things that Samuel talked to me about right in the beginning, is at what point did the faith and the magic stop and the power grab begin? And to be able to sort who is trying to listen to the divine from Who is simply in it for I want to lead a really big church and have everybody say that I'm in charge.

It was really interesting. I went to lunch last week with a friend of mine that I worked with for many years, who is a very devout Christian. And she has always been wonderful. She reads all of my novels when I publish them and she's always so enthusiastic about them and she recommends, the whole spiral pathway series to friends and everything.

And I, when I published the book of Samael, I thought, Oh God, she's going to hate this. I automatically assumed that, because Samael is a seraphim, but he's also known as, you know, the king of demons and the consort of Lilith. And I thought, She's going to read this and she's never going to speak to me again.

She's just going to look at the title and I had this preconceived notion. But of course, she is on top of everything that I publish. So we sat down to lunch and the very first thing she said to me was, What's this Book of Samael thing? And I thought, Oh no, this may be the last lunch we ever have. And I started because I'm still insecure a lot of times in talking about how it happened.

I, fumbled my way through an explanation and I said, have you read it yet? Thinking, and she said, no, but I'm really curious about it from the description. And so I started describing it to her and Quickly became apparent that she was going to this was probably going to be one of her favorite things I'd ever written that she was like, yeah, , that'll make sense to me 

and she actually just emailed me last night and was like. Would love to get together and continue that conversation deeper, because I feel like we have a really strong connection in our beliefs that we really didn't even know we had. And so, you know, it just goes to show you, I automatically assumed because she was Christian that.

She wouldn't be interested in that aspect of what I wrote, when in fact, it's probably going to be the thing that helps us make the most connection. 

Jennifer Taylor: And it's so interesting because so many of the topics that Samuel is talking about are really things to help us heal our association with, , divine beings like Jesus, and with the original teachings of Jesus.

And. When we first started having these conversations about it, we were both like, I'm not even sure if I can use the word Jesus. And I think you were like, so as I don't, you know, we're going to call him. It was like, I don't remember. It was like Harold or something. So I'm just going to refer to him because there was such a, there, you know, and I think so many of us have such a degree of religious trauma that the very word.

It was like nails on a chalkboard. And we started realizing it was another baby with the bathwater thing. And so much. It's so funny because the, the fear of the idea of who is Samuel and that the misunderstandings that have , passed on and created and built throughout centuries about who he is and what he does and why there's all this fear around it and it's such a misunderstanding and a misinterpretation.

And it's so interesting to me that while the idea of that. Brings up kind of a sense of fear of like, what are people within the Christian faith going to think about it because of other things that they may have heard. His primary messages have been helping us personally to start to deal with our, we have, joked that we should have a t shirt that says, yeah, I'm working through some Jesus stuff because we get, we kept talking to each other on these Marcos going, All right, I've got some Jesus stuff I got to work through and realizing all these layers of stuff that we had put on based on these fears and things that, people have said who have maybe misunderstood or misinterpreted the messages of Jesus that we were Connecting with, and we were throwing out a whole section of teaching and possible connection.

And I've really been, connecting with him as an ascended master and this divine being. And that is so different than a lot of the teachings that are out there that use the teachings of love and compassion and universal acceptance as a way to divide people. And instead of bringing them together.

And so I find it so ironic that, Samael the king of demons and, all these things that are said about him actually, he has been really instrumental in saying, it's not him. the teachings are good. It's what we have done with it because of our humanness 

interestingly, at the same time this week, I'm working on recording the audios and the videos for goddess Kali for this goddess course through Chakradance. And Kali is another one of those divine beings who is this powerful, loving force for good and healing and transformation.

But , if you Google a picture of Kali, it's like, holy moly. She has, you know, like a necklace of skulls and she's holding this big, big site, then a head and all this stuff, but it's, it's a misunderstanding. Of what it is, you know, she's the Hindu goddess of death and destruction, but it's the death of our false selves of the ego at parts of us that keep us from truly living who I are and the destruction of the walls we have built around ourselves based on.

The cultural conditioning and trauma and things like that, that we've built up, she's destroying that so that we can discover our true selves and bring that forward. But the first time I heard goddess Kali and I heard the goddess of death and destruction, I was like, Oh heck no.

Yeah. I'm going the other direction. Like this is not the goddess I'm looking for. Yeah. You know, this is exactly what we need. It's just a misunderstanding, a misinterpretation of what is really meant by, the goddess of death and destruction sounds like a terrible, violent, scary, awful thing, but it's really exactly what we need.

It's just what kind of death, a death of what, what kind of destruction, a destruction of what? And when we see that, it's like, oh my goodness. Yeah. Bring that on. That's what we all need. 

Tava Baird: Yeah, it was the same thing with, with Samuel. I mean, one of the first things with him is I was like, okay, you're supposed to be a seraphim, but he was also supposed to be the angel of death, you know, and then the other side is, you know, I'm looking at king of demons.

And I remember saying to him, are you an angel or are you a demon? And he basically said, it depends who's telling the story. You know, and, and he talks about I straddle worlds and, you know, he is an extremely famous figure, but depending on the lens that you're looking at him through, you're getting a different tail.

And I really think that's actually, we all straddle worlds. I mean, if you think about it, we have who we are at home, which is different than who we are at work, which is different than who we are with children. Right. Which is different than who we are with our lovers. It's all, we have so many little worlds swirling around us.

And a lot of times you know, faith tells us we're supposed to be one pure thing, and none of us are one pure thing. Being human is messy and tangled and a glorious mixture and a blend. We're all mutts. And so one of the things that I've been really excited about over these This past year is to sort of explore the concept of straddling worlds and that, you know, your Pantheon doesn't have to have one entity in it.

I know Jenn, you work with so many different entities that I'm like, you bring up goddesses that I'm like, okay, real quick, Google, Google, who is that? Because I don't, I feel like sometimes I live in my, you know, my little Wiccan bubble where I got really, really comfortable for a long time. And so I learned so much from you all the time, just being like, Whoa, you're doing Kali this week.

And now you're, you're dancing Aphrodite next week and Chakradance. And at some time point, we'll just have to have a whole episode about Chakradance. Cause I find it totally fascinating. And amazing. And. You know, all of the conversations we've been having about incorporating music and dance into faith.

You know, that's, it's been, it's been with humans since the beginning of the world. If you look at. Tribal groups, they, they celebrate and they raise energy and power through song and dance. And you know, that's something that I think as we get older, we, our knees start to creak and our hips start to give out and we start to get too busy with.

running to the grocery store and picking up things for the, you know, the PTA meeting or whatever. And we forget that we've got to find time to dance and whoop and holler. And it doesn't matter if you have a terrible voice. I mean, one of the things that's, Jennn has this amazing fricking voice. I mean, she's been in a band and she, I mean, every time she opens her mouth, I'm just like, Like, I can hear the divine coming through, and then, you know, I sing like an off key, seven year old, but I still love to do it, and I have been loving to do it more as you've been encouraging me to do it, where, you know, now the tavern that I'm working in that's full of spirits, I've been walking in and singing to them every time I go and encouraging other people to do the same.

And people are starting to bring music into the house and it's really even altering the vibration around a lot of the ghosts that are in this place. So we just need to start a list of all the wonderful things. So I'm clapping into the microphone, which probably didn't help. At least you guys can't hear the Corgi snoring.

Snoring so loudly to my right and I'm just like, Oh my God, please don't let people think that's me. Um, I can't hear it at all. I think it's getting filtered. She is like spilling out of her dog bed, head up against the wall, gnawing like a big old piggy over there. Um, we must be putting out some good energy.

Oh, man, there's both of my dogs are sound asleep right now. Um, yeah, I think it's been very soothing. Um, but yeah, we'll have to make a list of all these things we want to get into, you know, an introduction to people who don't know, Reiki of, you know, your Reiki journey and how they can get involved.

And if people are interested in Wicca and, what's the difference between witchcraft and Wicca and paganism, how they can start to find their way. And, it's, Samayel has already been. A big part of this conversation today. So I'm sure, he'll pop in that we need to do Chakradance and we need to do sound healing.

I hope people have long commutes so that we can keep them occupied. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. My mind, as we're going, I'm like, Oh my goodness, we need to cover this and this. Yeah. And sound healing there. There are so many things. So , I think we are definitely both so excited to just continue sharing things and really excited about the community.

that will grow around and with this, you know, the idea of people being able to come together and have somewhere to come and feel like, yeah, they would totally get me. You know, I've had so many people in Reiki classes or Reiki sessions say, I want to just share, like this happened to me, and they're really worried that.

They're the only person who has experienced this and are so relieved to hear that. I'm like, Oh no, in my world, that is totally normal. Absolutely. No, that's a total, of course, you know, of course, a voice spoke to you and meditation. Of course you were in the supermarket and there was this, you need to go over and speak to this, the stranger that you've never met , and then incredible things happen, you know, 

I think having just a sense of there's somewhere that I belong. There are other people that get this. And we're really excited about that idea of this community growing in this, this held beautiful space, expanding and expanding to hold more and more people in this feeling of just a tribal loving accepting place that you can be.

And yeah, so many different types of things for us to talk about. 

Tava Baird: Yeah, our ancestors were all part of tribes once says the archaeologist, we all I think a lot of times and this is a whole nother topic that I'd love to get into some point is this feeling a lot of times of being displaced from your tribe that a lot of times I think especially in America, we have when, we don't have a lot of outdoor ritualistic spaces to go visit that, people in a lot of other countries do have and that a lot of us have lost chunks of our heritage.

As we became Americanized. As our families, struggled to fit in, in a new world. And so a lot of times we don't necessarily have that. feeling of, I belong to this community. I belong to this tribe. I belong to this tradition and they belong to me. You know, Jenn and I both have websites.

So if you liked the podcast and you wanted to contact us through our websites, you could. Mine is tavabaird. com. TAVABAIRD. com and you can, , join up or leave a message. I've got little newsletters that go on there that tell you things that are going on. And you also have Facebook as well, right?

Yes, I'm Tava Baird on Facebook or you could go under Darkflower Books and Folk Art. I'm also Tava Baird on Instagram. 

Jennifer Taylor: And I have a website called willow ridge reiki.com. So Willow, W-I-L-L-O-W ridge, R-I-D-G-E. Reiki is REIK i. com and my whole business name is Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts.

And I also have a Facebook that is Willow Ridge Reiki. And yeah would love if anyone would like to reach out and connect for any reason. And I believe at least if this is on YouTube, we'll be able to have show notes that where we can have connections with links as well. So as we figure out all those technical parts you'll also be able to look in the show notes and be able to have different ways of connecting with us as well.

And 

Tava Baird: Jennn teaches Reiki and animal Reiki and Chakradance is about to come, you know, and remote. So you don't have to be local to us. I do a lot of classes locally, but also do occasionally offer, you know, bone casting and stuff on zoom. And then I have a book called the witch of Wolfcroft. So if I get contacted all the time by people who are looking for mentoring in witchcraft.

But unfortunately my dance card is full. So I put out a book of the first 20 odd lessons that I teach for people. So if you, want to dip your toe into Wicca or witchcraft that's a greatplace to get started and it's available on amazon. com or through my Etsy shop, which is dark flower books and folk art.

Yes. 

Jennifer Taylor: And that is 

Tava Baird: really 

Jennifer Taylor: good. By the way, all of the books are amazing. I have to say, like, I am not a big reader other than I, I love, reading about anything spiritual, but I've not been a fiction reader pretty much my entire life. And I cannot put your books down. From page one, I cannot put them down.

And my family is in complete shock because they have never seen me sit and be like, I have to finish this. I have to finish this chapter before I get up. I like this podcast. You're stroking my ego. This good. It needs, it needs some, because you are one of the most humble people I know.

And yeah, I'm so excited for people to have these. Oh, and, and in. Line with the idea of resources as we were talking. One of the things that came to me was that I wanted to be sure that you know that on my website under there's a tab called recordings and under there I have just free recordings that.

Help to just shift your energy. They are filled with Reiki and sound healing. And who knows how many different layers of your divine working through me in my voice. And my husband as well is in almost, I think almost all of the recordings. He's also a Reiki master and sound healer. And there's one in particular called peace and release that I really want to make sure everyone knows about.

It is, it has and not to really get too deep into it, but essentially it has an energy, kind of like an energy program. It's like getting a Reiki session that cleanses and clears your energy and helps to release unhealed energies that are in your vicinity or attached to you in any way. And sometimes it can just feel like, You're just super irritated and you can't seem to let go of it.

Or you ha you just feel like you're not yourself. Listen to that recording, play that recording. It is amazing. My whole family, we use that on a regular basis of, I think I just need to play this or you're leaving the supermarket and you're going, Oh, I just, I feel like all of the weight of the people around me or wherever I was, it's like picking up all these energetic dust bunnies through the day.

And you, you feel that. And anytime you become aware of that, play that recording, you don't even have to have the sound up. So if you're, at work or you're in the car or something, and there are people and you're thinking, I can't have anybody listen to this. You can have the volume turned down and the energy will still come through.

So I just want to make that aware, because I have people all over the world writing me going, Oh my gosh, thank you. Oh my goodness. It is so helpful. And like I said, if you may not like our voices or the sounds of anything, but you don't even have to listen to it to receive the healing and the clearing.

So I just want to make sure everybody knows about that. 

Tava Baird: I would definitely, it was so funny cause I was thinking, Oh, I'm going to tell them about her recordings. And then you said it once again, we are in synergy. It is, those recordings are so, so helpful. I recommend them to all the people that I mentor.

In the book it tells you how to access the link through my website. I just, I was just using it the other day and it's, it's really, really incredible to just have that It's like kind of going into a nice cool pool I love that you said energetic dust bunnies.

Now I want a shirt that says that energetic dust bunnies that it just, everything floats away. I was having a, an energetically horrid day a couple of days ago. I had, done some shifting and basically, just for lack of a better terms, the rust was starting to come off of me as I was letting out all of these emotions from, I think, childhood.

And that recording helped me so much to reset myself and get back into place where I could move forward. So definitely hit up that website and you can play it through your phone or through your card. It's, it's great. But there was something else I was going to say, but at 52, I forget it all the time.

Jennifer Taylor: 52 is young. We're going to be, we're going to be living. So we're going to be doing these podcasts for so many years. They'll be like, Oh my gosh, she was calling herself old then they're in their upper nineties. Maybe I'll become 

Tava Baird: instantly young again at 75 and just loop around, you know, but it's, it always, it always amazes me how easy it is to talk to you.

The idea of doing something like this on my own is just, and then I can sit on here and literally just talk about this with you for hours. So I'm really excited to see where this is going to go. And we do have plans to maybe start putting some of those energetic experiences of Jennn singing.

Or some sound healing or some guided meditations at the end of future podcasts. So we're, we're looking at doing that. So, you know, you could listen to us talk for a little while and then have a lovely, a lovely experience at the end. 

Jennifer Taylor: And actually I feel like I am supposed to, and bring this together with Bringing through song.

I think it will probably be. I never know exactly what's going to come through when I open my mouth. So we'll see, but I, I definitely feel like I'm supposed to do that. So yeah, this is kind of how our lives are too. We're like, Oh no, I'm going to do this now. All right. So I'm going to switch the audio real quickly.

Is there anything else you want to tell anybody or anything that Sam, I all would like to say to anyone 

Tava Baird: I'm so excited to do this again and to and I really do want to encourage people to reach out. We, we do want to hear from you. We're on the same, the same path as you and I just want to thank you, Jennn, for doing this with me today and thank everybody for listening and next time.

Next time the seraphim, but I know he's listening right now, but the next time he has something to say, I'm sure he will I'll write it down and share it. I have a feeling he's, he's still figuring out what a podcast is. 

Jennifer Taylor: This is a relatively new new invention. I'm still figuring out exactly how to podcast 

Tava Baird: it.

He calls the television and the computer the poison box. So I have to say a little bit of miscommunication there in the beginning. I don't think he deals a lot with electronics. I can 

Jennifer Taylor: see that. 

Tava Baird: Yeah. 

Jennifer Taylor: Okay. So I'm just going to kind of talk us back into lead us back into that quiet space. And again, if you're driving, you may want to just pause this until you can get to a space where you can really surrender to it.

Because sometimes these Things that come through, they take us deep or deep fast. So just make sure that you're in a place where you can safely safely do this. You can always, you know, replay it later. So we'll invite you to take three slow, deep breaths.

And if you would like to receive Reiki, you can simply just intend to. If for any reason it makes you uncomfortable or you would like to, you don't feel like you would like to do that, It completely is in respect and total respect of your free will. So if it's something that you're just interested in, you'd like to listen to this, but you don't want to actually receive any of the energy, you can just say, Nope, not for me.

And it will all be respected. But so we're sending love and light and healing and Reiki for your highest good and the highest good of all creation.

And I invite you to just become aware of your grounding. Become aware of the Earth, wherever the Earth is in relation to you. Whether you're on a plane, or on a high rise, or sitting on the Earth, you can still connect to this energy. So I invite you to just imagine. The bottoms of your feet opening and roots stretching down to the earth.

And it may be down through, you know, 10 different stories of a building, but it still goes down, down into the good earth, spreading deep and wide like the roots of a great tree.

And as your roots reach out deep and wide into the earth, Feel branches reaching up through the tops of your head and shoulders, up, reaching up and out, blossoming with many different either flowers or leaves, soaking up the divine light from above. Becoming a great sacred tree. And bring your awareness then into the center of your heart space, which is right kind of in the center of your sternum there, kind of aligned with your heart, but over right in the middle of your chest.

I invite you to just breathe into that space right now, grounded on earth, receiving light and centered in your heart. Thank you. yi yi, yi yi yi, yi yi yi

May you be held and blessed and divinely led.

May you call light. May you know light. May you know yourself. as the light and shine it for all creation.

Tava Baird: Amen. And so it is. And I have a little message for you. 

Jennifer Taylor: I am very open to that. 

Tava Baird: Amayel says to tell you, it is a good song, Umshala. It is a good song. 

Jennifer Taylor: I am so grateful. So grateful to hear that. Thank you. 

Tava Baird: We have an extra audience member.

He definitely loves to hear you sing. 

Jennifer Taylor: I am so grateful to be in service with my voice. So until next time. 

Tava Baird: Until next time, may you all have lovely days and lovely nights and not forget to look up at the sky and know that your ancestors are watching and not forget to look up at the moon and know that we are all part of the same circle.