Recovery through Darkness and Integration

Join Jennifer Taylor and Tava Baird as they delve into conversations about the significance of darkness, healing, and integration. They discuss the misconception of darkness, the process of true healing, and the concept and fallacies of erasure. Sharing personal anecdotes and wisdom from spiritual guides, they explore how embracing darkness can lead to profound growth. As they explore the themes of healing and integration, they offer insights and stories that resonate deeply. The episode concludes with a transformative spirit release song, 'Peace and Release,' aimed at clearing negative energies and fostering renewal.

00:00 Introduction and Weekend Recap
00:52 Unplanned Conversations and Spiritual Guidance
01:41 Messages from Samuel: Embracing the Darkness
12:10 Intermittent Fasting and Personal Experiences
20:38 The Concept of Darkness in Society
28:25 Integration and Healing
32:33 Embracing Imperfection and Healing
33:07 A Poetic Reflection on Recovery
34:46 The Myth of Closure
36:31 The Angel of Erasure vs. Integration
39:04 The Concept of Sovereignty and Healing
46:59 Grace and Transformation in Spirit Release
54:07 Practical Applications and Personal Stories
57:20 Concluding Thoughts and Resources

Resources mentioned:

www.michaellylewriter.com - The Myth of Closure poem

Peace and Release - spirit release track: 

free streaming: www.amnivara,com/recordings

for purchase/download:  https://amnivara.bandcamp.com/track/peace-and-release

Holy Fire Reiki Master class with Jenn:

Jan 2026 - https://www.willowridgereiki.com/usui-holy-fire-reiki-master

10 Steps to Sovereignty episode: Season 2 Ep 33

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2380665/episodes/17614527-10-steps-to-sovereignty-by-samael-and-lilith-reclaim-your-spaces-and-your-spirit

Please remember this podcast is for inspiration, reflection, and entertainment only, and is not medical, psychological, or professional advice.

We are two friends sharing personal experiences and evolving perspectives as we learn and grow. This is not a substitute for your own discernment, inner wisdom, or qualified professional guidance.

Take what resonates, trust your intuition, and seek licensed support when needed, always honoring your own inner knowing and personal truth.

Thank you joining us today, you are a valued member of our tribe!  If you are enjoying the podcast, please consider telling your friends and sharing it on social media.  We would greatly appreciate your support in helping us reach others and spread our messages of worth, openness and exploration. 

Connect with your Hosts!

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

Jennifer Taylor:  Amnivara (previously Willow Ridge Reiki and Healing Arts)           https://www.Amnivara.com/

Transcript

Copy

S3 Ep 4 Recovery through Darkness and Integration

Jennifer Taylor: [00:00:00]

Tava Baird: Good morning, Jennifer Taylor. 

Jennifer Taylor: Good morning. Tava Baird. 

Tava Baird: Woo. Boy. We're still recovering from the weekend, folks. I had a booth for my third year at Virginia Witches and Pagan cried down in Fredericksburg and Gente came out and was in the booth with me on Saturday and Sunday and we had a blast.

Yeah. But it 

Jennifer Taylor: was fantastic. 

Tava Baird: We talked for two days solid to other people and to each other, and, uh, so I completely lost my voice by Monday. So I'm sounding a little scratchy today and. Jen and I are both trying to get our sleep schedules back on track. 

Jennifer Taylor: but we are really, really excited to talk today.

Yes. And we do have absolutely no plan. So we're just going [00:01:00] to see what Michael and Samuel want to bring through and Gabrielle and, we will be discovering this as you do. 

Tava Baird: We have zero zip, not a laid out. It's flying by the seat of our pants folks, so everybody, it usually brings out the 

Jennifer Taylor: best stuff 

Tava Baird: it does.

Hold onto your britches. We are going to, invite Gente here to sing. As we head towards Soin at the end of October. Yeah, the wheel of the year is turning. 

Jennifer Taylor: All right, well, 

Oh, does Sam all 

have anything he wants me to do as far as bringing in, 

He just started saying the word Dawn. Dawn. Like the sun coming up. All right. 

Tava Baird: yeah, I just wrote down.

Dawn. 

Jennifer Taylor: Dawn. Alright. And I'll invite Michael to bring through what he is supposed to bring through, [00:02:00] possibly related to dawn. 

Who, who, [00:03:00] [00:04:00] [00:05:00] [00:06:00] [00:07:00] who? 

Tava Baird: Oh my gosh. I loved that song. I don't know why, but I feel like there's a very tiny crone. that affected that somehow I could like hear 

Jennifer Taylor: Oh, really hear a little 

Tava Baird: something unusual in that, that I was like, it's almost like there's a little extra new voice coming through.

Jennifer Taylor: I would and I don't why, a bit 

Tava Baird: why she jumped to mind. That's a different story, listeners. Well, [00:08:00]

Jennifer Taylor: yeah. We I'm sure we'll have to tell you about her. 

Tava Baird: Absolutely. so, listeners, Jen and I were staying in the same hotel this weekend, which means, we got to be in late night conversations with each other late at night is Sam's favorite time to talk, but he generally doesn't have access to Jen in the middle of the night.

And so yeah, 

Jennifer Taylor:

Tava Baird: it was like Seraphym slumber party. But he was talking about, visual ways of representing Jenn's healing sessions. And so now as I'm watching you sing and move, like I can't unsee the stuff that he was talking about.

I'm like, okay, there's that part of that song's incarnation. Oh, think things just switched. 

Jennifer Taylor: Like, yeah, I was thinking, oh my gosh, this is only, I don't know how long it's gonna have been, but there are already like a million layers. I was like, this, this would be so much to [00:09:00] represent. I cannot imagine what an hour long session looks like.

Tava Baird: Ooh. At that point you just go give up and go, Hey, it was purple. Moving on. Um, so I do have, that was a lovely dawning song and I have, some words from Samuel ,"Dawn. As the days shorten and the year dances, its slow spin towards darkness. I invite you to breathe. Breathe, and remember that you do not need to brace yourself for the advent of the dark.

It is not something to be endured. Let it in. Breathe. Let it in. Breathe. Let it in. Let it settle [00:10:00] into the spaces between your bones, the spaces between the timbers of the body you currently call home. Let it wrap itself around the pegs of you and Nestle into your rafters. It is not absence, but fuel, not lack.

But bounty, it is renewal cleansing of smoke. It leaves behind ash to be swept from the door of you. It is here to integrate, to take the energies of your days and mix them with your essence. It is the magical elixir, the drink of wine, the juice of the kiss that blends becoming in the belly, the first step towards dawn, towards possibility, [00:11:00] towards birth.

The footfall on the new path towards who you will become next, look at your past carefully in its midst, reflect, souls can fragment and stick. Ride your memories with an eye towards movement .Integration. Integration, not erasure is the true healing and the only real way forward."

Jennifer Taylor: That is beautiful. 

Tava Baird: Well, there's a bit to unpack here, isn't there? 

Jennifer Taylor: Yes. 

I love the, it is not something to be endured. Embrace it and let it in and how it is, bounty and it is nourishment and all of these [00:12:00] things. And then he talked about it being the smoke like a, like staining or smudging or, yeah, like the burning of smoke that you do to help to cleanse and.

I couldn't help but feel a tie to the conversation we had right before we started where we were talking about fasting and how I've been doing intermittent fasting. And the reasoning for the fasting was that we had learned that during that time of fasting, after 15 hours of not eating, your body starts to go around and clean up.

It goes into something called autophagy and it starts going around and cleaning up and clearing out and eating those older cells that normally, like the way our body is designed to be, would be getting cleaned up and eaten by our healthy cells and kind of broken down or destroyed so that they don't continue to overgrow and become things like [00:13:00] cancer and things like that.

And. At the beginning when I'd first heard about the idea of fasting for years, I'd always felt about, oh my gosh, that sounds miserable. There's no way I can go through that. Like, and the idea of having the time of not eating sounded like this just terrible thing to be endured. but I really wanted to do this for health reasons.

And I thought, no, it's not something to be endured. This is an opportunity for my body to rest. And I had read a lot of things about fasting from, the shaman, Alberto Aldo, who talks a lot about like how to, grow a new body and clear, clear your brain of all these things. And a lot of it is through really clean eating and fasting.

And I thought, this is my body's opportunity. To rest, to stop having to work so hard from all the constant digesting of food that I'm eating [00:14:00] and to rest and repair and find the things that need to be cleared out and clear them out. And and my mom was doing this with me too, and I said, I've realized in the first 24 hours that the key was not thinking of it as, I have to suffer for 16 hours before I can eat for those eight.

And like then gorge during eight hours because it's like, oh my gosh, this is the only time. But the idea is that I am giving my body this time to rest and to focus on repairing and cleaning out. And I noticed also that during that time I was super clear, like I felt mm-hmm. There was a level of stillness in my body and soul 

That usually can't be found until I'm like in this, meditative deep state and I don't even know that it's normally a sense that I have in my body. But during that time there was just this [00:15:00] stillness. It was like the mental chatter went away. All of this external stuff, it just dropped away.

And I thought, this is amazing. Yeah. This fasting time I've gotten to where I actually, I look forward to that time because it's like, it feels so good. And I thought, oh my gosh, that's just like winter and what he's talking about of changing our thought of like, oh, it's gonna be dark. And at least if you live in, you know, our hemisphere, it's, it's cold during, you know, it starts getting cold during that time.

And people talk about having to survive the dark, cold winter. And the idea of shifting that, of making that, shift in perspective of this is a time to really soak in and enjoy and take in the, benefits of it. Just like that fasting time changes everything. 

Tava Baird: Absolutely. Um, I used to intermittent fast and I don't know why I stopped.[00:16:00]

I really enjoyed it too and now I'm thinking of going back to it. Listeners, just so that we're clear, if you're thinking of starting a fasting regimen, talk to your doctor first. This is definitely not, we dunno what medication you're on and stuff like that. Yeah. And it's not 

Jennifer Taylor: something that's safe for everybody to do.

So Yeah. Talk to a doctor, we are not recommending or giving medical advice. We're just saying this is what we're currently experiencing. Yeah. And it made me think of the darkness in the winter. 

Tava Baird: Absolutely. And, I also had great experiences with it. it's really funny because we literally just had that conversation before hitting record.

Yes. And I didn't connect this back. And I'm like, of course he's listening. Like, when we get on and we start talking about this stuff, it also reminded me of, years ago when I was in college, I became a camp counselor for the summer, for the National Wildlife Federation's, Eastern Wildlife Camp.

And so I was gonna be spending the whole summer in the woods in cabins. And I remember, you know, the sun would go down and it would be night, and you would need [00:17:00] to go from one side of the camp to the other. And of course, there's not light. There's just moonlight and starlight. And I started off, with my flashlight everywhere.

And the whole time you're doing it, you're shining it into the woods to see if there are bears or, you're constantly on alert. You know, am I gonna trip over a route? And you're so dependent on that little light. And then I guess maybe four or five days in, at some point I went somewhere and then the sun went down, and then I remembered I had no flashlight with me, and I needed to cross a very big campsite in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

I mean, I wasn't lost or anything, I just needed to go in the dark. And I remember leaving the pla, the cabin I was in, and just standing there going, and I was nervous, you know? Yeah. I was afraid. And I took a couple steps away from the light and just stood there for a few minutes and my eyes adjusted and I tried to make myself part [00:18:00] of the flow of the woods around me.

And I. Walked off. And I was surprised at how quickly I had the ability to see fairly well in the dark. I just had to set down this idea that the darkness was something I had to fear and fight. And after that walk, I had the most beautiful walk back to my cabin in the dark. I wasn't gonna be wandering off in the woods.

there were buildings and things around. and if I'd yelled loud, someone would've come to fetch me. but after that, I never carried a flashlight when I was going somewhere on my own in, in the campsite at night, because I loved that sensation of stepping out of the door and saying, the darkness is part of me and I am part of it.

and just dropping that fear, and that feeling of separation, that you know, would normally have been with me. that's 

Jennifer Taylor: beautiful. 

Tava Baird: Yeah. It's, it [00:19:00] is, this, let it in breathe. Let it in. Breathe. You. What you said is absolutely correct. We, we think of spring is spring cleaning, which is true.

We need that because, you know, our doors are shut and our windows are shut. and we tend to accumulate a lot over winter. But you can have a winter cleaning too, where you spend, one of my favorite things to do is to go thrift store shopping right after Christmas, because between Christmas and New Year's, everybody who got a blender for Christmas donates their old blender.

And so it's like a bounty of stuff in thrift stores. There's like a massive wave right around New Year's because everybody's resolutions are, I'm gonna clean everything out and put in the new things. And so you can get so much good stuff about a week after Christmas for real cheap. This flies in the face of what I was saying I was, now I'm telling you to shop.[00:20:00]

But anyway, um, yes, but you're shopping for good causes most of the time, and you're shopping in it and you 

Jennifer Taylor: making space for the things that don't serve you, but bringing in things. Yes. So thank you 

Tava Baird: for saving me there. Um, but yeah, you can, can use that time to say what needs to go out, what is part of the natural flow of sending things out so that then I am able to have space to let in the new, and this can all happen.

In the darkness. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. And I'm thinking we probably talked about this when we were in the, making a case for Darkness or a Case for Darkness episode, but we tend to grow up, fearing the dark and, you know, horror movies and things are all about scary things happen in the dark and, fearing what you can't, see and stuff.

But, you know, just like you were just [00:21:00] talking about when we let go of the fear a little bit and we sit with that darkness and we think of it as something we can merge with and we can work with, and that is nourishing, the fear starts to fall away even more. And then, like you discovered, you can actually see a lot more than you think and you can feel.

And your other senses awaken a lot more strongly. And so when we think about that, energetically we know, you know, we've talked about that the darkness is this sacred womb, this place where things can grow and, you know, the dark under the earth where seeds can germinate.

And when you do a lot of like kinda meditation or, um, types of journeying where you're going kind of out into the cosmos, into like the center of the universe, [00:22:00] it's dark. It's this pure darkness that just, feels incredible. It's the most incredible darkness, that you can experience. But it also feels amazing.

You're in this nourishing womb of the universe where, there isn't light. But there's a lot of wonderful things that nourish you in the darkness and shifting that perspective towards darkness. And that was a big thing for me, you know, and because we always use the terms light and dark, in society, you know, it's like dark energies.

You know, when I started doing reiki, people would talk about, you know, when you see a dark something or something dark comes in, it was always something dark, always represented something, evil or malicious or bad or scary or something to avoid. And through our discussions, I've really shifted my understanding and we've, brought in words like sacred darkness to help to differentiate what we're talking about.

so this is [00:23:00] really that, darkness, not when somebody talks about like going through a dark time or these sorts of things. If we can look at those things as sacred. Moments, sacred opportunities and the energy of that sacred darkness is really nourishing. And, I love the ways that Samael described.

It 

Tava Baird: was reading a really neat, I, I find it again if you paid me to, but I was reading something really neat the other day on the concept of light and dark in our society. And, you know, you look at Star Wars and there's like Skywalker and his white shirt and Darth Vader dressed all in black. And that's all through our society.

But the person who was writing the article had done research on, is that the way it always has been. When did our Western society start to turn towards the idea of light being good and [00:24:00] dark, being bad? When did that come into common part? have we always described things that way? and what they found was really interesting to me.

They said if you went back and you looked at native societies, if you looked at older societies, they did not differentiate between light being good and dark being bad at all the time that that sort of description for energy in a religious or metaphysical standpoint started to divide was right around, they were talking about as soon as you had, uh, I guess the word wouldn't be propaganda, but it came up basically with, the idea of racism right around the time when you saw the concept of racism start to become talked about and.

You know, and very much, in evidence in [00:25:00] this country and you saw an explosion of people starting to describe good in terms of light and evil, in terms of dark. And they were like, so what we are probably looking at here is that the original societies that, were operating did not rely on these terms nearly as heavily or even think that way at all until the concept of racism became a big deal.

And that that led to a sharp increase in the description of good as light and dark as evil. 

Jennifer Taylor: Wow. And 

Tava Baird: and then that of course went into all of our discourse and has been sitting there for a couple of hundred years. 

and people when they're dying a lot, and if they were near death and then they come back, they say, I saw a beautiful light and I move towards it. Right? And so part of [00:26:00] it probably came from that. But you know, you hear people say things like, are you a good witch or Are you a bad witch?

you know, and g Glenda's always in her pink glittery stuff. And then there's the Wicked witch of the West in black. You know, there saw that, that kind of sharp differentiation where the idea of was integrated. And it really came up when racist rhetoric became a big deal in this country.

If you go to the east, let's think about the idea of yin yang, right? Where we have dark and light represented in one symbol with those little dots in it. To represent that in all darkness there is light, and in all lightness there is dark, and that one can't exist without the other. You don't have day without night and night without day.

That is more of the concept that was around throughout various [00:27:00] societies, but at some point here in the west, we cracked that yin yang apart. And took those dots of dark and light in the other out of each other, and differentiated one as good and one as bad. And if you look at yin yang, that's also often described as the light color being the masculine energy and the dark color being the feminine energy.

Well, isn't it interesting here in the West where we have stories like Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, that we have that concept of female as being dark and therefore associated with being something that you wanna aim for the light, not the dark. So we're really looking at a blending over time.

So when we are here in our community and we're saying, you know. I am a lightworker. That's lovely that [00:28:00]you're a lightworker, but it's also really good to know that if you're excluding the concept of the dark from your work, that that may be helping to reinforce this idea that you can have just light, you can have just, you know, a desirable thing and that there isn't integration.

And I think that's part of what Samael's talking about here later on when he says integration not eraser, right? We want to integrate different parts of ourselves. Um, not to keep going, but I know he talks about this too. We also often have this concept, of healing that we're somehow or another, the healing is going to erase.

What happened before, right? we're gonna completely heal and we're going to erase the wound. We're gonna erase [00:29:00] the offense, we're gonna erase the injury. But if you think of it, even when you are healed, there are still scars there. There are many things in this life that we cannot heal from.

Anyone who's ever lost a child knows that, right? You don't heal from that. If you've lost a limb or a sense, you don't heal from it and pretend you just always never had that leg, right. What you have to do is figure out how to move forward in your life with integrating that loss into it to be able to say.

I've been through a lot. I have my scars, but I am working to make peace with them. I am working toward balance on my healing journey, not I'm simply going to turn away and pretend that didn't happen, [00:30:00] because that's the stuff that comes roaring back later, right? That's the, when you pretend that something just didn't happen.

I run into people all the time who say, well, I grew up in this particular, very restrictive religious environment, but now I'm pagan, so I'm just gonna pretend that didn't happen. I have been guilty of that myself, and that's how I ended up with a talking seraphim at the foot of my bed who wanted to come and teach me that.

Ignoring the past I had come from and pretending that it was just gone, wasn't going to serve me in my work. I needed to find a way to integrate things that I had been through into my healing journey. And he says that is the true healing and the only real way forward. So we talk a lot in, [00:31:00] I know the witchy world about shadow work, right?

I had a woman, Jen, at our table this weekend. He was there with a friend of hers and she said, um, my friend here is very into witchcraft and metaphysics, and I'm just starting, and she tells me that I need to do shadow work, but that sounds terrifying, you know? And I said, okay, well let's start off first with the idea that shadows are not necessarily terrifying.

And second, the journey you are on is to look all of the things that you have packed away and said. I'm just gonna be healed from that. Do, do, do, do. And look at them and say, if I've packed them, I'm still carrying them. I need to look at them carefully, reflect on them, take the lessons and pain that came from them, and understand that [00:32:00] it is a fundamental part of who I am.

You wouldn't be where you are now if those things hadn't happened. And yes, it wasn't pleasant, and yes, it wasn't good, but this idea that you're somehow gonna scrape off everything, everything that was negative and just walk around as a pure being of light, that never gonna happen. That's never going to happen.

Right? What was it that. Samuel said, perfect, perfect. Never comes, or 

Jennifer Taylor: yeah. It was like, perfect never comes, so stop waiting for it, or something like that. So stop waiting for it. 

Tava Baird: Right. And, you're not meant to be perfect. You are meant to have scars and flaws and stumbles and you know, you have things in your past that you may never completely heal for 'em.

Or even if you do make peace with them, you'd still have that jagged, shiny scar. Those are, that is part of the beauty of your journey. [00:33:00] Yeah. And so we just need to, I think, sometimes adjust our idea of what healing is a little bit. 

Jennifer Taylor: there is a poem, my, father's a poet and there's a poem that he wrote that I actually just texted him.

Oh my goodness. Can you send it to me so that I can read it? And is it okay if I read it and he's looking it up for me right now? But he talks about a tree in winter, how it's like bent really low to the ground and like an ice storm you know, like a young tree that's like bent down.

And we had had one of those where like we had had all these new young trees that were maybe three, four feet tall, and then they were just all bent over and heavy with ice. And, you know, eventually it's like eventually the ice melts and they make their kind of slow climb to, reaching back up to the sky and resume their original form or shape.

And that some would call that recovery, but basically like the scars of [00:34:00] what happened to them, them having been bent that low, by the ice. And having been in that state for so long, it's like you can't see the evidence of it anymore. But it doesn't mean that they're just like they were before.

it's just that you can't see it. And I resonated with that poem so much. It was this deep sense of that's how I feel from certain things in my journey of I look fine, you know, they're over, they're done. it seems like I should be fine, but I will never be the same from having been through those things and having been exactly been, you know, bent low to the ground and frozen in the ice.

oh, here we go. Oh, he just sent it. Oh, good. Okay. So this is called, the Myth of Closure. The sapling willow wrapped in melting ice stays bent when the [00:35:00] clean glaze falls, the smooth barks, cautious rise, most will call recovery.

I just, I wanted to share that poem because I felt like it was, it's one and his poetry is one that you really have to read and sit with and read and sit with. Only you guys got the benefit of kind of the, an unpacking of it first, but, if you're interested in his writing, it's Michael lyle writer.com.

He has a lot of his poetry on there. He's not in any way affiliated with the podcast, but was generous enough to let me read this for you. but I felt like it really spoke to what we were just talking about and that, but, and yet you can still go on, you know, the trees are now, you know, 15 foot tall trees and they're beautiful and [00:36:00] strong and they're bearing fruit and they're feeding, all of the pollinators.

And they are a place for birds to build their nests. And they are, shelter in the storm for all sorts of little creatures. And they're providing fruit that's feeding all the wildlife around and, know, so they have continued to move and grow but their experiences are still a part of them and they're still with them.

Yeah. Um, another thing that came to me and. I couldn't help but feel like there was an intention in the word erasure for me in that when I was taking one particular angelic healing course , one of the angels that comes up is the angel of erasure. And he talks about using the angel of erasure and asking the angel of erasure to go back and erase these, difficult memories and these sorts of things.

And I was really [00:37:00] uncomfortable with the idea of erasing things. And the instructor had said, , like you could erase beings, like, entities and beings that were there without your permission.

and he erased them. And I thought. This feels really bad. Like I don't, I don't feel this doesn't feel right at all. And I said something about it and he said, well, you can give them like a count to three of like, Hey, just so you know, I'm gonna do this. if you're not gone by the time I count to three, but that's their choice.

And it felt, it just, I couldn't make peace with that sense of really erasing things or, you know, going back and erasing these memories, erasing these things. 

And I kept thinking, okay, if this is an angel, then an angel is working. In the highest good, but so there's something about this angel of erasure thing, because I kept thinking [00:38:00] it just doesn't feel right to be erasing something.

that felt so out of balance. And so I was thinking, replacing the Angel of Erasure concept with the angel of integration, which I actually call in a lot at the end of the healing sessions and stuff to help to integrate all of these things with him.

Talking about integration being what we're really going for or what would be ideal for us to aim for. Not erasing the past or erasing these things, but integrating them and, looking at them in a new way and changing our perspective on them and bringing, a sense of healing. To that and healing not necessarily mean curing, like a lot of people interchange the words healing with cure, you know, it's like, so somebody will come and say, you know, I want to be healed of this.

And in shamanism they talk a lot too. It's like healing isn't curing, you may still die of the disease, but you may be [00:39:00] healed of the things that caused it. 

Tava Baird: Um, Samuel is sitting here when you were talking about an angel of erasure and he said, neither be created nor destroyed. 

and he's also talking about, you know, as humans we want to put energies in specific boxes and give them names. And so he pointed out that that particular practitioner may very much wish that there was an angel of erasure. or their experience has been that things can be completely erased.

Um, if we look at a chalkboard in chalk, you can write a word on it and erase it, but if you look close enough, the residue of the word is still there. And even if you go and you get a wet cloth and you really wipe it off, those particles of chalk still fall down to the sill and the floor, and they're on your fingers and they're on your skin, right?[00:40:00]

It looks different. It moves differently, but the energy is still there it may walk out of the room with you on the front of your shirt if you're like me and you're a horrible clutz and mess around chalkboards, but it's when we try to erase things and make things pure.

That we stumble into this idea that things are never 100%, one thing or the other. and then we start to fall into the trap that we might be meant to be one thing or another. And that starts to lead us back to this mindset of, you are this or this. You are good or bad. You are light or dark, you are virgin or whore you are.

All of these ORs in our life. [00:41:00] And if you were to erase everything that had happened to you, there wouldn't be much of you left. Right? All of those things, even the things that you don't like there, there wouldn't be much of you left. Um. Yeah, but what he's telling us to do instead is when we try to say, we tell people all the time, oh, you can get over that.

somebody the other day had posted something online that said, um, they had a relationship that had ended and it ended, really badly. Um, and I believe it was a marriage actually, and they posted something. And this is actually um, it's one I know they had posted something like, everyone tells me I will heal from him.

And it said I might heal from him, but I don't think I will ever heal from the betrayal, from the sadness, [00:42:00] from the, shattered hopes. All of the things that came with him are part of my journey, and I just have to figure out how to put those pieces back together. In a way that lets me move forward.

And that's what Samael's is talking about. You know, when we tell people, oh, just smile and get over it. Be brave and, you know, put your chin up and move on. When you move on, you are still dragging things with you. And that's what we talk about when we mention when people use the term shadow work is what are you dragging with you?

And if you can't carry it, how can you rearrange things so that you can move forward? It. You're never gonna be able to just let everything and let it go and say, I'm a brand new person from here forward, you'll always have your scars. But that life [00:43:00] and, and evolution, they don't erase the past turnings of the wheel.

They figure out how to streamline things and how to make it so that you can move forward. So I'm really glad that the idea of erasure didn't sit well with you because, um, well it seems to me like it would be wishful thinking. And also, um, I think where I would be, if I didn't have any of my struggles, I certainly wouldn't be qualified to go out in my community and teach other people with struggles if I'd never had any myself.

Right. 

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. And I have to say, it was a very brief conversation that was had in the class, and I may be misunderstanding some aspect of a way that he was looking at it that was different, but that was my kind of take was that at least the idea of erasing the.

The harm that it's still causing you, the trauma and the things [00:44:00] there But yeah, I think there's, it seems like there are a lot of angels that would be much Better suited for trying to help someone to deal with a trauma that happened that they continue to remember that's haunting them as opposed to, you know, erasing it.

Right. And it's interesting, you know, that we talk about that there is an angel for everything, but we may have found the one thing there is not an angel of which is eraser, because like you said, it cannot be, you know, it's like matter cannot be created or destroyed. Energy can't. It's just a matter of. I guess at most it would be a matter of moving it out to some from, you know, somewhere else.

Tava Baird: Maybe erasure from your presence. But that doesn't mean it isn't somewhere. Yeah, it's not 

Jennifer Taylor: actually gone. Right. It's simply, like you said. like there's an eraser on a pencil and you can erase it and you maybe can erase it enough that you can't see the vestiges of it.

But there are also the bits of it that were on the eraser that you were using that have fallen away. Yes. And like there's always [00:45:00] something left behind. 

Tava Baird: Yeah. There's a shifting. Even when Samuel talked about if, if you all listen to the episode, I think it was, what would do you call it? 10 steps to It was when we were talking about moving negative energies.

10 steps to 

Jennifer Taylor: sovereignty. 

Tava Baird: Right? 10 steps to sovereignty. If you notice in there, he doesn't come in and say, I'm gonna wink you out of existence. He comes in and tells them, move on. You are not welcome here. And the other thing that that does is extend the opportunity for grace to that negative energy. That negative energy is working and doing the thing that it's doing for a reason.

It may be that it needs to survive. It may be that it's gotten drunk on power. It may be that it doesn't know any other way to operate, but in moving it on, it's not there bothering you. Now, unfortunately, may go bother somebody else, but [00:46:00] eventually there will hopefully be a wake up call when it feels like it's being hounded out of place after place that something needs to change, that something different needs to manifest, that something needs to transform, that perhaps it's time for it to return to the all and be birthed again on a different path for a time.

That. 

Jennifer Taylor: So there 

Tava Baird: it extends that grace. and I have not taken the course you were talking about, so perhaps, you know, I am wildly often assuming on this erasure really kind of feels like we're, we're not extending you the grace we're giving you to the count of three and then you will be obliterated, you know?

Jennifer Taylor: Yeah. it definitely had a feeling of, yeah, there, there not being that, that grace in there and compassion for whatever it is that you're needing to be free of, but it doesn't need to, you know, be from existence. 

that's one of the things that I love about the holy [00:47:00] fire, way of spirit release, is that the way that it's been described to me, both by. the person who received this way of doing it. And then also, people that are close to me who are very, very clairvoyant and claireaudient is that essential.

And what it is that we're doing when we do that is that we are using the holy fire reiki, which is a, you know, all loving, benevolent, only works in the highest good kind of energy and we're surrounding the person. And, we're directing it towards all of the, spirit present that are not, aligned with their highest good and 

essentially that angels come in and basically intercede and would negotiate and sort of speak to those that are here. and so many times the things that started out looking, um. if you can see them clairvoyantly, they look [00:48:00] terrifying and grotesque and just like what somebody would describe as evil.

And they're clutching on and they're digging their talons into them and they're, you know, ferocious and they're fighting like mad. But what happens that is, and has been described to me over and over and I've now seen it and now that that's developed more for me is this sense of them recognizing that it's like that's their most unhealed self.

They're this part of them. And most of the times they think that they're there helping in some way or they're just doing their job. Like so many of them would say, I can't, this is my post, this is my job. And it's like they are. It's so dedicated to doing the job that they came here to do or that they were sent there to do that they are just like, no, I have to, I can't leave my post.

I have to do this, I have to do this and that. [00:49:00] There's this kind of negotiation or understanding of like, no, actually you don't, and you can be offered healing and you can be offered the opportunity to, go into this realm where there is healing and you can shift and see. And as it's like layers of their own trauma, clearer away, they then start to recognize, oh my gosh, I'm actually hurting this person.

I thought I was here just doing an important job and my presence is harming them and. In the combination of these things, their visage changes from these terrifying grotesque looking creatures my daughter was describing to me this thing that just was terrifying.

And then she was like, now he looks, he's this little monkey. It's this little cute little baby monkey that's being cradled by the angel. And he's waving and blowing kisses and is like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I never meant to hurt you. And it was holding onto this angel that was carrying [00:50:00] it, up into the light.

And like the one that that held on the longest, that, like, it took us forever it in the end who was the biggest, scariest, most ferocious thing She was giggling and going, oh my gosh, he looks so silly. he's like dancing in the light and he's just sort of jumping around and dancing in such a free, silly way that it made her laugh out loud.

And she was terrified of him when it had started and was like, he is not gonna leave. He is not gonna go. Like, he's just gonna torture me. we won't be able to get rid of him. And so it was really amazing that all of these things that even that were causing harm and were intentionally there by offering this grace.

this energy of grace and love and these beings that are there with compassion for what they're there to remove. And helping to move them on that the entire process is healing. It's healing for the person because they're freed of these things that maybe they [00:51:00] called in unintentionally by just being like, anything, something helped to protect me.

And so they're like, all right, we're not gonna let anybody get to your heart anymore because that way nobody can hurt you. And so they are serving a purpose and maybe it helped them survive a certain situation. Yes. But now they don't need that anymore, and it's actually causing harm. And, you know, so everything, everything gets this healing and this opportunity for grace and transformation and compassion.

And I absolutely love that. As opposed to, it's not a struggle, it's not a fight, it's not a battle, it's a everything getting to sit in this energy of grace and transformation until they start to recognize that. And I think the, my, my understanding and my guess is that the reason that they do have to move on still, is that they're violating someone's sovereignty and everyone has the right to sovereignty.

Yes. So it's not always the same. A [00:52:00] lot of times this does work in spaces. I've had it work, and I've done this in spaces where, places at the barn and places where other places where there were spirits that were left behind, and it has worked really well, but I think it's, they, they wanted the healing.

They were happy to have the healing. Yeah. And they needed something to unstick them. Um, yes. But it's not necessarily always the same because we have a right to declare our own sovereignty. And if they are in opposition to that, you know, it seems like sort of the, the basic universal laws are that they have to 

Tava Baird: Right 

Jennifer Taylor: abide that 

Tava Baird: if their, if their sovereignty is impeding on our sovereignty, then it's like, right, no, no, you need to break up.

And I love, I love everything you've said and it, it's true. I mean, if you think about. Do you ever think about a really messy breakup, right? Sometimes yes. You really feel like you want them wiped from existence, right? But, but the thing is, the ultimate best thing is they move on and eventually find their happiness somewhere far, [00:53:00] far from you, and you move on and find your happiness somewhere far, far from them.

And you still, that relationship taught you things. It brought you things, or you wouldn't have started it in the first place, right? And also, it can sometimes be the thing that makes you stop and say, whoa, I choose the exact same type of person over and over and over again. And I'm always disappointed, always hurt.

What is it that makes me go out and choose that type of person over and over again? That's what I need to look at. That's what I need to dig down into and see with clear eyes and work to integrate the why I do things. One of my favorite things is people who have bad habits and they know exactly why they haven't quite [00:54:00] figured out how to integrate it yet.

And I like, I'm one of them. I will sit there like yesterday, I was totally exhausted after our weekend, but I was too amped up to sleep. And my husband walks in and I literally just have like a line of snack foods on the table next to me. Like I have my two Starbucks teas and then I have like pirate's booty followed by crackers, followed by like head Grahams followed by sun chips.

And he's like, what are we doing in here? And I look at him and I go, I am overtired and I am eating to stay awake because I am too defiant to go lie down and take a nap. This is bad for me with all these calories when you bring me a donut and he just starts laughing because I know exactly why I'm doing it.

Right, right. But I'm also just too, my husband calls it Scottish stubborn. I'm too Scottish stubborn to like just go take the nap. [00:55:00] Right. And I'm too amped up. And so I know I'm watching this routine that I do every day and well, I, when I'm well rested and I'm balanced, I do not feel the need to line up snack foods and overload my body with calories.

But I'm literally, I'm like, I'm chewing to release tension. Like I know exactly why I'm doing it. I just haven't quite figured out how to break that cycle yet. So you do have lots of entities around that are in the cycle and they might be aware of while they're doing it, they might also not be aware. And one of the things I know when I work with Spirits at the Blue Ball in, um, is when I encounter them, sometimes I will say, do you want help?

Right. Because some of them don't want any help. They know they're in a cycle, they're learning something from it. They wanna break it on [00:56:00] their own. They're not interested or they don't want help because they are doing work and know where they're going. And I don't have the full picture and I don't know everything and I'm just gonna divert them and mess them up.

But sometimes we encounter someone who says, help me, help me. I'm stuck in the cycle. I need some energy to break it. I need, uh, someone to think of something I could try that's different so that I get a different result. And then at that point, it's. All right. Let me see what I can do for you. But we don't wanna infringe on their sovereignty, right?

'cause we obviously don't see everything. I love that recovery poem so much. Like, I'm like, let's title this episode recovery. Um, since we're speaking of, that's like 

Jennifer Taylor: the myth of recovery, I think is the last myth of recovery or something like that. I'll have to look again. Love it.

Because Yeah, I do too. And I mean, he read this to me [00:57:00] or wrote it. it, may have been eight, nine years ago and it felt like it encapsulated so much my experience that I have remembered that. Yeah. It's called The Myth of Closure, but the last line is most will call recovery. This is where we will leave off for this week. Our conversation continues in next week's episode where we will discuss things like personal armor. 

you'll hear a story about Tava and Samael and I singing together in the back of a car for her healing. Um, and also you'll learn the story about the additional guide that has come in that tava referenced at the beginning of the session when she was saying she thought that she heard a new different little voice in my song.

And she absolutely did. Only it is definitely not a little voice, but quite a strong voice. But we'll leave that for next week. I know we've talked a lot about, spirit [00:58:00] release and moving energies out that are disrespecting our sovereignty today. And so I thought it would be helpful for us to end with a spirit release.

so the song that follows is entitled Peace and Release, and you've probably heard us mention it here and there throughout various episodes, but it is really an energy clearing brought through sound. And, many layers of holy fire, reiki energy that have been, incorporated into the recording. along with a host of Angels and ascended masters that come in to support us.

my husband joins me on the overtone flute. We offer healing and transformation to those energies and entities that are in your field that are not in the highest good. 

It doesn't require anything on your part, but if you feel like you are aware of something that's in your energy field. That is interfering with you in any [00:59:00] way or maybe something has come up for you during our conversation today and that you would like to release, um, or if you have any energies. That you feel like are kind of compounding the issues or holding in these patterns and you would like them to be released, simply kind of point them out and you know, say, yep, you know that that thing that is holding in this pattern or this feeling that I've been having this presence that.

Is having me feel like I'm not feeling like I'm me. anything like that, feel free to just kind of point it out with your intention or, you know, in your head or even out loud and be like, okay, you know, all the energies that are coming in, in this song, pay special attention please to these areas.

It 

will just further support the process, and if you feel like you need any additional support or to repeat the process, you can access piece and release [01:00:00] through free streaming on my website, Amnivara.com, or you can purchase it on Bandcamp, at Amnivara and have it available for you at any time.

It is really helpful my entire family, we use this for ourselves sometimes on a daily basis when we become aware that there is something. Around something that's influencing the way that we're feeling, the way that we're thinking or feels like it's sort of bringing back things or compounding things.

We'll just put it on and play it and have the intention that it is getting carried away. And it's really amazing how it can shift things. And I've heard a lot of stories of ways that it has been able to help other people. So, I've tried to make that as. easy to access and available as possible, for everyone.

And also, you know, if you feel like you need additional support, feel free to reach out to Tava or I. I'll also include links to all the [01:01:00] resources that we've talked about in the show notes, including, the reference to the podcast episode that Tava talked about, the 10 Steps to Sovereignty, which was in season two.

So I hope that our conversation today has been a blessing and has been of benefit and, that the sound healing that follows is a really good clearing, shifting opportunity for you. So until next week, may you be richly, richly, blessed and held in the arms of your angels and divine guides.

[01:02:00] [01:03:00] [01:04:00] [01:05:00] [01:06:00] [01:07:00] Um.