2026 As A Black Mirror - Embracing the Edge of Transformation

Join Jennifer Taylor and Tava Baird, as they take another look at Samael's words regarding 2026 and how best to meet it.  Accompany your hosts as they delve into the transformative power of Lilithian Magic and Philosophy. Explore how facing the edge states and shifting perspectives can lead to growth, self-discovery, and new opportunities. Learn about upcoming classes on Lilith and the Lost City, and events such as the Imbolc Full Moon Circle. Discover the concept of the 'black mirror' as described by Tava’s guide, Samael, and how it reflects an opportunity for an energetic shift. Jennifer shares her experiences with 'the edge' and insights on how to regain balance when confronted with conflicting perspectives and new insights that challenge us to expand beyond our comfort zone. This episode concludes with the soothing 'Sacred Waters, Singing Stones' track, offering listeners a moment of deep healing and reflection. The conversation continues next week as Jennifer shares Archangel Michael's perspectives, advice and even an energetic transmission from him. 

00:00 Introduction and Greetings
00:27 Upcoming Classes and Events
02:24 Imbolc Traditions and Celebrations
03:30 Feedback and Personal Stories
06:58 Clarifying Samael's Message
14:13 Jenn's song from Archangel Michael to set the energetic container 
17:58 TSAAH an energetic cleansing sound/technique

22:36 Tava's experience of Samael in personal vs professional settings
25:26 Samael's message on 2026 as a black mirror
31:20 Impact of COVID on Social Behavior
32:39 Nostalgia and Perception of the World
33:08 Isolation and Echo Chambers
36:14 Exploring the Concept of Black Mirrors
37:27 Embracing Energetic Shifts
47:53 Walking the Edge: Lilithian Magic
53:39 Balancing Fear and Excitement
59:12 Michael's Guidance and Final Thoughts
01:00:38 Closing and Sacred Waters Singing Stones

Resources:

Sacred Waters, Singing Stones

https://amnivara.bandcamp.com/track/sacred-waters-singing-stones

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

Transcript

S3 Ep16 2026 as a Black Mirror - Embracing the Edge of Transformation

Jennifer Taylor (2): [00:00:00] Good morning, Jennifer Taylor. Good morning. Tava Baird. I am excited to talk today and bring some clarification for some people, I think, too. 

Tava Baird: Yes. And, uh, it appears that a particular angel stirred up some trouble, so we'll have to get that, that all cleared up Before we launch into it. I know there's a whole bunch of fun events coming up 

so.

I started teaching under Samael's direction, a class called Lilith and the Lost City, the four mirrors, and I've done it in a few places. It was at Mystic Fire. I have taught it at the Inn. I've taught it up at the Simple Life in Frederick. I'll be teaching it down at the Aquarian in Richmond in March, and it is the introductory Lilithian Magic and Philosophy class.

So if you are interested in Lilith or [00:01:00] Sam Iel, this is the path for you because it's all Lithian magic. And the four mirrors is the introductory class where we go over a philosophy and we also have a ritual at the end of it called the Ritual of the four Mirrors. And I guide you through a self-worth puppet making class in the middle.

Um, so there are a bunch of opportunities to do that entrance class coming up. If you are interested. hit up tava bear.com under events, and you'll see where there's one hopefully in your area. And then after that, there are six different, more advanced Lilith and the Lost City classes, covering everything from making your own sacred spaces and holy books to various methods of Lilithian divination, uh, working in [00:02:00] liminal spaces and guarding your sleep.

All kinds of fun stuff. So I just wanna, if you are trying to think what is going to be different about 2026, I would like to put out there, could it be Lilith? And if it is, there's lots of opportunities to, spend time with this magical system coming up in the upcoming months. I also wanted to invite you, if you are in the Frederick Maryland area to, one other thing, at the Simple Life in Frederick on February 1st, we are holding the store's first ever full Moon Circle, and I'll be hosting it.

We will be talking about Imbolc traditions. We are going to be making St. Bridget's crosses. We are also going to be doing little St. Bridget, or Bridget, the goddess, corn husk dolls and talking about Irish Imbolc traditions Imbolc [00:03:00]means in the belly. And in Ireland. It's supposed to mark the first of the beginning of spring because this is when the sheep have their new lambs in their bellies.

So if you happen to be in the area and would love to join us to celebrate Imbolc, it's gonna be nice and casual. Lots of fun. just check out the website again to bear.com and look under, uh, full Moon Circle at The Simple Life. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah. And all of that sounds absolutely amazing. Your classes, the feedback that I get from everyone who has been in your classes is just off the charts.

Amazing. Oh, 

Tava Baird: thank you. I 

Jennifer Taylor (2): appreciate it so much. It's funny. Oh yeah, I tell you, I hear nothing but just amazing things and people then going, when is the next one? Do you know when her next one is? 

when you were saying Imbolc and in the belly, I was thinking about, I was looking in my mind, I was seeing the painting.[00:04:00]

That you did that actually, that, uh, Keith and I bought and have in our bedroom, um, called Imbolc and it's just beautiful and I don't know, Do you sell prints 

Tava Baird: of that? 

Jennifer Taylor (2): it was when you'd started like adding an actual water to the paintings and it was running down and it's like a pregnant woman sitting against a tree. Um, yes, that's right in the water. You have that, you have the original of that.

I do. We were smart. We, uh, scooped it right up. 

Tava Baird: I do have prints of that, in my Etsy shop, uh, which is dark flower books, on Etsy. And if you go in there, there are prints of that particular painting to celebrate Imbolc. Good. Yeah, 

Jennifer Taylor (2): definitely. Go on and look at this. I mean, just, it's just beautiful. Like I, I look at it every single day and I absolutely love it.

So, and I feel like it holds that kind of energy of Imbolc. So 

Tava Baird: that's another little bit of Imbolc trivia. Um, I, I really love this particular, it's, it's [00:05:00] another quality of lights. Um, but It's a very hopeful day, and there are a lot of incredible, uh, Scottish traditions around Imbolc, and I love it so much that if you are a reader of the Spiral Pathways series, um, both of the main characters have their birthdays on pagan holidays and Imbolc is Alexander Scott's birthday.

and Saorsa is born at Yule, so, um, if you are into doing astrology for fictional characters, uh, you could figure out, uh, that his birthday is February, you know, it's the night of February 1st into February 2nd. Um, and I got to write in one of the books, a whole scene of the child being born on Imbolc night and all of the traditions that are going around that the servants who still follow the old ways are doing in the castle when the baby is born to, [00:06:00] you know.

So anyway, um, another reason why I love it, I have a fictional character born that day. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah. I always forget that's his birthday. I don't know how I forget that so much, but 

Tava Baird: it's, it's an excuse for me to eat cake on Imbolc to be like, happy birthday fictional character. I really need some like double chocolate, some good German chocolate cake with maybe with some of that coconut.

Oh no, we sent 

Jennifer Taylor (2): you down the wrong path. You sent 

Tava Baird: me down the rabbit hole, guys. Full disclosure, I gave up figure up about a week ago in the name of health and you know, it's wonderful. All my inflammation's going down and I've lost eight pounds, but man, do I want some cake? So if I'm like super cranky on the podcast today, it's because I have a sugar deficit going on right now in a major way.

Jennifer Taylor (2): Oh, I feel you. So, [00:07:00] um, I know we have a lot to talk about today and I have a lot that, Michael had brought through for me in response to, the thoughts and feelings I've had since we, our last podcast, which, you know, for our listeners, you've only had to wait a week, but it's actually been like two or three weeks maybe.

And so it felt like to me Samael kind of dropped this bomb partway through the last one. And I'm like, um, okay. And then everything was super busy and I'm. Hardly, I don't think. Tava and I really had a, a conversation hardly since. And then, we were together the other day finally even managing to give each other our Yule gifts.

And I was like, ah, I'm not gonna bring it up then. But we were talking yesterday, I was like, um, I think we would be good to clarify what Sam meant in the last podcast when he was saying, you know, there is something coming and be prepared. And so initially I had this [00:08:00] strong response of like, oh my gosh, you know, like the, the stuff's hitting the fan and it's time to start prepping.

Kind of was my initial response. Response ready? The bunker, 

Tava Baird: I had no idea that he had traumatized you. You know, these angels, one thing they don't really ever cover, like when you look in the Bible is like, okay, so like Mary's sitting there one night and then Gabriel appears and says, guess what? You're gonna have a baby.

And then peace's out. They don't cover the trauma of Mary walking around the next week going, I saw a fricking angel. Saw a fricking angel. Like all the paintings are just of her being like, well, yes, thank you for that message. Suddenly, can you imagine if an angel appears in your room right now and is like, oh, guess what?

You are going to be pregnant. Um, or you already are with the Son of God, with the son of God. You know, your [00:09:00] whole life is going to change. Good luck breaking this to your husband, um, and, uh, see you later. And then, you know, amps out. Um, you, you would, you'd be a mess. It's, and so they don't cover that enough.

They don't cover, uh, aftercare for angel visitation. Um, and we were talking about this too. I'm really used to Samael sort of walking in saying something that sounds like, you know, frogs are about to descend from the heavens. And then, you know, either I question him more on it and discover he didn't mean to deliver it with such gravitas or that that's just the way he speaks where everything's, you know, and, and so I wanna apologize to Jen, um, that perhaps I did a bad job.

I should have said, can you [00:10:00] elaborate right now instead of. Um, him making you worry? 

Jennifer Taylor (2): No, and I, you know, it's on me.. I could have said something, but I kept thinking, I don't know what's gonna come out and I know that we need to finish this podcast, and what if it scares the crap out of everybody?

And like, maybe we shouldn't say this on air. And then there was no time to that. I was like, we'll just focus on like calming things, you know, just trying to, I, I was really working the rest of the podcast to just be like, all right, let's just talk about it in energetic terms and meanwhile thinking, okay, so, um, we're gonna need to get like LifeStraws so that we can, you know, filter water.

And 

Tava Baird: he as an angel of death and he tends to deliver things with that sort of finality a lot. I think so. Um, yeah, I think we should definitely roll this out and ask him to elaborate a little more [00:11:00] on his, something is coming. It sounds like a movie trailer, doesn't it? Like 2026? Yeah. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Oh yeah. Something 

Tava Baird: is coming.

And 

Jennifer Taylor (2): I've read and reread what he said over and over , and I'm like, okay. So overall it's OK , but there are a few key things that seem like he's hinting at something a lot bigger. and I've had some conversations with Michael that were really, helpful and good, but I thought, you know, if I took it that way, I, I can't imagine that I'm the only person that took it that way and heard it that way.

So it's like, before we go any further, I wanna make sure nobody else is, is feeling this way or that we all have , a good sense of understanding of what he meant. So, 

Tava Baird: yeah, if he doesn't mean to deliver doom, and maybe I'm wrong, maybe he does. Um, but I, I don't think so. He, he generally takes the long view of things, so, but it, a lot of times things look [00:12:00] very different from his perspective than from ours.

Like we're talking about the fact that I constantly have to remind him that I need things like sleep because he doesn't have a body. So I mean, he knows it, he doesn't experience a lack of sleep or needing to have a sandwich in the same way, which can, sometimes it can cause I wouldn't say conflict confusion in that, you know, he suddenly decides he wants to talk during a rainstorm at three in the morning and then he is slightly taken aback when I am less than receptive.

So, um, will you sing for us and then we'll see if he has anything to say during that. Um, 'cause he's very well aware now that, uh, he may have been a little heavy handed. We'll see what comes through. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah. And again, he may not have been, it may have just been, you and I [00:13:00] each, heard it through our individual context of Yeah.

The things we've been reading, the things we've been thinking, the conversations we've been having. And so based on our individual context, I realized yesterday when we were talking, it sounds completely different, you know, based on the context of the conversations you've been having with them versus not having had that context of this is like another comment in a long line of conversations.

Tava Baird: Right. You know, 

Jennifer Taylor (2): then it, it sounds differently. So, and I imagine everybody will have heard it, based on their own context and the other things that they've been hearing and stuff. So, I don't wanna put it all on Samael as though, he's done anything. It's more just me kind of trying to read between the lines and going, okay, I feel like solid in the energetic preparation stuff, but is there, is there physical preparation that is needed as well?

Tava Baird: Yes, it needs to be done. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Okay, so I will, [00:14:00] sing and have Michael set the tone for us today to help to bring through, um, just the right energetic container for our conversation today. 

Sounds good.

Tava Baird: [00:15:00] [00:16:00] [00:17:00] Oh.

Oh, that was gorgeous. First of all. 

Thank you. Thank 

you. That was really lovely. There's something about this sound you make [00:18:00] where you do like a, the noise that's just, there's like a, like a little hiss noise that you do that. Uh, whenever it shows up, I'm just like, chills. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Somehow the sound that you made got cut out, so I'm not sure. Sound you mean? Oh, 

Tava Baird: I, it's like a, you do like a ta. That's really, yes. I really love that. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah. Interestingly, that is, and I, I recognize it when it comes through. I, I never, I mean, I'm not really usually intentionally kind of making it, but it's, I mean, it's channeled so it just comes through, but I recognize it afterwards.

one of the, my mentors in Reiki, uses this, and I think it may even come from Jonathan. That is a way of clearing and dispelling and releasing energies. Like when they notice that there's like a really kind of unhealthy energy in the field of someone. They make this [00:19:00] sa sa sound and a lot of times with their hands do this kind of motion of like, dispelling and clearing it out.

And it helps to keep them from taking on that energy. So as they're working to clear it out, it helps to not only clear it out, but to make sure that they are not, taking it on or picking it up. 

Tava Baird: I love that. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): So it's really interesting that you had pointed out that sound. 'cause I had forgotten even about, you know, making that sound in it.

But I was like, oh, interesting. So something must be clearing, getting cleared away too. 

Tava Baird: Well, every time you do that song, whenever it comes up in a song, I love it. And it's, I didn't know that that's particularly what it was, but now that I do, um, you know, I I'm getting called in on more and more.

There is something in my house, consultations and I'm so adding that to the repertoire of, you think there's an energy moving through your space and you don't want to take it [00:20:00] on, add this sound to it. I think that would be phenomenal. Can you make the sound one more time? And is, it's almost like SAA, a or is there an H in there?

It, it's like, 

Jennifer Taylor (2): there's a t it's, it's almost like a, so like there's this tiny little bit of a t at the beginning. It's like TSAAAAAHH, TSAAAAAAHH 

Tava Baird: ta. Okay. Yeah. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): It's, it's like TS and lots of "A" TSAAAAAHHH, TSAAAAHHH. 

Tava Baird: and guys you can't see it. But when Jen does that, she's moving her hand away from her and kind of like extending the fingers, like knocking something back almost.

Yeah. With the gesture. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): It's almost like in, yeah. And it's, it's funny 'cause I always do it with my right hand, I realize and I don't think I can make that sound without my hand doing that. 

my hand starts out closed. Imagine like if you were throwing a handful of glitter or something it's in your hand and then you throw it up and diagonally to the right and so your hand opens as though you're trying to throw it away from you as far as [00:21:00] you can.

Like this saw saw. 

Tava Baird: Isn't it? Isn't it interesting because when you talk about when you've done songs where both Michael and Samael's Energy came in, Michael is always up and to the right, isn't he? Yes. So it's almost like you're like, Michael catch. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah, it totally is. I mean, it, it's, yeah, when I release it, my palm is out facing exactly where Michael is in my energy field.

Yeah, it's really like here, like this extra boost of like, alright, yeah, go on. Yeah. Catch, take, take this, you know? There you go. Take this, take this. Hey, deal with this. 

Tava Baird: That's, I love that. I love that. So that song brought through something really interesting, which is topical to what we're talking about, but I hope his presentation.

It doesn't make things worse. Um, the first thing that I wanna talk about is a lot, guys, you can't see it, but a lot of times when Jen is singing, [00:22:00] um, and I get ready to write, I have, I always have a notebook in front of me on the podcast. So when Samael all talks, I can do the automatic writing and just get his words right down.

And normally when she starts to sing and I kind of sit back and open myself up, over the last several months, I've gotten in a habit of starting to draw a spiral from the interior going clockwise around and around and around and around. And sometimes they're really little before he starts to speak, and sometimes they get to be rather large and they're taking up a whole page.

Um, and it's interesting because Samael talks to me all the time, but when we're on the podcast and he knows I'm calling him because there are messages or questions, he's a lot of times a little more formal. And this, this spiraling with my hand sort of, [00:23:00] and almost like it's shifting, how shall I say this?

It's like, um, imagine that you are really good friends with a college professor. You can see one side of the college professor when you're sitting around. Uh, eating popcorn and watching, uh, a rom-com together, you see a different side of the college professor when you're in their class and they're standing there lecturing to the group.

Right. It's, the circumstance is different and you formality or your relationship adjusts a little bit. I, by no means mean to suggest that Samael and I watch rom-coms together. I don't know that he would be interested. He's generally not super interested in television. Um, but when he's around in my daily life, there is a less formal structure to the things that he says.

It's still, I mean, [00:24:00] he's still kind of a formal buttoned up kind of guy, but there's much more of a conversational flow when we are on the podcast or when there's a group of people listening, it's a lot more like you're sitting in the college lecture. And so this spiraling sort of helps to bring him into focus in that mode.

For me, 

so what's interesting today is I sat down to draw my spiral as Jen started to sing and the spiral didn't wanna come. And instead I found myself just drawing an oval, like a big zero, and then these little wavy lines coming out in the north, south, east and west.

And I'm like, oh, this different. Are we hitting a different mode? Is this a different type of instruction [00:25:00] or teaching? What am I drawing? And then this is what he had to say, buckle in kids. Oh boy. First sentence is gonna make you go. Uh, but. Then he talks and it makes more sense. And he said something in there that I actually had to look up.

Um, and I, I did look it up and I'll share that with you too. He says, "the year ahead is a black mirror" right there. That doesn't sound good, does it? Um, 

"The year ahead is a black mirror. Mirrors are gates look into one for too long and the brain begins to fatigue. The familiar becomes unfamiliar. There is a feeling of loss over these last years.

The embodied of your realm have made a choice [00:26:00] to not look at themselves at all or to look too long in hopes of finding the path that they seek.They stare at their daily life, but nothing appears. an energetic shift has arisen and the mirror's light source is shifting. And now as the world around you grows dark, the reflection holds new opportunities, a gate, a world on the other side.

Do you step through the looking glass or do you fear? Are you ready to walk in a new realm?" Now, I had heard this rumor, but I didn't know if it was true or not. I had heard that if you sit and stare at a regular mirror long enough that like things will start to [00:27:00] go bonkers in your brain. But I didn't know if that was a myth or not.

So I looked it up. All right, here we go.

and there's a whole bunch of things out there on this, but this was just sort of the first one that looked somewhat credible that I picked up. It's from brain health university.com, which is still a.com. But, um, it says "you look at a word over and over banana say, and suddenly it loses its meaning.

The letters seem alien on the page as though you're decoding a secret code. Or maybe you stare at your own face in the mirror and it slowly warps into something uncanny. This curious shifted perception called perceptual drift reveals something surprising about how flexible our brains truly are.

Perceptual drift is not hallucination or [00:28:00] fatigue. It's a scientifically cataloged effect where familiarity gives way to strangeness through neural adaptation. When you're engrossed in repetition, whether scanning text, examining faces, or listening to a tone structures in your brain begin to adapt.

Connections used to reinforce recognition begin to fatigue, repeating circuits rise to become more active, and suddenly that which once seems normal, feels off kilter. At the root of this effect is a neural adaptation. Neurons responding to repeated input begin firing less vigorously over time. Meanwhile, lesser use neurons start influencing perception.

This rebalancing alters the signal your brain receives. In studies, prolonged exposure to a particular stimulus, like a face or a rotational direction leads to a temporary shift in how [00:29:00] future inputs are perceived. This is why after staring at a fixed spiral, a static image may seem to bulge or war your brain's baseline has quietly shifted."

And then they go into neuroscience and focus and everyday examples of drift. "Perceptual drift is not rare. You've experienced it in unexpected moments. Word weirding, repeating a word aloud, and it's meaning unravels. It's a surprisingly common and shareable experience." So like we could go pancake, pancake, pancake, and if we keep going, eventually our brain will start to lose the concept of what pancake is. I imagine "mirror illusion dare closely at your face in a mirror, and subtle changes will seem to ripple across it.

Sound loops. A short phrase played repeatedly begins sounding mechanical or nonsensical. Visual [00:30:00] illusion. Fixation on an image can cause after effects, where your gaze shifts everywhere, drifting shapes, colors, or motion. These effects aren't bugs, they're features, they show how the brain economizes energy and adjusts to changing demands."

So perceptual drift is a scientific thing. and so he's talking about something that's an actual scientific phenomenon, and I thought it was a rumor, but, um, this is really interesting. So he's saying that in the past couple of years, a lot of us have this feeling that darkness is moving in.

There are, there seems to be a bigger and the widening gap between the haves and the have nots. There seems to be a widening, there is a widening gap in people's perception [00:31:00] of things like truth and empathy. there's almost like a stretching that's happening. And as this continues, he says, some people are choosing to just try not to look and not to look at themselves in relation to this world.

And we saw a lot of this after COVID, right where it became, it got to a point where you could go back out in public. But we were living in such a state of fear that a lot of people, we just stayed in our houses. We, we stopped doing social things. What, as a teacher, I can tell you we absolutely saw the effect and are still seeing the effects on children's development because they weren't able to socialize.

And humans are designed to be social. So when you pull that out of their development [00:32:00] and there's this feeling of isolation, this feeling of fear that sets in and people's coping mechanisms are not what they should be. Right? And it's like we, we have, that all happened to us. We all went through this trauma together and it widened, I think it continued to widen whatever rift is there where we're more likely to become paranoid, we're more likely to become isolated, we're less likely to touch.

and it's just one of the reasons for that. So now we find ourselves not functioning the way that we used to. Right? Um, I, you have a lot of people who get really into nostalgia. You know, they wanna create this cozy environment that they perceived the world was as a child. Um, here's the thing.

if you look at things historically, the, it always feels like the world is getting worse. [00:33:00] But if you actually look at the data. Over time, we are on an upswing. We really are. But that's not our perception, right? So you have some people who feel this isolation, this paranoia, and they shut down and they, they don't look at themselves and say, what is my part in this?

What can I do to change this? Or they're unable to, right? Instead, what becomes comfortable for them is a chat room that they never leave where it's an echo chamber reinforcing their own beliefs. And then you have the other thing that may happen where people who have gone through this experience, we are looking so hard for a way to connect that we are staring into a mirror for too long, crying the same things over and over again, saying, what is my path forward?

How I feel? I don't feel like myself. We've stared so long at [00:34:00] ourselves and the problems and we're trying to find creative ways around it without coming up with a lot of new ideas that we also have our own fears. we're not necessarily paranoid about others so much as we might feel a loss of power and paranoia about ourselves.

Right? I am running into this all the time right now. I get a lot of calls from people who have heard that I teach classes or that I work with the disembodied. Um, and a lot of times, yeah, there's something in their house, but a lot of times it's that they need to leave their house.

They've been in their house since COVID, they haven't been interacting with other people. They don't have a social support structure at all. a lot of people, you know, moved and they never developed friendships or routines [00:35:00]outside of this. And so, and, and they're going, something's wrong with me.

Something's wrong with me. But they can't figure out a way. So now they're in the house with their own energy. The thing that's haunting them is themselves, right? Where, sometimes I sit down and go, oh yeah, it sounds like you legit have a dead person walking around your house, slamming things.

But there are other people where I go, honey, you need to go to something that has other people at it. That's your own energy just bouncing off the walls at this point. You need, we're designed to seek out divine pattern and there's nothing. Divine patterning happening in your house that you haven't already seen.

It's time to go out into the world and find your relation to it. So we have sort of these two different ways that a lot of people can go. Everything is wrong with the [00:36:00] world and everything might be wrong with me, right? But what Samael is saying energetically is that there's a third here, there's a shift coming, right?

Black mirror, and I think I've talked about black mirrors before on the podcast. If you've ever looked at a, uh, when you're inside a lit room and you look at like a sliding glass door or a large pane of glass where it's dark outside and light inside, you see a reflection of the room that you're in. The same thing happens if you look at a TV set where the, the TV is turned off.

Um, this gives you a similar effect to looking into a black mirror. And, um, you know, black mirrors were used by the Aztecs for divination. Uh, very famous one in the British Museum was owned by John d and it was used to communicate with [00:37:00] angels. A black mirror essentially is a reflective surface that is painted black and.

It energetically is a doorway or a gateway to another realm. It is basically like going, here's the back door to liminal space, and it's caused by the fact that your light is coming from a different source. So what Samael is saying here is that we have an opportunity in the year ahead. We have an opportunity instead of not looking at ourselves or staring at our own reflection and not getting anywhere, to instead shift the source of the light to look into what is essentially a gateway to another place.

Now, black mirrors scare the flipping heck out of a lot of other people. If a, if a portal or a [00:38:00] realm door opened next to you right now, you'd go, oh, maybe not so much. Right? But what he's saying energetically is if you can explore the sacred dark of yourself and a different reflection or viewpoint of the world around you, if you can change the light source and look at things from a different perspective, you are going to see things you did not notice before.

And when you see those things. They might be very comforting to you and now you have resources you didn't have, or they might be strange and disturbing. Just because something is strange doesn't mean that it isn't an opportunity for something. Wonderful. Case in 0.2 years ago, I woke up to find an angel sitting at the foot of my [00:39:00] bed talking about the Garden of Eden, and I nearly peed myself.

Okay? Terrifying. Suddenly I'm aware that angels are a thing, okay. You know, and not just something you put on top of a Christmas tree. Um, you know, it very, very made me think I was losing my mind. My entire life has changed for the better because I saw the gate and chose to follow. I chose to step through with your encouragement, Jen.

So you're the one who said, well, maybe there's some things you need to look at. And I was like, I really wish you'd just told me to go to the hospital. Or they would give me a pill that would make the make the pretty angel go away. Um, He just said, he just said "you do not really wish me gone. Umshallah," no I didn't.

But you were scary. Um, sometimes you're still scary as we can see. So I find this [00:40:00] really interesting that he's saying this energetic shift is coming. And we've all been standing in the dark for a while looking out through the window at a light world. Now he's saying, what happens if we turn off the lights out there and turn them on and hear what will we see?

So this to me, really seems to be a call to turn on the light inside your own heart, inside your own space, to take time to look at the reflections and perceptions that you have from the opposite direction and examine them. It doesn't mean you have to change your entire philosophy or your ethics. Just look at them and say, because there are things that I have lived in fear from [00:41:00] for so long because there are frustrations that I have faced because I may be more isolated than I realize in some ways because I may have chosen to put myself in echo chambers.

What are the things that I'm missing could actually prove transformative in this year?

Jennifer Taylor (2): so. That's a lot. Sorry. Yeah. No, that had nothing to apologize for. We asked for it.

All right. 

Tava Baird: You know, it's funny, but there's something that you went through, I guess it was about a year ago, you and Keith and I were discussing it. that reminds me of this fifth. Very much. We in our Marcos at one point started [00:42:00]talking about the fact that we needed different words for darkness.

And I think we've, we even discussed this on the podcast at the time that we were talking about being called in a direction where we use the term light to mean good and dark to mean bad. And I remember you saying something along the lines on the Marco of. I'm gonna change the way that I say these things.

We need more vocabulary for some of these energies. And I remember you and he and I struggling with trying to come up with different ways to phrase things so that we weren't doing one thing to the exclusion of the other. And our aim was for balance. And I remember being so incredibly impressed [00:43:00] by you in those conversations because

there was a way that you were using the word and a viewpoint that you had used for many years and that you had been taught. And when most people encounter an idea that's different than what they've been taught, they tend to go, Nope, nope, nope. This is the way I do it. No, no, no, no. And they get very defensive.

And I realized in those conversations the depth of your power as a healer, because you took the information in in such a way that. There weren't barriers and roadblocks that I know I put up, you know, if I do things a certain way and then somebody goes, uh, no, you really shouldn't do that because of blah, blah, blah.

And they've actually got a really good purpose and explanation for it that [00:44:00] I'd never thought of before. My first reaction is defense, right? Oh, but I've always done it this way. Oh, this is the way my teachers taught me, and I'm, that's very sacred to me. Oh, well, you know, maybe, and it rolls around in my head for a while until I realize, no, they're absolutely right.

I'm just defensive. You did not have those defenses up. You went,

we need different words, and then your entire speech in the way, and you still do it. I'll see you. Sometimes you'll leave a Marco and you'll go, Nope, actually that's not the best word, choice for that, and you will change it to something else and then move forward. But I was so blown away by the openness of your heart in taking in whatever was coming, and in that moment, skipping any [00:45:00] defensiveness that just about anybody else would have in the interest of really contemplating what the best path forward was based on the information you had.

And then just saying, I'm, I'm going to do it this way now and moving forward without all of the ego that I know, I carry around. And I learned so much from watching you make that transition. And now when people present me information I didn't know, and I feel my spine straighten and my heart heighten because it's my first instinct to be defensive.

I try to remember how much grace you always show a new idea coming in and how you sit with it. And I've just always been impressed with you that way. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Wow. Thank you. I've never heard that before. Thank you so much. 

Tava Baird: [00:46:00] Absolutely. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): That's definitely my, my goal, I think, and I'm sure I have plenty of areas in ways in which I'd do all the natural things that we do when, confronted with something new.

But yeah, I think I've, I, I actually get excited about these things while it's, it's hard when all of a sudden you're like, whoa, this is outside of what I'm comfortable with. This is outside of the way I look at everything. This is beyond and contrary to the things that I believed and how I thought it was.

I, I get excited in those things because I've now had so many times of going, okay, this is where the line of what I'm comfortable is. This is real. This isn't, this is right, this isn't that kind of thing. And then expanded and, and had some kind of experience and gone, oh my gosh, it's not, and then incorporated it [00:47:00] and shifted things and everything.

The world got bigger and more magical and more amazing, and my understanding expanded. And so I love those moments when there's that, oh, I found an edge. You know, I've found my boundary, the edge of where I'm comfortable and now, yeah, which is totally an edge thing. It is totally a Sam will it thing. It's like I find those places where I go, okay, this is where I'm like, Nope, I can't go any further.

And then I look back and I go, yeah, but that's what you said about all of the amazing things that are incorporated into your life and your worldview now. And if you stop there, you know what would've happened. And so I'm like, all right, let's, let's bring in more, let's see how we need to, to shift and shape it.

Tava Baird: This is, he says "this, this is the model bearish the [00:48:00] excitement as the singer does." But it's so interesting to me that you brought up that edge, right? Because, um, for those of you who have not taken a Li Lithian magic class, all of the introductory philosophy classes on the magic that Samael and Lilith do are about edge states.

They're about walking that edge and not being afraid of it, learning to walk it and contemplate it, where two different states meet, right? Um, and there's a whole class I do on this called the Holy Roots that talks about the edge between will and logic, knowledge and innocence, balance and change creation and reception and messages and silence, right?

All of these are edge. There's edges between each of those pairings where it can be [00:49:00] uncomfortable to walk. But if you reside there for a little bit longer, there's a tremendous power that comes with it. What Jen just described is exactly Lilithian magic. She is, could be an incredible practitioner of this was as opposed to a lot of us where we get up to the edge of what is comfortable for us and then we go, no, no, no, no, no.

And we back off. She instead says, I'm so excited to be walking this edge. What might I learn here? What vantage point might I have that I didn't have before? What can I dwell in this edge state a little bit longer? What beauty might be here that I couldn't see before because of my fear? You know? And like she just talked about, everything that has expanded my world came because I walked up to the edge and then I said, no, no, you [00:50:00] know, let me look, let me spend more time here.

So I think what he's saying is we, over the last 10 years, basically with COVID, with all sorts of things that are going on in our world, we, we often feel that we're getting pushed closer and closer to an edge. I feel like I'm, you know, hanging on by my fingernails. I, I, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah. I'm on the edge. People say like, I'm on edge. I'm the edge. 

Tava Baird: On the edge. But it's always said with distress, right? I can't, hold on. And this Samael talks about the concept of falling, right? We talked about fallen angels before, and he says, but what if you just. And now I'm not talking about, I'm walking the edge between life and death and I'm going to let go.

No, no, no. We want you embodied here. You're embodied for a reason. Please do not let go of that. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah. [00:51:00] Or standing on actual cliff edges or things or standing on actual cliff edges. This an energetic or it's an e energetic thing. 

Tava Baird: Yes. We want your body whole and well, people not plummeting through space and not crushed on the ground after you plummet through space.

Okay. You chose to become incarnated for a reason. We're talking, as Jen said, about energetic. Right. So, but we feel like we've been push, push, push, push to this edge. We feel like we're juggling and we've been dropping balls for a long time. Right. And what Sam Iel says is, instead of not wanting to look and scratching flip, hold on.

As we move towards that edge, what we need to do instead is sort of going around and lie on the edge and look at where we came from and look at what would happen if we let go and say what would it look like from down there? What would release [00:52:00] of all these things that I carry that don't serve me look like what, power could be drawn from finding something to anticipate again.

and looking at that, that mirror world where instead of standing in the dark, looking out at the light, you shut off the light outside and now you are standing in it and you are seeing the reflection of all of the things that you're afraid to let go of. Right. What would it be like to energetically let yourself fall to say, you know what?

I am imperfect. You know what? I can't balance all of these things. You know what? I, uh, I am messy. I am late. I am going through a difficult time. I am lonely. I am brokenhearted. And to acknowledge these things in ourselves and then start to build a plan to reach out to others [00:53:00] and say, help me get myself out of this.

Um, and to cherish the excitement of walking an energetic line. So I think when he's saying, let's go ahead and go, you know, you're going, I don't wanna, don't wanna shut this door. There's always that, you know, you shut a door, you open a window. This is a time of great energetic shift, and that naturally causes defensiveness and fear in us.

But he's telling us it doesn't have to, we can relish the edge. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): Yeah. And I think. You know, when I, speak about, how I, I get excited about that really kind of having my, edges pushed on where the limits are of certain beliefs and, experiences and what's true and what's not, and what's possible and what's not, and all those kinds of things.

As a part of that, there's an excitement and [00:54:00] there's pretty much an equal and opposite reaction as well, where there is a fear that comes up. There is a panic of, wait a minute, what if all the things that I've been standing on, all the things that I've built my life on are about to be proved untrue or wrong 

And there, there's that thought of, well, if I expand beyond this, will all of that crack come crashing down? Will everything fall apart? Will I not be able to be the same person? You know, there's, there is, I, I and I, and I'll vacillate between this intense excitement and the, like, this equal and opposite amount of like fear and terror.

But I think allowing myself to, to, to have both to experience one, let myself experience the fear and the doubt or worry. , and then let myself cycle back to the [00:55:00] excitement and not feel like I need to act. Or speak on any of it immediately, you know, let that back and forth. That balance, let that happen and then see where it, it levels out.

Because inevitably there is, there's, I, I feel like there's always kind of built into us, and I know we've talked about that a lot. Like there's a survival thing in keeping things the same, but if we keep looking at it, it'll start to dissipate. There's actually some kind of psychological phenomenon that they use sometimes in, even in like OCD in 

I know various, like energetic and psychological techniques where there's something about if you hold a thought, like let's say I'm feeling fearful and I really just sit and let myself feel that and focus on that fear for, it's something like 17 or 19 seconds, it naturally starts to dissipate.

It's like just, just the [00:56:00] actual focusing on it and letting it be and giving it your focus. You think if I focus on this, if I let this be, it's gonna just get worse and it build and it actually starts to dissipate really quickly. it's when we feel it there and we keep avoiding it and we keep trying not to look at it, that it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

But if we really turn and look at the thing. That is causing us the most fear, and we just sit with it and breathe. I think I real, I think it's 17 or 19 seconds worth of that starts, to dissipate. And so just letting ourselves go, okay, I'm just gonna have this reaction. But not staying, you know, not staying there.

Just looking at it, going, okay, there's a fear here, but it doesn't mean that, it doesn't mean that I shouldn't pursue it. It doesn't mean I shouldn't be open to this. And the more you do it, the more you can look back at your previous experiences and go, oh my gosh, if I had stopped when I heard about that, look [00:57:00] what I would've missed out if I had stopped.

When I learned about that, look what I would've missed out. And I now look back and there's just a million different lines drawn in the sand that I was like, eh, let's I think, no, let, let's go ahead and make a little space, experience it and move forward. And I actually, this past year, I've gotten the joy of having, um, a new reiki student who came from a very, very, very conservative, very, um, black and white kind of religious background that, you know, it was very clear where the lines are and everything outside of those lines were wrong and bad and evil and, you know, and a path to destruction and all sorts of things.

But he started having experiences and having these inner callings that were like. and then feeling the things and experiencing and going, yeah, but this feels right and good, but how can that be? Because [00:58:00] everything in my life, all of the things around are built on these other conflicting beliefs and religious rules. and say this is bad.

And say this is evil. And it has been an absolute just joy to get to watch him go up to those lines and go, alright, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be here and have that, you know, the fear responses. and in some of those times he would reach out and be like, okay, I'm starting to freak out that like maybe I'm off track 

but would always, cycle back to, but there's a knowing inside me that's different than the fear, and all the things that are coming from OUTSIDE of me. . And I think that's one of the things that Michael actually was talking to me about in the last week is the, that internal, sense of, I, I really feel like there's a truth here.

and when I sit with that, things fall [00:59:00] away. And I think you were just talking about that. Like what would it feel like if I were to let go of the fears and the things, what might fall away and would there actually be a peace there? Um. And so actually I think, uh, um, if you don't mind, I think I will share something.

The first sort of response that Michael had given to me when I was thinking, okay, wait a minute, you know, do we need to start going into prepping mode, Because I think it really meld well, like it mixes well with the things that Sam Mile was saying and where we were going here with that, becoming comfortable with the discomfort and looking beneath it and expanding.

Let's see. So, you know, I was in that place at one point and I was thinking, okay, oh my gosh, what do we need to do? And I was like, I need to just ask Michael, like, why am I not asking Michael? Which is kind of silly, you know, it's like, I'll [01:00:00] go through and I'm like, I'll spend a week and then go, wait a minute.

I could ask Michael about it. Like, I hear him constantly in my ear, like, why am I not just sitting and taking the time to ask? Right. 

Tava Baird: I totally hear you on that. I get people all the time who go, why don't you just ask Samael L? And I'm like, oh yeah, dur. 

Jennifer Taylor (2): It's like, oh yeah, I guess I could do that. Um, so I, it was sort of in the wake of feeling all these fears and then just being like, okay, just help me.

What do you have to say about this?

So I hate to leave you on a cliff hangar waiting to hear what Michael has to say, but. This went on for about another hour and a half, and so we are going to save this for next week, but we are really grateful that you shared your time and this space with us this week, and we really look forward to continuing our conversation with you next week.

So we want to send you off with many, [01:01:00] many blessings and, as a way of just shifting the energy and taking you. Really beautifully into the rest of your day. Um, I'm including a song called Sacred Waters Singing Stones that you can actually find for sale on my Amnivara Bandcamp, and the link will be in the show notes.

if you would like to be able to experience this again and have it as a part of your toolkit, um, but it's really special to me. It includes the recordings of the Sacred River that I know I've referred to a lot in Vermont. Um, so it has the energies of that which are incredibly cleansing and clearing, and then multi-layered vocals and.

The stones also that I brought back from Vermont, sing through me in this as well. So it really has such a wonderful energy that I wanted to [01:02:00] share with you today. 

And I do have to add that it is really more of a 10 minute energy healing session than it is a song. So if you're driving, it would not be probably safe for you to be listening to this while you're driving. So I recommend waiting until you can stop or be safely, able to focus inward because it does go pretty deep pretty quickly.

have a wonderful rest of your week and enjoy sacred waters, singing stones.

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