I have fondly remembered that Practical Magic date for many years, count that movie as one of my favorites and when faced with the opportunity to see the sequel I got in my head about "making it special."
Over my four decades on the planet I have noticed that every time I have been presented with a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or have talked to friends who have signed NDAs, the resulting experience involved emotional or mental abuse. Occasional false imprisonment!
I may look like a Non Stop Baddie, but I get hella nervous especially right before I do something I have never done before. I have probably done over a hundred psychic readings since I started offering psychic medium readings almost a year ago. But I hadn't done a series of short readings in a condensed period like a fair booth.
Almost everyone who knew me as a child has passed to the other side and since I experienced caregiver abuse it does make sense that I would potentially hear from abusers.
My scarcity mindset tries to kick up in times like this when I'm torn between Going and Doing vs Sitting and Being. The FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) monster thinks there's some magic happening I can't be part of. Instead of focusing on where I'm at and creating JOWID (Joy Of Whatever I'm Doing). The magic was right where I was at! My basic pep talk for when my brain wants to do what my body is not available for is "What is for me will not pass me by."
I have been to Atlanta Pride at least three times. The first one I remember mostly a Femme Mafia party in Rachael’s …
Owned by Canadian Queer Women and ethically made with incredible artwork and quality--I’m all in. Size inclusive from 2XS to 6X!!
I’m fond of saying that my spiritual practice is “free game from the universe.”
We are in a continually unprecedented time and facing uncertainty and instability. We have ancestors who have incarnated during other times in herstory that were unstable and difficult who have wisdom to share with us.
Since we have free will choice, we have to ask to be guided.
Five and a half years is a lifetime
One of the wildest parts of being in my forties is my massive memory bank. Everyone is different, of course, but I am struck by what ends up being a core memory that I don’t lose to time and the distractions of current life challenges.
I waited what seemed like forever to start dating (a post on being a “late bloomer” to come). I was a Junior in college and 19 years young when I fell for a smart, hilarious, deep Scorpio skateboarder. We were already in love and dating but hadn’t had a “date” yet and went to see the 1998 hit Practical Magic.
I am a Scorpio Moon and Venus and if you don’t know astrology that means I am deeply romantic and the loudest way I love is to pay attention and really seek to know someone. That relationship was only four months and the heartbreak over it took at least double or triple the time to release. (“Did they break your heart or break your expectations?” I would learn to ask myself later.)
I have fondly remembered that Practical Magic date for many years, count that movie as one of my favorites and when faced with the opportunity to see the sequel I got in my head about “making it special.”
I am definitely the kind of person who will see a movie in the theaters alone. But this felt like it was going to be noteworthy. Like how did I spend my one wild and precious first time seeing Practical Magic 2 the 28 years later sequel!
I started to spiral about it.
I long to be the kind of person who can tell myself “It’s not that deep” but I am incredibly sentimental and it is that deep, to me.
I haven’t been on a proper romantic date in nearly a decade and it still baffles me that in all my nearly seven years in the Pacific Northwest I haven’t even found a lesbian tech divorcee to hook up with! (Dating is hard in any time of life but I think this middle part is especially rough, only magnified by *sweeping arm gesture* facts and circumstances of the 2020s. I am not alone!)
While I know my worthiness has nothing to do with whether I ever date again, it feels tender!
In addition to that, nothing seems to be flourishing the way I had hoped career wise and that is tender to me, too! My therapist would ask me to ask myself “is this true? What are the facts?”
My mental and physical health are both excellent and that has been the primary focus in these last few years. I tried “success” in ways that didn’t support my health and wellness and I had to redefine success. The emotional work to redefine success is a slower process than the intellectual work!
If I have learned anything from slowing down mental health affecting spirals it is to focus on what is working and be gentle with what is not working.
So even though I spiraled, I called a support person, talked it out and most importantly, cried it out! I had a tantrum, called her, cried a bunch and actually felt way better the next day. About everything.
Sometimes there isn’t a solution that comes we just need to release the Feels and then keep going. Radical acceptance and plausibility defiant optimism are my aspirational attitudes. A solutions mindset is somewhere in that venn diagram.
Post-cathartic meltdown AND a good night’s sleep, I looked up our local drive-in (it is FORESTED and VINTAGE and TEN BUCKS) and Practical Magic was playing there Sunday on opening weekend. I texted all the witches I know locally and one of my friends came! She brought devils club and chaga chai tea in a thermos! She brought snacks, her hubby and dog in their van. We sat on an inflatable couch with a portable radio to hear the movie. It was the perfect temperature outside to wear a blanket hoodie and use one of my friend’s blankets on my knees.
The drive-in had CROWS that were hollering as I drove in and got settled. Because we were outside of the car on the inflatable bench my friend thought ahead to blow up and put in back of the van I got to watch the sky and the clouds broke to reveal stars before the end of the movie. (I loved the movie and it does have a slow series of scenes a couple times towards the middle end. That was a fun time to gaze up and watch the Goddess do her thing in the sky.)
I have a cute pic with my friend from that night. It is a forever memory. The movie is about sisterhood and choosing our sisters and I loved that I saw it with a friend on a sweet date and we even wore witch hats! And drank literal medicine from the same forest we were watching the movie in!
I can’t wait to see this movie again and watch it every year like I do Practical Magic!
Also have you seen Rachael’s new house?
If you want to hear about my first love story, I spilled my guts about it on a private podcast for my Patreon members!
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This blog post is entirely my opinion and is in no way legal advice or information. Hire an attorney that 1. you trust (take a pause and listen to your gut) and 2. has expertise / experience in the field (represented at least ten paid clients on the same type of issue you are seeking counsel about) to help you determine your particular course of action when presented with an NDA.
Over my four decades on the planet I have noticed that every time I have been presented with a Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) or have talked to friends who have signed NDAs, the resulting experience involved emotional or mental abuse. Occasional false imprisonment!
Wild to say that but the pattern seems clear to me.
Multiple times I have spent four figures on business or media coaching programs. Typically a couple of people in my program had received big settlements for situations I didn’t get to hear about but that clearly were causing them anguish that was only amplified by the communication stifled by the NDAs attached to the settlement.
When you’re in a situation where damages have happened and you just want it to be over with, often you don’t think through the consequences of signing away your right to own your story.
As a Reiki Master, one of the first things I do in treatment for a client is to clear their chakras. It is pretty typical for me to find the throat chakra blocked. While simple for me to clear, the physical and emotional symptoms of a blocked throat chakra can be really difficult. When the root cause of the throat chakra blockage isn’t resolved it will just continue to come back!
So much of trauma healing involves owning your story and writing it out, telling it to a stone and releasing it to a moving body of water (that one works well), talking to someone, etc…
I cannot reduce trauma healing to a paragraph but for the sake of this article let us agree that stifling your ability to self express manifests in the mind, spirit or body who will always keep the score. The potential suffering you are agreeing to is not laid out in an NDA.
I love to ask folks in my aerobics class when we are doing a chakra based visioning of a dream life when we get to the throat chakra “What would it feel like to feel fully self expressed?” because it is such a pivotal part of being a human on the planet. Certain things can only be expressed through you individually and if you have something you cannot talk about it can eat you alive.
I was tricked into signing an NDA by another attorney when I was in practice because I was anxious to begin a job. When I am anxious, my nervous system isn’t allowing me access to my full intuition. It was a mistake. I am glad that the experience didn’t last very long but the toll on my mental health in that work environment was really intense. That attorney has and continues to reap what they sowed (both of them, the attorney who tricked me and the attorney the NDA protected) and I wish them the life they deserve.
I came across a copy of it later after I had been fired / quit and realized what I had signed and remembered what I was told it was when I signed it. Anyway, fool me once… it will spark in me an ongoing distrust of the NDA as a tool that only supports folks who have abusive behavior to hide.
I used to think, okay maybe never an NDA but in the instance of working for a fantastic artist you love who is making work that needs to have an element of surprise! Maybe that is the exception.
Then I made friends with a man whose husband worked for the most famous Virgo pop star on the planet. I was surprised he wasn’t a fan of hers and it turned out that the husband’s experience working for her involved at least a bit of false imprisonment overseas, poor communication and being stuck someplace without being able to communicate with home. And not being able to talk about the experience afterwards!
I didn’t sign an NDA, I didn’t get info from someone who signed the NDA and the story is vague but I trust it. Sounds like it is probably worth really taking a long pause and meditating on whether or not it is worth it to sign an NDA even for an artist you love who is making work you long to be part of.
A friend who worked for Dolly Rebecca Parton said she referred to NDAs as “just a piece of paper” and preferred to trust out loyalty over time with behavior. (Trust what people DO not what they say they will do.) Dolly was a Capricorn sun, Virgo Moon & Rising, Mercury in Capricorn. I trust her NDA practices as a model for my own life.
Taking a pause and checking my intuition is the wisdom I apply to all aspects of my life. For my calendar it isn’t just that I have “availability.” I pass the project, event or client work through my intuition, and through how I would feel to do the thing. My peace is expensive.
If presented with a document don’t just sign it. Take a long pause (and if they won’t wait for your pause consider “Why are these people trying to rush me and what do they gain from rushing me?”) and consult your intuition. Most of intuition development is just self trust.
Let’s talk about red flags for a minute!
Red flag to me just means slow down and consider.
I came up with a rule in dating when I was just 23 years young that has served me well. Seven red flags is too many.
I don’t need to get to seven red flags to know that a situation isn’t a good one for me any longer. But I do know that I need to be consulting my intuition the whole way (and if I can’t seem to access my intuition I turn to people I trust including psychics) because my spirit team has access to way more information than I do in the conscious world.
In hindsight, over my lifetime, my intuition has a 99.9% rate of being correct. (Once they wanted me to drive in a snowstorm to an Imbolc ceremony and I just pulled off to a parking lot to meditate on making the trip and figured out a way to participate remotely instead of risking the drive.)
Of course, a lot of lessons come from needing to learn one way or another and some people only understand the language of pain. If that is you, godspeed. Sign whatever and experience the consequences.
But if you are out there considering an NDA, pray on it! I always think about how much of those settlements those women were spending on trying to feel better from the experiences they weren’t allowed to talk about.
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About a year ago my mediumship development instructor, Rev Meg, told our class that we should be practicing “fair work” at psychic fairs. I live in the boonies and finding a fair that lined up with my schedule was hard and I forgot to keep pursuing it!
The yoga studio that hosts my Fat Kid Dance Party aerobics classes in Sequim has an annual wellness fair and the owner offered me a free booth! I was brave and said yes to doing a brand new thing!
I may look like a Non Stop Baddie, but I get hella nervous especially right before I do something I have never done before. I have probably done over a hundred psychic readings since I started offering psychic medium readings almost a year ago. But I hadn’t done a series of short readings in a condensed period like a fair booth.
I honestly haven’t ever put together a booth for myself. Only staffed community booths where other folks thought about the pop-up tent and chairs and table etc… I am blessed to live in an organized neighborhood with many capable lesbians. Lesbian Amazons Carry Everything and I sensed I could crowd-source what I needed from my neighbors.
One neighborhood Facebook group post and within forty eight hours I had everything I needed. Asking for help is a sign of strength!
I did not have a budget for signage so I used my camp counselor make it work skills. I took cardboard and wrapped it with inside out wrapping paper and hand lettered my sign with Mr. Sketch markers.
I don’t have access to a printer anymore so my sign-up sheet was a clipboard with hand written time slots from 12-3pm. I offered 15 min readings at $20 a pop and scheduled 20 minute increments.
I figured that the entire booth was a success simply by me getting the practice of setting up a booth. Maybe I would get three readings and that would be so great.
I got to the fair and started setting up. We didn’t have assigned spots and I found a place tucked under a row of cherry trees I enjoy at that venue. I set up my tables and when I tried to put up the pop-up tent my friend loaned me it was more than I could figure out in my nervous space, so I gave up since the cherry trees provided plenty of shade and the bugs weren’t bugging.
The gals running the produce stand next to me at the wellness fair both signed up for my first two slots which was so kind and got me going. (They tipped me later with some peaches!!)
I ended up starting early because I forgot that the owner of the studio was planning a group photo. She came by and took a photo of me giving my first client a reading since we missed the group shot which was so sweet.
By the end of the first hour all of my slots had been claimed! I was so delighted and just in the ZONE. One reading after another.
I understood why Rev Meg wanted us to have that practice, it is a different type of reading environment than what I typically do on Zoom. I found myself pretty checked out of my body’s needs (I did not use the restroom for the whole three hours which is very unlike me). And I think three hours was a good first practice run. I love being “in development” and actively working on my craft with a teacher so I can ask questions and debrief experiences!
I loved the experience! How I structure my readings is by opening the Akashic Records through my prayer pathway, then I ask Spirit for first messages and then ask the client if they have any questions. We roll from there. Fifteen minutes goes by swiftly! The Akashic Records helps me access the soul path and lessons from all their lifetimes, the mediumship helps me access their ancestors, guides, departed loved ones and other metaphysical allies for messages of love and empowerment.
Most of my clients seemed to feel the “lightness” I notice when I do longer readings. Spirit knows what to tell me to say to reflect and release something that is weighing them down. I also liked doing a bunch of readings in a row because I could see some similarities and overlaps and as someone who desires to be a good influence on the internet, it gives me ideas for content I can create.
This experience gave me the bravery to book a trip to Camp Chesterfield, Indiana for their annual Spirit Fest weekend. I am leaping into the Big Dawgs of psychic fairs and sharing a booth with my sister Manduh. (Who introduced me to Rev Meg and whose reading told me it was time to step into mediumship development.)
I had been wanting to go out for a visit and now I get to have a helping hand to do a bigger fair! It is a “I hope this works out financially” leap of faith but as someone who has been studying mediumship from a resident Camp Chesterfield medium for awhile I have been itching to visit the grounds! And I think this is Camp Chesterfield at her most hustle bustle best and excited to get to know the land!
The experience also got me to try opening up a lil online fair doing fifteen minute readings on a Sunday afternoon. Free and paid members of my Patreon got first dibs on those readings.
My conversation with Rev Meg on my podcast is very good and talks more about what happens with mediumship development!
If you would like to book a session with me, here is the booking link!
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