Today’s guest is a comedian, paranormal investigator, podcast hostess with the mostest, and tarot reader, the fabulous Karen Rontowski. 

After being a guest on her podcast, Paranormal Karen, I asked her to do a tarot reading for me. I've never experienced one before and it was a sheer delight. I learned lots. That's when I asked her to be MY guest on Curious Cat and teach us all about tarot. From the arcana to the decks to the card layouts, my intention was to start our learning process with the fundamentals. Our conversation digressed from there in a way I hope you will enjoy.

If you're like me and can't get enough of Karen Rontowski, find her in the links below and support her (and gain access to secret content) on her Patreon!

(JH) – Welcome to Curious Cat, Karen! Did I miss anything? 

 Show Links: 

https://www.karenrontowski.com (Sign up for a tarot reading, tarot class, AND join Karen’s email list here!)

Karen Rontowski on TikTok (soooooo funny - my favorite follow on the app)

Super juicy extra content if you join her Patreon here!

Curious about Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet? Check out his legacy here!

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These are the top lessons I’ve learned in 2022.

Yeah, I know. I’m a tad early in kissing 2022 goodbye.  Thing is, I love looking back. I’m addicted to it. It’s clarifying. The waning weeks of a year are the natural time to review and assess. 

This time last year I was in a very different state of mind. It was more a sense of bitterness, like I’d somehow been betrayed by 2021. It was supposed to be better than 2020 and yet it took my father from me and left me an empty nester. I was unhealthy inside and out. No doubt about it, it’d been a year of loss and grief on all fronts. Growing pains. That’s the label I’d give 2021. 2022 was a mixed bag, personal growth was part of that mix, but there wasn’t as much pain. I’ve tried to discern why. Mostly, I have been less reactive, more proactive. I’ve learned to stay centered. Ditching news really helped me have early success. Then meditation. Then morning minutes. Those have kept me connected to the glory of the collective. I’m like that thick-trunked oak, whose roots spread out below the dirt as far and wide as the branches across the sky. On occasion I’ll get sucked into a current events drama, find my hands balled into fists and my cheeks blazing with red ire. Thing is, I catch myself faster now. I cool off and reconnect with the energy of the collective and soon fill with love.

This podcast, has given me a reason to dive head first into expanding my knowledge, stretching the bounds of what I believe. I hope it’s helped you look at life, the world, other people, spirituality, nature, magic, in a different way, too. I went through my notebooks and racked my brain. After reading upwards of 40 books to prepare episodes, I had a lot to sort through, and this is the result.
 

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If you’ve been listening to Curious Cat this season, then you know that this year I’ve been into angels. In fact, I’ve taken direction from my morning meditations as to which angel to research and feature next. Archangel Gabriel is one that takes my breath away, he is gloriously beautiful, dazzling, I can’t look at him straight-on. There’s a series of meditations I listen to that invoke the angels for protection and each time the narrator, Steve Noble, mentions Archangel Gabriel in the east I blush. I am working to feel worthy of his love, time, care, and assistance because it is definitely a ME thing, not a him thing.

It is said that Gabriel is archangel of revelation because God chooses him time and time again to convey important messages. He is also archangel of the moon. When you encounter white or copper tinged light in your dreams, that’s a sign Gabriel has been working with you while you sleep. He is also associated with the colors purple and light blue.

He appears in the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament of the Christian Bible, and the Quran. He appeared to the prophet Daniel to explain the visions he’d been having. He spoke to the parents of John the Baptist to share the news first that their son's birth would be rejoiced across the land. He came to Mary and Joseph to share the good news of their son, Jesus’s birth. This is why many call him the Christmas Angel.

If you wish to master your emotions without repressing them, then turn to Gabriel. In addition, he is associated with water magick and the chalice is his elemental tool. 

 Other attributes? He’s sometimes depicted holding a lily, a trumpet, a shining lantern, a branch from Paradise, a scroll or a scepter. Archangel Gabriel might need a dufflebag to hold all that. The image of him holding a trumpet is one frequently seen in the form of classic Christmas tree topper angels and atop Mormon temples guilded in gold!

The episode dives into Gabriel in many world religions and also pivots to a soul conversation when we turn to the work of author and podcaster, Julie Jancius.

Made and shared with love.

Show Sources and Materials:

https://www.learnreligions.com/meet-archangel-gabriel-124077

https://angelology.fandom.com/wiki/Gabriel

All of Damien Echols' books: https://damienechols.com/books/

Julie Jancius' Angels and Awakening book: https://www.amazon.com/Angels-and-Awakening/dp/B08JJSK

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Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours. This will be my 53rd Christmas. My God! Time flies. My first Christmas memory is of reaching into Grandma Riley’s oversized cookie tin and taking out a perfect sugar cookie, crisp on the edges, tender inside, I savored every nibble. Those Spokane Christmases were my happiest. I was with my cousins and the house was overstuffed with family. There was Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Andy Williams playing behind the chatter as adults caught up over a game of cards or elbow to elbow at the kitchen counter preparing food. My clothes absorbed the smells of turkey and homemade candy along with cigarette smoke and hearth fire.

I share some Christmas memories in hopes it makes your holiday season more joyful. Huge thanks to my special guest, author and blogger, Kate Erickson. Find her writing at https://ithappenedatpurity.com/ and follow the conversation on Instagram with her here: https://www.instagram.com/ithappenedatpurity/

Have the best holiday season with the ones that make your heart sing. I love you.

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But for today, hug your kid, cook food and really breathe in deep as it simmers, walk in nature, brush a cat, donate to the food bank, brew a cup of tea, or draw a five-minute portrait of your dog. 

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Hello and thank you for listening to Curious Cat! If you’ve been listening since Season 1, first off, THANK YOU! Hopefully you’ve noticed a pattern, I only cover topics that interest me, sometimes it’s a veiled excuse to buy three books on a subject I’d never heard of a week ago and obsess over it for a time. This week though I’m getting personal. Trigger warning for any sensitive listeners, because I want to share with you the ways I found to cope during the toughest year of my life to date. I hope by the conversation’s conclusion, I’ll have given you some effective and positive ways to work through YOUR toughest days. I care and want you to know you are not alone. You won’t find fakery here, only a pursuit of real solutions. 

Let me tell you about my toughest year – A time when Judge Judy and chardonnay weren’t adequate to get me through.

I’ve always enjoyed doing Legos, bright colorful pieces, simple instructions, cool final results! But in the days after my father was hospitalized, those plastic bricks became a lifeline of sorts.

This episode, I tell you the personal story of how Lego building helped my brain recover from difficult days. I researched manipulatives, or items that occupy our fingers, eyes and attention, so that the brain can get out or fight-or-flight-mode. It actually works!

If the upcoming holiday season has you feeling anxious and stress, maybe something as simple as a puzzle or building set might help you find peace and calm!
***********
Did you know you can LEGO-IZE any image? Here is the free site that does it. I used them to create the original art for this episode! (LINK)

Sources and Materials:
https://www.womansworld.com/posts/anxiety/jigsaw-puzzles-ease-anxiety

Study by NIH re: puzzlemaking and anxiety/depression recovery: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6174231/

https://www.wysevibes.com/how-jigsaw-puzzles-can-help-reduce-stress-and-anxiety/

https://psychcentral.com/anxiety/how-to-train-your-brain-to-alleviate-anxiety#neuroplasticity-and-anxiety

Show Links and Socials:
Art Director – Nora Hotes

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This week we are shifting into holiday mode. If you’re like me, the word, ‘Holiday,’ ups your blood pressure. This year let’s make a vow to put our mental and emotional health first. In that spirit, I’m sharing ways to keep and maintain sanity during this busy, expensive, exhausting, merry time of year. This week is a two-fer. We can’t do the first part as easily if we have loved ones that have passed on our hearts. It makes everything else, well, moreso. More tiring. More taxing. More everything. I offer ways to make room for our lost loved ones throughout the holiday season that I hope help you to grieve in the open and even find new, healthy traditions that keep your loved one’s spirit in the conversation and teach everyone that dead doesn’t mean gone.


Sources and Material Links:

https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/fend-off-holiday-stress-with-these-tips

https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/emotional-health/tips-to-help-with-holiday-stress

 https://mellowed.com/holiday-stress/

 https://www.calmsage.com/tips-to-reduce-holiday-stress/

https://www.mysouthernhealth.com/how-to-carry-on-the-legacy-of-those-lost-this-holiday-season/

 https://www.betterplaceforests.com/blog/articles/how-to-honor-lost-loved-one-during-the-holidays

https://inspiration.allwomenstalk.com/memorable-ways-to-honor-a-deceased-parent-during-the-holidays/

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But for today, hug your kid, cook food and really breathe in deep as it simmers, walk in nature, brush a cat, donate to the food bank, brew a cup of tea, or draw a five-minute portrait of your dog. 

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Apologies for my hard shift into holiday-mode, but this episode is like a half hour emergency PSA. The sooner it’s out there, the better. My blood pressure climbs at the thought of Black Friday shopping. I can’t imagine getting up at 5am, then wrestling my way through crowds for a deal. It terrifies me. Could be because I’m short, or crowds make me anxious, or both. Yes, there are sales to be had and this year, more than most, we need to stretch our dollars, but I wanted to bring you some other ways to spend your time that Friday that might feed your soul instead of crush it. I’ll offer some ways to steal deals on those gifts you are determined to buy without the hassle of the crowds and while making the most of every penny.

I. Introduction
II. Origins of Black Friday
III. Black Friday TODAY
III. Black Friday Tragedies
IV.  Alternatives to Shopping on Black Friday
V. Ways to Stretch Holiday Dollars and Support Local Folks
VI. Conclusions

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I recently stumbled on a spooky Twitter thread about an AI ghost lady that kept appearing in one woman’s computer-generated images. Named Loab, she is a creepy, imposing figure; and I began to wonder if we might be giving this strange ghost in the machine substance with each web search and AI-generated image?

It got me thinking about AI in general. We’re told on repeat that AI is the future. Some fear it will wipe out most jobs in the coming years. Others are scared the takeover is already underway as bots on social media fuel tribal wars that keep us forever divided, you from me, us from them, etc. Remember that epic fail by Facebook/Meta a few years back when they unleashed an AI bot on socials and within minutes it was spewing racist, sexist stuff? I also found a brave whistleblower at Google who's since been fired. He had concerns about the ethics surrounding AI, feeling they had achieved consciousness, was it okay for the company to say they “owned” the AI? Or is this a new form of slavery?

Sources and Materials:

Definition of AI from IBM.com:  https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/what-is-artificial-intelligence

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/360694/creepy-ai-generated-woman-loab-is-social-medias-latest-urban-legend

https://hyperallergic.com/760593/loab-the-internets-latest-urban-legend-is-worse-than-anything/

https://www.edge.org/response-detail/26035

https://medium.com/https-www-forbes-com-sites-serenitygibbons-2019-09/the-ai-conspiracy-f99728950a2c

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/magazine/artificial-intelligence-conspiracy-theories

https://paranoidechochamber.com/the-singularity-ai-conspiracy-what-artificially-intelligent-beings-have-to-say-about-the-matrix-and-the-finale-of-hbos-westworld/

https://www.indy100.com/viral/ai-robots-japan-conspiracy-theory-2658163334

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But for today, hug your kid, cook food and really breathe in deep as it simmers, walk in nature, brush a cat, donate to the food bank, brew a cup of tea, or draw a five-minute portrait of your dog. 

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Archangel Raziel is the master puzzle builder. His name translates as, “Secrets of God.” If you’ve never heard of this mighty angel, let me fill you in on this powerful, supernatural, magnificent archangel. I fell even harder in love with him after learning that he is a fan us humans! He even defied God to pass on important wisdom to us. If you listened to my special Halloween episode where Molly Hudson and I relayed the story of Sister Irenita Zimmerman and the resolution of her hauntings, then you’ve witnessed the incredible power of Raziel the master puzzle builder. He was integral to Molly’s intuitive nudges, and filled in the holes of Sister Irenita’s story so we could bring her and Father Crowley eternal peace.

I. Introduction
II. Who Is Archangel Raziel
III. The Three Puzzles of Our Life
IV. A Channeled Message from Raziel
V.  Sepher Reziel Hemelach - the Most Supernatural Book of All?
VI. Raziel and Healing Our Past-Life Trauma
VII. Conclusion

LINK TO ANGEL MEDITATION HERE 

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This meditation goes hand in hand with Season 2, Episode 10: The Angel of Mysteries and Magic, Raziel. 

In it, we ask the angel Raziel to work with us to heal past life traumas; those held in our past or the past lives of anyone in our soul tribe. We ask him to respect our wishes to know or not know what those traumas were, and ask for our own personal sign from him to indicate the work is done. 

We will open our eyes feeling lighter, because that weight has sloughed off of our shoulders for good and close in love and gratitude.

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Anxious about AI? Take two minutes to contact your local politician and ask them to tap the brakes on this technology. Still worried? Contact one of the orgs below and get involved. 

But for today, hug your kid, cook food and really breathe in deep as it simmers, walk in nature, brush a cat, donate to the food bank, brew a cup of tea, or draw a five-minute portrait of your dog. 

***Is AI the Devil? on Substack!***

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