Maja D'Aoust: So shadow work is really about raising our perceptual awareness as human beings. So it has a consequence of unleashing this like kind of explosive effect where you come into realizations almost like a psychedelic trip, where as you raise your ability to see things in yourself other than the natural world, you actually gain enlightenment for lack of a better word. So shadow work. Going into the dark leads to enlightenment.

Arden Leigh: Welcome to the Repatterning Podcast, where we believe your mind-body system is your domain and that choosing the beliefs, habits, and patterns that best support you is your birthright. I'm your host, Arden Leigh, creator of the Repatterning Project, an eight-week course in learning to free yourself from the patterns of your past and program your mind for your dreams of the future. Join me for these extraordinary conversations as we unpack the keys to creating our reality. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Repatterning Podcast. I'm your host, Arden Leigh. Thank you for joining us. I want to remind you before I introduce today's guest if you enjoy these conversations, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash the repatterning podcast. ⁓ that gives you access to our private Discord server where we get to chat about all of these fun topics regarding repatterning, mental health, magic, and so much more. You guys, I am so excited about today's conversation. I am such a fan of today's guest. Her name is Maja D'Aoust, and she is a staple in the Los Angeles esoteric community. When I first moved to Los Angeles, gosh, ⁓ I guess over a decade ago now, and I began my own process of what one might call a spiritual awakening. Maja's lectures that she often gives in person, but she also had on her YouTube at that time. Maja's lectures, I would listen to them and my mind would be absolutely blown. And to this day, whenever I encounter her work, I'm always just so lit on fire by her inquisitive and curious nature and the way that she dives so deeply into the topics that she's studying. So I'm gonna share with you a little bit about her background. She is a practicing witch and a scholar of alchemy and esoteric science. She also goes by the name The Witch of the Dawn. She has her bachelor's in biochemistry and her master's in transformational psychology. And she is the author of several books, including A Witch's Bestiary, which is the one that I own right here. If you're watching on video, you can see how shiny the cover is. It also features her really gorgeous artwork, too, as much of her her books and tarot decks also do. She's also the author of The Occult I Ching, Familiars in Witchcraft, and Astrology of the Shadow Self. And she's also the author of The White Witch Tarot Deck and her latest release, The Shadowseer Tarot, which is the one that I have with me today. And she was so generous as to send me a copy of it before our conversation today. I've been looking through it. I haven't pulled from it yet because I'm waiting for today's conversation. To do my very first poll. So Maja, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to chat with you.

Maja D'Aoust: It's always a pleasure chatting with you, Arden. I'm so stoked to be on your show today. I love all our conversations. It's always so fun.

Arden Leigh: It's been nine years now since we've had a conversation in public. So if you guys enjoy this, if you want to see where Maja and I were nine years ago, you can also look on YouTube for Peace Talks, our conversation. Just put in both of our names and Peace Talks and you'll find it. So we had that one too. And I'm really excited to talk today about shadow work. This feels like such a necessary topic in our current cultural climate, in our communities on the global stage. in our interpersonal relationships. And it's also something that I feel like is a term that gets thrown around a lot, especially in spiritual communities, kind of loosely. So I wanted to start with why don't you share with us what your definition of shadow work is and what your approach to it is.

Maja D'Aoust: Yes. Thank you so much, Arden. Shadow work has become kind of pop culture because there's quite a few shadow work journals out there that got very famous on TikTok, which is great. Like spread the word, like everybody really needs to do shadow work. It's a necessity for humanity, in my personal opinion. But shadow work means that we have Confrontations with our dark side. The best way I could describe it is kind of like when Luke Skywalker goes and sees the Darth Vader face as his own, you know, is like the best image I could describe it with. But most people in pop culture know about it through Carl Jung working with psychology, that we and also Sigmund Freud, that there's this part of our ego that likes to hide all the things that we don't like about ourselves from our conscious mind. So The shadow from their definition is kind of like all the parts of yourself that are unpleasant that you don't really want to admit that you do. So we project them onto other people. However, I like to have a broader definition of shadow because it's literally the unconscious. And I feel like a lot of people in pop culture are defining that as their unconscious, right? Like from their childhood or their family, their personal experiences. But this is an egoic interpretation, which is very shadow laden to think that you own the unconscious. I like to look at it from the unconscious, right? So, in terms of a much broader perspective of nature, of our bodies, of hidden material, of like even on like a physics level, shadow work is going to be. Work that we do that raises our perceptual awareness to things that we cannot perceive. So that's a much broader definition. But I came to this definition after working with Dr. Kelvin DeWolf, who is a Mi'kmaq Native American. And a lot of the shamanic work that he does is about getting into and access to the unconscious of not only ourselves. But of nature, of outer space, of matter in general. And so shadow work is really about raising our perceptual awareness as human beings. So it has a consequence of unleashing this like kind of explosive effect where you come into realizations almost like a psychedelic trip, where as you raise your ability to see things in yourself other than the natural world. You actually gain enlightenment for lack of a better word. So shadow work going into the dark leads to enlightenment.

Arden Leigh: Also, really loved your comparison in your shadowseer talk. And I still to this day in week two of the repatterning project, which is the eight-week course that I teach on repatterning. For those of you listening, I am at this time of your listening to this podcast, I'm probably opening enrollment for the next round. So if you're interested, you can learn more at therepatterningproject.com. ⁓ but in week two, the week two lecture, when I talk about shadow work, your definition from your shadowseer lecture. On YouTube from back in the day is still the one that I use. And of course, I credit you with that. And I love how you talk about the shadow being like the dark side of the moon. And the fact that the moon, we always see the same face in the moon, like the man in the moon, because your analogy was that the moon is so in love with the sea that it always is gazing at the sea. So when it turns, like the moon doesn't turn on an axis. We're always seeing the same face. So We've never seen until of course very recently when we finally got photos from the Artemis expedition. I feel like that's actually like it's kind of that's probably like a a cultural thing that is happening. The fact that like we are now seeing the dark side of the moon, like at this point in our global history. Yeah, exactly. Like we are literally seeing that shadow. But I love that because Basically, what you say about that is like the shadow is the part that we can't see. It's the part that is beyond our awareness.

Maja D'Aoust: Current awareness, right? It's I feel like humans have forgotten how large our perceptive abilities are because we've been sort of downtrained and muffled and muddied, right? So we're not, and now we're like using all this tech, which of course is great, like use tech, but your sensory perceptive ability, like I can think of someone and they'll text me. Like I don't, you know, I can think of someone and there's a connection. So I feel like Part of the damage the tech is doing is we're forgetting our connections to each other that are natural and intimate, that already exist without the need for tech. So I encourage people to explore their ability to open their perceptions and engage in connection in that way. Cause that's also part of what shadow work provides, is as we kind of go through all these levels and pop them open. We can perceive just a lot more of like the natural world. We can have senses. We can sense when something's going on or what's happening with someone or how does something feel. You know, we have our our own internal mechanisms to do these things.

Arden Leigh: Yeah, instead of just like asking chat GPT, right? ⁓

Maja D'Aoust: Sovereignty. What do you feel? What do you think? How does this what are your what do you sense about this, you know?

Arden Leigh: Yeah. I agree a hundred percent. I think that what's really tough about trying to teach shadow work, for me anyway, is that inherently it involves awakening to things which we can't currently see. And so it's so hard to tell people like, you know, it's that Dunning Kruger effect. Like we don't know what we don't know. So I'm curious what are some of the ways, what are like Tips or strategies that you have or that you teach for helping people to open up to that which they can't presently see about themselves in the world.

Maja D'Aoust: Well, there's a really easy way. So I'm kind of a cheater because I always take the easy way because I'm lazy. So ⁓ we project our shadow. We can't see it on ourselves, so we throw it on other people. So the best way you can do shadow work is look at what what are you hating about the other person? So it's a little bit like twin flame work in that way, where you the best way to get access to your shadow is look at what you're projecting onto the world. What is your worldview? What do you think? These are your shadows. They belong to you, not the other person. And even if they do, like everything belongs to everyone. So I think it's really important to de-personalize shadow. Like rather than targeting individuals, I feel like that's like blaming someone because they pee. Like everybody has a shadow. So if you want to know what yours is, look at how you're viewing people. You know, like this is not something unique, like. We can get upset and there is accountability if somebody's like violent or expressing a very negative behavior. Like animals kill each other. We live in nature. Like there's a lot of death, there's a lot of harm. It's egoic to assume responsibility or place blame on an individual for a natural behavior. Like we gotta get it together. We gotta raise this up into our awareness and understand how nature works and stop trying to blame individuals. Like we're literally raising people's egos up by giving them that much power that this belongs to them. No. We have to start perceiving shadow as shadow and not as individuals.

Arden Leigh: I always wondered how do you find the distinction between like sometimes I like I absolutely agree. Like if there's something about someone else that is annoying me or that I'm getting activated by, oftentimes I notice it's like, ⁓ that's a part of myself that I'm disowning, or that I'm not actually giving permission. Like, for example, like so many people were like triggered by Madonna's recent performance at Coachella, like, ⁓ she's too old to be doing that. And it's like, no, actually, you just never gave yourself permission to keep being sexy, or you're a man who doesn't like the fact that like this performance wasn't about you for whatever reason. And I think that's that's definitely legit. But I also think like there's some times where, especially in spiritual communities and like, I'll just say it like especially in Southern California with all this like new age spirituality where people will be like, ⁓ well, if you don't like this harmful behavior about that person, that's just your shadow or or whatever. So draw the line with that, right?

Maja D'Aoust: A really good point, and I'm really glad you brought that up. I talk about that in my astrology shadow book. How this is not like victim blaming, right? Where it's like, ⁓ you got a problem with this? No, there is offensive negative behavior that individuals are responsible and accountable for. Does that mean that that individual owns that? Like, no, just like we all pee and poop, like this is something that happens, so we can't individualize it, right? So And if we're going to look at what bothers us, does that mean it's our shadow? No, it's shadow, right? Not yours, not theirs. That's the difference. So what you're talking about is if we take on that thing we're seeing as offending us as our problem, this is not what I'm stating at all. What I'm stating is that's how you see and recognize shadow behavior, if that makes sense. But let's Breaking this habit of personalizing everything is going to be the hardest part of shadow work. We want to make everything about an ego. We want to make it about that person and us. That is going to be a very difficult paradigm to release. Thinking that if we see a shadow behavior in us, that it's that means we're bad. Or that we are flawed in some way or that we should have guilt or shame because we did this negative behavior, right? It's like being ashamed that you have to pee. This we really have to break through that boundary and see shadow behavior as not belonging to anyone, but as present in our reality. And then deal with it from there with accountability, responsibility, discourse, dialogue, like all of these kinds of things. We cannot Персонали зі торм субшіорінц.

Arden Leigh: I'm so curious, like in a hypothetical scenario, because I know there are so many women in communities that I've been who deal with this from like, yeah, you know, those kind of like new agey burning man bros who are like, ⁓ well, if you're upset about this, then that's just something about you or whatever. Like, I'm curious, how would you respond to that hypothetical man? Like, I would love the template to give to to give to Wim to everyone, honestly, who who has that sort of argument made toward them.

Maja D'Aoust: Right. So for example, if let's say the the dude bro did an offensive remark that was directed to my person, right? So this is what they they do this technique, which is called Darvo, right? They do it's like someone that punches you in the face and then sues you for breaking their hand. So this is what I like to call it the reverso changeo, right? So they're Actually, the offender, and they're trying to make you be the problem because you are holding that offense, right? So again, I'll say this the whole podcast, I'll be like a broken record. Depersonalization and transpersonalization of the issue is absolutely key. They're trying to neg you by activating your ego response, right? They're using weaponized shame to get you to do it. So you can't play that game. You cannot be like, nah, it's you are the one that's doing it. You have to identify the behavior. And then you can ask them, well, like, I feel like that thing is toxic, dangerous, and offensive. You can't make it about you and you can't make it about them. You have to make it about the actual thing, right? Too often we're going experience an offense and we're going to make it about us and them. And then it turns into us versus them. And now this is where war happens. Because somebody did an offense. And so now it's like gets into you and me. And people get a case of the UUs and the memes, right? So we have to address the thing that occurred, but depersonalize it and then allow for accountability, acknowledgement, right? And discussion about the event that was offensive.

Arden Leigh: Yeah. I wanted to talk about that too because I love how ⁓ I you guys, I was just saying to Maja before we started recording that the essay that she has as the introduction of the Shadowseer Tarot is so incredibly brilliant and mind blowing. And the fact that it's like the intro to a tarot deck. And again, I expect no less of Maja, but it's so funny. Like I feel like it should be required reading for everyone. And what I love especially about it is that you talk about how all of our shadow behaviors essentially come from unmet needs. Like anything, and this is also something that I teach in the Repatterning Project. Like the way that I talk about it is that all behavior is motivated. Every strategy has a legitimate underlying need beneath it. And oftentimes What we're doing is not the right strategy to meet that need. But if we make the need conscious and we think about, well, how should I actually meet this need? Then that is essentially like how we repattern, is we choose a better strategy to actually sustainably, holistically meet that underlying need. And so a lot of people will do harmful behaviors to one another that are Coming from these deeper unmet needs that they're not acknowledging. And as you said, like that's how we have war, that's how we have conflict, that's how we have harm, that's how we have, you know, assault and and you know, and and harm in community and and things like that. And I'm actually like, I'm currently dealing with some community harm that happened to me and was enabled in community. So this is something that is like very present for me right now. And I'm a magician. So for me, like I just go and I do a justice spell because I know I'm in the right. I know I'm on the right side. And like one of the things that my spirits have been counseling me on is the line between justice and retribution, which you also touch on. One of the things that they were very clear about to me is they were like, Look, you're not as powerless as you used to be. So yes, you should be getting justice and bringing this entire situation into alignment. And that is very good. But they were like specifically like I was divining on, like, ⁓ well, what's gonna happen to this person now? And they were like, you know, they were like, You're being a little too Schadenfreud about this. And I'm like, well, no one sees me. And they were like, the Akashic Records sees you, Arden.

Maja D'Aoust: Except for your body.

Arden Leigh: And I'm like, okay, fine, okay, I'll cast a spell on myself. I have all the compassionate leadership I need for this new level of spiritual power I'm ascending into. And that's how I how I deal with that. Yes. But it's something I'm thinking a about a lot is where is the line because we're seeing this play out in like global politics too, right? We see huge. Yeah, right. With the conflict with Israel. Like we have people who, you know, ⁓ just a couple generations ago were victims of incredible harm, and now they're doing the same harm to to others.

Maja D'Aoust: No everywhere.

Arden Leigh: And I don't want to end up like that. So where do you find that line between making things right versus lashing out from a place of perceived helplessness and actually doing more harm in the process?

Maja D'Aoust: Yes, it's really important. And to that I really have to give it over to the indigenous folks that are doing restorative justice. So this is really important. And I think everyone should go and look at the indigenous sources for restorative justice, which by its nature is trying to fix mend. ⁓ you know, they're not trying to destroy the offender, which is what you're talking about with all of the conflict, like If we destroy the offender, that's like Batman killing the Joker, you know, like we have to be able to have the accountability and justice, but without doing the same wrong that was done to us, which is retribution, right? Retaliation. And then it it just causes a cycle of violence that never ends. But how are we gonna have the strength as a victim to not do that? If somebody messed with my family, I would go kill ⁓ You know what I mean? Like if they damaged or murdered my family, how are you going to have the strength to not do that? So that's not realistic. ⁓ so we have to really figure out how I'm going to deal with these like extreme severe defense mechanisms that we have, which is going to be retaliatory because you can't help it. And depending on the situation and how egregious the offense is like From everything to murder to genocide. Like you can't expect people to do nothing. Like, that's not realistic. So how you're going to need third parties to do restorative justice. If you are the victim of something, you need to get help. But the problem is our justice system is so just like barf. Like you can't it's gonna take twenty years. You can't do anything, no one believes you. If someone did commit You have to get the DA to press the charges and to do that you have to g s get so much evidence. And if it's someone with a reputation or something getting the DA to even believe that there was a crime. I've been through this with a lot of my clients that have suffered egregious offenses and then they try to go through the justice system and they're just like, There's nothing you can do. So it's like no wonder vigilanteism is popular, you know? Like you what are you you c if you can't go through third parties But you're the victim of an offense. How are you supposed to be non-retaliatory? This is like ⁓ this is where we're stuck. Like we have to assist people that are going through this, and we have to, as communities, assist people with restorative justice because the victim of the offense will not be able to. The offender is ⁓ gonna darvo hundred percent. If you try to address it with an offender, they're gonna get defensive and then aggressive towards you. Anytime you eat whether it's your family member, if your family member caused an offense and you're like, hey, dude, like you broke my thing, and they're gonna be like, fuck you, like you're not, you don't even know that, and then just like the torrent of toxic garbage, right? So you have to really understand this is why we need to know shadow. That is going to happen, right? You have to engage restorative justice techniques. You have to ask for help, right? Like you doing a spell. Like when we're magicians, we go to spirit. Like I a lot of my friends will be like, who do you go to when you need help? I'm like, that's why I am a witch, dude. Like that's why I'm to spirit. Like, I don't deal with y'all. Like, that's I I already figured out. It's not gonna work with you guys. So I go like I go above. So going into higher powers is a way to do it. That's how I do it. But then we also do have to deal with stuff like on the ground, on the real level. And so that's why I do my services to try to assist and counsel people for like I've I view myself as a spiritual lawyer. Like I do I practice spiritual law where I try to advocate for people who have been victims and sometimes offenders, ⁓ to try to get some kind of restorative justice where we don't try to destroy each other, but we try to find Some way for that accountability. Like I have a lot of people now are calling people's parents. This is a way. So if you have like a partner who's being abusive or doing terrible things, go talk to their family. Like go talk to like other people that they're close to. Like get get a circle, not against them. But to try to raise awareness to this kind of behavior and get some kind of advocacy. But I mean, look, if someone's doing violent, abusive behavior towards you or like in community, like I don't know what you're experiencing, but you gotta rally the troops, you gotta speak up, you gotta say what happened, you have to ask for like apologies, you have to be like, Hey, it this was my experience of what happened. I think it was kind of sucked. Like you wanna was there something you wanna like explain about? this behavior, right? But you might not be able to do that if you're the victim. So you might need to ask somebody else to advocate for you.

Arden Leigh: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for me, you know, that was actually another thing I was gonna ask you about your opinions on reversal magic. Because for me, like reversal magic is just like I find I find it to be within my own personal ethics because it's like, if you were gonna do that thing to me, I have no problem reversing it and sending it back to you. And the thing that I like to explain about reversal magic as I understand it, as my spirits have explained it to me, it's not just like ⁓ I reverse it and nothing happened. It's actually like the magic happens to the other person who was sending it to you if you're returning it to sender. So it's like if I have $10 and you do like a star stealing spell on me to steal five of my dollars, now not only do I get my five dollars back, but I also get five of your dollars now too. Now I have $15. So there's some times where I'm like, I love being attacked because it's like getting free money from the government. You know? I'm like. I'm like, I just end up better off than you know than where I was before. There there's some times where I'm like, I'm not gonna stop that t person attacking me because I I do better and better and better each time each time they do

Maja D'Aoust: It's funny, I a lot of people steal my stuff or copy my stuff or say stuff that I said, and I'm like, ⁓ that's great. Like I just got more of an army in the underworld of dum-dums that are like now under my intelligence is rule, right? So I'm now your dominant and your daemon and your shadow have been cheated out of their own destiny. And now you're under you're part of my bitch army. So sorry. But like I don't understand like when you do that behavior to someone, you're actually ⁓ sacrificing your own sovereignty because you're taking what is someone else's. When you you have your own stuff. Like what are you doing? You know? So it just is like dumb in my

Arden Leigh: ⁓ my gosh, I don't

Maja D'Aoust: Opinion, like people say, ⁓ steal that person's glamour or whatever. I'm like, you just like diminished your whole vibe, dude. Like not Empress style. But I feel like when people don't know, this is the problem, right? If they're ignorant that this behavior has those kind of consequences and they're still gonna like engage in it. Like you can do reversal magic where it's the basic, like just y I'm rubber and you're glue. Anything you do to me gets back to you. Like that's like basic schoolyard stuff, right? Where it's you can just use the karma rule for that and it works. Like karma's real. Like it's ⁓ not hard. But when it gets retr retributional, you take a karmic hit. So when it's all balance, right in homeostasis. So we're permitted to do defense, right? Like really big self-defense advocate. I've taught free self-defense classes to people. I do martial arts. Like I have for I don't even know, like 30 years since I was in my 20s. So we have to defend ourselves. You can't just spirit doesn't want us to just be martyrs and like take it. Like there's a lot of spiritual bypassing which is happening, which is like, ⁓ just forgive the person, which we do need forgiveness and ablution. Like I'm grateful for mercy. Mercy has shown on me many times. But If there's a serious offense, you can't just shove it under the rug and permit someone to be abusive to yourself and to other people. Like so then it gets really sketchy. Like they need to learn the lesson so that you can't they can't just go around punching everybody in the face. Like somebody's gotta say something and you can't permit it. And it's really uncomfortable to tell someone, hey, you gotta quit hitting people in the face, because then they're gonna try to hit you in the face as soon as you ask them not to do that. So trying to find ways to bring, I write in the in the deck book and in my astrology book, the first thing you can expect when you try to raise shadow behavior to anyone's awareness, including your own, is that your ego will defend itself to the bitter end. So we have to find ways to get in there. Obviously, magic goes around the back door, so you don't have to have the confrontation, right? So Doing magic and doing those kind of reversal spells is very non-confrontational, but uses the energy to accomplish the job so that you don't have to like deal with their their face, right? I get it kind of confrontational. Although less so as I age, I have to say. But like if somebody does something and I don't like it, I'm gonna be like, mm, I don't know, me and like or I'll just yell at people if they are abusive on the street or if people because I get, you know, approached a lot still. I don't know why. I'm like a grandma practically, but people are still like cat calling me and stuff. And I'm just like, I get aggressive, you know? So, but maybe we don't always need to do that. It depends on kind of like your style and what you feel comfortable with. But if you go over the top, if you go over the offense, now you take a karmic hit. for attacking the offender, so that sucks too, you know.

Arden Leigh: The funny thing to me too is that so many occultists won't even like they won't even warn you, you know. Like they won't like they'll just and like I'm a I feel like I'm being the nice person by being like, Hey, I know what you're doing, stop that, or else I'm gonna and I feel like people also underestimate us, you know. I think probably people like us.

Maja D'Aoust: Like for that, I'm just like, it's dumb. Like now you're in my bitch army. So Okay. But it's again all of this all of this behavior that we're talking about, even with magicians, stems from a lack of awareness and perception. Which if you do shadow work, you're gonna see all that stuff. To me, I'm just so bored. Of people behaving under these levels and in like under rocks, kind of like parasitic weirdos. And I'm like, I want better for you. Like, I want you to rise up. I want you to glow. I want you to shine. Like, this is so boring to see you slither around through the shadows. Like, I wish that people would just really raise their awareness to the behaviors and see the toll that it's taking on their consciousness and keeping them. Under the ground, underground.

Arden Leigh: And want better for the collective too, because like everyone benefits when each individual is on the path of their true will, right? Of their dharma, the thing that they are meant to do, their own, their own personalized glow up. And we all thrive so yeah, I'm right I'm right there on that page with you.

Maja D'Aoust: But then it's like what is your action that you do when you're receiving this energy from when you're receiving shadow behavior from a person, right? Right. What does need

Arden Leigh: Hey. What do you think about the idea of like ⁓ like at the very end of the animated series Avatar The Last Airbender, which like I'm sure you've seen that, right? Like you have to. It's I me too.

Tomi Trembath: Dang it!

Maja D'Aoust: The new sorcery, it's great.

Arden Leigh: It's ⁓ it's so so good. And at the very end, Aang, the the Avatar, ⁓ is confronting an enemy and he ends up taking away the enemy's bending powers. He's basically like, You're abusing these powers. I'm not gonna kill you, I'm not gonna hurt you. But I often think of myself and like maybe it's my autistic overcompassion because I couldn't see myself like, you know, being someone who was creating harm. But if I couldn't see myself, then that's room for shadow. So I don't know, maybe a maybe one day I was.

Maja D'Aoust: They're the heroes. They'll do this thing. We're heroes. Yes.

Arden Leigh: Exactly, right? So if someone did that to me and was like, Well, I don't like what you're doing with your magic, so you're I'm gonna take it away from you, like that was ⁓ good god. Like, I mean, hopefully no one would be able hopefully my spirits would be like that is unjust. We're giving Arden back her magic. But yeah, like do you think exactly?

Maja D'Aoust: Right? The judge the judgment is a is a card in my deck. Like you can't you're gonna think you can judge unless you know someone wound to tomb, you don't know them. Like you don't you don't know everything and people deserve forgiveness too. So this is rough. Everyone's gonna get really mad that I say this. You could murder bunch of people, be a veteran and kill lots of people. Like you can do those things and still be redeemed. So we can still be good at helping people, even if we've done terrible things. That's a big paradox for people to hold. So when we do the justice, retribution, and judgment, like you have to to do the restorative justice means are you just gonna throw this person away if they can still like perform better, even if it might take like some rehabilitation or some work. Yes, there are people that

Arden Leigh: I believe that a hundred percent.

Maja D'Aoust: We can't be like Dululu. Some people will not change. Like you can't keep releasing, you know, child abusers out of prison and think they're cool, right? Because that's then they're gonna continue the offense. So it comes back to this thing we were talking about. Like with on w at what point do you do that to somebody? Then mean You know, we get into the whole thing of prisons and how do we deal with this? But and then we get world leaders that are abusive. They always just seem to get assassinated, but then they just get replaced by other abusers. So it's like it's a hot mess. And I don't feel like I claim to have a solution. My solution is to raise awareness to it. That's all I got, guys. But I feel like it's pretty good. If we can raise awareness to see, identify. And perceive shadow. That's where I think we'll make some progress. I don't know. I have some suggestions for dealing with shadows, but this is a big thing that we're not going to be able to like ⁓ get rid of, right? So yeah, we can't, and that's where we also need to be compassionate and have mercy on ourselves and others. And we have to see that shadow is gigantic and exists in nature. It's not about us. So as humans, we if we can't see it, we're We're we're screwed. Like we have to really I think at least the beginning point is to work on the perceptive raising of awareness so that we can get a handle on.

Arden Leigh: Yeah, that's I think what's difficult for me is ⁓ and I guess on a personal level, I I tend to leave it up to my spirits, you know. Yeah, because I think they can see they can see the situation better. Yeah. They can see more than I can. But it's hard for me sometimes to be like, well, where is the line between, you know, who who do I cancel versus who do I rehabilitate? You know? Yeah. That's been something that has been a real struggle for me because I do have compassion for people. And there are times where it's like, no This person actually needs to be taken out of those positions of power because they've been carrying on these ongoing patterns of harm and exploitation. This person, on the other hand, is a walking Dunning Kruger effect, and they maybe need to just very aggressively be shown their shadow and be kind of like, you know, have that reflected to them until they can no longer ignore it, which is aggressive. And maybe that person won't like that experience very much, but it's very different from canceling a person or from remove or from removing them from those positions.

Maja D'Aoust: ⁓ education and dialogue is what's needed, but that's like labor, you know? So like like I said before, the victims can't be expected to do that labor. So they need to be educated. And that's why like I made the deck is because people have to know this stuff. Like if you don't know, you don't know. And so I'm trying to get it into people's face to be like, hey, guess what?

Arden Leigh: Everyone is getting this for Christmas this year.

Maja D'Aoust: Like we don't we're not getting educated in emotional intelligence and understanding negative behaviors because nobody wants to talk about it. Everyone wants to pretend we don't have to do sex ed and no one's gonna have sex. This is incorrect, right? Turns out. Like if you don't teach people about how to have sex, they're not gonna not do it. Like so we had there's no choice anymore except to give people emotional education. A hundred percent. And all they're doing is removing the humanities, which is the main source of emotional education. And even that is not straightforward enough. People are getting that emotional education through humanities courses, which are metaphors, allegories, novels, examples. But the children, ⁓ it's they're too thick. Like you they don't get it. Like we need to really just be like, listen, here's what you're going to have happen. You're gonna get triggered, you're gonna feel bad, don't get caught in guilt and shame. Like Look at what who's gonna be violent. Get to know if you try to hold someone accountable what they're gonna do. They're gonna steal your shit. They're gonna try to rape you. Like you need to know these things. You do though. You do.

Arden Leigh: Yeah. So one of the things I loved that you also said in the intro essay to the deck is this idea that imagining that we can have a community of people and that they're not going to act out of their shadow behaviors is like throwing an event at a venue that doesn't have any bathrooms.

Maja D'Aoust: Listen, this is no dumb. You can't be that dumb, you know? Like you can't go in and think because it's a spiritual event that there's no rapist there. Like that is not not good. Like you have to not like be paranoid or anything, but it's about having your perceptive awareness around you. And you can still trust people, but it's about learning how how are we going to perceive these shadows present in individuals and in the world.

Arden Leigh: Yeah.

Maja D'Aoust: You know, so you don't show up at landmark and get, you know, recruited for a cult, ⁓ that's like hanging out at the door saying like, Hey, you like this, we got some other stuff, right? So I we have to get smarter, man.

Arden Leigh: Man, and do you rem you remember the cloak and dagger party in Los Angeles, naturally, right? Do remember? And you were were you around were you around at the time when it got like not shut well, it wasn't it wasn't technically it wasn't shut down. It was actually the two men who were throwing the party shut it down because the members of the party were reflecting their shadow to them and they couldn't handle it. So they stopped. I think of that often like when I think of shadow in community. And the funny thing about that is that, you know, then like six months later. So for anyone like who's who's listening, by the way, Maja and I used to go to a party sometimes called Cloak and Dagger that was in Hollywood. It was a members only party. And it was honestly, there were a lot of really amazing and wonderful things about that party because like of like of course, like when you have a community like that, there are gonna be those those one and but anytime you have that, you're gonna have shadow as well. And unfortunately

Maja D'Aoust: Every community. Guess what? Every community, every race, every country, every neighborhood, every family. Guess what?

Arden Leigh: Right. Yep, there like there there it is. And unfortunately, you know, the the two men who ran that party, it was brought to their attention that there was harm going on within that party that they were enabling. And they maybe they didn't even mean to, you know. I'm I'm really still firmly on the side of like those people were were really ignorant of their shadow. Again, like walking Dunning Kruger effect. And that's not an excuse, you know, but it is different from Someone who is intentionally harming. Correct. And ⁓ but their inability to look at themselves meant that like six months later, there was an article in the LA Times that came out and was like, Hey, here's there's what they're doing. And I'm talking years that I spent with, you know, at least one of them being like, Hey, you want to look at this, you want to look at this. And they're like, No, they were lying and they were, you know, that's not what happened. And that's ⁓ like maybe that's not how you remember some of it, but like you are not you are not the sole arbiter on like other people's experiences. You have to let in all perspectives. So yeah, there's gonna be a lot of people who are gonna get this deck for Christmas this year.

Maja D'Aoust: And that's a perfect example of how our ego will defend itself and it naturally will, just like ⁓ you will naturally defend yourself. You know what I mean? That's just I mean, depending on your root response, if you have a fawn response, like maybe not, right? But most people are going to have a natural response to defend themselves. And you can't but you can't get around that. Like you're you have to understand that that's going to happen. And so then it's going to be like,

Arden Leigh: Really well.

Maja D'Aoust: Are you going to battle this person's ego? Are you going to figure out how are you going to deal with ego? Because ego's there and everybody has it. And I don't care who you are. It's going to be there and you're going to meet with this behavior in every single circumstance. So we have to really understand that. For you, like it's you become like you're trying to like get into this person and open them because I assume like you had a relationship with them or you care about them or they're your friend. So you're trying to help them. And this is what, We would do with any friend that had a problem. Like if our friend had a drinking problem, we're gonna try to like bring it up into their awareness and then meet with that defense too. So these skills are very important to like so we can help people we care about as well, not just in this way to like punish offenders or deal with offenders. This is about caring about our communities.

Arden Leigh: Yeah, and I'll also say, like, as a recovering fawn, like fawn was my main trauma response, and it still like informs some of my behaviors to this day. I'll even say that the fawn response itself is still egoic because we are still attempting to conform to what we think is acceptable by fawning. So I can shove my shadow even farther under there by being like someone's like, ⁓ well you need ⁓ I need to do okay, well then I'll just I'll just be the way that you want me to be. Like that still also creates shadow. So even like even even a fawn can't ⁓

Maja D'Aoust: Like we just are like you know, we just get scared and it's a scary world. People die and terrible things happen. So we just as humans are gonna have these ways, you know, that we are gonna try to deal with that and that's just ⁓ it's what's gonna happen.

Arden Leigh: So I definitely want to, you guys, I'm gonna use this conversation as an opportunity to do a pull from Maja's new deck for the first time. I've been looking at it, but I have not yet pulled for myself from it. We're gonna do a little bit of shadow pulls here. But before I do that, Maja, I just want I would love for you to talk a little bit about how this deck talk about like the darker types that you use. I I love this. Like I'm I'm just gonna pull up the first card here. Like the first card in the tarot is the fool. And so it's labeled as the fool. If you're watching on the video, you can see it. But the shadow of the fool is hubris, right? It's like that taking the journey, but you're you're overconfident. You know, you think you know everything like when you when you don't at this the start of that journey. So share a little bit about the darkatypes of your deck, Maja, and what we can learn from them, how we can start to see our shadow better by using it.

Maja D'Aoust: Yes. So everything is an inversion, right? So the way that I kind of view shadows, it's it's your antichrist, basically. And that I write about in the astrology shadow book is that because I figured out that you can make an astrology shadow chart. And I learned this because I had spent so much time with the I Ching and flipping hexagrams, that if you flip your natal chart, that's an inversion and that creates a shadow chart of everything you are not, which is why so the inversion of the card so like everything is like the opposite thing that it is, right? We both simultaneously, because we live in duality. So you're you and not you. We all have a self and an anti-self. This is correct. We are alive, but we're also dead because time.

Arden Leigh: Very twin flamey.

Maja D'Aoust: It's ⁓ it's how paradox and reality works, right? So ⁓ for example, I have like Page of Wands is the avoidant, right? Because Page of Wands is like going on a trip and leaving somewhere, but the opposite is added is that they're avoiding doing something, right? So all of the darkatypes are the inversion of the traditional tarot archetype, and you can kind of really get the whole picture by also including the anti. version of something. So if I think, ⁓ Arden is, you know, this and is that and is that, if I also include all the things you're not, then we get contrast and suddenly everything gets filled out and becomes more visible through contrast. That's how duality works, right? If we can see dark, we have to see dark. You have to

Arden Leigh: I love that too because there's so many tarot and oracle decks out there that are like so nice and sweet and gentle. And we need those too. But I feel like, you know, there's that joke about, you know, which deck are you pulling from? Like, ⁓ this deck is an especially rude deck. I love this deck for how intentionally rude it is. Absolutely.

Maja D'Aoust: Absolutely.

Arden Leigh: People need to know you can't always just you know, I've got like my Quan Yin oracle over there, which I love, you know, and Kwan Yin's very like, ⁓ you are currently like, you know, raising out of your negative behaviors. This is an opportunity for growth, you know, which sometimes we need that.

Maja D'Aoust: But like I'm a pragmatist. Okay. I was a single mom, raised two children, had to deal with real stuff. I deal with real stuff. My clients come to me, you know, with rapes, with murders, with trauma, with you know, I have a client who's an ER surgeon. Like, you're not gonna be able to just give them like a little sprinkle of fairy dust and everything's gonna be okay. These are parts of reality that we have to navigate and work through and really deal with. So I'm really interested in something that's a little fluffy if I'm gonna deal with something I really need to know. Like I need to look up its butthole. You know what I mean? Like I need to know what am I dealing with here. So I made this deck to be able to identify some of these things. So there's a lot of ways you can use it. There's spreads that I have in it to kind of open things up like looking at what is the prevalent shadow in your relationship showing up, like a dynamic. You can do a regular pull with your positive tarot deck of choice. And then pull one of these cards to show what is the shadow active in the situation so that you can then also see the other side that you're not looking at because you're trying to be positive. But if you're glossing over, shoving everything under the rug, kind of trying to make everything nice, that's fine. But you you have to address the issues that there isn't corruption, so there isn't destruction, so that it can have sustainability, right? You can't just be like, ⁓ we're all gonna live together and be a happy family when you can't pay the rent. So like you have to there's just real stuff that you gotta do, man. And so like that's why I'm trying to deal with some of this stuff, you know?

Arden Leigh: And you mentioned also that your darkatypes that you deal with go beyond the Carl Young, like everyone like we hear ⁓ archetypes and we think of like Carl Young Caroline Mi Meissen. You know, that's that's great. Their work has has certainly contributed a lot of useful things. But you're saying that you also go beyond these to sort of the pagan roots of these archetypes. Do you wanna share a little bit about that before we do a poll?

Maja D'Aoust: Yes, I'm so excited that you asked that because everyone knows in pop culture that Carl Jung version of the archetypes, but you have to look at Carl Jung's material, number one, and read. So I have read a lot of his books, Mysterium Conjunctionis, the whole series from Bollingen, and you have to look at what are his sources, what is informing him? Because he's not he's a contemporary, like in terms of history. Like we gotta go, like where are these ideas coming from? And he gains them through pagan sources, through alchemical sources. So you can't Like, yes, I know we all want to like give props to the men that take stuff from older cultures and then put their name on it and then become known for it, right? We all want to have our name on that particle, you know, or whatever it is we discovered to have like our last name put on it and get a Nobel Prize. But the reality is that there are other sources that need to get recognized. And for a shadow work, this is a traditional pagan thing. Like I say in the book, like anyone that's a psychologist or a witch or a pagan is gonna know what shadow work is. Is and shadow work in pagan traditions goes into our underworld self and these journeys to the underworld is the original shadow work. And in the book, I talk about you know using the Israel-Palestine conflict as an example. Because if you go back and look at what Gaza is, there were underworld entrances in Gaza. It was called the Valley of the Rephaim, and the Rephaim were this race of we're not really sure what they were six-fingered humans. And you could journey into the underworld and have talks with the dead. And this was like part of the Christian world separates, and we don't do talking to the dead, talking to the ancestors. That's part of the shadow world. Like if you want to talk about getting into the dark, you go into the underworld, which was the traditional journey that we would make and doing psycho pumping, ⁓ which I do for clients, although I don't like advertising at because it always sucks. So please don't contact me for a psycho pumping. Do it yourself. ⁓ I'm

Arden Leigh: refer those people out.

Maja D'Aoust: Menopause. So my menopause journey was all underworld shit. So I was like, All right, I'm just gonna do it, I guess. But I really don't wanna do it anymore. So I'm d ⁓ just 'cause I brought it up, don't contact me. But you have to do underworld work and do underworld journeys. And so part of the shamanic traditions too, you'd make ascents, which everybody loves, right? We all love going in the upper. making the ascent is my favorite thing. Then you gotta go down into the underworld where All that nasty, nasty shit is. And so a lot of my shadow work came through doing underworld labors, psycho pumping, stuff like that. And I was like, man, people are looking at this shadow work like just like, what did my dad give to me? Like that I need to deal with. No, man, way bigger than that, dudes. It's gonna be like a much longer journey for humans because we have to integrate with that part of ourselves that's already dead, our ancestors that are dead. Interact with them, talk to them, like figure this out. Like, come on. We can't just keep doing the same thing over and over in a stupid circle. Like we have to learn from the past. We have to understand the past. We have to know who we are. We have to know what is a human. What are we doing here? What have we done? Who are we? Like these are important things we have to get into. That's shadow work.

Arden Leigh: Yes, agreed entirely. Yeah. That's our and our animal natures too, right? Our animal bodies that end up having these needs, as you were talking about, which end up causing these shadow behaviors. And speaking of shadow behav so I have my deck here, but I see, you know, you have yours as what do you want to do the honor of doing doing today?

Maja D'Aoust: I would love to.

Arden Leigh: All right. So we're gonna we're gonna do one for me one for Tomi. And you can do one one for you if you want as well. ⁓ I think my idea for it was we'll do a three card spread, a past like a shadow work that we have recently since successfully integrated, ⁓ one that we are presently working on now, and then one that is going to be like the next one in the future that we ought to keep an eye out for when that time comes.

Maja D'Aoust: Okay, sounds good. So for artists

Arden Leigh: Ready to get read for filth. ⁓

Maja D'Aoust: Deal with your past, present, and future shadows to work on. Very interesting. Okay. Your first card is the Skinwalker, which is the Hierophant card in the regular deck. Skinwalker is a corrupt authority or spiritual leader that ends up being abusive towards you. So Hierophant, I really was inspired to write about because of all the Catholic priests who are abusing their positions. This is any leader. of a community or group that ends up being abusive towards their members. So I don't know if you have any experience of that in your past.

Arden Leigh: That's so funny because I literally we were just talking about my spirits warning me and saying, Hey, cast that spell that you have all the compassionate leadership that you need in order to ascend into this next realm of spirit. Don't be in your victim mentality and think that you're powerless and then lash out at people. You're becoming a leader. So you need more so, and I literally I cast that spell about maybe a month and a half ago. So that is right on the money. Okay. All right. What's what's the one I'm working on right now?

Maja D'Aoust: is the avoidant which I had already done. So this is gonna cut take the shape of dating people are avoiding, right? Some avoidance issue.

Arden Leigh: I know exactly what this is. No, I'm I'm ha I'm go actually going through an 'cause I'm normally the anxious one and I'm kind of going through an avoidant phase right now. You're anxious phase.

Maja D'Aoust: So you can integrate that shadows. Now you're kind of choosing that you're going into your anti-self, Arden.

Arden Leigh: Absolutely. ⁓ I am purposefully right now, I have like I have purposefully kind of in a spiritual energetic sense said like I'm not dealing with I've dealt with this for so much, I'm not dealing with it right now until it is time. So that makes sense too. That is exactly what I am doing right now. I'm going through my avoidance. Yeah. I'm like in I will deal with this in the future when it is the right time. But right now, like or or rather like I won't deal with like the relationshipy stuff. Like I'm I'm single, right? And there's stuff that like there's stuff I could be dealing with and I have sort of set energetic limits and said, Not yet. I've that I've done that circus and monkeys. That'll this'll be in the future. Yeah. So yeah, again, that's right on the money.

Maja D'Aoust: So the third one for future that we get for you is the tyrant, which is the emperor card. This is going to be authority figures exerting control upon you in ways that are unjust or unfair. Tends to be masculine type of energy, but can be either because I don't feel like, you know, the gender thing. It's not male or female, it's just that c type of energetic, right? So I I made the image of it a bull because it's like being bullied.

Arden Leigh: ⁓ wow.

Maja D'Aoust: So ⁓ this is you should look at like some techniques or strategies to deal with bullies and trolls, which sounds like you're already having to deal with. So as we rise, you know, into awareness, we get bullies. So learning how to deal with bullies is really important. We need to figure out how to understand the bully dark type.

Arden Leigh: You know, that resonates for me too because I dealt with a bully recently, but part of what I'm trying to catch myself on is making sure that I don't bully them in return.

Maja D'Aoust: That's what I mean. Like it's really rough. Like, how do we ⁓ not do that reciprocity or retaliatory energy? You gotta get help, get friends, right? Yeah.

Arden Leigh: Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really working on like what is the kind and just and compassionate way to respond to this that doesn't just throw the bullying back. And yeah, that resonates for me too, because I've been having those conversations in my head and it has been difficult.

Maja D'Aoust: Awful. I when I was in grade school, I got bullied so much and I would just fight them. Like I would get in trouble and have to go to the principal's office because I there was one guy I tried to wrangle with my jump rope because he was like attacking me and I defended myself, but then I was the one that got in trouble, right? So ⁓ because I went took it too far. But you know, how are you going to get the bullies? Stop, right? We it's breaking that cycle. While still defending yourself, it's really hard. It's really hard. You know?

Arden Leigh: Can can confirm. That was incredible. That all three of those were spot on for me.

Maja D'Aoust: Shadows, man. All right, shall I pull

Arden Leigh: Tomi Yeah, Tomi, are you ready to come on camera and get read for filth?

Maja D'Aoust: Red for filth is so good. That's genius. is Tomi there? Hello.

Arden Leigh: She ⁓ she may be like dealing with work stuff. And we can, you know, we can we can edit this. Okay, I'll pull pull for yourself.

Maja D'Aoust: For mine. I'll close. I'll disclose ⁓ mine. Okay, let's see here. Well, geez, that's really something. ⁓ first card I get is the high priestess, which is I call the abandoned bride, which I was inspired by Ariadne's myth. ⁓ I don't know how many of you are familiar with that, but it is very Because I had a breakup ⁓ about a year ago and was long-term partnership. And so definitely this ⁓ resonates quite a bit of just that ⁓ dealing with abandonment issues in general has been one of my shadows, like because I had bad dad and all that kind of stuff. And so trying to work with breaking that pattern and get some kind of breakthrough there is a big theme for me of late. The Second one I get is the moon card, which is the deceiver. someone who's being deceptive or not telling the truth and things that is definitely active for me right now as I deal with all kinds of different lawsuits that I had to do. So like I'm an Eaton Fire survivor, my house burned down, and we had to deal with all of that kind of stuff of people like using deceptive tactics and trying to see when people are lying. And then how do you deal with when you're being lied to? This is a big thing, right? Everyone's everyone's gonna lie in some parts. Like even people that you love are gonna lie to you, right? So I tried to view lies as someone's trying to protect something, right? So a lie and a deception is a protective, defensive behavior. So instead of like taking it personally, again, we want to transpersonalize it. Depersonalize it and when you can see and know someone's lying to you, you have to see, okay, what are they trying to protect? Trying to protect their money, they're trying to protect their stuff, but they're causing you harm. So I'm actively undergoing this as we speak. ⁓ and then my future one is the lovers, which I also call the nemesis. So it looks like I'll be engaging in relationship again sometime in the future and have to deal with that thin line between love and hate and learning how to deal with the kind of you know, when we become intimate with someone, it's like ⁓ enemies are intimacy as well. And having an enemy means that you are intimate with them and it's a it's an emotional relationship that you engage in like a lover. It's funny because I was just telling a friend of mine the other day When people are my enemy, I feel like it's like they have a crush on me.

Arden Leigh: Yes, yes.

Maja D'Aoust: 'Cause you know, when you're like crushing on someone you like hate them too, or it's like you know, just people pushing you on the playground, ⁓ or like, you know, people pulling your ponytails or stuff like that. So

Arden Leigh: There's something very erotic about having a nemesis. Like there is there is a hundred percent intimacy to that. Yeah.

Maja D'Aoust: So ⁓ yeah, that's what I'll be dealing with. Yeah. Tony, we will look at yours next if you like. Yeah, I'd love that. Sorry about earlier my mic and camera didn't want to turn on. I could hear everything, but I was just like a ghost in the background. You were a shadow.

Arden Leigh: He

Maja D'Aoust: Okay, past, present, and future shadows for you. Okay, let's see here. You got the same one as Arden on the final one, which is being bullied. So this is in your past past position. So maybe you've had to deal with some bullies, ⁓ and figure out how to manage that energy, right? I couldn't possibly think of a reason why I might have been bullied in my past. Super weird. Yeah.

Tomi Trembath: Thank

Arden Leigh: But

Maja D'Aoust: No, Bullies again are trying to take power, right? So when someone's bullying you, they don't have power and they see that you have power and they're trying to take it like your lunch money. The emperor, an emperor is a leader of a group of people, but they themselves don't have any power. They take it from all the people that are underneath them. Like, like a billionaire isn't a billionaire. That's everyone else's money that they took. Right? They don't they don't have that money. That's everyone's money, right? So A bully is trying to control the collective to take their power because they don't have it. But everyone thinks they're powerful, right? You look at them and you're like, wow, you must have a lot of power. No, they don't. It's everybody else's power. Yeah. I think about that a lot because I'm in like the most confident phase I've ever been in before, like in these last few years. And like I say like among my family or even among like my childhood friends, never would have thought I would have been the one to become anything because I was always not with intention from others. Sometimes it was just the way they happened to see me, but like I never had those interactions that made me think like, ⁓ yes, you are good at th the things you do, or like you have this potential. So I think, yeah, that was all my power being taken by others For any number of means, but like now that's been taken back. Yay. Good job. That's hard to get there. You have to give yourself. You have to give it to yourself, right? When no one else around will, you have to be like I am. You have to do the I ams. Yeah. That's so cool. ⁓ presently you do seem to have some kind of stinker because we get the scapegoat, which is like being blamed by other people for something that they did, right? Scapegoat is the devil card and it's when it's again that someone punches you in the face and then sues you for breaking their hand. So currently you wanna be cautious of people placing blame upon you for stuff they're doing. Okay. That do you have any of that going on? Yeah, that maybe hits in the more recent past, maybe situations that haven't had a formal resolution. Just what I've like, I'm not gonna engage with that, but okay. So if it helps, like sometimes it's validating to know it's not you. They're trying to put blame on you because they won't take responsibility. Hmm. Okay. Thank you for the validation there. Yes. It's pretty like anytime the scapegoat card comes up, it's pretty clear. The third card that you get is Seven of Swords, which is the appropriation card in my deck. And it's when people are trying to take. I caution people when this card comes up because someone could be trying to take your intellectual properties or copy some of your ideas that you're putting out. So if you have like podcasts or are talking about things, maybe you have a copycat out there somewhere that's trying to take some of your stuff. Maybe that'll happen in the future. Whenever you have intellectual properties or stuff you're putting out, I mean in this day and age with the internet like so many people are just copying and pasting, you know. So if you get a really good idea, you should protect it. Okay. I do have a lot of creative projects ongoing and Okay, so don't share them until they're published or protected. And if you do, like this is a big mistake I made early on, is because when you're creative, you just have ideas and you want to tell people and like share it. And then ding dongs will just take ⁓ and make it themselves. So for that card, you do as your value of your intellectual properties rises, you want to make sure that they are protected. in a way that will prevent people from thefting them. Okay. Yeah. I'll be a little more tight lipped about my projects and podcasts going forward. I'll wait till it comes out and then talk about it. Yeah. Okay.

Arden Leigh: Tomi, do you want to go ahead and and ask your question of Maja ⁓ to wrap up our episode?

Maja D'Aoust: Yeah. So your first work that I was aware of was The Witch's Bestiary. And I know it's been a number of years since that came out. And I'm curious if in that time since its original publication, like are there any other creatures that you've either encountered or heard about from others that like you really wish could be in a future edition of that book? ⁓ I love that question. in fact I did pitch another book. ⁓ which never got picked up, but it was for identifying interdimensional creatures. So I really wanted to make another bestiary that was all about not just mythological creatures, but interdimensional beings and entities that people run into. Cause as I was doing a lot of my psychopoming and kind of like shaman work, you run into these entities, beings, deities that are on these kind of other levels. So I wanted to make a whole nother book of those creatures that we come across, you know? Especially doing like power plant rituals or even just meditations, visualizations. There's all kinds of cre it's like we're in an ocean with all these creatures floating around all over the place. It's wild. When you shift your perception, you can see them. It's like, ⁓ no, what is this? So like are we talking about like the common ones people see on DMT, like the machine elves and the mantis people? There are some of those, but as you get into like visionary journeys, I'll see these like jellyfish.

Arden Leigh: Looking ones. ⁓

Maja D'Aoust: There they are. They're like blobs, but they even have like tendrils they c I don't know how else to describe it, but it looks like jellyfish just as an example. So like I feel like there's ones that even surpass the DMT peeps that I've encountered. Then a lot of insecty looking ones, like very praying mantis kind of vibe that I've seen on people too. So there's a lot more I would like to ⁓ get into. That would be a fun book to do, but I don't know. Maybe someday. I will look forward to it and especially now knowing that you did all the art for both the witches bestiary and the new deck. Like I wanna see your artistic attempts at translating some of these interdimensional beings into a book. I think it would be really fun. Yeah.

Arden Leigh: I'll look forward to it too. Thank you again so much, Maja. This has been such a fun conversation. I know it's been helpful and enlightening for me and I hope it's been helpful for those who are also listening out there. Go and check out Maja's work. Maja, is there anything else that you would like to share in terms of like where people can find you or what they should look forward to?

Maja D'Aoust: ⁓ sure. ⁓ I'm just on witchofthedawn.com. I'm not on social media anymore. I don't know if everyone wants to know that drama, but it was I help a lot of people, okay? And they began tracking my messages because people will talk to me about things they're doing that are legal, but they're really like ⁓ there was all and I just help people, you know what I mean? But they were then seeing things people would send me in my private messages on Instagram and Facebook. And then retaliate against the people. So like if someone was in a state where abortion is illegal and they're contacting me to try to get help, the fucking authorities are are looking into like then using that information against the person that's soliciting me for help. So I'm like, wow, just wow. So I was like, ⁓ And so I immediately left. I also there was like some other stuff too. I know there was I was just like kind of huffy when I left because I was like, this is so dumb. But yeah, ⁓ Nag

Arden Leigh: I remember your grand exit.

Maja D'Aoust: Congratulations to people that are. I think it's like whatever, it can be a really good tool. But for me, I was just so frustrated with it that I didn't need it. And I will say, as I reconnect with people and I go through synchronicity and flow, I mean, I have like not suffered from it at all. In fact, I reconnect better with people. I talk to human beings, you know, my business is doing great. So you don't need to be on social media. I know they try to make you think you need a middleman in order to navigate humanity. This is not true. We have our hearts and those can beam out like lighthouses to each other. So not on social media, sorry, but you can contact me from my website. My email is Maja at God is my boyfriend.com.

Arden Leigh: Yay, thank you so much, Maja. This has been such a fun conversation. Thank you everyone who tuned into this episode and gave it a listen. I hope that you go and do some shadow work. Go buy the Shadowseer Tarot, pull some cards, read yourself for filth, and of course, go forth and repattern. Thank you everyone. We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Repatterning Podcast. If you're curious about the Repatterning Project, the eight-week course in mental mastery and creative freedom that inspires these conversations, you can check out more details at therepatterningproject.com. We run a cohort twice a year, or you can download the self-study version of the course and get started today. We also offer a four-week course on narrative magic and archetype titled Myths and Magic: Changing Your Life Through Story, also twice a year. If you'd like to join our community, the Repatterning Parlor on Discord. You can sign up for $5 month at patreon.com/slash The Repatterning Podcast. ⁓ to everyone who makes the Repatterning Podcast possible. ⁓ our award-winning producer Tomi Trembath of the Key Master Collective Network of Podcasts. ⁓ also produces transcending comics, Vision the Void, and Giant-sized violence. ⁓ Thanks to Animation Studio Mortis and Madriax, who created the video for our introduction, ⁓ as as to Andrew Means, who composed and produced our theme music. And also thanks to Al Alvarez, who took the photos of yours truly that you see on the cover of each episode if you're watching the video version. And finally, thanks to you, our listeners, who give meaning to this work. Our greatest wish is that whatever you've heard today inspires you to live freely and begin creating your reality from the inside out. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you again soon.