Aarona Leá on magic, moon decks, and mystical powers

In this episode, Freddie invites Aarona Lea Pichinson, the author and founder of The Moon Deck. She is an embodied intuition and ritual wellness teacher and leads different workshops, trainings, and retreats worldwide. She talks about her childhood, healing from it, and finding magic with The Moon Deck. As someone who believes in the importance of spiritual wellness, she gives her view on finding her spirituality, expanding your awareness, and the essence of magic in our daily lives.

This episode will focus on the power of decks, Aarona’s spiritual journey, and how she has used her hardships in life as a stepping stone towards healing. 

Episode Highlights

2:00 Aarona shares her different life experiences and how this has affected her view on the world

5:19 She talks about her awareness - whether it’s with her relationships, self-love, and learning from her past

9:25 Aarona talks about Moon Deck and how it works

13:51 She talks about how she found herself connecting with her spirituality, magic, and cards

19:04 Freddie and Aarona talk about bending spoons, awareness of reality, and feeling magic in their lives

28:22 They continue to talk about being present, mind, and body, during the pandemic and needing emotional support

32:16 Aarona talks about integration with Moon Deck and how she has felt herself change holistically

35:26 Freddie talks about healing, charging yourself, and interconnection

39:35 Aarona talks about using decks for therapeutic purposes and helping people recognize their inner intuition

42:29 She shares the different routines that allow her to recharge and refill herself

45:58 Aarona talks about her relationship with her mom, before and after her passing, and how her current view of the world has allowed her to reach a greater understanding of spiritual connection

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (00:00.088)
This is my deep desire and every part of my cellular being longs for this. That level of charge has so much power and I think that's where we can cast our greatest spells is with that clear directive emotionally charged energy.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (00:17.206)
Welcome to the Beautifully Broken Podcast. I'm your host, Freddie Kimmel, and on the show we explore the survivor's journey, practitioners making a difference, and the therapeutic treatments and transformational technology that allow the body to heal itself. Witness the inspiration we gain by navigating the human experience with grace, humility, and a healthy dose of mistakes. Because part of being human is being beautifully broken.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (00:54.508)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the beautifully broken podcast. I am really excited about today, not only because we are approaching the Christmas season, but because we have a new guest with a new area of expertise we've never delved into before. Today, we welcome to the podcast, Arana Leah. How are you doing this morning? I'm good. Very good. How are you?

I'm excellent. I'm excellent. We have a mutual friend with the magical Rolodex Rose in LA who connected us and she said, you have to have this human being on. She's lovely. She has an amazing story. And so I kind of want to jump into it, you know, the beautifully broken podcast, putting the broken pieces back together. usually put this at the end. Now, this was our very first conversation and it is

And I were to say to you, tell me about a time in your life that was hard for you. What would that story look like? Well, I think it started very young for me. You know, we don't have to go all the way back, but I've had a lot of bumpy moments throughout my whole life, starting in childhood. And I think that the kind of chaos that my nervous system created other hardships in my life.

So yeah, it's been bumpy along the way of learning about myself and how I show up in the world and how I view the world and the relational world is a big one for me that I'm working on as an adult woman. And I would say in more recent times, the biggest kind of broken open, which exposed a lot of the earlier stuff was when I simultaneously went through a divorce when my mom died a few months later.

my business partner, we were talking a little bit before we started recording here about her, had breast cancer and I moved out of New York after 18 years back to LA. So that really, that was about three and a half years ago, almost four years ago now. And I would say that divorce from my then husband in New York and sort of the implosion of this life that I thought I was building, partly because I wanted to and partly because I wasn't

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (03:15.278)
being in tune or honest with my needs. The implosion of that coupled with my mom's death all within three months, that alone was traumatizing. But I think there was deeper old traumas that got exposed that are like, deal with me. So was it was kind of impounded by the trauma of a real relationship completely disappearing. My mom, my ex, a life that I thought I was building. Yeah, as I said, like that. And then the exposure.

in the last few years of stuff that really required my full attention that I'm still working on. Parts of me that were dormant became very alive. Other parts of me feel like they've totally retreated since then and are rebuilding their confidence. Other parts of me that were self-hating voices that got exposed from the kind of foundation being so rocked. We can go deeper into all that, but it's been a very, I guess, massive time of growth.

that's requiring me to get really, really real with myself. And so yeah, it feels woven to my past is why I started off that way because I think if someone's had trauma in their life, however little or big it might've been, when new traumas happen or injury to whatever part of ourselves, I do think it's a huge opportunity for some of the raw stuff to get exposed and dealt with. And that can be very painful emotionally, spiritually, mentally.

Yeah, that's the most recent kind of capture. would say coupled with the woven nature of the past. That's a lot. That's a lot. Tell me what it was like. Did you, obviously we never plan to start relationship and have it explode or end, but let's talk about your relationship for a second. When you started your relationship with an awareness that there is trauma in your life. Was that something that when you first started out, was it natural? There's a flow to it. Were you worried about this?

coming to an end at some point, or do you think that was like something that you had solid in your corner? Yeah, I think I'm far more aware of that now. I just feel like I've grown so much, but I was definitely aware of it then. I say back then, it was only a few years ago, but I just feel like such a different person in so many ways. You know, I created the Moon Deck and the Moon Deck is a deck for self-love, intuition, ritualizing, mental and emotional health. That deck is speaking to younger versions of me.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (05:43.374)
in many ways. And now I teach still like around these teachings around intuition, trusting ourselves, looking at our doubt. I teach the very thing I struggle with the most. And I've always been that way as a teacher, as an artist, as a facilitator. I learn things, they have to move through me, marinate, incubate, eventually integrate, and then I have words for it. So I think that in the past, I was staying in relationships because I wasn't trusting myself.

I made myself the problem for having doubts. Like I had doubts in that relationship, but I just kept being like, no, we can work it out. sometimes I would actually act on those doubts and try to change the course of the relationship or end it. And instead it was like my codependency would come up and be like, no, I'm going to work through this even though I'm not sure if it's right. then inevitably I would of course love the person on top of everything, which can complicate things if you really love someone, but you don't think it's right.

that can be murky, at least it was for me. And then I wanted to make it work, because I'm a deep digger. And I think there's a fine line between like, when do you dig deeper and when do you let go? And that line would get very blurry for me. It was hard for me to let go because I wanted things to work or because I believed in the love that was there or I didn't want to rock the boat. So I think it's been a real process of learning to trust myself when something's not right, it's not right. I don't always have to understand why.

and also noticing my tendency to at times try to force or control something to work when it's not in alignment for me. And I think that's where things were blurry for me and my relationships in the past and why I've probably waited a little longer this round to get into jump into one because I don't want to repeat that. And for me, I think all relationships can stir up past attachment styles, past fears, past anxieties.

And now I really want a partnership that can be honest with me, because I'm very honest about that stuff and very self-aware. Self-awareness isn't the issue. It's just learning how to create the new neurological pathways and the new patterns and the new habits and not react. And like that's where my deeper work comes in is that inner subtle presence where we're aware of like, okay, I want to scratch that itch, but that's living out an old pattern that no longer serves me. How do I just sit with the uncomfortable feeling?

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (08:09.808)
So I think that's a skill set that I was aware of in past relationships, but just didn't maybe really have access to and was a bit more reactionary or would kind of get on myself about like, why am I not satisfied versus like, oh, this isn't right. I would make myself the problem for like, oh, I'm never satisfied versus like, oh, I have doubts here and my body and spirits trying to speak to me. So that's a huge thing I think that I'm still finding.

words and total clarity around. That's beautiful. Awareness is our superpower has been coming up for me a lot lately. All this work, whether we do, whether it's on the physical, whether it's on the emotional or spiritual, I find myself to, it's like I'm tuning the instrument and I start to get these really undeniable. It's a yes or no, you know, when I enter into any kind of a conversation, business engagement, whatever.

It's like, sometimes it's so profound. It's like, want to hang up the phone right now. I don't want to go any further with this. And it's been a result of all this tuning and toning. And I want to jump back. You mentioned Moondack. I think people are probably like, what's a Moondack? Can we go into that a little bit and just give a descriptor? So the Moondack is an oracle deck. oracle. It's, I think more people have heard of Tarot, but they're very different. I mean, they're the same. It's a deck of cards that has some

divination elements in it. But a tarot deck, I do believe dates back further than Oracle and the tarot will always have the suits, the swords, the cups, the ones that always have that same suits no matter the author or artist. Whereas an Oracle deck, which is what the Moon deck is, the maker really gives it the meaning with Oracle decks. So, you know, it could be like animal cards, angel cards, affirmation deck. So a great Oracle deck will have some, you know,

cohesiveness throughout and have some themes. And so the themes of the Moondack is intuition, emotional, mental, spiritual, well-being, healthy boundaries. There's even an ancestor's card. There's a card about, you know, having more joy in our life. There's a card about focusing on what's working. There's a card about courage, a card about clarity. And so every card in the Moondack has a corresponding write-up in the guidebook.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (10:30.116)
and a ritual that goes with it. So there's actually a way to bring it to life. So it's not just you have a great 10 minutes reading your cards, which can be very helpful, but there's also a ritual for the cards that jump out at you the most where you can now enact these self care practices or these ritual practices to bring more sacredness into it because we're not going to heal if we don't participate in it. This is about taking ownership in that piece of our healing and this piece of self awareness. However, doing it with a way that is

really loving and embracing the shadow parts of us and the light parts of us and everything in between. There's a card in the deck, the owl card that says there is medicine in my shadow. There's a self love card in the deck that says I love myself completely and unconditionally. So some of this stuff can sound somewhat cliche, but put into action, put into motion in our life takes a great amount of consistency and courage and honesty. And so this deck, think in a very gentle,

but very grounded way invites people to do that. And I'm the author of the deck and Andy Kay is the illustrator. And yeah, we've become a business. We started off as a crowdfunding pre-order and we raised $50,000, which is what launched us into a small business. That was about five years ago. We'll be five years old January 4th. And yeah, so it comes in a handmade wood box or a paper box. It's printed on FSC certified paper. So it's more consciously harvested.

and we use plant-based ink. And the Moon Deck's a product, but we have some other products starting to grow on the website. I have a new vision for a new deck kind of channeling through slowly. My spirit guys are like, wake up earlier, we need you in the morning. That's when they like to sit with me and kind of work with me on that stuff. And so we'll see, you know, we're a growing brand and we are an educational piece as much as a product-based company. And I've been a yoga teacher and kind of health coach for 20 years.

So I feel like, as I'm sure you know in your work, my work just keeps evolving as a teacher, as a facilitator, as an artist, and now as a entrepreneur and businesswoman. And yeah, I'm loving it. And so it's intense, know, it's intense running a business and everything that goes on with it. And that's also really helped me grow. But all the things we were just talking about with relationships and self-awareness, that all plays out in the business as well. It's like, how do I run my team? How stressed out and anxious do I allow myself to get over little mistakes?

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (12:56.892)
How much can I trust the deeper wisdom flowing through this very conscious business, even though it is a business on the foundational level and there's got to be that side of it. I would say it feels like a loving partner in a way as well. Just like kind of whipping me into shape here and there and teaching me how to show up in a more graceful way that that takes care of me and the team. And yeah, I'm still learning how to not tame my fire because there's a, want my fire to be there, but to like.

Yeah, also, you know, let some of the more feminine, intuitive side of things flow through the business. I get that. I hear that teacher. hear how that could show up. As far as the Moondack being a tool for you to use to move people into awareness or for education that you mentioned, was this something you had used in the past that you found? What got you in here to using either? I've always been into cards myself.

they've helped me in my healing journey, whether that was like from tarot to Oracle to like, you know, Louise Hayes, like affirmation decks. mean, everything from like a simple straight up affirmation deck to a more witchy divination tool of a deck to like everything in between to spiritual cards. So they've always helped me. I'm a very experiential visual learner. And so I think for me, and I was like, I can also

like really get stuck in my head. I'm a very analytical thinker as much as I'm also a big hearted spiritual person. So sometimes those things really weave together beautifully. And sometimes there's some conflict with all these sides, which I'm sure everyone has a lot of facets. So for me, using card decks was a way to just pause, to ground into the moment, to give myself something to do, but to kind of anchor into, you know, it was like, I felt like on a card, it's a visual and a sentence.

And it takes this bigger idea and encapsulates it in something very digestible. And that was really healing for me to kind of simplify and have something visual, experiential, tactile that I could experience to kind of calm down, to have a morning ritual, to just, I do believe in magic and spirituality is very important for me. And the more I accept that about myself, the happier I feel. So it was just a way to.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (15:19.379)
Embrace that side of me and I was always that way when I was younger But card decks across the board just taking these big ideas and understanding myself emotionally mentally spiritually Feeling a reminder in those moments that I'm guided feeling a reminder in those moments that like okay, everything's okay Everything's gonna be okay and this card kind of would remind me of that and then I started to incorporate these cards into my ice do these big yoga classes called yoga soundscape

with live musicians and art and things like that. And so I would pass out cards to the students. Sometimes I would paint words on paper. And so they were having a similar experience. Like they would open their eyes and they would see the card and it was just like, they just needed to hear that in that moment for whatever reason. And so I started to see that divination, you know, beautiful, creative, you know, reminder show up in a similar way for my students.

as it had done for me. And I think that was the moment where the seed was planted, like I want to do this one day. And I wrote in my journal a lot and had a lot of one liners that I was kind of collecting that I would either come up on my own or, you know, I've been a student of many teachers for many, many years. I would find notes in those journals. So the Moondack is a collaboration of all those journals over the years, both as student and teacher and.

suffer writing out my notes and like everything in between. Yeah. Yeah. Two things I want to pick apart there. And what does it mean to you to, for something to be magical? How would you define magic? gosh. I think that magic thrives in the imaginal realm of our existence. Something that sadly, you know, as children, they're like, that's just your imagination. Or like, stop giving me notes. Like it's sort of.

for not all of us, but culturally, think it's stunted at an age. And I think that's kind of a stunting of magic in some ways. Thankfully, magic's bigger than us, so it thrives on. But I think you look around and every single thing we see around us started off as something, a seed in the imaginal world. And then it became an intention and then it became words and then it became actions and then it became an invention. So I think there's magic in that. Like there's like a thread of magic in everything you see.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (17:40.565)
And think the more we all like, like right now with COVID and everything we're going through, one of my biggest kind of mantras for myself and for others is like, yeah, there's like, it's a shit show out there right now. And there's a lot to be upset about. It's scary. There's a lot of grief and suffering in the world, like all the news and the fear mongering. But if we let that override our belief in magic and override the beauty and inspiration that's still available to us, like we're screwed. We have to keep seeing it to keep it alive. And I think there's

magic in that as well. I personally have had a lot of magical moments. I've somehow, as a very young age, was tapped into a more spiritual lens. I've had very, you know, interesting events take place in my life. Maybe I was more open to it because of the trauma I had experienced when I was younger. I think that when we go through a lot, our antennas get sharpened. And so,

There's magic in that, but that's also overwhelming. know a lot of empaths and sensitive people now that really have to learn boundaries and have to heal the codependency and have to heal the words of like, my God, the world's too much. I'm taking it all in. I'm like, okay, what that tells me is you're sensitive, which is beautiful, and you have no fucking boundaries. like, start to create mental, spiritual, emotional boundaries. We can still show up in service, but we don't have to like embody everyone's crap. can't. So anyways, a little bit of a tangent.

No, that's amazing. That's a great way to hit that one on the fly. And that's a very challenging question in being involved with, you know, some of these technologies that are on the fringe, like bio resonance and working with the bio energetic field. And, you know, you say it and people are like, that's, that's not real. But you know, through science, we can prove this now. And I'm more and more aware of

It's like we take things as like a contract in high school. like, they told me that's the way it is and that's just the way it is. And then you start to explore these certain things. I have a real life example. I'm reading this book right now. It's like finding your way in a way finders world. I can't think of the name of her book. Anyways, she has this chapter about spoon bending and I'm like, I've heard of spoon bending before. Great. And I start to read it. It's like midnight. And by one in the morning, I'm so freaked out because they tell you how to bend spoons.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (20:02.537)
Right. This is going to sound crazy to everybody on the podcast. I'm just going to look around and acknowledge it. But you make friends with the sounds crazy with the vibration of the spoon. And because reality, it's the awareness and acknowledgement we create reality by being a physical presence, observing that you can bend a spoon in your hand and take a solid spoon and just will it to bend. And I've heard about this.

I'm like, heard about spoon benders. You're like, oh, it's some weird thing. They put it in the matrix movie. It's real. And people bend spoons and bend wrought iron crowbars by- Have you seen it before? Yeah. My friend teaches it. I just- Wow. You can witness it, right? I'm witnessing it. And so this is my recent experience with magic and I watched it and it freaked me out. Like my heart started to palpitate. I got up, I walked around the yard till three in the morning. I was like touching-

trees and benches and it was nuts. So it's this new level of awareness of how life's not always what we think it is. No, that's super magical. Super magical. I believe in that stuff so much. I think I need more discipline to like focus that hard on learning how to bend the spoon. Yeah. But I do believe that I feel like we're only using so much of our capacity and I think magic comes through ritual. think magic can come through like really

clear prayer and intention setting. I think magic is when we tap into the divine mystery and spirit, whatever name, I don't care what words people want to use, God, great spirit. I I think magic is just normal way of life for people that have lived in indigenous communities off of land and they're able to communicate in ways that are totally out of our immediate reach and more urban settings.

I just think so much is available to us. I believe in science, I love science, but I don't believe that's all the answers. I think that there's an unseen world all around us that actually really wants to support us right now with where the world's at. And I think there's as much power in the unseen than the seen. And you can call that our ancestors, our spirit guides, the intelligence of nature and the seasons. I think there's so much beauty in the world and magic in the world.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (22:24.919)
And that we can, yeah, Ben spoons with it. We it. can spend spoons with it. Like you said, you went to, when we first started chatting, you, initially started, went to, it was an NIH. Uh, I, I, and the Institute for Nutrition Institute for Integrative Nutrition 2001, 2001. That's so you were way ahead of the game. got into the health game at like 2006, but

When you start down that road for me, was like, everything's diet and food and micronutrients and macronutrients. then for my journey has been, well then there's structural elements of health and wellness. And then there's the mental emotional. And then I've since set all that aside. You're like, you're saying everything is a teacher and there is this magical realm and you see people have do none of the like quote unquote functional medicine. Like they don't, know, IV,

you know, antibiotics or IV vitamin C or ozone therapy, whatever. And they heal them. So people have miraculous healings, like in a day sometimes on things that should take two years to heal. And they just will it to be. And it's because they access another level of what they believe to be true. And for me, I'm going to loop this back around to your cards because growing up in New York or walking around New York city, I remember my experience with like a card reader was walking by like

in Hell's Kitchen and you see some woman next to like Rudy's bar and she's like, get your card read. You know, and it was like not very magical, but maybe it was, maybe that woman had like superpowers and I should have gone in there and got a reading. I've always looked at it in the past before the last 15 years as kind of a woo-woo fringe thing where I'm like, they just want your, you know, your 50 bucks. And now I guess my subjective reality has changed.

And I'm aware that these things are valid and great teachers and great guides. I would love to hear some of your favorite stories about working people with the cards. You have any like favorite experiences or things that really let you up stories you like to tell about helping someone make a discovery. Yeah, I do think there is some out there. That's like, like I remember those New York psychics. I, when I was a photographer, which was, have a BFA in photography, I used to want to do a big.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (24:42.654)
project when I lived in New York called NYC psychics and just shoot all those like storefront psychics and like somehow I didn't end up doing it. But yeah, that's a wild scene. Yeah. Wild scene, right? Yeah, it really is. Or the carnival, like the carnival that travels to your town. when you're like a little kid. Amazing, though, right? There's something like like that's someone's life, like a traveling circus. And one more thing I want to say about magic. And then I'll answer that question is I think that it's you know, like the subtle is so powerful.

sometimes it's like, you know, like our nervous system is you can subtly tweak it and it changes everything. So I feel like magic works the same way where we can just like, I feel like we are all energy shaper, like we shape energy. And that's why when we enter a room, there's a presence and.

you know, anger is contagious. And so is happiness. Like, emotions are contagious because they're actual chemicals like being released in the body. And that's even where we have to look at some of our addiction patterns if we're addicted to feeling a certain way or a certain story. And I just, think even in that, I know science can break all that down, but I think there is a magic to that. I know for me, because I'm always working on my internal energy and because I have such a strong.

experience of life. feel things very deeply. feel things very intensely. And as a result of that, I don't want to squelch it or diminish it, but I've had to learn to not let it like be in the driving seat all the time. And so even in the potency of that, there's a magic and then in the learning to ground it and integrate it. So it's not fragmented or reactive.

I feel like as I'm starting to be able to do that, like more magic is available as I integrate the fragments and the pieces and honor my sensitivity and my intuition and trust myself more and trust the wisdom that I know to be true in my bones and then validate it, which then is a heaping dose of validation to my self worth as a result. Like that becomes more magical because my energy has more impact. have more impact.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (26:43.376)
The more I speak about this, the more I see people who are hungry for that conversation. And so I feel like even that has a magic to understand the impact of our energy that it has in a room, let alone the collective vibration and the planet and to own that and to get really honest with ourselves about where it is and isn't serving us. like, as we get cohesive about that collectively and as we get cohesive in like body, mind, spirit, heart connection,

Like so much magic can happen just as a result of being more in tune with the elements. We embody fire, water, earth, like we embody the elements. So we, of course we can shape them and direct them. And how do we get back in harmony with those elements and the polarizations and the dualities that live in those elements that also live in us and to eliminate the judgment, which is a big practice for me. I am judgmental of myself and of the world. And it's something I'm really learning to

unpack for myself because that is a instant cork to magic an instant cork to into it just corking it right the flow right up when we throw judgment out so whether we want to take a psychoanalytical approach to this or a science based or a magical intuitive base like Call it what you want. But for me, there's magic that lives in all of that. And yes, there's a place for science But scientists are reproving old facts all the time. So why am I gonna like land on?

You know, for me, at what point did feeling not become data? I feel like I'm this advocate for like, no, feeling is data. Damn it. I'm reclaiming that. Yeah, it's true. It's true. It has brought me a lot of peace in this pandemic to release. And I affirm this in the mornings, release the attachment to outcome or to label it good or bad and to just sort of, you know, while there's a lot of intense intensity going on in the world.

to witness it, I try to be like a five-year-old like Freddie and be like, wow, what's that mean? Like, it just, like this inquisitive nature of a child. And it takes the hurt out of it and you can just, and then it allows you to operate. You know, it allows you to be functional. I've heard so many people say I'm like barely functional or use the term I'm crumbling right now in this term. And that's real. And I get it.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (29:07.962)
You know, it's like we want things to be a certain way we get an attachment to it. And the other favorite thing that I've heard lately is that good that Corona makes it so hard to be present because we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring. And I'm like, tell me the other time in your life when we knew what was going to happen in the morning. I mean, ever. You know, when do I ever know I'm going to wake up tomorrow? I don't. Yeah, I don't. So just go with it. And that's where coming back to your other question about like the moments with

the Moon Deck cards or any card or any healing experience. mean, I've worked with a lot of healers for myself. I go through phases throughout the year where I'm like, okay, it's invest in a Rana time. Like get the readings, get the healer, get the therapy, get the thing. You know, I have these like bursts of that in my life where I know I need more support. I know I need more, you know, just honest reflection. I need to be seen, whatever it is. So I usually will invest in myself, you know.

different times of the year for that. I'm in that phase right now. And I have been in the last couple of months just trusting my instincts about people I want to work with that I know can support my growth and this next kind of evolution. I, yeah, I'm really longing for that level of alignment. And like you said, the non-judgment piece is huge because that's where energy can flow. For me, when I'm giving readings with the cards, the cards don't suddenly start to lift from the table and hover.

But what happens, I think it's magical, but it's also just very human. think that the cards help people answer their own questions and it helps remind them that the answers are within and that they already, just don't, we just need confirmation. And I think like that's a lot of what this work is about for me is being a soundboard and a reflector for someone, giving them a space to feel held and seen without any judgment at all for whatever they're going through.

And that alone is this huge boost to the immune system, to the heart and spirit space of someone. And then the space opens up and I see it in the conversation where they are literally answering all of their own questions. They're putting together the pieces. I'm there to help them. Cause when I'm in that mode, I'm completely out of my, as a teacher, as a reader, just, I feel like an open channel and just so much in my heart. And yeah. And I just think that.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (31:26.322)
So many times I'll get emails where just their life has fully opened up in a new direction because they were proactive in just making the choice to get support to be seen. I usually prescribe rituals to them to do for one month or so afterwards based on what the cards will say. And I think it's that support, like asking for help, I think can really start to move energy. Number one, when we seek out the help, when we receive it.

And then what we receive, we turn back inward where we, what we need is within us and we get to integrate. think integration is one of the most amazing pieces of the journey. I feel so excited when I finally feel some integration. I'm just like, oh, I can breathe. Like this is now I can create with this. Yeah. Go further with that. What does that look like? What do mean when somebody finds a space where they start to integrate? I think, the moon deck, I would not have been able to create it.

if it wasn't for the hardships that I had been through, if it wasn't for the interesting, strange ways my mind works based on what I grew up with and having the capacity to create, but also build as an integration from like right now running a business. feel this huge integration in being able to both build and create and really honoring the skill set of me in that way. That's kind of an integration of my dad and mom. Actually, my mom passed away a few years ago, as I mentioned, and

She's definitely the mystical, spiritual, of otherworldly side of me. She had a very challenging life. She dealt with addiction and bipolar disorders and just, I just feel like her spirit was getting chewed on. She had such a hard time. So I have this kind of depth in me as a result of that. I understand sadness on a very deep level that I've had to unlearn, like watching it with my mom and being an empath.

but it's also as that integrates and there's less density and I can more move forward with the wisdom of that experience. There's an integration there. And then with my dad, he's much more, he's still in the world thankfully. He's like a hardcore businessman, like sees the problems before they happen, like very masculine and linear. And he's like, Arana, you can't feel your way through things. Stop being so sensitive. And it's like, So I like literally have these two sides in me.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (33:38.236)
And it's been painful to be quite honest, to find my own truth and all of that. I've had to heal a lot of resentment from the things I grew up with and sort of these like conflicting voices in my life. think resentment's another cork or clog to magic and intuition as well as judgment, like we spoke about. And it's just so embedded in my nervous system that I I've really had to get a lot of support and be very honest with myself about like, I might not know how to undo this, but I know I want to undo this.

and letting that first desire lead the way. So sometimes we're not gonna have the answers, but I just want people to know that the inquiry has great power. We have to ask the question, we have to get in tune with the desire, and if we don't know the road yet, that's okay, but asking the question with true sincerity, like sometimes life's gonna bring us to our knees, but that is the most powerful time to put our prayers out.

And another struggle that I've had is, you know, from the stuff that I grew up with, it manifested as bulimia and like all kinds of crazy eating disorders from 13 to 23. And that was one of those times where I was literally, I was in Brooklyn on my rooftop at the time and just was so deep in depression and struggle and suffering that I finally just literally dropped to my knees in deep prayer. And I, it was still a long journey after that, but I feel like

those emotionally charged, I don't mean emotional like, like fragmented emotional flying off the deep end. And if we, if it does happen to us, forgive yourself, it happens to all of us, but clear emotion where there's a clear direction of that emotion. There's a clear, like, this is my deep desire and every part of my cellular being longs for this. That level of charge has so much power. And I think that's where we can cast our greatest spells is with that clear directive, emotionally charged energy. Yeah, that's

So beautifully put as you're saying that it's so integral to healing. Like that is healing. That's what it is. And it deserves a place on the table. You know, this conversation, it needs to be there. And for a large majority of people, I think this might be the last thing they find. Like we always want to look at the physical or we want to look at two healers or we want to look to technology or we want to look to some type of magical diet that's going to

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (35:55.974)
change our health and our vibration. And sometimes from my experience, energy can be so low that you do need to do something to do the heavy lifting. need to charge the battery before you can have this, you know, this, this visual field of awareness, but it's so powerful and how great to have tools like this as a guide and to be putting out this in the world for people to use. It's really, yeah, it's really, really inspiring.

And the interconnectedness is what always comes up for me whenever I'm like, God, this is related to this and this and this and this. It's not different, right? It's just not different. It's just all, it is up. It's like, it's a new way of thinking about your life and your functionality and your spirit and your power. And all the pieces play a role. Like you said, like sometimes the food, like the very, like the realistic embodiment piece is

Important to get us to the next step as you said, it's they're all as you said deeply interconnected But if we're not dealing with the deeper stuff, I just feel like personally that it has to go somewhere and No, but people are built differently too Like I just think some people don't have to process so deeply like I wasn't built that way So I've just had to figure out a way to be like, okay, this is how I'm designed as of now These are the things I still need to learn. So I just need to find a way to

to do it that honors my design because if I don't, the alternative is not healthy for me. And I think there's a lot of people like that out there that are, we're sort of discovering this new language for it and conversation around it because it is something that gets swept under the rug and isn't honored. And I think we could probably, if we did some research, like date that way back to when society started to shift away from holistic health and

a more maternal approach to things and being more in tune with nature and commodifying things. think it does date back to power struggles in societies. Yeah. Yeah. It's profound. There's so many lessons coming up, especially in 2020 that people need to hear. It's always for me, is living. You're out of the resonance of nature. You know, you're just, it's, there's so many lessons just to walk into the woods and stillness and quiet.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (38:19.992)
Actual vibration of a forest. The other thing that comes up to me is it's such a unique tool to guide us inward and to listen to our own voice. I keep imagining I have like this list of therapists that I've been to in my life that I usually like quit therapy. I have an awesome one now. She's amazing. We do all this cool stuff. She's just interdimensional and I love her, but I would quit therapy because it was cold. I felt like I was on a desert island talking to myself sometimes.

And it would just, I imagine something like this would be so easily integrated with our modern model of mental health that could be so, valuable for people. Do you ever envision the integration of something like a mood deck into a practice? I think decks in general, card decks of all kinds, whether they're more esoteric and spiritually minded like mine, or, you know, there's even those deck of cards, I can't remember the name of them, but like there's ones where

They just have really thoughtful questions to help connect families. was even thinking of getting one, like just to help conversations and families like, oh, what are you most grateful for? I don't know what the questions are. And there's of cards against humanity, which is totally inappropriate. It's another one. However, there's so many card decks. I think we're definitely having like a moment of card decks right now. Some of them are more witchy. Some of them are for the more analytical mind and everything in between I'm seeing out there. I'm fascinated.

And yes, I do think that decks can be used for therapeutic purposes. And I'd lead a nine week training for people who want to become fluent readers of the Moon Deck, which is really just the hook. The deeper training is getting into all the topics we're talking about and helping people validate, recognize, acknowledge their intuition, both in the way they experience it in their body, as well as how they experience it in an expanded way around them.

And then we go into all the layers of that in the training. And in that training, it attracts people who are similar to me and like already teach and just want to have a new tool or just want to deepen their own experience of the deck. Some people want to become readers. Other people we've had women in there who are working with autistic children who want to incorporate the from types of speech. We have a speech therapist. When I wrote the deck.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (40:35.838)
one of my clearest intentions that I felt like a voice I was kind of hearing as I was writing was to reach as many as possible. And I think even when I was a yoga teacher, counselor, and whatever I've done, all my evolutions, one of my gifts I'd say is to be kind of a bridge for people to find more simplistic ways of languaging or demystifying some of these things and speaking about it in a way that, you know,

to use the whole woo woo that people use. But it does say a lot in very short words. But to how to ground that, because there is, I think, a lot of beauty and truth in it. And we've all been spoon-fed some story of history that only dates back so long. And there's so much rich magic. I mean, if you've traveled and gone to some of the sacred sites around the world, there came an answer, half the questions about that place, because we're only dealing with the technology that we understand in today's day and age. Who's to say there wasn't

technologies and ways they use the sun and ways they use sound vibration. I'm just so open to those possibilities. But again, I digress. So yes, I do think there's ways to use the deck in therapeutics. I've seen it in the people that are attracted to me and my work. It's really across the board from yoga teachers to speech therapists to women who work with empowering women to people who just need to feel seen and supported in their life right now. So I think there's a real space for

the merging of, you know, creativity, emotional, mental, spiritual health, and practical, accessible tools right now. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And the other thing I wanted to ask is that as a boss woman running a business and having a very, very full plate, what do you do to refill the cup? What do do to recharge the battery?

Good question. Well, my main thing is my morning practices. I really love having an altar. It's one of the first things you do if you work with me. Like you have to have an altar, not on my team. Well, maybe if I'm, maybe I'll incorporate that. Like, only work for me if you build an altar and sit at it every morning. So yeah, having an altar is really important to me somewhere that you sit every morning. I like to sit at my altar every morning and lighting a candle is one of my simple pleasures. Every single morning I light a candle.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (42:56.098)
sit there with my tea, water or coffee, whatever mood I'm in that morning, and meditate. And my meditation practice has fluctuated. I've meditated for many, many years, but I do like to let it shift and morph at times. I think the practice of sitting and stoic and meditation is like part of that masculine approach to spirituality. And then we can also let the feminine in where it morphs and it changes. Like now I need to chant and exercise my throat. Now I need to journal and let my subconscious have a voice.

or work with cards. So that's been my morning practices is the anchor is sitting at my altar every single morning. I have a skin drum that I play. I was getting a huge call when COVID first hit and I was quarantining that I really need to activate my throat and my voice. And so I got a drum. I'd been wanting to get a drum and it's been so incredibly grounding for me. I just drum and I just channel random chanting. I feel like I'm tapping into some

ancient ancestral like language, but it just feels so nourished. And then after that, I feel so available to meditation, prayer, journaling. So that's kind of been my practice as of late and how I refill myself. I like a good hour in that space, ideally getting into nature, which I could use more of at the moment, less screen time, more nature. I'm on my screen a lot right now. Yeah, those are the ways. And then just being with loved ones and

when I can and definitely craving more of that as I know many of us are and the times that I can have that right now feel nourishing. And a big one is travel, know, which again is happening less right now, but I did take August off. I worked part of it because it can work remotely and went up to Mount Shasta for two weeks and that was just like insanely incredible. And that was a calling. I need a hefty pilgrimage like once a year where I'm like doing something for about a month.

something pretty big and deep and something I've been wanting to do that I, a call that I want to answer. So that's another way that I refill. Beautiful. Oh, one more thing I want to say, because it could actually help people is every Friday morning we've been doing it for eight or nine months now, a group of five women, myself included, we're on a zoom and we meet for two and a half hours every Friday morning and write poetry and share it. And it's like this little writer's coven.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (45:20.734)
And we have these prompts and then we write and then we share it and it's going into these very interesting, deep places as it's been building and trust and consistency. And I'll probably go back and use that writing for something. So yeah, so I'm gonna put that out there because people can meet once a week on zoom and just have the accountability and have the commitment to show up to something where you get to create without the attachment of the outcome or producing. Yeah. That's so important and community, community, community.

Yeah, big one. Definitely. That's amazing. Do you have a relationship with your mom now, even though she's passed? I do very much so. What's that like? So as I said, it was not an easy relationship with her in this lifetime, but it was very deep and very, it very karmic on a of levels. Yeah, but so profound. Like she was not a great mom in a conventional sense, but she was a great mom, like in the sense of the way she saw me and what I could bring to her without fear.

you know, and like complete honesty with her in a lot of ways. But it was hard to see her suffer so much. yeah, she suffered a lot. She was a victim a lot. She just had a hard life, as I said. But she, you know, she also had a contagious laughter and saw the world in a very specific way. And I think she just sort of when she was younger lived like she wouldn't live another day. And that kind of caught up with her. So all of that plays into how she's in my life now. And my mom never

You know, it was difficult because there's a lot of role reversal and things that a child shouldn't have had to stand up to. However, it made me who I am and she always fed into that. She always nourished the way I saw the mystical, magical, spiritual world. I feel like she very much lives in the work that I do today. Like maybe it's our Native American blood and just the way she grew up. She was just such a mystic in a strange kind of way. And I think some of the most powerful people do struggle in this physical world sometimes.

She just didn't have the community or tools or chemistry to help her out of it. So before she died, a week before she died, we had the most incredible conversation. I do think she knew she was leaving. like for sure know that now in retrospect. I did not know that. And I was still living in New York, had moved out of my exes. I was kind of a pile of mush from like just being totally broken from the separation, the divorce, and was legally hadn't happened at that point. And so when we spoke, she...

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (47:47.312)
I think started to hear some more strength in my voice. And I think that's partly what allowed her to let go. And things were starting to line up for LA and I was kind of just like, okay, things are aligning. And so in that conversation, and this feeds into how she still shows up now, in that conversation, she basically said to me, Arana, I want to give, she had been calling me like all the time and I just wasn't, you know, picking it up. And then finally I picked up, thank God.

And she's like, I think I'm strong enough to take it, but I want us to take a trip somewhere. She wanted to come to LA, my older brother, we have the same mom, his two kids, and he's out here. like, I want to go visit Sean and the boys, and maybe we can go somewhere. was like, yeah, we'll go to Joshua Tree. And she's like, I want to give you this gift, and I believe that I'm strong enough to handle it. And that's basically like, I just want you to let me have it. Like, just let me know everything that's happened to you that you need validation for, because I never got that in my life, and it nearly killed me.

And I just want you to have that. And there was something about that conversation. We never got to take that trip because she died a week later, but there was something about that conversation where I hung up the phone. was probably like an hour and a half conversation. We talked about a lot of other things. And I was like, what was that? Cause we hadn't, as I said, we struggled. to have like a really great conversation was, was like hugely rewarding. And cause it was hard sometimes and it was such a beautiful conversation. There was no.

judgment, no arguing, like no nothing. And like I felt literally the cellular shift. And then when she died, I feel like she just took, I mean, I still had my own garbage to sift through and deal with, but I felt like she took a hefty percentage of it with her. And she sort of made that claim on that conversation. And then all these things, she had like a very, very funny, crude sense of humor.

And so I feel like all these things, like I remember I went to Joshua Tree with some of her ashes. My brother and I had her cremated and I mean, there's endless stories about how her spirits shown up, but I went to Joshua Tree with it and like I released the ashes and the wind like literally like just whipped them all back in my face. And then two Ravens just started flying around. It was like all these things were happening. I was like, oh mom, of course she'd like turn this into comedy. And when I moved to LA, she comes to me as a hummingbird, which might sound out there for some people, but you know, now whenever I see a hummingbird, I think of her and I'm not saying.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (50:07.129)
every time I see one, it's her. Now it's just forever the symbol of her. But the times that showed up where I had the realization that it was her were so profound. I call this expanded intuition. That's when embodied intuition is the yes, no, the contraction, expansion, the dissonance, the resonance that we feel in our body.

towards a situation or a person. It doesn't have to be about the person. It's it's not aligned right now. Expand it as we move out of the body and it's the way that we pick up on the signals and the messages and the signs and the symbols and the synchronicities in our life. So to me, a hummingbird, the way it shows up in my life as a reminder, as a wink that my mom's near me has become that. you know, there was one time where I was driving just bawling, like totally in the muck.

I was approaching a red light, was slowing down a little and a hummingbird just like came like that to the dashboard and it just wouldn't stop to the point I had to stop the car like several or would have hit it. And my mom used to often say to me, stop being so serious or on a lighten up. It was something she said to me a lot. And so I feel like when I first moved to LA and I would kind of get into the density of whatever I was going through that like many, many times the hummingbird would show up right around me.

and just help to lighten the energy. And I would feel that lift of energy that I felt in that conversation. Yeah, and my brother and I, like a hummingbird also came up, we were doing a ceremony for her with her ashes on the one year anniversary, just like literally came up out of nowhere behind the bushes and just so many cool things like that. So, you know, I'm sure one could turn those into whatever, but again, cause I do have a kind of magical, mystical lens in the way I see things. I have a spiritual perspective. It just always has been that way.

That's just like how I see those signs and the more we open up to them, the more we see them, the more they accelerate, the more they guide us like breadcrumbs. And that's where I said earlier, like I do firmly believe there's an unseen world of like right around us right now. It's like there. And who's to say that that's not real because you can't prove it under a microscope. Like I just don't want to live that way. I take a microscope to enough in my life. Yeah. That is beautifully said and magic is real.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (52:14.929)
Magic is real. Magic is real. That's a perfect closer for us. Where can people go to either connect with you or learn more about the work that you're doing? Instagram's a great place. You can follow my personal page. I get a little more personal on there. Some of the stuff we've spoken about today and that's arana.lea, a-a-r-o-n-a dot l-e-a.

And then we have the Moondeck page, the underscore Moondeck on Instagram, super easy. And then the websites are the same, themoondeck.com, or ronalea.com. Yeah, and the Moondeck, like I said, is a tool, it's a product. We also send out newsletters on the new moon and the full moon with rituals that you can do. We interview incredible women from all over the world every Wednesday at 12 on our Instagram page. And those are the best ways to get ahold of us, Instagram and our URLs. Amazing.

Amazing. So I hope everybody takes an opportunity to visit and say hi and send a love and some likes. And it was such a pleasure and a beautiful reminder that magic is real. I love all the stuff you're doing. And I think it has a place in the world right now more than ever. More than ever. And just remembering that everything we see around us started in that magical, imaginal space. is our power. And the more we feed it,

the bigger it will get and the more cohesion in that space will happen. And the planet really is calling that forth in all of us right now. Closing statement. You have a magical wand. You can gift the planet Earth one thing right now. What would it be? Me? I think just more like harmony and love and respect for ourselves and one another and our resources.

And I think self-love is that, it's like, sounds so trite, even to me, and I've been in this stuff, I'm like, God, so, know, but it's just like really, like if everyone loved themselves, like truly, truly loved and appreciated and accepted and respected this precious life we've been given and who we are with all the ups and downs, the whole planet would shift overnight. So I think self-love as it reflects also towards one another and our resources would just be like,

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (54:33.307)
such a game changer. Perfect. Thank you for being a guest on the Beautifully Broken Podcast. We will talk again soon. Namaste. Thank you for having me. Namaste.

Freddie Kimmel and Aarona Leá (54:49.209)
Ladies and gentlemen, you made it to the end of the podcast and here we are at season two. I think this is the beginning of something really beautiful. So one way to support the podcast is to head over to freddycedco.com and check out Freddy's Faves, where I've linked every five star product and healing modality you hear about on the show. Most offer significant discounts by clicking the link or using the discount code. Please know they don't cost you anything extra. And at the same time, they support the podcast through affiliations.

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The information on this podcast is for educational purposes only. By listening, you agree not to use the information found here as medical advice to treat any medical condition in yourself or others. Always consult your physician for any medical issues that you might be having. That's it for today. Our closing, the world is hurting. We need you at your very best. So take the steps today to always be upgrading. Remember, while life is pain, putting the fractured pieces back together is a beautiful process. I love ya.