Exploring Ancestral Connections with Kelsey Crawford

The Hidden Thread with Nitai Mitchell: Welcome to The Hidden Thread, a podcast about the hidden patterns that connect our lives to something greater. I'm your host, astrologer Nitai Mitchell. Through conversations with listeners, we explore powerful moments of intuition, synchronicity, encounters with spirit, and the unexpected moments that awaken wonder. Together, we'll follow the threads of meaning. That we through our stories, where the sacred meets the everyday, and the great mystery speaks through lived experience. Welcome to the Hidden Thread. I'm your host, Nyitai Mitchell. Every episode of the Hidden Thread begins with a single story, one person's experience that invites us to look a little more closely at the mysteries woven through ordinary life. It feels especially fitting that my very first guest is someone I've had the privilege of calling a dear friend for many years. She's the creator of the Solos Tarot and Guidebook and a complimentary care practitioner whose work. Weaves together medical massage therapy, holistic nutrition, and energetic body work. Throughout her life she has been drawn to the intersection of healing, creativity, and the unseen. Today's conversation is about a deeply personal experience that unfolded while she was exploring her relationship with her ancestors, an experience that ultimately strengthened and affirmed her understanding of intuition, love, and the enduring bonds that connect us to her. across generations. Please join me in welcoming my dear, dear friend, Kelsey Crawford. Kelsey, welcome. Welcome to the Hidden Thread. Thank you for being my first guest. It's nice to have you. It's an honor. What an what an introduction. Thank you. Well there's more. You know, I could have list all of your numerous credentials, but hopefully we'll get into all of that. As our listeners get to know you a little more. before we get into your story, I'd like our listeners to get to know you a little bit. So can you describe for us what what you were like as a child? Were you naturally in intuitive or is this something that kind of unfolded later in life? If someone was describing you, how would they see you? ⁓ I would say they would describe me as an extroverted introvert. I I definitely was a very sensitive child, and very very emotional, but also very creative and kind of living in a in a another world on another planet. So I was really content a lot of times with just being by myself and having, you know, my imagination. go to all these different places. But ⁓ I was a little wild too. You know, I had like a little bit of fire. So for being a double cancer, I had I had a little bit of fire too. But ⁓ as a child, I, for example, I loved singing. I'm a singer as well. I'm a musician, lifelong musician. And when I would sing as a child, I couldn't help it. Every time I would cry and not Cry, you know, weeping, like that kind of crying, tears would just flow out of my eyes and I couldn't control it. And I used to be so embarrassed as a kid because I loved to sing, but I could not sing without crying. And that is so fascinating. Yeah. And it was a it was a thing that would even happen to me in school if I sang in a group and choir, you know, the tears would just start flowing. And even as an adult playing in a rock band, you know, it would happen. So I just learned to accept it. And I will say later on in life I I did connect it to something ancestral, ⁓ out of Ireland. And I didn't I didn't know that there was a connection with singing and crying as a cultural practice. So it was really interesting that that just happened. And I had to tell us more about that 'cause I I haven't heard of that. The singing and crying. Well, you know, It's sort of i it's a beautiful practice, but in Ireland there are funeral singers and they're usually women and they usually go to funerals and they sing and they cry to help people emote, to help them express their sorrow and their loss and their grief or their joy ⁓ of celebration of life, you know. There's always music in Ireland tied to everything and this was l like a job that, you know my job is really diminishing it. It was just like a like a calling. A a calling or a natural thing that somebody was, you know, capable of that they would do. And ⁓ I I look forward to a visit to Ireland and delving into that a little bit deeper because you can only discover so much on the internet. You know, you really go somewhere and go through ⁓ stories with people. And that's how I mean more than half of the things I've learned that have inspired me have come from stories, from word of mouth, which is very aligned with Irish cultures. It's ⁓ you know, it's everything, the language, stories, everything, it was all told. It wasn't recorded. People weren't allowed to speak their language. They weren't allowed to practice, you know, these more almost pagan I would say, or, you know, wisdom traditions. ⁓ so everybody kept it up here. And it was always in song. In fact, when I was I'm getting a little off track of your initial question, but I will say when I first started learning Irish, ⁓ there was a an assistant teacher to my main teacher, and we had to break off into groups and tell a story that we wrote in Irish. And ⁓ I broke off into the wrong groups, like the accelerated learner group, and I was the only one in there and I was a beginner. And ⁓ I had this ⁓ teaching assistant, Paul. And Paul P O L P O Fada with a little hyphen over it so it elongates the vowel. And I read him my story in Irish. You know, this is a man who grew up in an Irish-speaking home, didn't learn English until later in his life. And people just don't even realize that that's a thing, but it is. And I read him my story. It was supposed to be about fashion and clothing, but I wrote a story about losing my dry cleaning ticket. And he was laughing and I was reading it in Irish. And he said, Well, Kelsey, you know, it's a good story and you did pretty good, but you have a real roundabout way of talking. So I, you know, coming from an Irish man, he's like known for stories. So But what he told me was that we were talking and he gave me a little clue. It was very interesting. So you get into those situations where you're like, ⁓ what have I done? I'm in a accelerated group chat and I'm not an accelerated student by any stretch of the imagination. And ⁓ but because it was an endearing moment and funny, ⁓ you know, he opened up and he said, Well, if you really wanna know about your relatives, because I'm very, you know, my family's I'm only the first Irish American generation from Ireland on my dad's side of the family that didn't grow up with Irish speaking parents or grandparents. Right. So very new to America in a lot of ways. And so he told me, Well There was a practice for school children. So maybe this does tie back into your question a bit. ⁓ this was decades and decades ago, ⁓ you know, in the I think in the early 1900s. ⁓ there was an e effort to document Irish culture. And so all of the teachers across the country sent all the children home for two weeks. True story, and I probably am missing some facts about it, but this is the gist of it. Sent all these kids home. And told them, talk to your grandparents, talk to your great grandparents, talk to your aunts, your uncles, cousins, anyone who's a little older than you, or anyone who's your age, but really like we're talking to the older relatives and the family and the stories. And we want you to document everything and bring it back because we've lost so much. And this will be a way for us to do sort of a mass collection of folklore and stories. And so it they did it. And this information just was incredible, incredible stories, incredible songs. And so he told me in the National Archives Library in Ireland, when I go there and visit there in person, hopefully someday soon, I can actually look to this archival collection in the region where my family lived. And I will know the politics, I'll know the famous people, the infamous people. Everything is put into story and song. So you can actually get information. through song and story because all these school children that went home and collected and gathered it and brought it back to school to, you know, to be archived at the National Library there. So ⁓ he told me that I I you know, there's nowhere on the internet that you can find that kind of information. I'm sure if you really if you knew to look for it maybe. But if you don't know to look for it, how do you discover something so fascinating and phenomenal as that? So I think it's it takes the ⁓ the Cancerian spirit to move into those deep, deep waters, into the source. ⁓ and I definitely feel a lot of that from you with the you've got that sun and cancer right on your ascendant. So this very creative light that bring shines that light on our history, our ancestries, our feelings, ⁓ moving into those deeper spaces. And you see that in a lot of your work. ⁓ as you can see behind me, I have two of your paintings. ⁓ and you what you can't see is that there's a lot more in this space that are amazing. Way up in this corner for people watching on the video is my deck. ⁓ and I'll pull that up on the the screen for people to see as well of ⁓ the tarot deck that you created, which If you wouldn't mind sharing with us a little bit about the inspiration of that and how it connects back to your ⁓ ancestry. ⁓ I believe it's is it inspired by Gaelic? ⁓ so Gaelic is ⁓ more of a ⁓ broad term for well no, so so Irish ⁓ Gaelga. Gailga is the Irish word for Irish. And it sounds like Gaelic. Yeah. So it is inspired by the Irish language. It is inspired by Gilga. So ⁓ really ⁓ the inspiration was learning the language and having all these discoveries along the way. It was like a it was like an Easter egg hunt, you know, or something and finding things and getting really excited. And ⁓ interestingly enough, on the flip side of it, my maternal grandmother Dolly, who is ⁓ French and Canadian, you know, I really worked with her mother, with my great grandma Aida, who's not Irish, ⁓ to formulate a plan to create this art. And then once I really felt supported and in right relationship with my well ancestors, I then I really leaned into the Irish cultural inspiration and sort of my heritage. Can you explain to our speakers who aren't familiar with that term, well ancestors? What you mean by that? Yeah. Yeah, I use that term often. ⁓ it is a term that I learned from an author, an animist, ⁓ Daniel Four, ⁓ F-O-O-R, how you spell his last name. And he wrote a book called Ancestral Medicine. It's a book I've read multiple times, actually. I keep going back for more because I get something new out of it every time, ⁓ a deeper understanding. And he talks about the importance of working with ⁓ quote unquote well ancestors because we want to be sure that we're in right relationship with our ancestors, but that also means on our end to them, like that we have healthy boundaries and that we're working with loving and caring ancestors that are in a well place. And essentially, you know, for example, you might have a relative that in life was just really put together, a lovely person. They might not do as well in death. They might be struggling. It's not necessarily like a scary thing or an evil thing or a bad thing. It could just be like foggy and confused or ⁓ holding on instead of you know evolving and moving forward. And so you also might have a relative that was a total mess in life. Maybe they were an alcoholic, maybe they gambled. I don't know. You know, maybe they're they were out whatever they were doing was frowned upon. And then in their passing on the other side, they actually did much better in death because they had trials and tribulations and somehow, you know, they're in a a better place, a more supportive place for them. And it it's I'm I'm really giving a brief synopsis of that book, but or of that specific aspect of that book that Daniel Four talks about. But whenever I do any work with ⁓ Solace Carte Toro, whenever I do readings for people. I always ask them first if they're open to working with their well ancestors because I for whatever it's worth, I always say I have grandma energy and I don't know not for me, but I seem like grandmas and moms, you know, seem to really want to talk to me. And ⁓ so I always I can relate to that. Yeah. So so I always say, Are you open to that? And I explain that to them. And so I go I have my own verbiage that I say for every reading, like I'm humbly inviting my well ancestors. And I try to say a few different words that that might land for different people for different reasons. So it's inclusive. I I am not a super religious person at all. I'm actually not a religious person, but I'm very spiritual. And I also I like to make sure I I'm inclusive in my wording to people. So I, you know, to each their own for their. you know, if they say universe and someone else says God, you know, whatever works for you. so I just always say I'm humbly inviting my well ancestors and so and so who I'm giving a reading to, I'm humbly inviting their well ancestors to join us and give us some insight and some loving guidance in this reading. And ⁓ we're so grateful. I always express gratitude. ⁓ and one thing I've learned from that is I never, you know, I never promise anything or say this is what I'm giving back. It's Like this is the this is the correspondence, this is the exchange. And ⁓ we're here with the living and we're in this lived experience, but we're working with our well ancestors. They've been here, they know they're giving us guidance and it has to come from a loving and supportive place. So that is the answer to that question. Right. ⁓ yeah. I have another question for you. Yes. What before you stepped into this world of woo and magic and tarot and Ricky ⁓ and intuition, dream interpretation, all of those things. what what was going on? Like who were you before that? Well I don't mean to sound ridiculous, but I've always kind of been that. I I from a very young age, I mean you and I have talked about both being drawn to astrology. I mean I was like a preteen when I was drawn to astrology. So I've used that ⁓ as a system of understanding and navigating life for my entire adult life, pretty much from the time I was like thirteen or fourteen years old on. Was there anybody who ⁓ inspired you or pointed you in that direction? Because for me I was you know, I was born into a family where my my father was a a tarot reader and everything esoteric under the sun was kind of ⁓ in my field and then on my mom's side of the family there was a lot of conversations around ghosts and spirits and so it's it was ⁓ sort of in my field and ⁓ I know a lot of people didn't grow up with that. So how did you find yourself in in this world? What was there a a moment? Did you what do you have in the conversation or do you remember? Yeah, I mean it was a mix of some things just ⁓ that, you know, again, I had to follow the cookie crumb trail kind of like I did with the, you know, the singing crying tradition, the funeral singers. But I didn't have as much ⁓ straightforward exposure as you did. I just had a mix of experiences, little bits like ⁓ just to give a few quick examples. I was the only child amongst my mom's group of friends. And, you know, some of them worked at this place called Dow Foods in Minneapolis. And it's like a little cafe and grocery store on the first floor. And the second floor was an open balcony and it was a bookstore. And so I was a kid, I would go there. My mom's friend, ⁓ Deborah Valentini worked there. And ⁓ we would go there and I would always get the panda bear red licorice. And then I would go up and I would read the books. And, you know, some things I was just blown away by what, what is this? You know? ⁓ so I would get little glimpses there. ⁓ my grandma Janet, ⁓ interesting enough, her family all immigrated from Finland. She was always giving me interesting little symbols and things. She got me a stamp collection of Egyptian hieroglyphics when I was a little girl and all this special paper. And she was an English teacher. So she was saying to me, try to tell a story through Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. So I tried that. So I loved I loved the symbols of that. And I I have a north note in Virgo. So I was really like into the symbols and the patterns of all that. And then and you know, I think with just my my dad always told really good ghost stories and he'd swear that that happened, you know, and it was don't let The truth gets in the way of a good story is what they say, you know. And so there was always really good stories. My grandpa Freddie also ⁓ told me some wild stories. And I never seemed ⁓ scared by them. I always was like intrigued, like what is this? You know? so there was a lot of little moments ⁓ where ⁓ you know, I remember sitting with my mom one day and I said to her, you know, what is what is our religion? Do we have a religion? 'Cause I had a friend who was Catholic or something and ⁓ I said, Well, do we have a religion? And she said, You know, we don't we don't really practice that, like go to church and all that. She said, You know, if anything, I would say we're probably kind of like pagan, you know, like we really love nature and we really love getting up in the morning and having our morning like sun rituals and at night we have our stories that we tell, you know, and then go to bed. And so It's very like cyclical and with the you know the seasons and she was like, So maybe we're that, you know. So I had all these little moments. And then I think my stepmother actually got me a book from Paulo Cohelo, ⁓ the alchemist. And I read that book and I remember being really intrigued. And ⁓ and then I think my mom followed up by getting me the book The Valkyries, and there was another one, The Magus. And that one really did it for me. That was like right when I was in high school, I read it and he had all these rituals and he was in this character in the book was doing a pilgrimage of the Road de Santiago in Spain. And ⁓ there was all these spiritual moments and downloads. And of course at the time I was super into free will astrology from ⁓ Of course, yes. Yeah. So so it was all these little things that just kept kind of, you know, ⁓ intersecting my Path forward. And ⁓ and then I had very specific things happen that I couldn't explain. And ⁓ I had someone believe me about it. I told an adult, ⁓ I had this, you know, this like supernatural thing that I saw, and it was my stepmother, and she said, I can always tell when you're lying and I can tell that you're not lying right now. And so I want you to know that I believe you. Well and that was so empowering at that time to have someone say I believe you. And my younger sister Maisie has a little bit of that going on too. So where she she has kind of she just knows the name of someone or no or has some sort of connection and there's no explanation for it. So I know you have a one little s story before we get into your main story. I wonder if you would share it with us. I would leave. It was a ⁓ stranger that that you encountered maybe it was at a restaurant. I share that story with us, is that okay? Yeah. ⁓ yeah, that was really interesting. I have to give a slight bit of context to it. Yes, for it to make the most sense. ⁓ and this is ⁓ an example of just like another day for me. This kind of stuff. Happens, you know, would happen a lot. And this is why I say, you know, I kinda ended up in the path I was on. It sort of kept coming to me. But ⁓ yeah, so ⁓ when I was fifteen, ⁓ my dad and my stepmom had moved away to New Mexico. My mom remarried and ⁓ moved out of Minneapolis to out by Paisley Park, actually, just blocks from Prince's studio. and ⁓ that was a just a fascinating time. But I grew in growing up in Minneapolis my whole life. And so I was out of my element for sure. It was like a really wealthy suburb and I we weren't wealthy. I think we it was my mom's first home and my stepdad's first home. And and it was just kind of a culture shock. ⁓ I grew up in Minneapolis. Most of my friends were, you know, from all over the world. And then suddenly I was in this school where everyone was white and it was really shocking to me. And ⁓ I struggled a lot. So I got pulled out of mainstream classes and put in an alternative program. And, you know, I was bullied a lot and I struggled. So it was hard. And my mom and my stepdad were doing a lot of world traveling, and they were trying to figure out if there was an adult that could stay with me, you know, that would really understand me. And so they had a friend through their group of friends in Minneapolis and whose name was Aya. And ⁓ he was just a real presence, you know, he's long dreadlocks down to his butt, you know. He ⁓ he he lived all over the world. He was born in Tokyo, Japan, and he spoke some different languages, but he really loved being called a nanny, which just made me cringe as a teenager. So my folks said, Well, we have this friend who's a nanny, and I was like, I am not like A British child from the 1800s. Like I was like, can I just babysit myself, but not a baby? I'm a teenager, you know. You're like, I think we found someone for you. Yeah. And I think this might be a match. So it was ⁓ you know, it was interesting. So Aya, ⁓ you know, classic Gemini, but he had a moon and a rising Taurus, I believe. So he traveled all over. He was very disciplined. He really took pride in his job and he W you know, he took care of many children and he would travel with families on their vacations and ⁓ Was he strictly a nanny or did he have other Well, he was a musician too. Yeah. And he was actually part of a really ⁓ well known reggae group called Shingoya in Minneapolis. And so they had members from all over Africa. They had members from Trinidad and Tobago, and he was ⁓ he was in that band too. So he was a musician and he had a beautiful singing voice and ⁓ His whole thing was send the love. I mean, his songs were all about love. He had a song called World Citizen, like I'm a world citizen related to everyone. And ⁓ so he was very much just ⁓ a real gem of a person and a lovely person. And so he started coming to stay with me and you know, he taught me a lot of things. He taught me how to play dominoes, like slam the dominoes down. That's how they do it, you know. He taught me how to make little paper cranes, you know. And he loved summit beer. And so he would make his little paper cranes out of that. And he loved making a soup. He called everything but the kitchen sink. And he was just a really lovely person. So I saw him as a brother pretty quickly. He started spending a lot of time with me. My parents were really traveling a lot. And and then, you know, in 1997. And just a disclaimer that this is I'm gonna speak of something a little bit darker, unfortunately. ⁓ in 1997, Minneapolis had a really awful nickname. Minneapolis was nicknamed Murderapolis. It was really bad. There was a lot of death happening at the time. And I don't really fully recall the week leading up to when I last saw Aya. but I was out I went out to a movie with my boyfriend at the time and he dropped me off at home and I was walking down the driveway or walking up the driveway and on the corner of the house was this massive owl, just a huge owl. And it caught me off guard. You know, I'm from Minneapolis. Like the most wildlife we get are crows and squirrels. I'd never seen an owl before in my life. I'd seen bats, but I'd never seen an owl. ⁓ who aren't aware of the symbolism of different animals. I know I've had my own owl encounter. They do represent things that we can't see, something hidden that will come to light. ⁓ and they can be harpingers of ⁓ endings. So ⁓ continue with your story. I know you y you said you you said a very large owl yeah that's an important ⁓ point. And so I saw the owl and I very carefully walked around and it looked down at me and it just slowly moved its head and followed me as I walked by and I went in the house. And I stepped into the house and there were candles lit all over the house. My mom and my stepdad had lit candles and they had gone to bed with all these candles burning everywhere. And I thought, what is going on? And ⁓ I went down into the basement. There was a TV down there and a couch. So I went down and turned on the TV and I fell asleep and ⁓ I woke up the next day to my mom looking for me in the house and she found me and she said, You know, I have some news that you might want to sit down. And I said, I know I'm in a stand. I could tell right away something was wrong. And she said, Well, ⁓ Aya was killed last night in his home. And ⁓ I said, My first reaction was I said, Well, let's go to the hospital and see him. Is he get you know, what how bad is it? Like, let's go visit him. I was in total shock. And in my own. Yeah. She no, honey, you know, he was he's gone. And you know, it's taken me my entire life to really tell this, share this. I haven't shared I don't like sharing this story for obvious reasons, but you know, I used to not even be able to share it because it was just too it was like my heart was ripped out of my chest. I mean, right, you never want anyone you know and love to to lose their lives in a brutal way. And the thing that hurt even more for me about Io is that his whole message was send the love and he was ⁓ really a loving person and everyone in the neighborhood knew him. His entire yard was dedicated to birds. You know, he had bird feeders. He had a whole habitat for woodpeckers and, you know, all this stuff in the middle of South Minneapolis. It was incredible. And ⁓ furthermore, he did tell me one time, because I was being a you know, a sassy teenager. I was like, I don't want to get old. And he said, ⁓ I hope I live to a hundred and five. I wanna be I wanna get past a hundred. And so I just felt gutted when that happened. And you know, and it was the the people that killed him were teenagers. You know, they were both eighteen year olds and and it was in front of friends in his home and it was just the whole thing was shocking. So I you know, on top of being in a school that I didn't want to be in, pulled away from my friends, this unimaginable loss happened. And I was fortunate because this alternative program I was in did do camping trips. That was my exposure to the boundary waters canoe area. And so I had a lot of ⁓ real adult, you know, moments that I wouldn't wish on any like 15, 16 or 17 year old, you know. So I had to I had to deal it deal with it. ⁓ anyway, so that's the context there. And ⁓ cut to several years later, I was at a bar, I was at the three through one in ⁓ Northeast, we say Northeast Minneapolis. Northeast, ⁓ Northeast. And that's where my grandma and Grandpa Crawford lived. They lived in Northeast and it was like a lot of little hub of all kinds of restaurants and this and that and So this is years later and I'm sitting on the patio and I'm having drinks with friends and this beautiful woman is walking by and I she immediately catches my eyes. She's, you know, ⁓ she's this beautiful black woman with long white hair, like silky hair that she just see her when I grow up. Yeah. I mean she was stunning. She was kind of like ⁓ I want to say like Lisa Bonnet or something, you know, she was just absolutely stunning. But the thing that s struck me was her hair was pure white, but her face was like the face of a 30 year old woman. I just I was struck by her beauty as she walked up and she made eye contact with me and she said, It's you And I looked at her. I'm like getting cruisements right now telling this story. She said, It's you and I ⁓ I said yes. Can I help you? And she said, I know you. I am with friends and it's years from now. And we're we're sharing a glass of wine and I'm gonna see you on television. And I'm gonna say to them, ⁓ I know her. I know her. I met her. And I said, Okay, you know, this was before I had moved to Portland, like a year before I'd moved to Portland. And, you of course I moved to Portland. I ended up working in film and television. I've played a lot of characters on television. I've you know, little little characters. I've played a I've played a vampire. I've played a ⁓ a campaign manager for a hexen beast trying to become mayor of Portland. I've had a lot of funny because I've been on TV, but at the time I was like, what? Okay. So she said, Yeah, I'm gonna see you on TV. I'm gonna be with my friends having a glass of wine and I'm gonna say, I know her. And I said, Okay. All right. So there's something going on there. Like you're I I was gathering that she was making a prediction and that she had a psychic ability about her and I was believing it. And so I said out of the blue to her, I said, Well what about the owl? And she looked at me and she said, That owl that night when you were walking by was just an old man looking for his supper. It wasn't your friend. It was unrelated. Sometimes it's just an old man looking for his supper. And it was really, wow, okay. And then she told me, you know, like a lighthouse that sends a light out to ships on a stormy night. She said, You have a light like that in ⁓ big vast spaces and you need to be very mindful and you need to be protective of that and have some boundaries, have some healthy boundaries. It's a gift, but have some boundaries. And I said, Okay, and I was just I got more goosebumps. So ⁓ it was a really prolific ⁓ interaction for me and of course deeply meaningful. Yeah, that's that story. Absolutely. Definitely another day for me. One of those threads. and you know I actually shouldn't say just another day. It was a very special moment, but I've had a lot of I've had I've had ⁓ more than the average person, like I think you could relate to that, like moments like that. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Or what's average and there are those special ones that definitely stand out. ⁓ that was I think that Not every thread is beautiful. You know, some of those threads are hard. They're dark. ⁓ and thank you for sharing that story about Aya. ⁓ such a beautiful soul and ⁓ he's missed. Yeah. That that's a brutal brutal loss and, you know, my condolences, even though I know this happened a long time ago, that's Those darker threads, those lighter threads, they all kind of keep us moving towards something. We might not know what that is, but well I had a visitation from him recently in a dream. And semi-recently. Yeah. I have for years I've wanted a visitation from him and wanted him to reach out and and he never did. And I wanna say this was within the last year. Or so. ⁓ it was just a brief moment in a dream, but it was very lucid and real. And it was like I was standing and there was a vast like kind of prairie land or rocky prairie land between me and a and the base of a mountain. And there was a path that was like a zigzag up the mountain, like the beginning of a mountain trail. And he was standing at the base of the path. And he looked like the eye I knew, but he had sort of a nomadic like brown. cloth robe on and a walking stick. And it was like I was looking at him when you see heat like rising from the asphalt, there was a vapor. And I saw him and he just smiled at me and nodded. He didn't say a word and then he started up the path. And since he's left, that's the only visitation I ever had. But I woke up the next day feeling just like a now I am gonna get emotional because that was my recent just like it was like a real like I'm okay and I'm I'm moving on. So yeah. And it and like also like it's okay to let go of Kelsey. You know, it's okay to to move on to. So that's yeah. I feel like that's a very beautiful goodbye that he shared with you. Yeah, it was and allowing you to see Yeah. Allowing you to see his his wisdom with his little wisdom walking stick and and moving up his path, you know, following his path. I liked that. Climbing a mountain to me was very symbolic and ⁓ you know, it was I think really honestly, I think that whole experience took his soul, his spirit and just kind of like swung it out into the stratosphere. I think he had to do a lot of repair and healing to get to a place where maybe he wanted to be a human again, you know. For whatever that's worth, ⁓ whatever you believe that's just the instinctual, intuitive download I got from yeah from that. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. You have such an interesting life path and I think when I look at your chart, seeing that South Node in Pisces, that's the glam, the music, the television, the you know, the art that you create, the the intuition that you bring and On that other end of the spectrum, there's Virgo, which is grit and hard work and focus and almost an obsession with getting it right and recreating and getting it right and recreating. And I see so much of that in your path of the integrity that you have put behind your work. And I think that's one of the reasons I've been so drawn. To your art and ⁓ to you as a healer. You are one one of my healers, ⁓ reiki practitioner, and massage all of the things. ⁓ because I know behind the scenes there's so much work that goes into the beautiful things that you put out and the world. So I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Let's move into the deck. that you've created because I think that this sort of sets the stage for the story that I wanted you to share with our listeners today. that ⁓ ties us back to the ancestral realm and your work within that realm. ⁓ can you share with us the story that takes us back to your maternal lineage? Yes, absolutely. ⁓ I knew that I wanted to make a deck and I wanted to write a guidebook to go with it. And I was really trying to figure out what the theme of it would be and what it would look like. I toyed with the idea of female artists. I toyed with the idea of it being about trees. You know, I knew that there was some unique shift that I wanted to make with my deck from the traditional where it would still have those underlying themes, but I wanted to create something that was an uplifting tool for connecting. And I always say it's like a little bit of science, a little bit of art, a little bit of woo. You know, I kind of like to bring a little bit of all of those categories together. I want there to be something that people who are not woo-woo can hold on to and use it as a tool to move through, you know, their usual thought paths. I wanted it to be beautiful and artistic and inspiring and to look at. And ⁓ and then I wanted it to be a little less about like this is a bad card, this is a negative card, or you know, it's actually more about moving through and seeing a solution. Or there's a reason why everybody nobody moves through life without any hardships. There's nothing in our lives that we've ever cared about or loved that hasn't made us feel vulnerable where we really care about it. So that's a source of strength for us. And so I wanted to to really, you know, I don't know, I have a ⁓ Pluto conjunct my my moon in Libra. So I really wanted to find balance, but not totally letting go of those. you know, ⁓ harder ideas, maybe in American culture, you know, ⁓ there's there's a little bit more fear around some of these things where I think that I really wanted to kind of bring that out into the light, into the open. So it's less about being fearful. And I'd heard so many stories of people getting readings where they felt fearful. Even my first astrological reading left me feeling really bad. And for years I would tell people I was a Leo or a Gemini, anything but a cancer, you know? Or the fact that I had a Mars square, ⁓ Saturn. And I've for years I thought, ⁓ I'm, you know, and then I started talking to you and you said, well, that's you go home after eight hours of work and you make something like a piece of art. And I started really realizing that's a strength. So anyway, all that to say, I was brainstorming. And I was introduced to the ancestral medicine book. And so that led me on a path and COVID had happened and I had a lot of downtime and I was learning the Irish language. ⁓ and I had another book called ⁓ ancestral tarot or something along those lines. I'll find the book and I'll send you the the author and title of the book. And there were exercises in there to work with each ancestral lineage. And you had to make a choice. Just choose one and open up the avenue of communication through a tarot reading. And I chose my I'm very I I'm very close with all of my grandparents. And ⁓ I I always feel like that relationship was I I won the lottery in grandparents. I had all four lovely grandparents. And ⁓ my grandpa Freddie is still alive. And I'm almost fifty and my grandpa Freddie's almost a hundred. So I talk to him every Sunday. ⁓ so my grandma Dolly, lovely French Canadian woman, we did her DNA test and we always joked that it was the most boring results because it was just 100% French Canadian. There was literally nothing else going on. So she, just a lovely quintessential grandma, always pick out a cookie, get the tin. Okay, you can have three, you know. She taught me the trick of cutting bananas in half and putting them popsicle sticks and rolling them in chocolate and freezing them and pull up the photo of her while you're every photo of her as a child. She's smiling, she's got a little sparkle in her eyes. ⁓ she's a Virgo with a moon and Sagittarius with a moon in Sagittarius. So and I adored her and we had so much fun. And you look at photos, I'm always by her side. And her older sister Lorreen was always around and I loved Lorreen. Every photo, I'm just like, the smell, they had the grandma smell that was so sweet. And it was like sugar and ⁓ you know, flowers. I don't even know for those of you who aren't able to see this photo of Dolly, I just wanna say she looks like a Dolly. She has such a sweetness about her face. She's got the The Shirley Temple dimple thing. Sparkless eyes. A little mischief there. Big, bright, beautiful smile. Just a lot of charisma, just a sweetheart. Everybody loved her. she ha she was just absolutely lovely. So her mother, Ida, my great grandma, Ida Melefond, ⁓ you know, I I finally decided, ⁓ I'm gonna do a reading with Ida. And ⁓ I see Ida now. Thank you. I love that photo of her. Yeah, I just pulled her up. And I chose Ida because I knew she was a Scorpio and I had her birthday and I w I felt I feel safe around Scorpio women and this is And friends, let me tell you, as a Scorpio, I feel Ida. When I look at this photo, she's definitely got the Scorpio vibe going on there. She does. such intensity in those eyes. very no nonsense and deep. Yes. ⁓ yeah. Yes. She and I chose her because not only is she a Scorpio, but at the time I was doing this exercise, this tarot exercise, I was the same age that she was when she died. And ⁓ you know, a lot of times women did die much younger. Back then, this woman gave birth to 14 children. My grandmother was the youngest of those fourteen children. Two were sets of twins that unfortunately did not make it past childbirth because it was just a difficult time back then. Women often, you know, had really hard lives back then. And and I my French Canadian ⁓ female ancestors, my god, they had so many children. so anyways, my grandma Dolly was the youngest and she maybe got only a year or two with her mother before her mother passed. And my grandma Dolly was the most loving person and she was raised by her sisters and they were all raised by this incredible woman. And they're all dollies, really. They all have beautiful names like French names like Clarabel, Dolly, Lorreen, Dalla. ⁓ yeah. And then their brothers are like L V and you know, they have very they're just a very loving, caring family. And I just feel like I felt that warmth in her legacy that she left behind in her children. So I chose her for the reading. And a little bit of context, the way that she passed actually was not in childbirth. She was collecting eggs out of a chicken coop and scratched her cheek on the lead laden chicken wire and she got lead poisoning and she was gone in a week. So it was very sudden and ⁓ that's actually important for the reading I had with her. So I set up, I did this reading. I was like, my heart was racing. I thought, ⁓ you know, what if she's mad? What if I chose the wrong person to do this exercise with? I hope my intuition is correct on this. And let me tell you, it was like she was so happy that I followed my intuition. It was the most like it almost makes me want to cry right now. It was such a beautiful reading. I to this day I've never had a reading that was as prolific as this. So In her reading, she it was so on the nose. ⁓ she told me that she knew that I had a creative endeavor that I wanted to do. She wanted to help me with it. She wanted to be an ancestor that helped me with this. ⁓ you know, as sort of a chaperone for this project. And she ⁓ you know, spoke about like if there was one thing she could tell me in life, you know, life happens really quickly. It can be It can be gone in a flash. She gave me a Mars card, which is really interesting because I associate that with blood. And she had of course a blood push incident that Yeah. And so and she gave me the and because I ⁓ I knew her birthday ⁓ and each astrological card corresponds with the deacon of each sign. She gave me the card for the week of her birthday to let me know that it was her. I even asked the question, like, How do I know that it is you? And she gave me the card that is the week of her birthday. So there were so many things in this reading. And I felt like I had just had an incredible like ⁓ conversation with my great grandmother on the other side. I knew she was a well ancestor. She's one of my well ancestors that I work with regularly. And ⁓ I always imagine her when I invited my well ancestors to do my tarot reading. ⁓ she share with our listeners what when you're receiving that kind of information from your ancestors, how do you s how do how do you feel that? Because I know it's different for all of us. We'll get pictures or we might hear something or it can be like a deep just a knowing like almost like a download. It's like a deep knowing. It's like a it's like a download. It's a voice. It's almost just my own voice saying some words to me in my head. But I always and not in a shocking way, in like a like a rush of fresh ⁓ exhilarating sensation almost like if you were to stand under a waterfall for a second and feel the rush of cold water, I get a whoosh, like a wave, ⁓ just an energetic, cool wave over my body. And anytime I'm doing a reading with someone, when I get that and the hairs go on my arm, you know, I know, okay, I have something to tell you. Yeah. ⁓ without fail. If I get some sort of a download and I don't get that feeling then I I wait. I wait and see how the reading continues to progress and see if it somehow fits in somewhere else or that comes in later because then that tells me it's not the right timing to s to say that or it's ⁓ or maybe I am I'm not like I didn't cut the cord enough from my last reading or something. So I just know every time through that physical physiological sensation. so the reading was beautiful. And should I go right into the story of what happened? Yeah. All right. So had that reading, ⁓ immediately called my mom after and I said, Okay. And my mom is pretty open and spiritual, but sometimes she's like, This is getting a little out there, you know, as she's gotten older, she's like a little bit more pragmatic and practical. ⁓ but she's always Super supportive and excited and enthusiastic. And she's very spiritual. And I think my mom, I'm I'm like her in a lot of ways. Like I know she's expressed to me that she can connect. ⁓ but I don't I I don't want to share too much of her story because I guess I realize now that I haven't asked her consent for that. but I think I'm a lot like her. There's a reason, right? I think it kind of gets passed down. so anyway, I called her and I said, ⁓ my God, mom, I not to sound ridiculous, but I just had a tarot reading with your grandmother, Ida May Lafond, and I have to t I have to talk to you about this. And ⁓ honey, that sounds fascinating. I want to hear about it, but now's not a really good time. Like, let's talk later. Okay, great. And then I would text her a few days later, like, Okay, are you available yet? And I was so eager to tell her because the feeling was so long lasting after this reading. And ⁓ also for context at the time, my grandma Dolly was still alive. ⁓ she was in her mid nineties and she had unfortunately contracted COVID. She was in assisted living and it was a common story. ⁓ and she survived it, but ⁓ unfortunately COVID flipped on a lot of switches of other illnesses for her. And so she was in late stages dementia and it was really hard. So for context. My grandma was not speaking, you know, she forgot how to drink water. she did say a couple things. She had a sentence she would say, one of her sons is named Tom. So she would say, My son is Tom. Tom is my son. And those were like the only words she would speak for ⁓ there's a really cute dog in the window that just looked at me, sorry. So it gave me a big smile. Hello, friend. So she just didn't have a lot of Ability to communicate. She was like this for months, ⁓ only saying, I have a son, his name is Tom. Tom is my son. Like that was it. So for weeks, I'm bugging my mom. I gotta get you on the phone, mom. I gotta tell you about this reading, please. And so finally, one day out of the blue, my mom is FaceTiming me. And I said, ⁓ okay. Or she wasn't face, she was FaceTiming me. It said, Grandma Dolly's iPad. I was like, What? So I answered it. And it was my mom, and she said, I'm sorry, I know you've really wanted to tell me about it. I really want to hear about that. But I just thought I would FaceTime you. I'm with grandma right now. And then she kind of leaned in and she was like, you know, she's not really talking a lot. So, you know, and she doesn't open her eyes. She's got her eyes closed almost all the time now. But I just thought you might want to see her. And I said, Yeah, I do. Thank you. And so she turns the iPad around to my grandmother and I said, Hi, Grandma. I love you. And she turned her head, opened her eyes, looked at me directly in the eyes through the the iPad, and she said, I love you too. And I said, It looks like a beautiful day behind you outside. And she said, It is, it's a beautiful day. And then my mom turned the iPad around back to herself and said, ⁓ my God. You know, she's she's this is the most she said in six months. And she said, Keep talking to her, keep talking to her. And so she spun the iPad back around and ⁓ and then she said, ⁓ I said, ⁓ yeah, it looks absolutely beautiful. I I miss you. And she cut me off. And I will say that when she said, I love you, I started recording the conversation because I thought this might be my last interaction with my grandma. And I wanted to hear her voice. I've saved voicemails from all of my grandparents, and it's it's like a good source of strength when I'm having a bad day. So I started to record the conversation, but I had my airpods in, so there's no sound. And you've seen the video, and I won't share the video publicly, so people will just have to trust that it's real and exists. But it doesn't feel right to share it publicly, but I will share this story. ⁓ so there's no sound, but my grandma articulated so strongly that there's no denying what she said. So she interrupts me talking about the weather and she says, White blank, she says. You've been speaking to my mother. And I said, What? And she said, like this, my mother. And she mouthed out the words that it was no denying when she said, You have been speaking to my mother. And tell her that I want to talk to her. I have to talk to her. My mother. And I said, Okay, I will tell her. And she said, I need to talk to her. And I said, Okay. I will tell her. And my mom, you know, and with that, she closed her eyes and she went back to sleep. And my mom turned the camera around back to her and said, Okay, I am speechless. You have been trying for weeks to tell me about this reading with Ida, Dolly's mother. What are the odds that after months and months of ⁓ you know, woman and her mid to late nineties and late stages dementia, only speaking a few words, happens to look me in the eye and ask me specifically about speaking with her mother when I had had this prolific experience. And as I was thinking about it, I actually saw Ida in the room with her in my mind's eye. And thought, ⁓ good, she's with her. And I knew my grandma was gonna pass soon. And in fact, she did, like a week later. And after her interaction with me, she hadn't talked to anybody. She wasn't saying much. And after that, she started telling everyone that she loved them. And I thought that was a real interesting, it was almost like the key that unlocked that ability to say that to family. And she passed shortly thereafter in a matter of days. And ⁓ it was such A thing that afterwards I spoke with my mom. I told her about the reading. And then all of these family members found out about it. Everyone was just blown away because there was no denying that this was quite a phenomena that happened, you know. What are there's there's no way this there's just no it was impossible. It was like a miracle or something to them. To me, it was I knew, you know, but to anyone else who wasn't quite comfortable with that idea of Communing with wall ancestors. It was like a miracle. And how did she know that? And ⁓ at her funeral, I had aunts coming up to me asking me, like, I would like to hear more about that interaction you had with my mom and more about you talked to my grandmother. And it's like, yeah, well, she's my grandmother too. You know, they're both my grandmothers. ⁓ but it's it was ⁓ it was such a profound experience and just one of those. things that you just can't deny. And it's there's no way really to prove anything to anyone other to than to say that this happened. And I believe that this happened. I know it happened. And, you know, and it brought a lot of peace to people. And it gave me a lot of hope. And ⁓ Yeah. And this was before I had created my own deck. I mean, really after this, I was there was like a spark in me. And then I was just I was going. I had like tunnel vision. I had another beautiful experience on that trip. I went back shortly after that conversation to be at my grandma's funeral and ⁓ found a lot of other photos of family that I shared with you of Ida and of my grandma Dolly's grandfather and you know, just really cool. ancestral photos. My grandma, like a classic Virgo, had all these things stashed away, ⁓ you know, compartmentalized like the demidecimal system in a guest bedroom. And ⁓ there was a lot of cool things I found after that, after her passing. ⁓ I shared with you my great aunt Lorraine. She, you know, we're talking back in the 1930s or 40s. She had an astrology book. And to know At that time in that decade to record the exact time of birth down to the minute in order to get a proper natal chart. Who knew that back then? She knew that. She was also a Virgo. And this is a a photo I've just put up of your ⁓ I believe that's Dolly at the Niagara Falls. ⁓ that's Dolly, yeah, picking out of the Niagara Falls. Yeah. ⁓ and then the astrology book that you shared with me. you can see I believe that's Lorraine is that Lorraine Colette and that's their father's name. Yeah, Colette. So my grandma was Darley Colette. Darlene Colette. Beautiful. So yeah, so that was really fun. There it is. I see it. And it was a a leather bound book. And ⁓ I have a little sock monkey foot holding the book open while I took a photo of it. Because I was going through this archive and I was like, I need something to prop this up. So I had a stuffed animal and I you know, there were so many things. And ⁓ you know, it was cool too because I was I ⁓ I had started working on the paintings. I had I was able to finished all of the paintings of the cards and solos and I was able to go back to Minneapolis and see my grandma and grandpa Crawford. And this was before my grandma Crawford ⁓ had passed away. And ⁓ it was such a beautiful moment. I had the box. I opened it up. My grandma got to look at all the paintings. She loved it. My grandma Janet was also just such a You know, she was another one of those people. When I was a kid, she gave me my numerology as a birthday present and it was like printed out. I think I told you in like the old printer paper that had the ribbed edges you had to bend off and it was like one really long document instead of individuals. And it was numerology and I had no idea. It was my first exposure to the numeral. She was also a cancer. And I believe she had a moon in Taurus, but I'm not sure that shifted on the For those of you who are able to see the video version of this podcast, I've just pulled up one of the cards from Kelsey's deck. This is the wheel of fortune. yes. Can you describe this card to us ⁓ quickly? Yes. So this is ⁓ so my great grandma Ida really made it clear that I had to kinda tap into my ⁓ you know, ancestral realms and and heritage to kind of bring some inspiration into this deck. And so the Wheel of Fortune is what it is is it's actually a three-leaf clover compass. And ⁓ it was a a wooden compass that was discovered in the peat bogs in Ireland. And the environment in these ⁓ in the peat moss bogs, I you know I think they it goes by all of those names, is so acidic and preserving. that, you know, there's been a lot of ⁓ things, ⁓ artifacts and people that have come out of that that has been amazing for science and ⁓ and everything's almost perfectly preserved to the day that it went in. And so this was one of the items that were pulled from the Pete. It was a three-leaf clover compass that was carved. And I found that story, I think I found that in the National Archives ⁓ library in Ireland ⁓ researching it and I knew that that was going to be my wheel of fortune card. And I just loved it because it's a compass and it's directional and you know, and also it was something from the past. It was like it time traveled into the future. And to me it was so fitting for the idea of that card. And ⁓ yeah, for those of you who are not aware, Kelsey has painted every card of the tarot deck in this deck. There's no AI. This is everything that she's created. She use her own words, her own paint. everything is completely sustainable. ⁓ I just pulled up the moon card. Yeah. ⁓ I love the moon. So that's another favorite story of mine ⁓ is Ginkgo and the Moon is that the Ginkgo tree fell in love with the moon and so it changed its leaves from green to bright yellow. but the moon was in love with the sun. And so then the tree drops its leaves. But It's very beautiful and very like ⁓ you know, I I think also the moon card is interesting because it has a little bit of mystery, has a little bit of ⁓ nostalgia, a little bit of loss, but also a little bit of beauty in that. And so that was kind of a fun story to happen to yes, so I painted every card, I wrote every piece ⁓ about the card and then I had you of course copy edit it. So I used no AI, not even to spell check or to rewrite. ⁓ I worked with you, a real life human, and you helped me by saying very, very little. ⁓ well I was to me it was such a gift 'cause I'm grammar, you know. When I when I read the ⁓ the guidebook Piece by Piece as you were sending it to me, I was so moved by your words. It it's very f for those of you who don't have the deck, the guidebook is very meditative. and Kelsey takes you into this imaginal space. For me I find it really helps me to open up my intuition to move into an imaginal space. And the way that you write is much like your music. It's very melodic. It's the pace is like beautiful prose. ⁓ I love I love the melody of the the way that you write. So ⁓ Thank you. Yeah, it's Thank you. That means a lot to me because you're an incredible writer. So I really appreciate hearing that. And I I really could not have done that without you. I editing is not my strong suit. And so I loved that you would come in and say, All right, well this sentence, I love it. I think you just need to put the beginning at the end, you know, and then it has some movement this way and it's very Very, very little. Very, very little. I I had very little hand in it. I will I will say that I was just incredibly honored to be the first person to read the guidebook. The honor was all made for real. Very cool. ⁓ but we are getting to the end of our ⁓ time together and I wanted to close out with perhaps one question. about Dolly who's passed away. Do you What do you think she would say to you now? Do you think that there's anything that she might share with you, seeing where you're at in your path? What would she say? ⁓ that's a great question. Wow. Honestly, I think she honestly I think she would just pull me in and give me an incredible hug. I think that was her superpower. She would pull me in and just give me an incredible hug and a little giggle and a little shake, you know. That was her thing. Just a little hug, a little giggle, a little shake. And I think she would just say, you know, I just I love you. I think that's what she would say. I I think she was just that's how she was. And ⁓ you know, she and my grandma Janet were so different. My grandma Janet would say, No, send it to a publisher. Go take the next step. What do you You're never gonna get out there if you don't, you know, very Minnesotan. So they were very different. Grandma Janet was carrot juice when we go to visit, Grandma Dolly was cookies, you can have a couple extra. But I love them both and I love carrot juice. ⁓ my god, that's so and it's so Virgo Pisces, right? It it yeah, epitomizes that the sweetness with the practicality. You know, I love that. Very ⁓ and being able to bring both of those into your ⁓ the work and your work ethic and the sweetness that you're able to pull put out there in the world. So ⁓ well thank you so much for joining us today on the hidden thread and thank you for being my very first guest. I love What an honor you are you are my sister and I'm so I'm so proud of you and I am so honored to give you a voice here. ⁓ Yeah. And ⁓ yeah. You're gonna make me cry. I love you so much. Let's get our tissues. Let's get our tissues. I don't have any nearby. All I have is a crystal and I can't wipe my eyes with a crystal. ⁓ I'll just let the tears flow. I'll let the tears flow. ⁓ I am so honored to be your first guest and I just love everything that you do. I know we're both such intuitive people. And you know, we were it's you were one of those people that when I met we were almost instantly friends. And ⁓ you know, it's just a real gift when you meet those people in your lifetime. You meet those peop those soulmates. And I see I think You are definitely one of my soulmates and I'm so grateful that our passive crossed and we ended up in Portland at the same time and at Soh. ⁓ because there's more stories and ⁓ maybe next time we can share the story of how we met and ⁓ the little coincidences that that kind of got us together. All right, till next time we will see you again on the hidden thread. Take care. Thank you for listening. If this conversation reminded you of a moment that still lingers in your heart, a strange coincidence, an unexpected encounter, a quiet whisper of intuition, or an experience you simply can't explain, I hope you'll share it with me. Visit the HiddenThread Podcast dot com to submit your story. It may become part of a future conversation here on the Hidden Thread. And if you're enjoying this podcast, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with others. It helps people find these stories who need it most. Until we meet again, stay curious, stay open, and keep following the thread.