Wellness From the Earth and Stars

week as we end the week. You know, it is often right that I'm trying to find ways that we can have more expansive conversations around what it means to be woke, about what it means to be conscious, And in these conversations that I have with doctor Kay Hubbard, who is a nature path and working with Black and Well mag scene and Black and Well if you follow them on Instagram, is all about wellness and black culture, and she's in residence there and talks a bit about

what it means to move from a place not only of self practice but also of healing. And then my

conversation with Tracy L. Rogers. She is an astrologist, and we talk about the ways in which the stars are aligned or how we feel aligned, and the difference between astrology right and you know, being a psychic and how those two things aren't not connected, but that you know, we all have these significant star maps that are created on the day of our birth, and so she talks about the importance of that and the guiding principles that

come with understanding our sun sign, our moon sign, our sending, how we are in mercury, and our communication and thus for and how it creates a kind of pathway for our lives. So I do hope that you all enjoy this feel good Friday episode as we close out the week with me away on vacation. I will be back next week and I'm super excited to reconnect with all

of you folks. I am so happy to be joined on Woke f Daily by doctor k Hubbard, who is one of the wellness providers in residence at Black and Well. I want you to talk to us a bit about why wellness right now, particularly for black people, is of

the utmost importance. I have been talking about it as making this shift on my show, which is you know, focused on progressive politics in the age of white supremacies, uprising reasurgence right and that work in it of itself is exhausting people paying attention to what is happening on a daily basis is exhausting, It is disheartening. It produces

a lot of different levels of anxiety depression. And so I've tried to over the last several months and over the last year plus of this pandemic, wanting to make a focus and a shift in talking about wellness, in talking about self care. So can you talk to us a bit about your journey into this work and then how it has been showing up in these really precarious times that we're living in. Yeah, well, thank you for having me, and thank you for that introduction. For me,

I wellness was from my own journey. It was for myself. I chose it because I needed it, and then I chose to become a provider of it to others because people were asking for advice and I didn't have the skill set where training. So I went to school. I went to medical school, and I'm also in school to be a therapist because I see the need for it, especially our community. But for me, even in writing the book, it was like I need this and I got to write it down and then people ask for it and

I've provided it more broadly. But when it comes to this time. In particular, I have seen a lot of people, all the black people being more specific, who are wondering what they did wrong and wondering why why the self care that they've been doing for so long it doesn't seem to be enough because it's not just well, life

is stressful for many people always. It's also dealing with, you know, the fear of COVID and all anxiety around health, all the anxiety around what's happening next in our world is just so much uncertainty, and because of that, there's all those layers. And then of course there was the George Floyd murdered summer, and so we really got hit

from all sides. So I tend to focus on mental health with people, but it does manifest in our but so in that, I think now is this time to really dig in and go deeper on what is self healing and not just self care, because we have to be doing repair work and creative restoration to get more

filled up. I want to talk about that more because one the feeling, or at least what people have expressed to you, of feeling like they're doing something wrong because whatever it is that they're doing doesn't seem to be working. What do they mean by that or what do you interpret as what they mean by that that it's not

working that. Let's say I started, for instance, last year, a meditation practice, a regular meditation practice where I meditate now at least once a day, but often times two and three times a day, and when I'm feeling a sense of dread, you know, taking more time out to just walk in nature, really reconnecting ground. But there are some days where for me, you know, I could spend all day meditating and and I still feel you know,

I still feel restricted, I still feel um down. I may not be it may not feel like it's irreparable, but I still feel the feelings that are that are coming up. Is that what folks mean when they say or you have heard, it's not it's what am I doing wrong? It's not working because it hasn't washed completely away. Yeah, that's a that was a great example of what I mean. I mean, I'm in Los Angeles, and I feel like we're the land of the try everything for healing, right.

I mean a lot of cities are but Las and Mecca, hug So you know, I know people who are like, well, I meditate and I exercise and I'm good free Derothy refined sugar free and I'm taking all these supplements and like they do all of the thing, and they're like, I've gone to this healing, I've done pran of this, I've got like everything, I have all the crystals, I sat in the moon, I yes, all of it. And they're like, well, what is it? And it's like, well,

what are you searching for? Because you have tried everything? Do you know would you know what you're looking for if you found it? Because it seems that you're kind of really into the idea of searching at this point, So I do. That's one side of it. Other pieces what you mentioned where especially with the meditation practice. UM meditation is kind of a baseline or like a prep work. Like it it means next time a stressor comes your way, it might feel a bit less than it wouldn't if

you didn't have a meditative practice. It can definitely help in the moment, breathing techniques, all of that to flip you from your sympathetic nervous system to your parentsympathetic nervous system and relax something. But having a very long practice is what helps the most. According to studies of meditation M So it is always it's definitely so helpful, but in the immediacy of it, it may not help as much if the stress of that day is more intentional.

And when you say to move from because again, over the past you know, year plus, I would say, and you know, and this is my observation. So I want

to hear your thoughts. Is that self care and the term self care became so prevalent in twenty twenty, right, we have this big global slowdown and there are some people who were not essential workers, and we had the opportunity to actually slow down, had the opportunity to transition, to go from and the privilege to go from working in an office to working from home, so could adopt different practices in their lives that they hadn't when they are hopping on subways or trains or in their car

to get to work and back and so forth. What do you mean when you say to move or people are moving from this expression of self care into self healing, So that folks understand what these two things are and how they are different but could in fact be related. Yeah, they are very related. So I don't I don't want to diminish anyone's work. In self care, it's a very necessary practice and it's it's a daily thing, and it is to me. It's the preventative work, is what self

care is. So it may be your skin routine or the way that someone cares about their hair, or a quick daily meditation practice. It can be checking in and going do I really want this right now? I think that's something we don't do enough to really like feel ourselves. But self healing for me would be defined as really digging in and being self aware enough to go, Okay, what are my patterns in the past, How am I showing up every day? What do I know that I need?

And it can be a more intensive period. Another example would be if you eat well or reasonably balanced at it, whatever that is for you most days out of the year, then that's self care. You're doing good, You're not eating

things that are diminishing who you are. But self healing would be more like, Okay, right now, I'm going to do a full detox and I'm going to fast for this period or just to juice or make sure that my supplements are exactly where they should be for these six weeks because I'm trying to rebuild and set myself back up. Folks, I'm so excited to welcome to Willkate f were the very first time professional astrologer and certified life coach Tracy L. Rogers, who I, in full disclosure,

had the opportunity to do a reading with UM. I guess it would be a couple of months ago, a couple of weeks ago. I've lost track of time in the way that we are living now, but I really enjoyed it, and you know, and it's funny because I've been going back and forth between what came up for

me and like what is unfolding now and incredibly eye opening. Tracy, talk to me about essentially how you got into astrology, what made you become a professional astrologist, and I would I would ask him, maybe this is this is me too, not knowing much about the field. But you're a black woman, and whenever I think or see astrologers, it is very rare that I see black people, let alone black women.

So I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about your journey into this space that I don't think you know necessarily, we see a lot of ourselves reflected back at us. In this space. Yeah, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to connect with you again, and I'm so glad that you found your reading eye opening and hopefully it's playing out

as we discussed. As far as my background, I come from a line of seers in readers, so astrology runs in my family in other words, and I've been learning some aspect of astrology ever since I was a kid. There are terror readers in my family as well spiritualist and so I've always been learning some aspect of this practice for a very long time. It was never anything I aspired to do for a living. I guess the universe just aligned itself for me to step fully into

this path and it's been wonderful. And as far as the coaching go, you know, I decided to get certified as a coach because I found that it was a helpful compliment to the readings. You know, Folks come to me they want information on themselves for the purpose of greater awareness or future forecasts, and I provide that for them, but oftentime they're stuck with, Okay, now what do I do with this? How do I use this to empower myself?

And so that's where the coaching comes into play. And then as far as being a black woman in this field, You're right, the pool of us is small, which is unfortunate because there are so many wonderful black astrologers out there, and I'm grateful to be able to connect with my fellow colleagues and friends in the black community to do this work. We support each other, we uplift each other, and we're just trying to keep doing our thing and make sure that we stay connected to our own lineage.

You know, our people, they developed this practice and so we try to stick true to that in supporting each

other in our work. You know, I always think that it's really interesting when I talk to folks that are in what I consider to be healing spaces, work in healing and wellness spaces, and I think that astrology, for me, at least how it has shown up in my life, has been about seeing myself in a different way, has been about understanding patterns and my relationships with myself with friends, with intimate partners, and so also, you know, the question that I have for you too is a lot of

people too, those seem to confuse astrology and like a psychic right so can you can you can you bust that myth for us and laying out let it. It's not like, well, I see your future and all of these things. Can you explain the difference? Yeah? Sure, So I'm always quick to emphasize that when it comes to getting in astrology reading, your free will is very much kept intact. So I am not predicting your future. I am not tell you what you should be doing, what

you shouldn't be doing. My job, literally is to interpret how planet alignments in the sky are affecting your life. That's it. What you choose to do with that information is completely up to you, and that's the beauty of astrology because you have this information of how planets are aligning themselves to support you and evolving into the best

version of yourself. And when you have that information, you can then choose to make decisions that a reflection of what's important to you, what your priorities are, what's truth for you. It's kind of like my Angela says, when we know better, we do better. And so that's really my aim with astrology, and that is the aim of any good consulting astrologer who attempts to keep this practice in its integrity is by empowering you to take the information that you have and curate a life in a

way that's a reflection of your truth. That's really what astrology is. It's not predictive. I'm not telling you when you're going to meet your soulmate. I'm not telling you, you know, go out and play this lottery. I'm saying, this is how your life is being impacted by planet alignments. Do what you will with that information. So you know, my my job is about telling people how they're being

impacted by the politics that's around our everyday lives. And you know I have been saying and not funny, but like I've been saying, you know, I believe that there was some type of tear in the universe that no one will discover for you know, a millennia, because where we are currently in our world, in our country is it feels like we are completely out of whack, out of alignment, um working against you know, the grain as

opposed to going with the flow. Do you feel like that what comes up for you when you're like, you know, in your in your practice as an astrologer, like understand how do you use it to understand kind of where we are right now. Yeah, that's a really important question question because when you're giving readings, you have interpretations that have immediate effects on how society or how individuals are

being impacted. But then you have these longer term trends and themes happening courtesy of planet alignment second last decades, if not longer. And so you're absolutely right. I love how you phrase it, this terror in the universe where

we are in fact going against the grain. And it's funny because I think it was actualcy Ford who said something to the extent of when you live in a society that you have to run away from, it says a lot about the dysfunction of that society, right, And so it's really kind of fascinating and also overwhelming to see how the planets are are essentially trying to reroute us so that we're on the right path, and then the resist stance that comes with it just being human beings.

So it's definitely something that I notice in Track, and I try to be mindful of that when it comes to how I'm giving readings, how I'm coaching clients and letting them know maybe these are some narratives you need to change. Maybe these are some stories that you need to unlearn, Maybe these are some new perspectives that you

may need to consider. I mean, it's like we live in a society that would have us betray our own knowledge and wisdom and intuition, right, And so I'm learning that and seeing yourself as your own frame of reference. That's the power of astrology. Wow, seeing yourself as your own frame of reference. Oh, I will remember that, you know.

I find that for myself and I you know, and I offer all these on my show, the things that I'm going through so that other folks, you know, either can connect to or just be enlightened by those varied perspectives. But for me, what I found over the last you know, year and a half living in this global health pandemic is a desire to ground myself in ways that I

have never grounded myself before. I often talk on the show about having been stuck in grind culture, having been stuck in you know, the need and the expectation of the hustle, right, particularly as an entrepreneur and in politics and in this kind of industry. And what has been offered to me during this time has been the ability you know and the privilege to be reflective to say, like, you know, what is happening outside I may not ultimately

be able to control. I can bear witness to it, and I can offer that analysis to folks that will listen to me or follow me, but I may not be able to change it. But what can I change? Have you found there to be more of an uptick or a difference in the reasons why over this past year and a half people maybe coming to see you

or has it been Yeah? Yeah, absolutely. Last year was the busiest year of my career in this practice, in this field, the busiest by far, and folks were reaching out because folks were panicking wanting to know what was going on. And then, of course you have that time to reflect and you start to ask important questions of yourself and do a lot of self reflection and self inquiry, and then it's like, well, everything you thought you knew

is no longer the same was it ever true? So then folks are reaching out for that for guidance, for coaching, and so yes, that's definitely been my experience and really the experience of a lot of healers, but especially astrologers who have just seen an uptick in business because folks need some guidance. That is it for Today's Woke, a F daily podcast. To hear more from today's show, including my full interviews with doctor Ka Howard and Tracy L. Rogers,

do support me on Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash Woke a F Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.