How to Crush Your Shadow Work - Laura Black, The Cosmic Consultant

Shadow Work

Will: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the skeptic metaphysician I'm will. And once again, today I'm joined by my fabulous co-host. Karen NZ. Karen, how are 

Karen: you doing? I am doing great. And I'm 11 being here. So thank you for 

Will: inviting me again. Oh my gosh. You are always welcome. You know, you've got an open door invitation ear.

Karen, today, we're going to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart for obvious reasons. Some of the. Loyal listeners, people who been listening to the show for awhile, know some of the transformational aspects of this podcast in the journey that [00:01:00] I'm on. But have you ever, gone through a big personal transfer?

Karen: Well, I became a mother, so I don't know. What's bigger than that. 

Will: Well, has there ever been , skeletons in your closet or demons that you kind of don't particularly care for inside you that you try to excise or anything like that? 

Karen: Is it, is it bad to say no. I mean, I know 

Will: it's wonderful that you, if you've not had to have that experience and that's great now 

Karen: I've had things that happened, but as far as me having demons or skeletons, I don't really feel.

Will: Well, I think, I think Carl Young would, would disagree with you all. So today in a past interview, I was introduced to the term shadow work by a past guest and knowing me, of course, listeners knew I was immediately intrigued by that term. So I've done a little bit of research and it turns out that I've been doing my own shadow work for the past year and a half without even realizing that's what I was doing.

Yeah, I love 

Karen: the name. It just sounds so intriguing. It really does. 

Will: Right. So what is it? What is it exactly right? Well, [00:02:00] it's tall about demons and shadows and skeletons and closet. And according to Carl Young, who coined the phrase shadow work. This is it's inside all of us, right? Every one of us has that side of us.

And it's important to find a balance between our dark side or shadow side. And our light's self. Right? So in order to talk about this, because I, I'm not a professional in any sense of the word here we've got a special guest today. She's no stranger to shadow work. In fact, is because of her work in that area that I reached out to her to come on the show today, she's an astrologer, a tarot reader, a Chandler, and get this light and shadow integration consult.

Wow. Yeah. Right. I am so excited to have her on the show today. Welcome the cosmic consultant, Laura Black to the show. Laura, thank you so much for coming on the show. 

Laura Black: Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. 

Will: Oh, well, we're we could not be more thrilled in order to get the conversation going. Right. I touched on a little bit [00:03:00] about Carl Young in shadow self and all that kind of stuff, but can you give us a breakdown from your, because you're the expert right?

In shadow work. So can you give us a breakdown of what exactly is shadow work and why is it. 

Laura Black: So it's so funny. That word expert, my little south node in Sagittarius, which is one of my big shadows having no at all syndrome is like, yeah. Yeah, I'm totally an expert. Yeah. But 

Will: once you were invited to come speak about a topic on a podcast that makes you an expert.

We'll go with it. Oh, all right. 

Laura Black: That definitely is something I've had to grapple with quite a lot. And in recent years found that that's where my clientele were really focusing and that's what I've been dealing with. And so it became my specialty, but shadow work in essence Carl Young did a great job of kind of describing what what it is, but didn't really talk about how to do it.

And I found that astrology has kind of bridged that gap for me with. Carl Young was really fascinated by so shadow [00:04:00] work is the idea that, you know, all human beings have light and shadow inside of us. We couldn't have one without the other. There's no Saint that never lived a life as a sinner or vice versa.

And that in a time period like this, which the yogis would call the UK. The Greeks called it, the ages of man, every ancient culture on this planet has an awareness of these seasons and cycles and a larger 26,000 year cycle of our son soul with Sirius B. But that's another story. So in this time period the, the dark ages, so to speak, or the Collie, you got the age where there is shadow and light in everyone, there's good and evil.

If you want to take it to that, like Judeo-Christian kind of tradition, languaging And that we can't continue toward this awakening that's happening on the planet. If we're going to continue to deny the shadows, which is something we've been in practice of as we creep, as we crept deeper and deeper into the Kali yoga scene.

But if you've heard of the Mayan long count calendar and December 21st, 2012 was kind of the [00:05:00] end of that long count calendar. And there was a huge misconception in, in north America, at least that that meant the end of the. There's no more time after that, but it was actually talking about this end of the, or the mid point of the Kali yoga, the longest distance between our sun and Sirius B in a 13,000 year coming together in 13,000 year coming apart.

So we're going through this awakening where things look like they're getting messier, but actually they're getting better. It's just the kind of momentous drag of turning the. And in this awakening, there's a chance for us to use tools such as astrology and many others to self-reflect and look at both our light qualities and our dark qualities.

And I love astrology as that tool because it's a map, not something that rules you, but a blueprint that shows the social contract that you made with this life upon entry. And it shows you. All of the potentials of who you are and what you're doing here or who you could be, but the soul decides how they access those.

And [00:06:00] everything in your chart has a positive and a negative, a light in the dark. And we in the Kali UGA, we want to use both of them because these are souls trying to experience what is it to suss out the light and the shadow, and which one do I want to be? That's why we're all here at this time. It's the wildest ride in the multi-verse to get soul evolution, which direction you want to go.

And there's so much diversity and so much conflict and so much potential because there's so much light and shadow as opposed to. When those two stars are really close in this 26,000 year cycle, when all of the beings on any planet orbiting, those stars are at their highest point in human conscious or in consciousness, whatever it may look like.

And there is a it's really pure light. And when they're far apart, there's really present shadow. My work is to help people move away from shadow denial and recognize all of the negative qualities that come on, come along with the gifts that they've been given. And some of us are stuck in our shadows, which is where I've been most of my life, very unconsciously living [00:07:00] from the shadow aspects of my chart.

And so now I get a chance to use the chart as a tool to see, oh yeah, I do this. I do that. When, what does this mean? And every day I'm studying my chart and learning more about my light and my. And then I get to watch myself in, in daily life and see where those tendencies crop up and make decisions about which side of my Gemini or my Leo or my, whatever I want to pull from.

Right. It's a it's it's fascinating. So I have 

Karen: so many questions, but, but one that isn't, so this isn't necessarily the shadow question is right before they, you're talking about people in their charts and astrology. If, I mean everyone all over the world, people are being constantly born. So are there people that have the exact same charts, like a whole, you know, a whole bunch of groups of people.

Laura Black: Totally. You know, it's funny. I have my romantic partner currently, I know he's Chartwell and I had a mentor while I was in astrology school. Awhile back, who has, [00:08:00] they were born in different parts of the world. He's from Conakry Guinea and she's from Minnesota. They were one, two minutes apart on the same day.

And there were kind of equal latitudes actually. And that's not true at all, but they were close enough that the only big difference was their moon sand off by two degrees. Every placement, every planetary placement in your chart has a degree out of the 360 degrees of this wheel we're looking at. Right.

But the planets get more detailed than that. It's not just degrees. There are also minutes. So it's very mathematical, like they say, Touro is for literature, people and astrology is for mathematics people. It's not true for 

Will: me, but that makes a lot of sense. 

Laura Black: Yeah, it's very precise. Thank goodness. I was born in an area with computers because if I had to hand draw all these things, oh my goodness.

Charting with math. So these planetary placements by a minute and second can totally change the flavor. I have twin nephews, so I'm always studying their charts. They're just a couple of minutes apart and they're totally different human [00:09:00] beings. I mean, physically, emotionally, mentally, they're totally different, but the same general energy, because the.

That show up in that chart, choose how they're going to pull from that blueprint. So we are free agents chart. Doesn't rule us. It's never an astrologers job to tell you this is how you are, but it isn't astrologer's job to try to help you get a bigger perspective, a more thorough perspective on who you could potentially be, who you might be being that you don't want to be, et cetera.

So you kind of. Aware a 

Will: lot of the longtime listeners will probably have listened to the astrology episode that we had, where we did have someone come and pull my chart. And I learned a lot about myself. That episode, but also a lot of people that are listening to learn a lot about me. And in fact, I had to edit out a lot.

It was just, yeah, it was no, she didn't do it. That's where I got the term shadow work, because she did say, wow, your, your chart has a lot of shadow work in it that you've got to [00:10:00] do, but you're, you're undergoing and very similarly to you. I, my entire life. I've been living in the shadows without even realizing it until it became very catastrophic event that forced me to look at, you know, shine a spotlight and then go, whoa, whoa, this is really dark in here.

What's that? What is going on in there? And then, and that has, has sparked a ridiculous transformation in me why, which is why this is so intriguing to me because I'm learning all of these things. Like it is, it is possible to go through life a completely. In a sleepwalking state, right? Not even realizing all the stuff that you're doing.

Right. So, in a love how you, you stayed as something that makes so much sense to me. And I've asked the question to different people and no one has, but you just gave me the perfect answer when you talked about, I'll resist these serious be Harry Potter. Referenced in there. Right.

But but when you say that, we're just, it, it seems like things are really getting crummy, but it's really getting better because we're rounding the corner. [00:11:00] I've always asked that question. Like, if everyone's saying we're, we're about to go through this whole age of awakening, why is it feel like we're going in the opposite direction and I've gotten some great answers, but I've never gotten one as precise as what you just said.

And it gives me a lot more hope. So thank you for that. Oh, 

Laura Black: good. Yeah. I'm so curious sometime I want to hear about those other answers too, because that's a question I've asked a lot and yeah, but it's big Aquarian energy. It's your honest energy. It's revolutionary and it's, it's the tower card into row.

It shakes things apart and it's very messy. Don't future trip people, but this is I'm going to do it because

I'm writing a book someday. I'll produce this book. It's called the messy awakening. It's very much about the age of Aquarius and how it's shaking things loose. And it's hard to even stay in the mindset or the perspective or the have hope or trust that things are getting better, that we can. You know, th th we haven't destroyed everything already from our own personal lives to this whole planet because of that kind of [00:12:00] drag and, and the Iranian Clarion shakeup.

Will: So the musical hair was correct. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, basically, you're saying.

Karen: Yes. I like that. You're honest. You can say that without giggling, 

Will: right? Well, I've heard it. I've heard that I've heard Uranus. 

Laura Black: Well, I asked him, makes me 

Karen: laugh. 

Laura Black: Oh, my astrology T2. Didn't shy from saying, okay. Here's how you find your anus in the chart.

She's ridiculous. 

Karen: So I have a question about the dark in the shadows or the shadows and the light. Is it like inversely proportionate? Like if, if you are living and have this great light, does that mean you're going to have this equal amount of dark shadows? You know? So are, are you trying to achieve the medium where it's kind of, you know, how does that work?

Laura Black: Yeah, so, so, okay. I want to make clear. The sign of the Zodiac, every planet, every element, because it all just boils down to the four elements, that's it? They all have light and shadow in equal [00:13:00] proportions. Yes. And souls get, you know, the universe, God souls, we're curious creatures. And we want to expand and understand ourselves more and more.

And so we're going to try every. Level of volume for all the lightens and the shadow, but it boils down to the same laws of physics that we experienced in the physical realm. There's no, the, the greater, the, like the greater the shadow and the inverse is true. And Carl Young was famous for saying no tree.

It is said, can reach the heavens and let us see its roots grow down. Yeah, and this is near and dear to my heart. As one of my catastrophic events that launched me into my shadow work some years ago was discovering that I have bipolar disorder and grappling with what it means to try to heal something so highly stigmatized and misunderstood.

And that shows up in such a variety of ways. And you know, self care became the big subject of my life many, many years ago for this and understanding the gift that comes along with the bit of. [00:14:00] Was that I do reach these, you know, in toward mania, we get. 

Karen: Right. So then by shadows, that can be a whole array of, I guess, situations.

It's not just that you have these dark evil deeds, it's not like star wars and the light, you know, the forest and darkness are kind of in a way, but bipolar, isn't something that you do or cause. 

Will: It's really about shining a light, like a car. Young has a, has a quote that I love.

It says until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it. Right that it's, it's, it's a great quote that speaks to me personally, unbelievably. So it's not just demons. It's also things that you're grappling with that, isn't the accepted norm. But it's things that you have lived through without even realizing you're unconscious coming to light.

Karen: Can I change my answer from earlier? I got some stuff[00:15:00] 

Laura Black: we should talk about, which goes, I 

Karen: feel like I was like, I hadn't done these bad deeds. I'm like, I haven't really done bad stuff, but but I understand it better now. So thank you for explaining that. 

Laura Black: Yeah. I think people get scared of the idea of darkness. I've had a couple of people come onto my Instagram and be like, wow, I like this thing that you post or that.

And then they see that I really am. I'll talk like you asked earlier before we came on, if there's anything you don't want posted, you know, you can let me know, which is, I love that consideration and my answer is put it all out there. Like this is, I'm an eighth house and I got Pluto on my ascendant.

I'm here for score bionic transformation. There this my south node and Saje, let's talk about it. Right. 

Will: That's been part of my journey as well. It's I, I think that the only way. To truly heal from things is to be completely authentic. Right? So, though the details of what happened, don't necessarily concern folks out there because it involves, or the people it's still about being your authentic self and saying, Hey, this is who I am.

This is what happened. This is [00:16:00] what I'm trying to do to fix it. And as long as we all shine that light on that unconscious part of ourselves, I can tell you, didn't know. How much of a jerk I was until I was forced to face it. And now I realize, whoa, I don't want to be that guy. So I need to make some changes.

And this is all part of the journey, right? The shadow works. I now I'm now realizing I'm undergoing that. I didn't have any idea I had to do. 

Laura Black: Yeah. And I'm with you 100% on that. And you said earlier something about you mentioned it like, it's probably a lifelong journey. This is something we're always going to keep doing.

And that's so true because the more you shine the light on the shadow, the more there's a shadow of something else. And it just keeps going. Okay. 

Will: Yeah. Yeah. There's a, a little unconscious bias in my, maybe not so uncommon. Be a more conscious bias in my head. Now I'm petrified. To have any shadows anymore.

Like I'm trying to light on everything and like, I want to know it all. I don't want to keep anything from myself because I don't want to cause any damage. Right. You go overboard on it. But for me, I'm a Gemini all or nothing kind of guy. So I've got to, when I do it, I do it all the way through, so [00:17:00] we're going for it.

So, 

Laura Black: yeah. That's and I love that. I think. That's why I love astrology as a tool for this, because you can't lie that this blueprint isn't going to lie to you. It's what you see is what you get. And you can bullshit if you don't have something showing you like, no, this is what God said from the moment you were born.

You ready? You want to face. 

Will: That was the most interesting thing that I, that I found in that astrology episode that she was saying things to me about me that were 100% true, but I never. Faced it or talk to people about it, right. She, there's no way for her to have known these things.

So it was a, it was certainly an opening experience for me. I still don't know how it works, but I'm closer to being that believer that that says, yeah, I doubt that cheat sheet blew my mind. So astrology for sure. It made me. Do turnaround for me. 

Karen: And I like that idea of kind of putting everything on your plate out there for yourself and for anybody else, that way there's no misrepresentation, you know, it's like what?

Just use what you get. And it's so much easier that way. 

Laura Black: And that's the big proof of the [00:18:00] shift that we're making from the age of Pisces to the age of Aquarius that we're now officially in as of December 21st, it's full throttle. It's been warming up since this. Right here now. And there's transparency.

I mean, it's the age of the internet, right? Your truth is out there now. And the more you show 

Will: it. Hmm. So December 21st, 2021, or was it, or is it coming up in 20, 20, 

Laura Black: so great grand conjunction. People out there. So astrology at all, you've probably heard, or if they have their finger on the pulse at all of astrology, that was the big, big, like, huge revolutionary energy that came through the grand conjunction of soup, stupider, Jupiter, and Saturn in at zero degrees.

Which is big revolutionary energy, but a big struggle and the big macro astrology theme that we saw out there with a lot of things happening, but there's kind of, big, heavy restrictions around freedom. There's chaos in the collective there's things are getting shaken up and the really [00:19:00] obvious one was.

Big tech put out their new terms of agreement. And a lot of creators were getting their work suppressed or shifted depending on whether or not your views aligned with the owners of big tech companies like Instagram, Facebook, things like that. So there's just been a lot of conversation now around what is freedom of speech?

How do we stay connected? Who's really in control of anything, anything. Those kinds of themes. This is Aquarius and Saturn, a big struggle around those themes and trying to break norms and 

Will: go through. Right. The only thing I know is that mercury retrograde comes on round and I stay in bed cause I that's all I know it's bad.

So 

Laura Black: it's not that. 

Will: Yeah, no, by all means. Yeah. What is mercury retrograde? that's all, I've hear online. Like, oh, it was mercury, careful gear. It comes with mercury, you know? So, what, what does that mean? What is that? Is that something we should be concerned about? 

Laura Black: , I have a little analogy with my very practical mercury and tourists. I like to give very three-dimensional ideas of astrology and make them really practical for us. So let's pretend you're a [00:20:00] car and like the sun sign is your, the frame of your car. So we're a Gemini, right? You and I are Gemini shaped people know we're chatty curious, maybe a little nosy.

We want to share ideas. Okay. If you look at mercury, mercury is like everything under the hood of this car. It's the engine. You got the radiator. It's also the signals and the horn because mercury is the mind. It's what you're interested in. It's what you want to learn about and is how you communicate with on-coming traffic.

So when we're looking at mercury retrograde, when a planet, retrogrades, what we're really talking about is geocentric astrology, because there's another type polycentric based on the sun is the center. I think it goes as it is, but geocentric says everything from the humans perspective on earth. So if this is the earth and we're riding along right along and here's mercury coming along and our orbit passes mercury.

And for a while, it looks like mercury is going backward from our. So it's kind of the sensation energetically of sitting in your car and you've pulled up alongside, I don't know, a big truck or a train or something, and you're both sitting still and all of a sudden they start moving [00:21:00] in. You don't and you kind of feel like you're going backwards.

You know what I mean? Like in a carwash. Yeah. That always happens to me there. You're standing at the beach. A little wave comes in. You stand still on the stand, the wave starts to go out and you feel like you're sinking and going backward as you look out over the ocean, right? That feeling where like in the movies, when they're both zooming in and pulling out at the same time and he hit that weird.

So there's this energy that happens around any planet that's going retrograde. That's the effect. It turns it, the energy ruled by that planet internal, it makes it awkward. And. Go back, reflect, redo, revisit, reassess, reapproach, anything with the word re really can happen. Most planets, they all go through a retrograde.

At some point, Kyron just went retro a couple of weeks ago. Jupiter is now retrograde, but when mercury retrograde, because it does it the most cause fastest moving mercury is the messenger of the gods. Both in Egyptian mythology. So this is the communicator, right? It's the channel Gemini is ruled by mercury.

So it affects [00:22:00] us a lot friend. So this is because it stays close to the sun. It's the closest planet to the sun. It'll always be within one side of the sun and it seems to go backward from the earth the most three times a year, at least last year, it was four. Wasn't that fun, but it's a three week extreme where every time.

Yeah. Yeah. And so it's not bad. It's just that it's the most common one. Like Mars goes retrograde. Well it fucks shit up. So when we're backward, it seems to us to take all of communication.

Hello, that runs everything in the world. And it makes it all awkward bumpy. It, it forces us to reconsider how we're communicating, how we're thinking. And it is for the benefit it's for the improvement of connection and communication and community and commerce business, and all these things integrated with mercury, the share of information, teaching learning, but it's frustrating.

And there are often miscommunications, both interpersonally and. Internally and communication systems shut down. And so [00:23:00] lately it's become more noticeable because of technology and communication systems are everywhere and you watch mercury retrograde things start to break. Don't buy a phone during mercury retrograde don't find context during mercury retrograde, because these are, I mean, life goes on, you have to, you have to do life.

Right. But one of my favorite astrologers was just. Like, okay. Don't stop your lives based on the astrology, like we still have to live just, it's a tool for awareness, not to be in fear of events, celestial event. They're here for us. We are them. We are those bodies, but she signed a contract, a new lease for an apartment during mercury retrograde.

And she was like, well, I had to, because life goes on. And then she got into that place. And a week later, a better spot opened up and her place wasn't working out. She was like, oh, okay. This is why you don't sign those contracts after retro 

Will: gate. She's like now until so, so she said you have life, life has to go on, but at the same time, she really.

That life had not gone on because you could have a better place. No, 

Laura Black: it's it was just a good example for her. And it probably happened because she has such a huge [00:24:00] astrological platform to show people like, look, life goes on. I had to sign this contract. We got into the home, we moved, it was a big hassle.

And then whoops, things didn't work out and we had to move again. I'm not sorry it happened. It had to happen that way. I don't really know why. Cause I'm not God, but like. This is kind of the idea behind it. And life goes on and you have to do what you have to do. Right. 

Will: Which brings us back around to the whole shadow work thing.

Right. Because these are things that a lot of people me included say yeah, going through it socked, it still it's socks, but it's making me such a much better person. So at the end of the day, it was a good thing in that sense alone. . It made me a better person, made me aware of faults I had to fix and it helped me to become better.

So, will everybody, at some point or another go through their own shadow work? 

Laura Black: I don't know that I can say that. I can answer that question. Cause I don't know what everybody's going to do.

I'm not God, but I do. And as for, should they, I don't know that I can answer that one way or another either because the one [00:25:00] thing I truly believe in and know of. This life, the cosmos or whatever energy is forces behind it is that we are free agents. So people should get to choose if they take a look at themselves or not.

I would love it if they, everybody would, my business will be good. 

Karen: Yeah. So, so can I just clarify, so is the goal of shadow work? Not necessarily to get rid of the shadows, just to kind of shine a light and see what's going on in there. So you know what you're working with? 

Laura Black: Yes. I love this question so much.

This. You can't get rid of the shadows. This is the thing that Carl Young drove home again and again, in his writings, there, there is no getting rid of them. A lot of shadow work is engaged in initially because people are realizing I'm an asshole. I don't want to be an asshole. How do I stop being an asshole?

And it's like, well, you kind of good luck changing your chart.

You can learn about the qualities that we have. Like your chart basically shows you your true. Because we all have it where our defense mechanisms got [00:26:00] set up, where our feelings of. So whatever our successful coping mechanisms or any other functional attributes we have, how they got set up in our lifetime, you can read it as a timeline and see what happens.

And as somebody who had blocked out a lot of memories of trauma, that was really helpful. Not that the chart showed me the trauma that had been there, but as repressed memories came back, I was able to, in a state of total confusion, look at the chart and be like, oh my goodness, I'm not making this up.

This is there. This is really, you know, so. can help you explore the shadow and then look at what gifts come out of trauma like that. Let's say, for example, you have Mars in areas and the first house, pure areas, energy, Mars rules, Aries it's in the sign of areas is in the house of various. That's an angry dude.

I mean, maybe not angry, maybe ambitious, maybe driven. These are the high quality. But they may have been put into place there because he experienced some violence as a little baby or something, you know, and, and has a big defense or [00:27:00] a lot of, you know, it could've been, it could've been placed there because he was really encouraged as a baby and, and felt confident and supported.

So there were all these different ways that these planetary placements can be set up that if they were put there because of. For example, my, the placements in my chart that show my bipolar disorder that's sucks to have a bipolar honestly, but also there are some really big gifts that come with it. I'm a really good channel.

 You know, I look at the dark side, the shadows of what I have bipolar happens to have a flavor of narcissism, to real fun shit that I can use my ability to get attention and to talk about things and to talk a lot loving the sound of my own voice. Let me tell you about astrology. So try to help out me so much anymore.

You know, I'm still a narcissist, how do I shift and try to lessen that and make this more about service to the collective, right. It's not about getting rid of the photos. It's about looking at the shadows, how they got there, being aware that they're never going to go [00:28:00] away and trying to become more conscious of how they show up day to day, moment to moment.

And oops. Okay. That's my. Dark areas, energy. What if I try to reach for the light areas, energy? How can I be confident and encouraging in this situation? Things like that. Yeah, 

Will: it does a very similar to when we spoke to someone about the Turo and the forward facing or the right facing and in the reverse, I guess it is, there's always a different messages.

 You just take the awareness and use it in the best possible way. I guess. That's what you're saying. So you said something that this may not be the right time to have this conversation, but I'm super curious because it's not how I understood charts work. So maybe you can enlighten me on it.

You mentioned that taking your example of the areas due to really angry guy who perhaps something had been put on his chart because of abuse. I thought the chart was laid in once you were born. And it doesn't, it doesn't change. Right. So how does that work? 

Laura Black: So this is a really fascinating, and this is what keeps me up at night.

I love [00:29:00] it. I mean, this is what makes me use the G word God. Now I want to share a little backstory that I have a lot of religious trauma. The bipolar actually comes. Can I get really explicit here? A little trigger warning about the kind of trauma. Okay. So. I was sexually abused by a church leader when I was like two to four years old and raised in a very.

Culty Mormon family. And my whole family is still more than, and I had to leave that church and it kind of lost the family for awhile and we're healing those relationships, but I have issues with religion and yet sure. My whole life path has been to explore what is power. This is what it means to have an eighth house son.

What is, what is the shadow? What is, why do people believe what they believe? Where does power come from? How do we wield it? What does manipulation these things and how do you heal and transform? These are all scorpions. So I've gone on kind of a mission my whole life to explore every religion or spiritual practice I come around and kind of like the skeptic metaphysician.

I [00:30:00] love this. I really love what you're doing here. That's what I've done with religion or spiritual practices. And I kind of try on all of them, like a Gemini. And then I, I keep what works for me. I look for what's universal. Think critically about it as best I can. And I watch, why do people fall in, like, what does group think?

Things like that I'm fascinated by psychology for spiritual pursuit and. I came to, I don't want, I didn't like to use the G word God. I considered myself atheist for a very long time. And then I explored all kinds of world religion and became a Yogi. I was a Hindu, I was a Buddhist. I was a genus. I wasn't, you know, I went through all these right now.

It's Islam that I'm exploring, which is very similar to Mormonism. And what I find is that.

The chart is your chart from the moment you're born. All, I need to tell somebody to explore and be very accurate with somebody about their life path and purpose and experiences is their date, time and location of birth. That's it complete strangers I read for every single day. And yet I can tell them all [00:31:00] about themselves based on the moment of their birth.

Why are those planets up there? Everything in nature on this planet has a reason and a balance and a symbiosis with something else. Why are those planets up there? My dad taught me how to tell time with the stars when I was a little girl and I just, I just wanted to know why they were up there. It didn't make sense.

They were beautiful. And my dad had a lot of ideas about them being gifts from God and all kinds of other things. Mormons have some funny ideas about how we all get our own planet after this life. That's another story, 

Will: interesting and I had not heard that about Mormon. I think I've heard about that.

 Scientology, Scientology, but I only get heard that about Mormonism. 

Laura Black: Not to bash religions, but I want to be respectful, but for sure, I feel the right to back to the religion I was brainwashed into. So,

all right. So, I pondered this, I found astrology when I was 15 years old and I brought it home and I talked to my parents about it and they just shamed the hell out of me and made fun of it. And, and then all my life, I, it was my obsession. It was just a calling, you know? And so I kept studying and all my.

And then I'd be in relationships with [00:32:00] men or friendships with people who just thought it was ridiculous and constantly put it down and made fun of me and thought it was just hippy. Woo nonsense. And then I decided when COVID happened and my yoga career was kind of pulled out from under me. What am I going to do?

And I went into some meditation and fit some sacred plant medicine therapy. Had the message sent to me very clearly that I needed to go to astrology school, which I didn't know was a thing I didn't know you to actually. Wow. Yeah, that's cool. So I went to the Debra Silverman school of astrology, highly recommend any Astro geeks out there.

Go. She's amazing. Is that an online, 

Karen: um, You can do also, do you have to. 

Laura Black: You can go online. She used to do her level three is actually in Hawaii with her at her home. 

Will: But yes, please. I like to do level three. I 

Karen: can just jump to level three.

Laura Black: She's amazing. It's all online now. I think they will host host in-person workshops again. So. Very cool, great school. You get mentorship, you get a lot of guidance, get a lot of practice. It's wonderful. And she's the best of the best, right? 

Will: And you know what, she, she's not paying us a [00:33:00] sponsorship, but I'm still gonna put in a direct link to work.

Cause I think it's on your the information is on your Instagram. So I'm I'm going to grab that and put it on the show notes. If you're interested in going to astrology school maybe this is the one for you. 

Laura Black: Yeah. And it was life-changing, it was really amazing. And you know, my family didn't think much of it and they were like, really, you're going to waste your time and money on that.

So it's been the families

 and I found through deeper study at that level, that just how accurate everything is. And I realized. These placements. I can look at my chart and see events in my life where the planets fall. I can see being molested. I can see blocking out those memories from being caught, exploring my body by my parents and the religious shame of that culture.

So I can, I can see how I came alive, how I, how I came into my own in the start. I can see the timeline of it. And yet it's been there since my. So when I say, like, in that example, the Mars dude, Mars in the first house, maybe this happened when he was a [00:34:00] baby, I don't know. And some astrologers go there and try to pick that apart.

My astrology teacher happens to be a psychotherapist of 40 years and she, so she's always applied. That's the name of her school is applied astrology. That's why I take kind of a psychological perspective, even though I am not a mental health professional. I have no business in that, but I truly believe.

Like Carl Young said psychology will continue to be a dinosaur science until it includes the study of astrology. And I give it a couple hundred years. I think there'll be one in the same. I think astrologers and I think doctors, medical doctors and psychologists will be therapists will be astrologers.

Will: Wow. We've got a long way to go towards that because even when I post things about astrology on the show, I can't tell you how many times, how many comments, how many really. People saying, yeah, you really expect me to believe this kind of stuff. And without, you know, just, just listen to the show, make up your own mind, but there's no, there, there really is no reason to bash something that you don't understand just because you don't understand it or you're afraid of it.

And , our [00:35:00] stands here is keep an open mind and don't get yourself into a rut where you feel. Something is unbelievable because the minute that you feel that something is unbelievable to you.

You've just proven yourself. Right, right. The whole Schrodinger's cat thing and the quantum physics and, you know, 

Karen: and my take on that is, so he's the skeptic, I'm the believer. I feel like you kind of lose some of that joy and wonder if you don't believe, you know, if you're just looking for reasons to disprove something, I've got to find it's like such a negative.

I think to me and I'm like, oh cool. This too. Wow. 

Laura Black: Yeah, absolutely. I was really stuck in my shadows for the long period of my life, where I was not letting myself believe because I was so wounded by being forced to believe on my life. I wasn't given a choice. This is the truth, the only truth. And we have the only truth and that's the way it was very narcissistic abusive relationship with a church.

But coming out of that, it was like, can't believe astrology has proven it to me. It's mathematical proof that God exists. I don't know what that. I don't see any rules [00:36:00] applied. I see there's light shadow and we are free agents. And there's a map that can tell you all about you and your specific relationship to that God, and to this life.

Yes. And I'm fascinated by it. I'm not like I'm not hook line and sinker sold on any one way of looking at it because I'm a Gemini and I will not follow any religion around it, but I'm fascinated. And I want it to be my life work to ask questions about what I'm doing here and what everybody else is doing here.

Will: And also, it sounds like you should have.

' cause I mean, that, that's exactly what we're doing on the show. Right? I've always the reason why I started the show is because I've been looking my whole life, very similarly to you looking into all kinds of religions and all kinds of modalities looking for that threat, like that physical. I want to be able to touch it proof that there is something out there beyond this physical world.

So I have found certain things, Reiki. To me was the thing that made me go, oh, okay. This stuff is real. Like, cause I could actually, I felt it. I actually felt it I've spoken to psychics and channels [00:37:00] and it sounds right, but it just, it's just kind of hard to, hard to swallow.

Right? What, what's the, what's the scientific modally. Yeah. How does that work? Right. Now over the course of my last year and a half or whatever, I found that it's amazing. How much is out there that I don't know about. So reading the book Wayne Dyer talked about on the show all the time. The fact that there is so much in this world and this universe, like, we don't know how, you know, we, we know scientifically how a flower blooms, but we don't really know.

How a flower actually blooms, like what makes it like what's the intelligence behind that, right? Absolutely. If you look at like, how are your, how do your brain impulses come in, make you move your finger? Right. I mean, we know how to do it. Scientists had to happen scientifically, but, but really what's the intelligence behind it.

Why? Yeah, it's a same general principle who knows. And again, that, the whole Asimov thing about to a perimeter. Culture science will look like magic because it don't understand [00:38:00] it. Like what, what in the future are we going to find, like, like to your point, astrology to some people is room kind of a, this esoteric or they call it a pseudo science, honestly.

So, so what, what if in the future is more proof that says, yeah, this is real and it's no longer pseudoscience. This is actually science. Maybe it's taught in school and that's that's me. 

Laura Black: Yeah. I mean, it's happening. We're in process right now. I know it doesn't seem feasible because in the mainstream it's not accepted.

It's it's ridiculed a bit, but I know I'm one of the people that it was like a guest teacher while I was in astrology school was talking about how they have 500,000 pieces of data explaining or they're collecting data around how placements got set in a person. Like, oh, this, this person experienced sexual trauma or this person experienced, you know, support and love and nurturing at this time of their life.

Like, they're understanding why, [00:39:00] how these trucks got there. They're understanding the psychology relationship. And with that emerging, I think it's only a matter of time. It's just that astrology is the energy of Aquarius. Hello? Age of Aquarius. That's the highest level here. It's an air is information in.

It's knowledge, communication, sharing, connecting community. They'll collect it then. So with astrology being in the age of Aquarius, we're starting to remember some of the old, the highest sciences, you know, it's the same kind of thought line is like ancient aliens. Have you guys ever seen that show? 

Will: Yeah, well, yeah.

Yeah. 

Laura Black: yeah. So it's the idea that there used to be higher science and higher technology than there is on this planet. Right? That we've had you know, atomic weaponry long before, and that Egypt wasn't eight to 10,000 years ago. That was the, those pyramids were built way before as a Merkaba as a way of interdimensional travel and communication.

And that we understood that the power of sound frequency and light back then the, the highest [00:40:00] sciences, the natural sciences, we understood the science, the technology of the earth and how to work with it as human beings on a very advanced. And that sciences such as astrology and even yoga. I mean, look at the history of yoga, the.

Shiva came down to send it in a beam of light on Mount Kilimanjaro and gave the yoga to the seven or eight. She's like, these are, these are extra terrestrial forces that doesn't hurt us. And we're trying to show us how to become more aware and expand as human beings. Right. And astrology was just this tool that they were saying, look, there's a way of mapping using astronomy.

Astrology used to be more. Respected that astronomy because it wasn't just the geometry, the physics, the mapping, the mathematics, it was also something spiritual about psychology and integrating the living human being and how to understand how we work, what we're here to do and how we can do it best.

 I can't not believe 

Will: this, this conversation is, has been absolutely fascinating [00:41:00] to me. We went through so many rabbit holes. I never expected us to go when we're talking about shadow work, but it was absolutely fabulous. You help. With their own personal shadow work. Right? That's, that's one of the things that you do.

So if somebody was interested in reaching out to you and working with you to explore their own shadow selves what's the best way for them to do that? 

Laura Black: So I'm, my website is under constraint. Oh, my Mars is in Gemini. So I'm about getting things together, but we're in progress. So you can book through my website.

I just don't have my current yoga teaching schedule up there. And so it's not always exactly accurate. I might have to change the time with you. So the easiest way is my email, which you can reach me at cosmic consultants, seven seven, seven@gmail.com. Laura Black forty2@gmail.com or through my Instagram where you can check out a lot of my posts and message me directly, which is the underscore cosmic underscore consultant at [00:42:00] the cosmic consulting.

Will: definitely, I will lay in some direct links to those in our show notes so that you can access them without having to take notes. If you're listening to this on the radio. Don't worry. You don't have to pull over. Well, you can, you can visit skeptic, metaphysician.com later on and get all that information 

laura, this has been absolutely fascinating. Is there anything, any last minute words of wisdom that you want to make sure you impart on our audience before we close it out today? 

Laura Black: Yeah. Get really honest with yourselves. It it's hard and it's scary, but it's the best shadow work is where it's at. It's the most uncomfortable and the most rewarding thing you'll ever do.

Will: Very well said. Laura, thank you so much for coming on the show today. If you are interested in reaching out to her, like I mentioned, I'll have all of the, all of those links directly on our show notes. I am in awe of the amount of knowledge that you has shared with us, so much more knowledge I'm sure must be in your head that we didn't even get a chance to touch on, but I'm, in absolute awe, I don't know how else to say 

Laura Black: Well, I'm really looking forward to talking with you more and still hope to have you on my [00:43:00] little show and show off your chart for 

Will: I would be thrilled. Thank you for, for the invitation, happy to, join in with you. Okay. So Karen, Karen, thank you. For joining on this one, this was a, this was a fun one, but I have so many more 

Karen: questions.

What if he's gonna start getting better, but it sounds like it's, we 

Will: want to have Laura come back for part two. sincerely thank you listener for coming along on our journey of discovery. If you know that. That would benefit from hearing these messages that we're sharing on the show.

I urge you strongly to share this podcast with that person or this radio show with that person, because you never know who might just have their life changed by it. Now, like we mentioned, if you'd like to learn more about my guests, check out her Instagram at the underscore cosmic underscore consultant.

Go ahead and search for her name, Laura Black astrologer. That's how I found her or check out her website. It is under construction, but most of the stuff is there. It's the cosmic consultant.com. As I mentioned, I lead in direct links to those in the show notes for convenience, you can always find those in so many other things [00:44:00] on my website, skeptic, metaphysician.com.

Not only can you access those direct links and the direct links to our social media platforms and those of my guests, But you can also leave us voicemails there too. We'd love to hear your thoughts, your comments, your questions, your feedback on the show, the guests, all of that. You can also listen to all of our past episodes directly on the site.

So if you miss any of our conversations, don't hesitate to go to skeptic, metaphysician.com and get caught up. Now we've got some astounding guests coming up, so subscribing to the show on any major podcasting platform will ensure you don't miss a single episode. Well, it's all for now. Thanks again for listening.

And we'll see you again on the next episode of the skeptic metaphysician until then take care.