Folk Catholic Magic, First Generation American Woes, and the Stigmata with Echo

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[00:00:00] Ashley: Welcome to Dying with the Divine. My name's Ashley, I'm your host, and together we'll be exploring magical, mystical, historical, ancient, everything in between. And on today's episode we'll be talking about Catholic folk magic and a saint that even the Vatican said was doing too much. Hi everybody.

[00:00:26] Welcome to this show. Thank you for coming for another week, and I hope you're having a great week. And if you're not, I hope it gets better. So I'm really excited as usual. I feel like I say that about everybody, but I'm always excited about everybody we talk to. So I'm really excited today to introduce today's guests.

[00:00:41] So today we have Echo. She grew up in the suburbs outside of Chicago and she still resides. Relatively around the same area. She currently works full-time as a public middle school choir teacher, and juggles life as an online private music instructor, a church musician, and performing with two professional choirs.

[00:00:58] Damn girl. You have any time [00:01:00] do anything else? I don't know. Literally and somehow trying to be a writer and kind of a concentrator. So this is exactly why, this is exactly why she's a cat parent and avoids human parenting. That sounds fantastic. Hi Echo, how are you? I'm good, how are you? I'm doing great.

[00:01:22] Lots to unpack here. So first of all how, okay, when did you realize you were a musical person? Cuz you're involved in choirs, I've seen you on Instagram, you played the cello. Were you introduced to music by someone else, or did you realize that you really loved music and you wanted to do different things with it?

[00:01:40] Echo: I like to say that it all started with my parents gave me a really cheap Casio piano. Keyboard. Yes. And I taught myself how to play a little bit of piano. And then I also had one of those magic mic karaoke machines because I'm Filipino. We had one of those. So that's where [00:02:00] singing and piano came in.

[00:02:01] And then my parents eventually got me some piano lessons. That started when I was around five. And then lessons came in when I was around eight. So I've been I'm 28 now, so I've been doing music for a very long time.

[00:02:16] Ashley: Yeah. And I hope this is. This is okay to say I've never met a Filipino who didn't love karaoke.

[00:02:23] I hope I'm not trying to be rude or anything, or, oh my gosh, I, not at all. It's totally in the stereotype. I was like, I hope I'm not being like a bigot by saying that or anything. It's just I know several Filipino people and they all either have a karaoke machine or they're like, oh my gosh, this weekend we're going over my cousin's house and we're gonna do karaoke.

[00:02:45] I'm like, you guys love karaoke. Don't get me wrong, I also love karaoke. There's nothing wrong with it. I'm just like, oh, Filipinos really karaoke, and I

[00:02:51] Echo: love it. It's such an ingrained part of the culture. Yes. And honestly, I don't think I've ever met a Filipino who somehow [00:03:00] doesn't love singing, even if it's just for fun or even professionally.

[00:03:03] There are literally, if you, there's an episode on on the Philippines by Anthony Bourdain, rest in Peace. Where he actually talks to some bands in the Philippines that are literally just cover bands. They they're all over the place in the Philippines. And they even have shows, like game shows where they have oh, guess the lyrics, complete the lyrics.

[00:03:27] And they just have people who perform all the time. So we're just inherent performers.

[00:03:33] Ashley: Yes. It's in our blood. I love it. I have a great affection for all things Filipino. I work with and I have worked with a lot of Filipino people my whole entire life. I love Filipino food, I love Filipino people in general.

[00:03:47] I love Filipino culture. I just love everybody in the Philippines. So thank you for being Filipino. Everybody. Filipino. You guys are a great bunch of people. So fun. You guys just throw some of the best [00:04:00] parties. The best. Oh God. There's always too much food, but it's fine cuz I gorge myself on pan sit and limpia and it's all great.

[00:04:07] Ah, yes.

[00:04:11] All the

[00:04:11] Echo: things.

[00:04:12] Ashley: Yes I do too. Yes, it's delicious. I love it so much. How, by the way, how many instruments do you play, if you don't mind me asking, cuz you play the cello. I saw, and I know you said you play, I feel like all musicians play the piano because I feel like you have to because it's probably important to like learning and stuff, but how many instruments do you play?

[00:04:29] I'm just curious.

[00:04:31] Echo: So I sing, I play piano, I play cello. I play violin. A little bit of viola guitar. I had to learn for work, so I taught that to myself And Yu ukulele

[00:04:45] Ashley: to seven. Oh my God, I love Yu Ukuleles. Yes. When I was growing up, I played the violin and for a second I was like, I'm gonna learn how to play the viola.

[00:04:53] But then they use like that clef that I think nobody else uses. So I was like, I can't learn another cle. This is too [00:05:00] hard. So I'm not gonna do it. And it's like slightly bigger. I'm like, I'm thrown off. I can't. I was like,

[00:05:06] Echo: this is too much work. It's a lot. Honestly, I didn't think I was gonna be able to do it either.

[00:05:10] But then I had a student that dis she started with doing piano lessons with me and then she saw my violin and was like, oh my God, I wanna do orchestras. So she picked up the viola and so I was forced to learn the viola.

[00:05:24] Ashley: Oh no. So I started reading

[00:05:27] Echo: that cliff and I was like, okay, I guess with one more cliff, I already know how to read two.

[00:05:31] So it's just once I get my base landing, then I can go okay, so that's c, d, E. Okay. I just go with all the intervals and that's just kinda how I roll now.

[00:05:41] Ashley: I love that. What other instruments even use in Alto cle? I'm trying to like, do you know? You would know better than me. I'm not an music teacher.

[00:05:48] I know. I don't know shit.

[00:05:50] Echo: I think there are sometimes I have seen very strange vocal music use Alto cle, but singers also get a very bad rap that [00:06:00] they don't know how to read music in the first place. So yeah. Yeah. I can't do that because I have perfect pitch. So if I see the note, like that's what it is.

[00:06:08] That's why band instruments drive me crazy. I do think that sometimes trombone will be in alto clef. Okay. But usually other instruments do not. No. Okay. Yeah. Sometimes there's like tenor clef and soprano clef. But I think those are also ones that some band instruments also use, because like sometimes they'll be in like weird ranges.

[00:06:32] And just the way that sometimes that they're written, it's more convenient to write them in a certain CLE instead of say if it's in trouble clef, then all of a sudden you have to write like all of these ledger lines below the trouble clef. Or oh, if you are trying to play, I don't know, trombone and bass clef, then like you're, if you're doing all these ledger lines above the bass clef, then might as well just move it up.

[00:06:54] You're in the alto CLE now. So

[00:06:55] Ashley: yeah. Man, music is complicated. It is [00:07:00] good. It's

[00:07:01] Echo: good. I know I'm starting to spit out like foreign language here. I'm just like, oh no,

[00:07:04] Ashley: no. I like growing up, I always played an instrument, like all through school, so like I, I know what you're talking about.

[00:07:10] Obviously I'm not advanced in anything, but I'm like, okay, that makes sense. But I remember. I remember just like learning any other clef was distressing. So anytime I had to, any instrument I played, I learned to play a few different instruments in especially in high school. But I made sure they were all like, it all had to be in trouble.

[00:07:29] Cle cuz I can't function. I'm like, I'm confused. I can't read this. I could only do one clap I remember I played the saxophone and band in marching band. And they were like, oh, we need people to do like the bass saxophone. I think that's what it's called. I'm getting nervous.

[00:07:43] I might be wrong. I think it's Barone Baritone. That's what it is. Not bass. And I was like, first of all, it's way too heavy. I'm not doing my partner. Yeah. Number two, I couldn't read bass cle and I was like, I'm not gonna learn for this. I played tenor with my friend. We just were the tenor section, [00:08:00] me and my one friend.

[00:08:00] And it was a great time cuz we could still read trouble cle. So it was no problem. Anyway, enough about cle. Sorry.

[00:08:05] Echo: No, totally fine. I could talk about claps all day long.

[00:08:12] Ashley: I love it. Okay, so you also perform in two professional choirs. Yes. That is so cool. Where do you guys perform? For the community mostly. Okay. Yes. That's,

[00:08:23] Echo: oh wow. So one both of them or they're mainly C community. Quiet community based, but we're professional, so we get, I actually get paid like after concerts, so it's nice.

[00:08:36] And it's there, they're both nonprofit organizations. We have a lot of donors. And so that's why we're able to do that. One of my groups is actually we're touring in Spain and Portugal. This summer. Oh my God, that's so cool. Yeah. So we're gonna sing in a bunch of really awesome cathedrals.

[00:08:54] We're gonna get to see all these places. So it's really exciting. They're like, oh yeah, you gotta make [00:09:00] sure that your sleeve is like pasture elbow. I'm like, oh god, that's gonna suck during the summer.

[00:09:05] Ashley: Yeah. My, one of my friends last summer went to Spain and they were like in the Salva Spain. It was like a hundred degrees every day.

[00:09:12] It's hot. But first of all, that's so cool. I, what was I gonna say? Oh, my bird brain. It's terrible. I, okay, so my mom's from England, so we went to 10 years ago was the last time we went back and we were in like the cathedral in her town. And I'm not like a singer like you, but I just like to sing.

[00:09:31] So the cloisters there in the cathedral. The sound is so cool. Oh

[00:09:38] Echo: my God. Yeah. I've always wanted to go and visit one of those especially like in England, cuz like I know they have like their vespers and like those I've performed music by people who like write for those kind of masses.

[00:09:51] But like I, I've always wanted to actually go visit and attend a mass. Cuz they always say oh my gosh it's gorgeous. And I'm like, yes. [00:10:00] Maybe someday.

[00:10:01] Ashley: Yeah. I'm sure you will. This sound. The sound, I guess the way they build it too. And like the, first of all, the architecture and those old cathedrals anywhere you go.

[00:10:09] And I'm sure you'll see plenty of that in Portugal and Spain. It's so beautiful. And then I don't know about architecture and sound, but I don't know, maybe they built it a certain way to make the sound like the way it comes out. Cuz it's not like an echo. It's like a, it, when you speak even in those areas, it fills the hall with the sound.

[00:10:29] Yeah. So I'm sure they did that on purpose. Which is amazing cuz you think when a lot of these places were built, there was, there were yukos in Abacus probably for the math of it. So you're like, how did they figure this out? You're like, I always look at those ancient buildings. I'm like, how did they figure this out without a calculator?

[00:10:45] I don't know. I can go on and on about how I think they were smarter than us, but it's not a, it's not what we're gonna talk about right now.

[00:10:50] Echo: It's just okay, hold on. We're getting into math now. Exactly.

[00:10:54] Ashley: I know. Because it's just amazing the way the halls feels. With sound okay. That's, this is gorgeous, [00:11:00] isn't it?

[00:11:01] Okay, so we, okay, so that's, we talked about that. So next thing we're gonna talk about, we're gonna go to our dish of the week next. Ooh. So each, yes, each week we have our dish of the week or dishes, depending on how I'm feeling that week. This week I picked two different things. So I know you said you like ramen, correct?

[00:11:19] Love ramen. Yes. Yes. Alright. I also am a fan and I didn't like, I only recently in the past, maybe year or two, found out that ramen could be fancy yes. When I found that out, I went to a place with my friend and we sat down and ordered ramen. I was like, damn, this shit is good. And I just thought we were gonna get just like ramen noodles.

[00:11:37] And I was like, whatever. It's fine. We're good.

[00:11:38] Echo: Oh, the ones from the, like the little packs. Yeah. So

[00:11:41] Ashley: I thought that's what we were getting and I was like, okay. Like in my head. But then when I looked at the menu, I said, this is complicated. I was like, this is fancy ramen, but like oh, I love a ramen. We're gonna do a little ramen education here cuz I didn't know all this. So first of all guys, there's four different like popular varieties of ramen. Okay? So the [00:12:00] most common style is called show you. And this show you is a Japanese word for soy sauce. So it's like a soy sauce based ramen and it's usually comes out as a light broth and it's usually brown or clear or sometimes a little more milky.

[00:12:13] Then you can have sheeo, I hope I'm saying it, or Shao which is another light broth. And it's usually it, Shao means salt in Japanese. So this broth is golden color, or it's made of fish bones like a fish stock or a chicken stock. And then you have miso, like miso soup. Most people know miso soup is in that cloudy calm soy bean paste broth.

[00:12:38] And then you can have tongue coat soup. This is a full-bodied fatty. Satisfying broth, and it's usually made up of simmering pork bones, which I think I've had that one before. And it's very good because of course it is. It's simmering pork fat. It's delicious. So why wouldn't it be good? So anyway, those are [00:13:00] like the bases for ramen.

[00:13:01] But the good thing about ramen is you can put, anything in it, you can put sesame oils olive oil, garlic, ginger rice vinegar, soy sauce, different kinds of hot sauces like sriracha or garlic chili sauce. I love a hot garlic chili sauce. Ooh, I'll put on anything. Oh, my

[00:13:18] Echo: asshole would be on fire.

[00:13:19] That's why I don't do, I love, like why steer clear

[00:13:23] Ashley: of it? Oh my God. I love hot sauce. I love a sweet chili sauce that you get sometimes that I always get it at a Thai restaurant usually. Yeah,

[00:13:33] Echo: I can put on anything. Yeah, there's there's the, what Filipinos use, I think it's the same kind.

[00:13:38] I forgot what it is. Sweet and sour. It's like there's so many kinds of sweetened sour sauces that asians use. Yes. And there's one that Filipinos use is specifically for Olympia and the Shanghai girls. And it's the oh, I forgot the name of it. It's literally it's like an orangey sauce with the red flake in it.

[00:13:55] I don't know if you've seen it before.

[00:13:56] Ashley: Oh, I've definitely seen that before. I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. [00:14:00] My

[00:14:00] Echo: family calls it like the sweetened sour sauce, but I'm like, okay, that's sweet. And sour sauce is different than the kind of sweet sour sauce they get at the Chinese restaurant.

[00:14:06] Yeah. Or the Japanese restaurant. So I think it's really interesting, like how, like each culture will have a different take on all these sauces

[00:14:14] Ashley: I definitely though have seen that hot sauce that you're talking about, like the more orangey looking one and it's delicious. Some other things you can put in ramen, you can put in like different kinds of mushrooms in nochi, mushrooms especially they mentioned in this particular article, bean sprouts corn.

[00:14:30] I've never had it with corn. I've

[00:14:32] Echo: just, oh, I have. It's

[00:14:33] Ashley: good. It's great. Is it all right? I get nervous cuz I'm like, I don't think we need corn in everything. Everybody let's relax. But it's fine if you like corn,

[00:14:43] just let's go texture

[00:14:45] Echo: in my opinion.

[00:14:46] Ashley: I, I just, you're funny. There is fish cakes. Fish cakes, you can put in it and you can make, ramen is something you can make at home. Literally. You can do like a soft boiled egg. You can do some of these [00:15:00] toppings, some of these vegetables, and then you can put whatever protein you like or beans, whatever you like.

[00:15:06] So that's a little bit about ramen. And the other thing we're gonna have, I found this article cuz I thought it was hilarious. So is the most expensive sushi in the world? Oh,

[00:15:23] so there is this guy, his name is Angelo Anetta Jr. And he is a sushi chef and he makes the most expensive sushi in the world. His sushi is covered with edible gold and covered also with diamonds and pearls. What? Whoa. I'm like, sir, why are you doing this? What is the point of this? I don't know. Edible gold.

[00:15:48] Yes. That's a thing. Yes it is. It's did you ever drink like gold schlager? No. Okay. It's like a liquor that people think is fancy, but it's not like we used to get it [00:16:00] when we were younger. It's like we got gold. Shocker. But it's not that cool. But it has gold. It has gold flakes in it.

[00:16:05] Anyway, it has a cinnamon taste to it. Oh. And it has gold flakes and you can ingest it and it's fine. You'll live, you won't be poisoned. So that's great. Interesting. I know, right? So this piece of ne five rule sushi cost drum roll. There we go. $1,978. Oh my god. For five rolls.

[00:16:34] Echo: Oh my God. Are they even like big

[00:16:35] Ashley: rolls? No, they're not. And they're not like the fantasy roll that you're like, I feel fancy. I'm gonna pay $12 for the fantasy roll at my local sushi joint. This is ridiculous. I get it. It's for like stupid rich people. And I don't mean that they're stupid.

[00:16:49] I mean that they're stupid rich. And they just wanna be fancy and I guess so

[00:16:53] Echo: They can say I'm hun sui with gold sprinkled on it and they're in diamonds. I was able [00:17:00] to eat the diamonds. Okay. Was your shit shiny?

[00:17:02] Ashley: Are you all right? Like you need to get checked now.

[00:17:07] You need a colonoscopy cuz your diamonds are somewhere floating in your right. Yeah. That's doesn't sound safe as a nurse, I will tell you, don't eat a diamond. It's not good for you. It is not good. This guy, he makes his sushi. He probably gets paid a lot of money and we're super happy for him that he's making a living and doing that.

[00:17:26] Congratulations sir. He's also in the Guinness World Book of World Records for having the most expensive sushi and he's doing great. Congratulations. And those are our dishes of the week. Alright. So this is the part of the show where I plug myself real quick. So everybody, if you enjoy this show, this is what you're gonna do.

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[00:18:35] I promise. Okay. So now we're gonna talk a little bit about, so Echo, I know you practice what you call like Folk Catholic Magic. Is that right? So we're gonna, that's, yes. We're gonna talk a little bit about that and we're gonna talk about. Folk Catholicism. So I wanna know from you, how did you get into this practice?

[00:18:59] Echo: So [00:19:00] I was born and raised. Very Catholic. But the folk part of it came in. I guess it's just been sprinkled throughout my entire life and I haven't fully embraced the folk magic part of that identity until I'd say a year ago, like fully, that's when I started saying, okay, this is what I do now.

[00:19:17] And that's coming from the Filipino side. Of course. Obviously like when it comes to Catholicism oh, it was something used by colonists where they came in and they colonized the Philippines banded. And originally in the Philippines they had their own sort of spiritual practices and really the Philippines were according to, and this is coming from my dad who's a huge history buff.

[00:19:45] My dad too, the Philippines. Awesome. Gotta love it. I love it. They're just like, whoa. Forest scores seven years. Exactly.

[00:19:53] Ashley: Okay,

[00:19:53] Echo: okay. Okay. Dad.

[00:19:55] Ashley: I

[00:19:55] Echo: love it. Oh,

[00:19:56] Ashley: dads I know. [00:20:00] So my dad was saying,

[00:20:02] Echo: The Philippines were actually really hard to conquer cuz. They were savages and that totally clocks because I'm, I can be pretty sav too in all sorts of ways, but I can touch on that later.

[00:20:14] Anyway so they were very hard to conquer. And the one, think about it, like Magellan died over there.

[00:20:23] Ashley: First of all also the Philippines is so many islands. It's like, how are you conquering all these people? Isn't like 7,000 islands or something. Yes, I may be completely wrong.

[00:20:30] Make up clue the Philippines, like it's a lot. I'm gonna find a link and putting the show notes over that. Everybody will figure it out. But it's a lot of islands, it's tons of them. And the cultures are different depending like where you are in the Philippines, correct.

[00:20:43] Echo: Uhhuh. Yeah. And there, there were so many tribes when I was like looking into like pre-colonial stuff.

[00:20:49] Just cuz you know, I wanted to learn more about it. There were people posting things like all these maps about like how many like cultures and actually like different, like variations of the language. There [00:21:00] were and really this the, they, they were conquered spiritually. So that's what Spain brought in was Catholicism.

[00:21:10] And they started saying oh, you are Which are the Phil the spiritual leaders at the time, the Shaman. They were like, oh, these people are witches. Oh, these people are evil. Oh, this is who you need to worship. And that's when the priest started coming in and started. They started actually like getting rid of those people of the violin.

[00:21:28] And the the, there's actually a I do think there is a folk, I could be wrong. So I'm I think this is just from the, from all the information mixing in, from all, from everything that I've researched. That's fine. Yeah. I do think the the a swang, which are these in Filipino folklore, they're these creatures that they're usually women or women looking and they're like vampires.

[00:21:52] They can sever themselves by the waist I think, like a full moon type of thing. And they can that that second part of [00:22:00] their body like flies around and like they eat. Babies, out of pregnant women, that's that's their thing. And I think that's, I for, from what my dad has told me, he would say oh, that's what they the the Catholic priests at the time would say oh, you're ba violin are actually like these creatures.

[00:22:18] And so that's why they would point them out as evil. Now, obviously centuries later as the Philipp, because the Philippines actually had a really hard time cuz their spiritual their spirituality is very much part of their identity. And so I think like ever since like they adopted Catholicism I think they're starting now to, I think especially in this decade, have an actual footprint in society.

[00:22:46] Just in, in especially western society because when I was growing up People didn't know what the Philippines were and

[00:22:53] Ashley: Oh, okay.

[00:22:54] Echo: Yeah. And people would be like, oh, are you Vietnamese? There's this Vietnamese girl, and I think that you're probably [00:23:00] her cousin. And I'm like, what? No, don't you,

[00:23:03] Ashley: okay.

[00:23:04] I'm not trying to interrupt you. Every people used to do that to me all the time. So my dad's from Ghana and people would be like, oh, Ashley, that other kid over there, I think he's like African. So are you guys like family? Oh my God. First of all, I don't know that kid. I'm sure they're fine, but don't know that person.

[00:23:22] And or my favorite, my friends would be like, your dad sounds like Mufasa. I'd be like, first of all, I'm like, I'm not offend. I'd be like, first of all, I would always be like, first of all, in the Lion King, they're speaking Swahili. They speak Swahili in like Kenya. We're not, we're like 8,000 miles from Kenya.

[00:23:39] I was like, yeah. And also, What I'm like, I love that was everyone's like reference to an African, they're like, Mufasa the lion. And I'm like, what bro? What are we talking about? Yeah. So it's like they, people probably looked at you, they're like there's another Asian person, so you must know them.

[00:23:57] Correct. [00:24:00] Like all Asian people. You're from Asia. That's how that Exactly. Pardon? What? So it's like, what do you mean? And you think yourself do people realize how big number one the world is?

[00:24:14] I'm just like, what are you saying to me? I'm like,

[00:24:18] Echo: Do you realize that, that those continents are much larger than you think it is.

[00:24:24] Like your little boooooo town is like nothing in comparison to the vastness of the,

[00:24:30] Ashley: you're like, what do you mean? But anyway, I'm so sorry I interrupted. I know. You're fine. You're fine. It's okay. So everybody thought you knew that Vietnamese girl who happened to be over there, so they're like, oh girl, you know her.

[00:24:40] You

[00:24:41] Echo: pardon? Yeah. And they're, and they're like, oh my God, are you Taiwanese? Are you Korean? Are you Chinese? Are you Japanese? I'm like, no, I'm Filipino. And they're like, what the fuck is that? I'm like, the Philippines bitches.

[00:24:50] Ashley: I don't know. Dunno how else to explain this in the country. I know like here is the map.

[00:24:57] Echo: Do you see Japan? No, I'm not from

[00:24:59] Ashley: [00:25:00] there. Look south there. You see those islands? Philippines.

[00:25:03] Echo: Now I wasn't born there. My parents were born there. Okay. But I am full ass Filipino. Like

[00:25:13] my parents are off the boat. They're both immigrants. They both got their citizenship like,

[00:25:17] Ashley: but I was,

[00:25:18] Echo: you

[00:25:18] Ashley: know, Philippines get it right. Oh my God.

[00:25:23] Echo: Oh God. There's even someone that would just, and Laos, like some people don't even know the country Laos and they're just like, are

[00:25:29] Ashley: you, is your family from there?

[00:25:30] And I'm like, no. The one thing I always remember about Laos is that the actress Brenda Song? Yeah. Her family is from Laos. I remember there was like a little, I don't know why, like on the Disney Channel, they'd have it was like, not a commercial, but it would be a little short.

[00:25:48] And it was like her, one of them was like her, my sister used to love Sweet life Of Z Chase. Yes, I did too. Yes. Yes. My sister-in-law of that show. She's, my sister's like almost your age. She's 27. So [00:26:00] I would watch it with her. Sometimes I'm like eight years older than my sister.

[00:26:02] But so sh Brenda's song had a little clip of her and her grandma, and she's talking about, oh, my grandma's from Laos. And I used to study maps when I was little and I had never heard of anybody from there I was like, oh, this is so cool. Whenever I found out like somebody was from a country that I've ne, this is a also a very embarrassing story.

[00:26:20] I used to work at Walmart when I was a teenager and , I used to work at customer service sometimes, and we would send money orders. So this guy came and he and I also really like to know people's like surnames and figure out where they're from their surnames. Obviously I don't tell them like, but cuz that's weird.

[00:26:39] And it's probably insulting if I get it wrong. So but I'll just think about it and I'll be like this name looks like this. So this guy I do that too, so it's okay. Yes. Okay, cool, cool. But I like, I'll never say it unless they say something to me about it, but This guy came me, he sending a money order to like this the capitol.

[00:26:54] And I looked at the Capitol, it was like U tt and I was like, this is Mongolia. I've never met anybody from [00:27:00] Mongolia. I was like, oh. And I dunno if I'm like being weird by I wasn't like fetishizing him for, cuz he was from Mongolia. I just like really like to meet people from countries I've never met anybody from.

[00:27:12] So I, yeah. I was like, oh, and I saw the name and I just said to him, is this going to Mongolia? He's yes. I was like, oh. Okay. And I was like so awkward about it and he was probably like, does this is this girl? Maybe she's never heard of Mongolia. She seems confused. But I was just excited. I was like, I've never met anybody from Mongolia.

[00:27:34] This is so cool. Oh, and go, yeah, I handed him back his money order. He's okay, thanks. Like you're being really weird. It was just exciting. And I'm sorry. I hope I did not make that man feel uncomfortable. Oh my

[00:27:49] Echo: God. No. I would've totally been all like, oh my God I would, because I have no filter.

[00:27:54] So it's I would've been like, Mongolia. That's so cool.

[00:27:58] Ashley: Oh my god, Mongolia. I know so [00:28:00] many things about Mongolia. I can tell you all, but no, I wouldn't do that. But anyway, that's interesting. Both of my parents are immigrants too, so they used to be like, Very we want you to know where other things are.

[00:28:12] Like we need to like culture you. Yes. Yeah. And I feel like probably similar to you, like I, my dad is a history buff and my parents made me like, you're gonna be very proud of who you are and like, where we're from. Yes. And this is your heritage and it's good. But I know growing up I had the same experience of people, like not knowing where things were.

[00:28:29] So they're very confused. And also like my mom's English, like she has an English accent. They'd be like, yeah, but your mom is black. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, so what's the situation? Oh my God. Yeah. No. Thateveryone was like, but what's going on there? I was like, so my grandpa, he's from Jamaica.

[00:28:45] And then he went there and then my mom grew up there. They're like, but what? But she just grew up there. I was like, yeah. Can you imagine like she was born in that place? Yeah. Called Cult. It's called culture, but she called culture and immigration. [00:29:00] Born there. Huh, but she doesn't have a Jamaican accent.

[00:29:06] I was like, no. Oh my God. And I'm like, what is the difficulty here? I'm like, so you, your parents are from wherever and they don't have the accent of their grandparents, right? No. But your mom is black. And I'm like, okay, now we're circle. Okay. I was like, this isn't making sense. We're gonna stop this conversation right here.

[00:29:28] I can no longer explain this. I'm getting tired. I'm gonna keep you on the swing set because I can't. Anyway.

[00:29:33] Echo: Oh my God. Same though. It's just you can go get it. They don't, it's just okay. Why? It's so appalling. Their worldview is just so narrow. I know. Oh my God. Even, okay, so there was this.

[00:29:46] We're totally ve from the

[00:29:47] Ashley: topic, but whatever. It's fine. We'll get back to it at some point. It's no problem. The

[00:29:52] Echo: we'll get back to it. We'll circle around. I have adhd. This is literally gonna happen. I'm gonna be bouncing all over the plane.

[00:29:57] Ashley: It's problem. Just so you know. It's no [00:30:00] issue at all. Don't worry.

[00:30:01] Okay. Awesome. Okay

[00:30:04] Echo: I lived in this rental town home and there was this this grandpa Indian dude who would like, see us every now and again, and he would wave whenever he saw us, he was like across the street. One time he came over to us and he pointed at me, he goes, Chinese, I am like, no Filipino.

[00:30:24] And he is Mexican,

[00:30:26] Ashley: okay, here we go. I dunno. I was like, ok, really bro? Ok. You're like, all, listen.

[00:30:34] Echo: I am, I, and I kept saying, Filipino. Filipino. And he is just Okay. Okay. I knew in his brain he was just like, she's some sort of Chinese Mexican child. I'm just like, I'm just gonna walk away from this conversation because clearly you don't know what Filipino is or want to even try knowing what it is.

[00:30:53] See, like I, if I don't know like what an ethnicity is I'd feel like, okay, what country is that? Yes, ask questions, be [00:31:00] curious. Learn for crying out loud.

[00:31:03] Ashley: That's literally all it takes. So I have a friend Her grandfather was a rabbi. And so every, I'm really into this show

[00:31:10] It's an Israeli show and they're a Hasidic Jews. So on the show, every time they do something, I always text her. And in the beginning I'd be like, I hope I'm saying this in the most respectful way. I have a question. And she's it's literally fine to ask questions. I'm more than happy to answer it. And that's all you have to do is just be like, Hey, I have a question about this cultural thing.

[00:31:27] Can you help me? And people are really happy to answer it. I'm always happy to answer questions for people if you are confused about whatever. So yes, it just takes curiosity. And the curiosity shows me that you are respectful of the culture, just cuz you wanna know yeah, you don't know where the Philippines is.

[00:31:43] No problem. I will explain to you where it is and you'll be like, oh, didn't know there was something down there and great. Now we're all, we've all been educated. Great.

[00:31:50] Echo: And there's this huge difference between asking the questions and like asking questions, but then just asserting what your own belief is.

[00:31:58] Exactly. Yeah. So [00:32:00] the people that are just like, oh, but your mom is black. I know they can't get in.

[00:32:05] Ashley: How come she just never don't make an accent? Yeah. They're like, I'm like, I don't. So you think that like it's be the blackness that carries the accent the skin color, the melan. I'm like, I am very confused.

[00:32:16] I'm literally, okay, I guess I don't understand you and you don't understand me, and it's fine. We'll just keep going. It is so

[00:32:23] Echo: The narrow

[00:32:24] Ashley: mindedness is so appalling. Like it is, you're just like, like I'm, sometimes I'm just look at people like what are you talking about? And it's the same people who.

[00:32:34] And a lot of times it's Americans, but they're very excited and proud to see my family came from Poland at this point, or my family came from Sweden and like I'm happy for them too. Yeah, you should be super excited about your culture, but when it's another culture, why can't you be excited that other people are excited about theirs?

[00:32:53] Because if you are, I promise you, if somebody's family came from Ireland and I say, oh, your family came from Wales, I'm like, no, it was [00:33:00] Ireland. And that's no problem. I want you to correct me, but when I talk about my culture, don't be like silly child, you are wrong. Excuse me. Yeah. They're like, your family did what?

[00:33:10] That is impossible. And I'm like, it's totally not because it happened.

[00:33:13] Echo: Yeah. Like you can't rewrite my history. Excuse Exactly.

[00:33:17] Ashley: I am the living proof of all the things I just said. I am here. I was like,

[00:33:21] Echo: what do you mean? Pretty precisely. And that's the same thing with, and I'm gonna totally sig you back into this, let's do it.

[00:33:27] A combination of. Catholicism and magic. Yes. And people think that's impossible. I had some people commenting on Instagram going oh, you can't do that. I'm like, actually there's like a whole there is a community that is made of folk Catholics or people who do practice folk math, folk magic, but then they're not necessarily Catholic.

[00:33:47] And that's okay because it's a whole, and it, this is the beauty of it, it's like the diversity. It's like everyone follows like what they feel is right to them. And it's not this [00:34:00] whole dogma thing. So the thing that I've I'm learning now especially about Folk Catholicism, is and this is, thank you to the Red Text podcast for educating me a lot on this as well.

[00:34:11] They're awesome. Highly recommend

[00:34:12] Ashley: Their podcast. I can put it in this show notes everybody. Yes.

[00:34:16] Echo: Yes. They're fabulous. And what I learned is it's a lot of re rejecting a lot of the Yes. The colonists and the dogma ideas of Catholicism and bringing it back to the people.

[00:34:31] And interestingly enough, like my dad, my, both my parents are very much diehard Catholics. They're indirectly following in the same path I am just not having the witch label for it. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they're still very paranoid about that part. Makes sense. I get it.

[00:34:46] Yeah. And they go and they have been saying like, oh, not everything the Pope says is absolutely. The word of God. Everything that a priest says is not gonna be the word of God. Yeah. The clergy, they're not perfect. They're human, they're [00:35:00] men.

[00:35:00] Yeah. And. Obviously they have free will, and that's why when everyone's all oh yeah, you're Catholic. Does your priest touch little boys? And I'm just like that's not what it's about. You're missing the point. Yeah. And it's about the faith of the people, like going all the way back to how Jesus.

[00:35:16] Taught it. So like the thinking about like faith being kind to one another, loving one another. And then obviously there is the whole belief in God, but obviously for me personally, like I don't care what you believe in. If you believe in all of these other deities, that's totally fine.

[00:35:33] As long as you're okay with the way I practice. I'm totally okay with the way you practice. Yeah. And what I what bothers me about some, especially like Christians out there that are just like, no, you're wrong. Everything you're doing is wrong. And that's just, and that, that's what doesn't really, it doesn't vibe with a lot of people.

[00:35:50] Yeah. And that's why people hate Christians because of that whole dogma idea. Yeah, oh, you are wrong. You have to do it this way, it's this way. And [00:36:00] then and that's why there's such this huge. I guess like con there's this huge conflict with everybody spiritually on that level.

[00:36:10] And especially, when it comes to being folk Catholic, I incorporate, I do incorporate some witchcraft things into my practice along with my Catholic practices. Such as using herbs, using crystals, using candles. But there's a lot of Catholic stuff that is inherently, like very pagan yeah.

[00:36:31] Which is, the use of candle magic, the use of oils, the use of, and like you're going to an altar and you're turning body, you're turning bread and wine into flesh and blood. That's very pagan. And that's actually A lot of other Christian denominations they criticize Catholicism for that reason because they are a very pig andlike.

[00:36:55] Ashley: Yes, I think so. I always, I think I said this on the last [00:37:00] episode too, it's that Catholicism was my first introduction to magic. I say this all the time because it's I was always obsessed with the ritual of it. I love like I would love like Christmas Eve, mass, like midnight mass to go and smell the insides and the way you had to do everything like it was to me.

[00:37:16] So first of all, it's so magical and it's I would feel so close. I'd be like, ah, this is the feeling that like you're supposed to get. And actually one of our other guests was saying she turned away from her Catholicism cuz she wasn't getting the feeling she got when she started with different, like pagan forms.

[00:37:35] But I felt that like at midnight mass the most I'd be like, ah, this is the feeling. And I feel that. When I was reading a lot about what people define as like folk Catholicism, I feel that it is a lot of people, first of all, like you said, using their own culture in their own cultural practices to feel closer, but also.

[00:37:56] I feel it a lot and I'm not gonna say it's just [00:38:00] America or anything like that, or like what, I don't know where, I'm not gonna define a place, but there's a lot of people who practice, but they don't feel that connection. It's just yeah. I go to church and I pray and everything's fine and that's fine if that's how people wanna do it.

[00:38:14] I'm not criticizing anybody, but, I feel for myself cause I grew up Catholic too. And it was the feeling like, it was the feeling of being close to God and if you heard like a choir singing and like the feeling of that, that like rising of your soul. Like those are the things that I like longed for.

[00:38:31] Cuz I was like, this is what I think Jesus was

[00:38:34] Echo: talking about. I was like, yes. I

[00:38:36] Ashley: feel, I feel, and I used to tell my dad too I'd be like, I feel God sometimes and my dad's that's great. Like fantastic. I was like I think I. I feel, and then like with my other practices too, that's how I always felt.

[00:38:50] So I was like, yeah, hop. And I think it takes you on a different spiritual path. I think a lot of people feel that, like you said, a lot of people don't like Christians, cuz it's a [00:39:00] lot of the dogma. Yes. But when you, yeah, when you just focus on that dogma. Yeah. It sucks because it's a, people who wrote a lot of the dogma part, it's not Jesus who came down and wrote this book for us.

[00:39:10] People interpreted what he said this way and that way, and this seventh third, and that's whatever. But right when you go and you feel it for yourself and you get to define it for yourself, that's when you're like, aha, this is a spirituality or whatever that I can connect to if that's what you want to connect to.

[00:39:25] So I, I love that. I just,

[00:39:28] Echo: I just love it. Yes, I agree. And it's all about what, what feels right for you. And this is what feels right for me. I actually for two years. I turned away from the faith for a while, and it was because I was a music director. I was hired on at this other parish like an hour from where I live.

[00:39:49] And I'm fighting that it's some of the way that the practice goes, like everything is the same, but the vibe is always different. And like some of the way that the community is [00:40:00] within each. Church in each parish. But this particular parish, they were just so hard in it in their ways.

[00:40:05] They were very conservative. They kept changing the music selections. Every time I put something in, every time I try to put something new in, they were just like, oh, I don't know it. I'm gonna make do, I'm gonna do this instead. I'm just like, okay

[00:40:16] Ashley: oh, alright. I'm a Maria again. Just another off a Maria.

[00:40:20] Yeah, I know, right? Okay, listen,

[00:40:22] Echo: I love ABA Maria, but guys, we need to like, have some, like new stuff. Listen, I love all of the Catholic classics. I really do. The Catholic Classics. I love, like on Eagles wings yes let's do it. Let's do it. I do.

[00:40:37] It's it's I couldn't with this parish and they made me turn away for a while cuz they were so conservative and so very set in their ways. And then I came back to my home parish, which is the one that I obviously grew up in. I got part of their music ministry and they are very much like open arms.

[00:40:56] Like we take anyone and everybody, we take [00:41:00] as many people as we can. We dive into all sorts of music. And they're a very accepting community as well. So that's something that is, is really important to me, especially when it comes to certain churches. And I think that's what people also find hard to cope with when it comes to coming into Catholic churches.

[00:41:18] Cuz there are some people that are just like, oh, you're gay. Yeah. And, but the, one of the, my college church actually the priest talked about it when gay marriage became legal. And he said, they are still our brothers and sisters. We still need to accept them because this is what Jesus taught us.

[00:41:35] He taught us to love one another no matter what. And I was like, thank you. That is what it is. That's true. This is what Catholicism is. It's not this, rejecting people because they're A, B, and C. No. That's not what we were taught by Jesus. Ugh. And so I think, and I totally know for a fact that the other parish that I worked for they, they were people that were very much ugh.

[00:41:59] LGBTQ [00:42:00] Ooh. Yeah. And it's, people I think are just they don't like or they fear things that they really just don't understand. Yeah. And I think that's just what it is.

[00:42:11] Ashley: I totally agree with you. I think people. And I I, oh no, I know. I was like, there's 10,000 things in my mind.

[00:42:19] Number one, people, like you said, people fear what? They don't understand and they also don't interpret things for themselves. Sometimes I always think of okay, back in the middle ages, a lot of people couldn't read. So the church told them this, so they did it, and the church said that this was in the Bible, so they did it, and they were like, purgatory.

[00:42:37] They're like, all right, fine. Maybe it's in the Bible. I can't read it. But they're like, whatever. But no, you guys, most people, especially if you live in the United States, are literate. Yes. If you wanna know something, read it, interpret it for yourself. Do whatever you want. I know, and a lot of people turn away from.

[00:42:56] Churches because of different traumas they've gone through in those churches. [00:43:00] And a lot of that has to do with people not accepting them and all this stuff with acceptance. I'm like, if you guys read anything and interpreted for yourself, you probably wouldn't. A lot of people say this is wrong because so and so said it was wrong.

[00:43:12] Okay. But did you look. Did you look

[00:43:14] Echo: at it at all in your own opinion? Yeah stop. Oh my God.

[00:43:18] Ashley: And even, and I talk about this all the time cause I think it's funny, but like even people always reference people who have tattoos, right? They're like Leviticus says you shouldn't have tattoos.

[00:43:28] And I'm like, oh. Mg I'm like, let's get into it. Because number one, I was like, first of all, if you knew anything about the history, when was the Bible written? A long ass time ago. And what was going on then? Was it the people who were, pagans, people who had different animus beliefs? They shaved their heads, they wore fibers of mixed clothing and they had tattoos.

[00:43:50] So they were like how we separate ourselves and we know who's who. This is how, that's the, that's why they wrote that. Not cuz they were like, it's evil. They were just like, we just need to know who's [00:44:00] who and what's going on here. Yeah. I'm like, and

[00:44:03] Echo: back then that was a control thing. Yes, it was a

[00:44:06] Ashley: control thing.

[00:44:06] And also back then Christianity was considered a cult. So people were murking Christians all the time, so they were like, We need to know who we can talk to and who we can't talk to. So you when you read the Bible with more context, you can understand and interpret things way different than when people are like no, but it just says you shouldn't do this.

[00:44:26] So it just it bothers me to know n those same people who. And also, can we just say, isn't Jesus the one who said, let's not judge people, but yeah. Hello? And then you find these people who nudged, but they're judging the pants off people. And this is why people don't like Christians sometimes, right?

[00:44:43] They always got some shit to say about everything. And if Christ himself came down he probably slapped them and be like, yep. Like I told y'all not to do this, and you keep putting words in my mouth. And I don't understand what's going on.

[00:44:58] Echo: Jesus, what are you gonna come back

[00:44:59] Ashley: down [00:45:00] here and tell these people that they're wrong?

[00:45:01] Please. I don't have a please.

[00:45:05] Echo: So many people taking your name in vain. I know. Please. Oh my God. And that's what that commandment means. Yeah. It's just okay. It's okay. I say it all the time. Oh my God. Saying And that's part of why I don't like saying like God.

[00:45:17] But like part, part of that commandment is don't do something in the name of God that actually isn't in the name of God. Yeah. Don't kill people in the name of God. Those shall not murder. Come on.

[00:45:28] Ashley: Exactly. It's do you guys look at this at all? I know, no. What's going on here?

[00:45:33] No,

[00:45:33] Echo: it's matters. They're just literally use Exactly. And they're using it just is to it's to control people. Yes. And something that red text brought up was the concept of sin and oh, it's just a construct. It was just made to say, oh, you can't do this. You can't do that. Just so that way they can control people.

[00:45:54] And that's what drives me crazy about that side of Christianity. That's like man's [00:46:00] Christianity to me. Yeah. Like they, and that's just how humans try to control other humans. And it really bothers me. And that's, Part of why I like I still go to church, I still do all of the things.

[00:46:12] The only thing I really don't do is confession. Just because it feels weird going in

[00:46:16] Ashley: and, go ahead. We're gonna talk about that in a second. Go ahead. Oh, because I have a comment. Go ahead. I don't wanna interrupt you. Oh,

[00:46:25] Echo: Yes. Okay. So when it comes to confession honestly, the last time I went was like when I had to for what was it?

[00:46:33] What was that? That right call. Like confirmation. Confirmation. Yes. Confirmation. So the last time I did it was for confirmation. And honestly, it's just this isn't really me having a conversation with God. This feels like impersonal. Yeah. And with full Catholicism it's like it has to be like for me, my interpretation of it is it's your relationship with God.

[00:46:55] And your relationship with Mary, your relationship with the Saints, [00:47:00] whoever you choose to connect to the most. Maybe the angels maybe and it's, ah, take out the middle man. Hello. Okay. It's and you can take advantage of all of the things that the church has to offer.

[00:47:12] That's cool because all of that ritualistic stuff is beautiful. And it's great and spiritual. But like when it comes to confession, it's just okay, I don't wanna confess things to just this man right here just because he just happens to, he who, he went through all of the rights of being a priest.

[00:47:29] Sorry.

[00:47:30] Ashley: That's the one thing I won't do anymore. Okay. I've never been to confession because I was like, this is dumb. Like, why? When I remember growing up and I'd ask my dad all these questions about like God and stuff, and I remember asking him like, okay, so if I do something wrong, I remember being like four and I asked my dad this way, if I do something wrong, but God's gonna forgive me, right?

[00:47:52] And my dad be like, yes, this is a thing. He's if you do something really wrong, but you're really sorry and you pray and you apologize, then [00:48:00] God forgives you. Yes. I was like, cool. Then I got older and I found out about Kevin Confession and I was like, okay, correct me if I'm wrong. Why do I now have to go talk to this man?

[00:48:09] Who's just like me and like he's flesh and blood. Like you said, maybe he went to preschool and I didn't go to priest school, but like, why am I telling him? I thought I just had to pray about it. Now I have to tell him to tell God we're playing telephone now. This is stupid. And yeah, he's gonna tell me to say a bunch of prayers that I haven't memorized.

[00:48:28] I can just see my regular prayer, which is Hey, God, I know today I went to school and I, this is a true story. When I was in second grade, I cheated on a test on a spelling test because I couldn't spell octopus. And I knew that if I spelled octopus I would get a hundred on the test. So I just really wanted to win one time.

[00:48:45] So I wrote octopus ahead of time on my hand. I was wrong. And I remember I used to be very afraid like that. Like I would be struck down. I don't know, this was like a thing in my head. So I remember going on the school bus that like going home be like, [00:49:00] God,

[00:49:03] Ashley really sorry. I really wanted to get a hundred and I'm really sorry that I lied and I spelled octopus and I wrote it on my hand, like truly believing. Yes. Yeah. But after I prayed I was like, I think it's fine now. Cuz my dad said that. Yes. I really was. Sorry, I didn't wanna keep, I did something wrong, but yeah.

[00:49:25] So I, I agree. No middle man. We don't need that. No

[00:49:28] Echo: middle man. If you are truly sorry for what you did then yes. God

[00:49:33] Ashley: hears you. Yeah. That's what it's like. That's literally it. Like it guys, it's just not that complicated. No. I'm gonna spit out a couple little facts. So I was reading a lot about different forms of folk Catholicism.

[00:49:48] So one really popular one, we touched on this in our previous episode. We talked about like in places like Haiti where voodoo is really strong, there is like a different kind of folk Catholicism there. Where they use they [00:50:00] replace a lot of the gods from like voodoo with saints. So that's one kind of form of folk Catholicism.

[00:50:06] Another form which is practiced in many different places all over the world, is taking a lot of the cultural festivals or cultural holidays and relating them to saints or different Christian holidays. That happens a lot. So there may be some specific thing that like, oh, everybody does this on this holiday.

[00:50:26] And if you really look into the specifics of it, you find out that, oh, this was a. Festival that was happening in the ancient times, but now we just relate it to Saint whoever, and this is their festival that happens a ton all over the world. And people don't really think about it that much, but it's like very typical.

[00:50:47] And the other thing I was gonna touch on, and I put this in I put this in the show notes too. Now. We also even have, , there's different folk magic practitioners also in different places, such as [00:51:00] in Italy it's called Ed Daria, which is called The Way of Blessing.

[00:51:04] And there's a lot of different people in southern Italy in Sicily who practice this way, and they mix these ancient kind of folk magic practices with their Catholicism. And it's very, it's a lot of what I read was people found it to be like, oh, this is just what we do. And literally part of what that means is, and what people know it as, I don't how to say it in Italian, but people say the way it is and the way it's always been.

[00:51:29] They adopt. It's just the way Exactly. It's just the way we do shit around here. That's literally what they call it. And so it's there's a really good book, Italian Folk Magic and a lot of the Rituals and spells and things like that in there are related to ancient practices, but a lot of them are related to st.

[00:51:45] Arch Angel, Michael, and St. Peter. And it just, for them, it's just a natural thing. So this is happens a lot of times all over the world, especially where Catholicism is really strong. Places like Italy, places like the Philippines places like in different places in Latin [00:52:00] America, because for those people it's now been so ingrained in the culture that some people don't even recognize wait, this was something we were doing before because the.

[00:52:11] On the one hand I like Jesus, he's my homeboy. It's no problem. But on the other hand, the colonizers did a terrific job of ingraining this in all of us. So a lot of us who have parents who came from Catholic countries or just were Catholic, and especially if they it's just been ingrained in us so much that the cultures that we, that they came from, it's almost like it's the cultural part of it faded away where we just think that this is how we do it now.

[00:52:39] That's what they did. And one interesting thing I realized is that we even have a folk Catholic saint who isn't really a saint, but Santa Mue in mexico. Santo Warier has become a folk scene. And actually this is another example. They think that Santo War Mue comes from a much [00:53:00] older, and I'm terrible at pronouncing Aztec name, so I cannot pronounce the name of the goddess, but there's a goddess of death, life, and death.

[00:53:08] And they think that is the origin story of Santo Mue. But because Mexico is a traditionally Catholic country, she came up that way. And now she's seen as a saint of kind of people who are people drug dealers, even sex workers. But now more people are finding their way to Santo Morte.

[00:53:28] The Mexican Catholic church is not really too happy about that. They don't really like that. Yeah. They're like, this isn't, she's not a real saint. This is probably not great for us. But it seems like the belief in Santa Marti helps a lot of people. And if it helps people, why not do whatever you gotta do?

[00:53:47] But that's just another example about Catholicism mixing with folk magic and that kind of stuff. Yeah. So those are like my little facts that I looked up, so I had to mention. That's neat. Oh,

[00:53:57] Echo: yeah. Something to add about the please do [00:54:00] venerate. There's obviously, there's a huge thing about Mary.

[00:54:03] I, I know for a fact that and I went to one of these I wouldn't call it a party, but it was like it was celebrating Our Lady of Fatima. And yes. It was that that, that appearance to the children of Fatima. And where we the family our clan, Filipino clan got together and we went to one of the grandparents' house, which is one of the patriarch matriarch people of the clan.

[00:54:29] And we celebrated like the day that these one of, I think it was like the first appearance that Mary had to these kids, and we just prayed a ton. We just all ga like the clan just gathered in the, this giant living room.

[00:54:49] And that's what we did. But it's an actual thing like in i, from my understanding, like even in Spain, even in the Philippines where they have people fled the streets and they parade [00:55:00] the the Statue of Mary around. And they have these different celebrations of her appearances to people in on, on these certain celebration days.

[00:55:09] And that's something that's really cool.

[00:55:12] Ashley: It is really cool. And I'm, I, we're definitely one of these days I'm gonna have an episode about the many sightings of Mary because I find that fascinating too. There's our Lady of Fatima, I think there's one in, in, in France and Lords. Yes. Yeah. And then there's our Lady of Guadalupe.

[00:55:30] Guadalupe is another big one though. Yeah, there's a couple different ones. It's pretty interesting. But yeah, yeah, that's all about folk magic and folk Catholicism. Sorry I can't talk today. So speaking of all this that we just talked about, we're gonna go into our story time start time.

[00:55:48] So today we're gonna tell this story and this all has to do with this person. So I'm really excited to talk about it. Today we're gonna celebrate and talk about the story of Padre Pio. E is yes, one [00:56:00] of my favorite scenes when I was like learning about different scenes cuz it's just fascinating and you're gonna see what's going on here.

[00:56:07] Okay. I'm excited. So Padre Pio, he wasn't always Padre Pio. He started out, his name was Francisco Fagoni, and he was born May 25th in 1887 in a town called PetroChina in southern Italy. And his family was like a poor peasant farming family. And it was it was a town where people were very religious.

[00:56:32] So he, they celebrated all the saint days. They were, they went to church every day. They prayed the rosary every night. And in, and I don't, didn't look too much into this, but it said they abstain from me three days a week in honor of our Lady of Mount Carmel. I think this is another place where it was

[00:56:50] Echo: exciting.

[00:56:50] Oh, yes. I wear a scapular of

[00:56:52] Ashley: that. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Very nice. Even though his parents were illiterate, his parents and his grandparents were illiterate, [00:57:00] they still. Told the kids Bible stories every night. So that was their nightly thing. So at the age of five, Padre Pio, which at this time was still Francisco, he said he wanted to dedicate his life to God.

[00:57:14] He wanted to do something like that. And from that age, actually even from younger, they say maybe he was constantly having visions. They said he saw Mary, he was having fights and arguments with the devil. This is just something that he said happened to him all the time. Wow. His parents, yeah, his parents knew like that he was gonna be either a monk or a priest.

[00:57:37] They didn't know, but they knew something was gonna happen. So he would have also these visions, like I said of mother Mary and different things. And he would go into these, what they call ecstasies. No, it's not the same thing as rolling. It's like religious trances where people become in, go into states of euphoria.

[00:57:58] And this was happening since he was [00:58:00] young. So then when he was 10, I think a young Franciscan fryer, which was like a monk basically. Of the Franciscan order. There's different orders. We're not gonna go into that, it doesn't matter. But just know that this was a certain order. It's like a whole thing.

[00:58:13] Yeah. So this is a certain order. So this Briar came to his town and he was talking, and Padre Pio Francisco. He was like, oh my gosh, this guy's so cool. This is what I wanna do with my life. So he went home and he's mom, I really need to be a fryer. This is what I wanna do.

[00:58:31] So his mom was like, no problem. We're gonna set you up because we know this is what you're meant for. So he went to a town called Morone, which Mor Koe, I'm gonna say Mor Koe, I think that's how it's pronounced, which is a town about 13 miles north of his town to see if he could join the local Franciscan order there.

[00:58:48] But when he got there, they told him you haven't had enough education. He had only been to school for three years at this point. So they said, you, you've gotta go to school a little longer. So his family was like, okay, we're gonna do whatever we need to do. [00:59:00] So his dad went to America, got a job, and was sending money home for the family so that he could go to school to get this education.

[00:59:09] So then a couple years later the church, they realized they, they tested him and everything, and they were like, okay, cool. You've gotten enough education, you can come and you can be con he was confirmed already into the Catholic church. And they put him in the Capuchin order, which is a, just another word for Franciscan order.

[00:59:28] And this was in 1903. So he took up the habit. He started dressing. If you've ever seen those monks, they have the kind of the brown Looks like a big smock kind of thing that they wear. That's what he was wearing every day. And they have the big crosses in front of them, that's what he was doing.

[00:59:47] On January 22nd, 1903 is when he did this. And he took the n the name of Fryer, frock Pao. At this point, he wasn't Padre Pio yet. He was just [01:00:00] a fryer. And he did this in honor of Pope Pius, who there was a relic of Pope Pius in his church, in his hometown. So he called himself Pio. So he took some vows of poverty, Chas obedience, and this is a part of the vows he had to take to become a Franciscan mug.

[01:00:19] So he started doing his seven year study to become a priest. He's really into it. He start, he went to this fiery, the fiery of. St. Francis of a CC in embryo, which is in Central Italy. So he's stunning. He loves it. But then around the age of 17, he started to get sick all the time. He was just sick.

[01:00:40] He didn't have an appetite, he couldn't sleep. He couldn't do anything. He had terrible migraines and he literally couldn't eat to the point where he could only drink like milk and cheese. That was it. People were worried about him. They didn't know what's going on, but then at the same time, this is when all this crazy stuff started to happen with him.

[01:00:58] So [01:01:00] they would notice that, when he was praying, he would go into these trances again. It could be like one of these ecstasies, or, but they didn't know. He would, it'd be like he wasn't present anymore. And this would happen constantly and people would be a little worried. People also said they saw him levitating off the ground.

[01:01:19] This is something people will say many times. So you'll see there, it gets wilder, but this is just something it gets crazier. But people say that they saw him levitating off the ground and there's multiple, like reports of this. So in 1905, he was so sick that they, the convent was like, you're gonna have to go to this mountain convent because we don't know what to do with you and maybe the mountain there will be good for you.

[01:01:43] So they sent him up there didn't help. He just got, he was con, continued to be sick. So finally they were like, we need to send you home. But in 1907, he still took there's like multiple vows I think you have to take. I know they do this when they're like, somebody becomes a [01:02:00] nun too. You have to take multiple different vows.

[01:02:02] So he still took his vows to continue to be a priest even though he was sick. And at this point though, he. Went home because they were like, you have to go home and rest. So he stayed being a fryer, even though I don't think there was a fiery in his town. But he still was a fryer and he still took his vows and he still was doing all his praying and he stayed there in his hometown until 1916.

[01:02:24] Because his also his brother went to America to help his dad, and he was there to help his family. During these years fryer, Pao, Francisco, Padre Pao, he frequently wrote a lot of letters to his spiritual directors who was Father Benedicto and father a Augustino, two Friers who were in the monastery in a monastery of San Marco in LAIs.

[01:02:49] So he would write them all these letters I saw all this stuff, like this is what's happening to me. And everybody was like, okay cool. This seems like a lot, but okay, like[01:03:00] he's seeing Mary everywhere, he's okay. And then you'll see what happens next cuz it, it gets crazy.

[01:03:05] So then in, okay, in 1916, he was then ordered to serve at a. Community of Our Lady of Grace in San g Giovanni, Rotondo in Providence of Faia. I cannot say all these Italian names, I apologize. But anyway, he goes to San Giovanni Rotondo and that's where he stays for the rest of his life. So he was there and he was one of seven Friers and there he converted a lot of people to Catholicism.

[01:03:33] He would just go around and talk and people were just like enchanted by the way he would speak. He also was really into praying the rosary. He did it literally every single day. He loved doing it. Praying was his thing. And he would pray in the morning, he would pray in the evening, he would call it dusting off his soul, basically by praying.

[01:03:53] And his famous quote that he said all the time was, pray, hope, and don't worry. That was his thing that he said [01:04:00] all the time. And I like that cuz sometimes that's all you can do, girl. Oh, I know,

[01:04:04] Echo: I know, right? Oh haha. You're like, we're done with story time. I got stuff to say about that, oh,

[01:04:10] Ashley: no problem.

[01:04:11] You're like, it's getting rough out here. That's all I can do. He also, which I think this is so interesting, everything that we were talking about before, like folk Catholicism and magic, but this is animism literally what he says here. He also directed Christians to recognize God in all things and to desire, all above all things to do the will of God, which is like animism, that's what it is.

[01:04:32] It's saying that God is in everything that you do. And with you all the time. That's Aism. So it's really interesting that he took that take and I think Holy Spirit, I know. Yeah, exactly. I think, but it, like you, we talked about people don't recognize it as that. They think it's something else.

[01:04:48] And I think that's interesting. And I think this is part of the reason the Catholic church was like a little you're doing a lot, but it gets worse for him. Cause the Catholic church gets mad at him. 1915, he was drafted into World War [01:05:00] I and then he was in and out of the war because he was so sick all the time.

[01:05:03] They couldn't, they were like, bro, you're, you can't help us. You're just so sick, you gotta go home. So in 1918, he is permanently discharged now. Okay, now is where it really gets crazy. So we actually have to backtrack a little bit. So in 1912, Padre Pao starts writing. He was writing his letters to his teachers, basically his authority figures.

[01:05:22] And he's bro, I'm having pain in my hands. I'm having pain in my feet. I don't know what's going on, but it hurts. And they're like, okay. I'm like, what does that, what do you mean? He's I don't know, but in the center of my hands and in my feet, I'm having po. Yes. So then they were like, Stigmata to anybody.

[01:05:45] They were like, what? They were like, what? Okay, so here we go. You might be saying, what am I talking about? In, and this is very specific to Catholicism, actually, I read about this. I was, I didn't realize this didn't happen in other branches of Christianity at [01:06:00] all. Actually, the Eastern Orthodox Church says they have no position on this.

[01:06:03] They're like, if it happens to you, fine, but they don't really care. I'm like, okay, whatever. But it's very specific to Catholicism. The stigmata is literally what they call the five secret wounds of Christ. So if you ever look at a picture of Christ on the cross, he has, his two hands are together.

[01:06:22] So there was a nail through his two hands. There's a nail through his two feet and there's on hi on the side, I think of one of his hands or something like there's a wound from a lance and I didn't exactly know what

[01:06:33] Echo: Yeah. On his side. What's, when he was on the cross, they checked that he was dead.

[01:06:37] So they poked him with his beard?

[01:06:38] Ashley: Yes. Oh yeah. Thank you. Okay. Makes sense Now I understand. Thank you for educating me. And also some people have said, so those are the five sacred wounds. So some people also said they had pain like on their forehead from the crown of thorns. That can also happen.

[01:06:53] That happened to a woman actually in the 19 hundreds. She said she had that. And some people have reported tears of blood or [01:07:00] sweat. From the skirt or wounds on their back from when Christ was flogged. And basically this is a big deal because this is very, this is not something that happens every day.

[01:07:09] You don't just get the stigma done and oh yeah, that's cool. Okay. No. This is like a big deal. This, yeah. This involves investigations. Like people are coming to your house, they're like, what's going on? The church is, hold on. You feel in the

[01:07:23] Echo: pains of

[01:07:23] Ashley: Christ. Hold on. I know. The Vatican was like, pardon?

[01:07:28] What's happening here? So basically, excuse me. They're like pardon, sir. So basically in 1912, he starts writing the letters, and then in 19, I think it's 1918, the wounds on his hands basically open up and. He's bleeding. What? What? Oh my God. My man is bleeding and like fresh bleeding.

[01:07:56] And the fact that like this went on for the rest of [01:08:00] his life, these wounds would heal and they'd open, they'd heal and they'd open. And this happened for years now because of this, the church is sending doctors like I've been sending everybody what is going on? He even at one point he said he was praying, Padre Pio says that he was praying and he asked God, please cover these wounds cuz this is getting like a lot from me.

[01:08:25] But he's I'll keep the pain. That's not the problem. And a and theologians say that like the stigmata is caused by like somebody who's so religious or so I don't know the word. So there with Christ that they're physically saying, I want that pain. Like I want to, I wanna be that empathetic to this.

[01:08:45] This character of Christ that they get this. Okay, so he's bleeding, and all the time. So he had to wear gloves. A lot of the time he's seen with gloves because he didn't want, it to be a spectacle all the it time. And another thing, [01:09:00] many doctors came to see him and they, everybody said his wounds smelled like roses.

[01:09:06] They didn't smell bad. They smelled like roses. Yes. It was fascinating. He's bleeding all the time. His wounds smell like roses. He smells like roses. Everything is cool. And he never got like an in, so they thought okay, this is a physical wound. But he never got an infection. They were, and they weren't self-inflicted.

[01:09:23] They just wanted here weren't self-inflicted, right? He was never like sick or anything because of his wounds. And there was like, and they did x-rays of his hands. His hands looked completely normal. They said there was no inflammation around. Like when you caught yourself, your hand gets in?

[01:09:38] No, he said it was just there all the time. Yeah, there was no earthly after a while I think they just gave up cuz they were like, we can't figure this out. But like in the thirties, I think it was the 1930s, the Vatican was like, bro, you gotta cover your hands. This is getting crazy. We don't know what's going on with you.

[01:09:57] And it's a shame, but I think they [01:10:00] thought it was more of a spectacle because a lot of people were trying to go see him and have them pray for him. And I think that Vatican was just like, this is too much. You've really gotta stop. So they made him, oh, actually in the 1920s, they made him reduce his public masses.

[01:10:16] And they didn't even let him do mask for a while because, Yeah. They were like, this is too much. And even though his spiritual director, like the guy Padre Benedicto and Padre Augustino, they believed him. They the churches were like, they tried to relocate him to a different church.

[01:10:33] The people in the town went, they started to riot. They were like, absolutely do not take this man with his bleeding anywhere else. We love him. So they couldn't take him. So they tried like twice to do that, but they threat, the people threatened to riot every time. They're like, do not take this man away.

[01:10:49] So the Vatican just left him there. And eventually I think in the mid thirties, they were like, okay, fine. You can do masks. Calm down, sorry, everybody. And they felt bad about it because I think also the Pope [01:11:00] changed at the time and the new Pope was like, oh, actually it's fine. Maybe this is just a situation.

[01:11:05] So it was a big deal. Yeah. This tig mata and there was a lot of other things going on with Ms. Mann. So he had the gift of healing. Apparently his touch was healing. He would say things over healing by location. Apparently this happened multiple times where people would say they saw him one place and they saw him somewhere else at exactly the same time.

[01:11:25] Bro, they said this happened all the time. There's a story where it's a long story, but what I'll give you the short part. So this woman who, Padre Peyo actually ends up adopting as a spiritual daughter later in his life. She went to Rome to see him. Okay? No, she went to Rome to confess, she went to, I think St.

[01:11:48] Peter's Basilica. And she got their light with her friend, and she tried to get in, and the guard was like, no, it's closed. You gotta come back to tomorrow. And she's like, all so she's a little spiritually lost. She's I'm just gonna go there and see what they tell me. [01:12:00] All of a sudden she sees this dude and he's pardon, ma'am, are you okay?

[01:12:03] And she's yeah, I'm fine. I was here. I wanted to see a priest. I wanted to confess. And the guy was like, oh, my priest, come in. Let me let you confess to me. So they go in, she does her confession, he talks to her and she feels so much better. And he's just talking about like her finding her faith and he comforts her.

[01:12:17] So she leaves, and as she's leaving, she sees a picture on the wall. And the guard was like, ma'am, why are you still here? And she's oh, the, that, that guy, that picture on the wall, he just came he was he heard my confession, that priest. And the guy was like, oh, that's Padre Pio. And he never comes here.

[01:12:33] And he, she was like, pardon? She's pardon? What do you mean he, he doesn't leave San Giovanni Rotunda. He's never, he doesn't come here, so I don't know who you're talking about. I don't know what's going on, but you gotta get outta here cuz I'm tired. And I'm, and she's oh yes. And this happened many times.

[01:12:55] People would see, they would see him in one area of the fiery, maybe he would be [01:13:00] outside, but he was also inside praying. And people would see this and it, and he himself said that he would like, and they, he didn't know if it was a trance or what, but he would wake up in different places. He'd wake up in places where, maybe it was snowing and didn't snow where he was from.

[01:13:13] Like just different places like. So you a lot of stuff he prophesied. Oh, this is a big one. So one time, I think this is in the 1940s at one point, sorry, I don't have my dates. Sometime in the 19, I think it was in 1947 I think. Yeah. So anyway, he was at a mass and this priest came to see him. This Polish priest came and he was talking to the priest and the priest was, and he's Hey, listen, Padre Po said to the priest, this Polish priest, father Carol.

[01:13:47] He's father Carol, you're one day gonna be the, in the highest position of this church. And Father Carol was like, pardon? What do you mean? And he's listen, I'm telling you. And Father Per I heard this story. Yes. Father, the [01:14:00] per is Pope John Paul ii. Yes. He didn't know. So He apparently this was just one of his gifts, his gift of prophecy and by location, the stigmata, he bless people all the time.

[01:14:14] What was the other thing that he did? Let me see. Oh, apparently he was able to read people's hearts and they said he had the gift of tongues. He would be able to understand and speak languages. Apparently he had never heard, like this is just something he could do like off the bat. So this man magic.

[01:14:33] Yes. So a lot of people, and I remember there was a time when I was like, I don't know what I am, like I was like, I don't know, like I like Jesus, but there's a lot out here. So I don't know what's going on. And I remember

[01:14:47] Echo: You would, do you?

[01:14:48] Ashley: Yeah. I remember this was like the early two thousands, so I'd read like blogs, like Christian witches and stuff and it was cool.

[01:14:54] And this is one saint that I kept coming across. Cause people were like, yo, he's mad magical. [01:15:00] Like he's, he was super, super religious, but he was super, like, all this stuff is like, it was not normal, quote unquote. And because of that, I think the church thought, again, he was a spectacle. He was doing a lot.

[01:15:14] And it wasn't in line with just dogmatic stuff. He was just doing all these things. But he was saying I have faith in God and this is what God's giving me. This kind of ability. And he was extremely humble. He always said, it's not me. It's not me, it's God. This is just like who I am. This is what I'm meant to do.

[01:15:31] Padre Pao, he then masked away at the age of 81 in. 1968. So apparently the last two words he said were Jesus, Maria, Jesus, and Mary, which he repeated over and over until he died. And he also declared after my death, I will do more. My real mission will begin after my death. One thing they also said again about his stigma was after he died, the wounds completely covered up and you couldn't [01:16:00] see him anymore.

[01:16:02] It was wild. And they what? Yes. They have pictures. They have pictures of him on the internet. Girl like that was post it. No scars or

[01:16:13] Echo: anything.

[01:16:14] Ashley: It's nothing. And they have pictures of him with the stigmata. You can see like they're black and white pictures, but you can see his hands were, they're marked.

[01:16:23] So this was just happening. Like this is just every day he was just walking around like this, I don't know what to do about this, guys. This is just my life now.

[01:16:35] He, oh, he's crazy. But like people, so this is one thing that Pope John Pope Paul V six in 1971 said, let's see, he said what fame he had, how many followers from around the world? Why? Was it because he was a philosopher, a scholar, or because he had the means at his disposal? No, it was because he said [01:17:00] mass humbly heard confessions from mourn until night, and he was a marked representative of the SMA of our Lord.

[01:17:07] He was truly a man of prayer and suffering so that's who Project Pia was. He was all about prayer. He was all about charity. He was all about giving and just trying to help people feel better, and that's why we stand for him. Yes,

[01:17:23] Echo: yes. Oh my God, dude. People talked about, okay, so I know we talked about confession earlier.

[01:17:29] Yes. But bro, if this guy was still alive, I would go see him. I'd be like, listen, I will. See you because you are magic bro. Please.

[01:17:39] Ashley: This guy was like he was magic to the max. He wasn't playing around. No. Yeah. Dang. He's cool. Isn't he cool?

[01:17:49] Echo: Yes. I've I heard about part of his story, but I never heard about the stigma part.

[01:17:55] I mean it's, I've heard about that in general. Like what? Like the, that kind, those kind of [01:18:00] occurrences. But I've the earlier parts of everything else like that you described I had never, I don't know why I never heard about this guy. Like I've heard of other, like mystics. Yeah.

[01:18:09] Like people who. Like experience, like that ecstasy that you mentioned where they like have these visions and then because they feel so much empathy for Christ, they're suddenly feeling like his pain Yes. On the cross. And that's, that to me is just insane. That they devote themselves so much to God, to Jesus that they feel that.

[01:18:31] Yeah. And that is wow.

[01:18:35] Ashley: It's on. And I think so many, and this I think happens in every religion and lots of different spiritual paths. That's what these monks and people who are nuns or monks or whatever they call it in their spiritual path I think that's what they're going for.

[01:18:48] Like these people are, they're going to this place of such devotion to their god or goddess or whatever it is for them, that they actually [01:19:00] feel that. Encompass them all the time. And then this guy did it so much so that physically it was on his body which is just like completely wild. It's just, it's really interesting,

[01:19:13] Echo: and that's why whenever people, and that, stuff like that, to me, like anytime, like something like crazy spiritual manifests itself, like physically on this plane, that's why I'm just like, how could you not believe in something at that point? Like even like when it comes to Native American stuff, like that's stuff scary.

[01:19:32] I'm sorry, but you never wanna like mess with their stuff either because it's like these, the spirituality is just so powerful. That in that way faith and like these practices and. That's why like when it comes to some people going all I'm in it for this. Especially when it comes to like paganism, they're just like, oh, I have this single the sigil and I'm in, I'm a witch.

[01:19:55] I'm just like, no, you're just in it for the aesthetic. This isn't really you're not truly [01:20:00] practicing, and that's,

[01:20:03] Ashley: I'm sorry. I have to say,

[01:20:04] Echo: this is what bothers me about people who like say that they're doing these things. But they're not like, there, there are some people like we mentioned earlier, saying okay, you go to church, you pray the simple stuff, fine.

[01:20:15] If that's what we wanna go roll with, totally cool with you. But if you're going around saying oh, you're doing this, but it's not truly part of what the spirituality or the practice means, then it's just ah, I just, you're fake.

[01:20:28] Ashley: Exactly. And they, and I think now, and I. I know people will be like, don't say that, but that's, this is what I'm gonna say.

[01:20:36] A lot of people do quote unquote witchy things for the aesthetic. And I'm like, first of all, just don't mess with stuff cuz don't mess with nothing. You don't know what you're doing. And number one that's a problem. And a lot of the time the aesthetic ends up being also like very, a lot of cultural appropriation, which isn't ingrain.

[01:20:53] Yes. Yeah. Because when you do something for the aesthetic, you don't really care about the history or the origin of it. No. You're just [01:21:00] like, oh, it's cute, but you're not like, oh, this is a sacred practice. This is a closed practice from X, Y, Z culture and maybe I need to respect that. Or maybe I just need to know what it is.

[01:21:10] So if somebody asks me, I could explain it yes. You are truly losing out on so much when you do that cuz like, yeah, it's cute I guess for a minute, but when you really get down and why so many people. Whether it's a folk Catholicism, whether it's Wicca, whether it's whatever it is that you practice, the reason people really truly do it is so that they can feel that thing.

[01:21:34] They can feel that spirit. It's not because we wanna look Hugh and, echoes here with all her cute earrings. It has nothing to do with, it has nothing to do with that. It has to do with us being able to be one with our spiritual, our spirits, our, the great spirit, the one spirit, the many spirits, whatever you feel.

[01:21:55] That's what it's about. It's not, and I feel like so many people miss the [01:22:00] point because they get to wear black. We can, oh, you can wear black any day of the week. Of course it's not a problem. Of course. Yeah. No, nobody's looking. You can wear black, you can wear pink. You can wear whatever you want, but There's nothing better than number one, getting to know yourself better.

[01:22:12] Through your belief, through your system, getting to know your morals better and getting to know your spirits or your spirit better and being engulfed in that love and acceptance from whatever you believe in. That's just my about that.

[01:22:26] Echo: Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with that 100%.

[01:22:32] Ashley: Yes. Woo.

[01:22:33] Okay. Thank you. Woo.

[01:22:36] Echo: Getting some real deep

[01:22:37] Ashley: topics over here. It's a word. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. So first of all this is, this has been the best time. I have so much fun with you. Thank you so much Okay. For being here. And I feel like we're gonna have, you're gonna have to come again and we're gonna have to talk about all the things like you said.

[01:22:54] We're gonna talk about witchy aesthetics. Ooh. I feel like we need to talk about that more. Oh boy. That's gonna

[01:22:58] Echo: be a whole [01:23:00] freaking other podcast episode. We're gonna talk about what is right, what's culturally appropriate. Ooh, I have so many things to say when people are like, I'm gonna dress like a Chinese person.

[01:23:09] Excuse

[01:23:09] Ashley: me. No, you're not. Don't do that guys. It's not cool. Don't do that. Don't do that. Even the whole again, I could go on for even just starting with the sage thing. Like why just sage? Everything. I've just smudge everything. I'm like, oh my

[01:23:22] Echo: god, no, that's Native Americans. Stop.

[01:23:27] Ashley: It's it drives me crazy cuz number one, a lot of indigenous people have said this is a close practice.

[01:23:32] So let's just stop number one. Number two, you can use other things on Sage. You don't have to use Sage for everything, believe it or not. Yeah. You could actually just look it up cuz it's real easy to just look that stuff up on the internet. I have a Pinterest on it like this. Like

[01:23:46] Echo: there's other things that you can do, you can use that do the same things.

[01:23:49] Exactly. But that is specifically Native

[01:23:51] Ashley: American. Exactly. And when people say they're clearing to me it's first of all, what do you, do? You even know what you're doing. Like to just say, I just clear [01:24:00] somebody with smoke. It's no, you have to put some intention in it. If you just stand there, you're just like, put your arms out and let somebody clear you and there's no intention.

[01:24:07] Then like they just waste smoke in your face. That's all that happened.

[01:24:10] Echo: Let's just like this. You have to put the, like you said, it's the intention. Yeah. For me, whenever I do some sort of cleansing, I have to pray about it because you have to get into the, you have to put your soul in it.

[01:24:21] Like it's what's, and that's what spirit soul. Hello. Like

[01:24:25] Ashley: that's what we're talking about. You have to put some, yeah. The energy has to be there. If you just we were talking about this before, but nobody's gonna solve your problems when it comes to spirituality. That's a whole, this is what you will learn.

[01:24:36] When any, and this is in any spirituality, this is anywhere in the world. Yes. It doesn't matter. Those spirits that maybe you believe in or the spirit you believe in, it's not there to fix you. It's there to help you fix yourself. No, exactly. So yeah, if you don't put anything in, then you won't get anything out, exactly. There's no quick fixes. Sorry. It's, that's just it,

[01:24:57] Echo: right? No, there's a, I literally had this [01:25:00] kind of talk with one of my students. My students they asked me for tarot card

[01:25:03] Ashley: readings, no problem. I'll never tell.

[01:25:10] Echo: I don't want my principal walking and what you doing?

[01:25:12] Oh, nothing. This is part of, this is

[01:25:14] Ashley: education. I promise. It's okay. This is only an audio podcast so nobody will see. No, I know. It's fine. I don't care if people discover this and they're just like, what

[01:25:24] Echo: are you doing in your classroom? This

[01:25:26] Ashley: is, I am doing a social emotional learning. This is part of me. I teaching them how to be better humans.

[01:25:34] Exactly. This is

[01:25:35] Echo: just a very, I'm a super un unconventional teacher, so I really don't, I don't know.

[01:25:39] Ashley: I love it. So I know I literally come to

[01:25:42] Echo: wear dressed

[01:25:42] Ashley: all like this, so you look great. So it's no problem. Thank you.

[01:25:48] Echo: Those of you who aren't like you, who can't see, cuz this is an audio podcast and we're in like my, my my, my bandana, I've got my earrings.

[01:25:56] I've got my several

[01:25:56] Ashley: necklaces are so cool. [01:26:00] I love them. Thank you.

[01:26:04] Echo: They're just fun. Fact, I only have two piercings. One, two.

[01:26:08] Ashley: Oh, so these are just like special you only have like different pieces on them? Yeah. So this

[01:26:13] Echo: is like literally just like a wrap. And then this is a clip right here. And then if you look over here, this is just another cuff and that's another cuff.

[01:26:21] And then some of these are just like hooked up to this little thing right here. So it's not all weighing on like my legs. Yeah. That's so cute. I love it. Yeah, cuz like when I first got my piercings when I was like 10, it was a lot to to take care of my piercings. So I was like, I don't think I'm ever gonna do this again.

[01:26:37] Like when it comes to like the tattoo, it's okay, I can deal with that healing cuz it's a couple months, whatever. Yes. But like it's a whole year, like years for piercing, like you

[01:26:45] Ashley: have to take care of them. So yeah, it's, and they can go up and they blow up sometimes. I know I have really sensitive ears, so every time I got a piercing I was like, I should stop.

[01:26:55] They would just get infected all the time. It was just bananas anyway. Yeah. To clean them. [01:27:00]

[01:27:00] Echo: Anyway, I forgot what I was talking about. Okay, no problem. When it comes to the, we were

[01:27:07] Ashley: practice. Yeah, we were talking about just like connecting and Oh, how it's like there's no easy road and

[01:27:14] Echo: oh yeah. And then you have to like, just really put you, you gotta put your soul into what you're, if you're, if you really believe in something, it's you like, oh, my student that was yes.

[01:27:23] The terra carding. She asked me am I gonna be depressed for the rest of my life? And I was like alright, let's see what's going on. And let me actually pull up the reading cuz I like, I saved all of these in like my interpretations, aww. This was a very good reading for her too.

[01:27:39] Oh, did I not save it? Oh dang. Okay. That's okay. But anyway the re I remember what it was and it was just a three card reading. And usually in my terror readings, I, while I'm shuffling I let them like just talk and just cuz that's me, like absorbing their energy.

[01:27:57] And interpreting and I'm praying at the same time. [01:28:00] And basically, She's having a really rough time with her family and connecting with her parents, her brothers feeling like the black sheep. And she feels like this is God doing this to her and making her miserable.

[01:28:13] And when I had the drawing out and the cards were saying hold on. Listen,

[01:28:20] Ashley: listen

[01:28:20] Echo: girl. Okay. So one, oh, I remember it was one of the queens and no. It was the empress. It was which one of, one of the ones that I forget which card that had to do with the mother and like the maternal energy.

[01:28:31] So

[01:28:32] Ashley: Empress, the Queen of Pentacles, or?

[01:28:35] Echo: Yes, it was one of those two. Okay. Yes. And that was the first one. And I said, okay, how's your relationship with mom? And she's we can talk, but she's mostly all about my brothers. And I'm like, okay, listen. So like my relationship with my mom wasn't great when I was your age, but then, like now as an adult, like we actually cuz trigger warning.

[01:28:54] Okay, so I did try to commit suicide when I was in college. And that actually that changed [01:29:00] my mom. My, my mom actually used to be very cold and distant. And she changed. And now like she and I are super close. I can tell her anything. She supports me with everything. And I hinted at that.

[01:29:11] I said okay, like our relationship wasn't great, but once, once we both opened up this is what a, a mother-daughter relationship could be. The other thing was that I was telling her that, I said that, sometimes God puts challenges in front of us to make us grow. And so with her, I was, when she was talking about how she.

[01:29:32] And like the, these, a lot of the stuff that she mentioned actually didn't come up until I asked her specific questions. Okay. Like I said, like there, the third card had to do with failure and feeling like that there like worthlessness. And after I forget which card that was. And she I was telling her I asked her first, did you, do you feel like you are failing right now?

[01:29:55] And she was like, oh my god. Yeah. And I told her, listen, so [01:30:00] you need to first of all connect with mom. This is where you need to. You need to have this sort of connection. You can't blame God because really everything he, we, he made us with free will cuz she's also Christian.

[01:30:12] So I explained to her, yes, I'm also Christian too, so I'm okay to talk about this even though we're in a public school right now. Look at us. We're using tarot cards.

[01:30:20] Ashley: It's what it is.

[01:30:21] Echo: It's what it's, I just take it as and I told her, okay, so don't blame God. God is putting these, he puts these obstacles like, a family member can have cancer.

[01:30:31] These things happen. There's evils that exist in the world that's out of our control. But we can only really take into consideration what we can control. How do we react? How do we choose to handle things? We can't let anger and grief like we can let it happen. Ride the waves of our emotions, but we can't let it drive our decisions all the time, otherwise we're gonna make poor decisions.

[01:30:53] Yeah. And I was explaining all of these things to her and saying you just have to take. Matters into your own hands, and you have [01:31:00] to, you can't like, expect everybody else, especially God to fix everything for you because really you have the power to make things happen. And when I told her that, she was like, thanks Miss t.

[01:31:15] Ashley: Nice. That's it. Yes,

[01:31:18] Echo: that's it. And that's when you were saying like, oh, you can't just hope that you know the spirits are gonna take it reign and help you in this way. No, you gotta put forth the energy too. Yes, they can extend out their own energy and help you too, but you have to connect in order for that to help happen.

[01:31:35] You can't just lay there dead oh my God,

[01:31:39] Ashley: yeah, that's not gonna help. Yeah. No, that's not, no. Oh that's a very important message and I hope everybody understands and gets, and I think, like you said, I think. They meet you halfway when they see you putting you the effort. It's like your creator gods whatever.

[01:31:57] They will meet you halfway. They're like, oh, yes, [01:32:00] okay. You working, girl, I'll work for you too. Don't worry. I'm Yeah, I know. I'll be there in a minute. Give me a minute.

[01:32:06] Echo: And it may take a minute, and it just, you can't just hope that you're gonna pray one day and then like just give up.

[01:32:13] You can't do

[01:32:13] Ashley: that. Yes. Yes. And it may. And I've been not, this has been happening to me lately, actually. It's like I'm receiving a lot of the things that I have prayed for, not in the order that I expected or necessarily thought would be the best order, but it has nothing to do with me. I was like, like this is how it's happening and I accept it and I'm grateful.

[01:32:33] So thank you. It's no problem. We'll work it out. I feel that. Yeah, exactly. This is, it's okay. That also brings us to the end of our show, but echo, thank you so much. This was such a good time. I'm really happy that you're here and we got to have this awesome conversation. This was too much fun.

[01:32:52] I know we have to do more episodes. Yes. We're definitely gonna come back and we're definitely gonna do this again. And so everybody, [01:33:00] thank you so much. I'm just gonna remind you one more time if you want, you can go on any of your apps that you listen to this on. You can give us a five star rating.

[01:33:08] You can follow us on Instagram at Dime With a Divine or you can follow us on Facebook at Dime With a Divine. And TikTok, like I said, I'm gonna put something up. Maybe by the time this episode comes out, there'll be something on there. No rush. No rush. I know, right? This is gonna keep happening for a while.

[01:33:22] So if you, and if you wanna, that's a scared move you. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. God, only God can help me when it comes to TikTok. Anyway and if you wanna follow me, I'm Ashley and Sankofa h s so that's s a N K O F A H S on Instagram. I'm Sankofa Healing Sanctuary on Facebook. And don't go look at my TikTok cuz there's nothing good on there yet.

[01:33:45] But yeah so once again, just thank you Echo and I'll see all you guys next week. Bye bye. [01:34:00]