Moroccan Olives, Love for the Moon and one Sexy King with Sarah L'hrar

Sarah L

===

[00:00:00] Ashley: okay. Welcome to Diamond and Divine. My name's Ashley, I'm your host. And together we won, be exploring the magical, mystical and everything in between. So on today's episode, we'll be talking about the biblical connection to the moon and the mystical side of one of my favorite kings.

[00:00:25] Hi everybody. I hope you're having a fabulous week, and if not, I hope it gets better real soon. Today we have a fabulous guest. As always. We always have fabulous guest here. We have Sarah El Hara. She's a consulting astrologer, teacher and counselor based in Montreal who specializes in humanistic and psychological astrology.

[00:00:46] Her name astro auntie was coined by her students and clients as a nod to her supportive, compassionate, and straightforward relating style. In her sessions, she uses astrology as a cosmic map, [00:01:00] pointing her clients towards their most soulful expression, a renewed sense of possibility and personal liberation.

[00:01:07] Oh, how are you today, Sarah? I'm so

[00:01:11] Sarah: great. I'm so happy to be here. This is like really fun for me to do this right now.

[00:01:19] Ashley: Oh, good. I, you know what? I didn't realize that you live in Montreal. Yeah. Have

[00:01:25] Sarah: you been here

[00:01:25] Ashley: before? No, but I always this is one of the things, places I like always want, I'm like always wanna go to Montreal.

[00:01:32] Always wanna go to Montreal. Every year I plan to go there and then every year I don't I dunno why it's like not it terribly far from where I am. Where are you? Where are you? I live on the east coast. I live like in New Jersey like right below New York. So it's not terribly far when I put it in.

[00:01:55] It's if I drove, it'd be like six and a half hours.

[00:01:58] Sarah: I drive to New Jersey in the [00:02:00] summer. Often. So we're going back this summer, we're going to Wildwood cuz we're very fancy.

[00:02:10] Ashley: Yes. Wildwood, that's like the most Jersey place ever.

[00:02:18] Sarah: Look, the water is cleanish and swimmable for us. And so we have kids. Wildwood it is. Yeah. But yeah, so yeah, it's not so far in Montreal, there's this very short period that you should visit, which is like between end of May and October maximum.

[00:02:41] Anything between November in April is trash. Don't do it.

[00:02:50] Oh,

[00:02:51] Ashley: okay. Because , I saw this train ride thing that you can take from Somewhere in New York up to Montreal, it's [00:03:00] very long, it's 11 hours. But during the fall you just ride through like the Catskill Mountains and there's all this beautiful foliage.

[00:03:09] And I had seen this like years ago and I was like, oh, I might do that. But then I was like, actually, I don't wanna be on the train for 11 hours. That's a little bit. A lot. It's

[00:03:17] Sarah: extreme. It's an extreme ride. Yeah. It's an extreme ride that 11 hours. But you could drive it. Yeah. I don't know.

[00:03:26] It's it, Montreal is great. If you could fly one day, it's the better way to come. For you. Yeah. Don't drive as long.

[00:03:35] Ashley: Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. It would be a lot easier. And I'm acting like 11 hour train ride so bad. I've been on the plane for 11 hours. I was fine. I made it. But

[00:03:44] Sarah: anyway. And the plane is a specific kind of nightmare that the train isn't though on a train.

[00:03:51] You can walk, you can go to Yeah. You can, I don't know. It's much more comfortable.

[00:03:59] Ashley: Isn't [00:04:00] it? Yeah, it is true. Yeah. The plane is and it's so funny, I know I'm going off on a tangent, but I'll get back to, we're gonna talk about astrology. My years ago, my mom's always oh, years ago, the train, not the train.

[00:04:15] The plane used to be so much bigger, which I think is true. Like she said, the plane seats used to be way bigger, even in coach, and now they're so small, it's so uncomfortable, but let's talk about that all day. Yeah.

[00:04:31] Okay, so let's talk about what this podcast is actually about. Let's do this. So how did you first get into astrology?

[00:04:47] Sarah: I I was thinking about this last time because I think that there's no real time period because my mom was into astrology and my dad was into some mystic stuff also.

[00:04:58] And so it was always [00:05:00] around. My mom wasn't active astrologer like I am. She, but she was, she had an astrologer, so I always knew that there was such a thing as having an astrologer. Like it's not foreign language in my mind, and so gradually, like I was more and more interested over the years.

[00:05:22] Literally like more and more. At some point I had my first real reading from an astro when I was 20 and something really clicked. And so from then I started studying more seriously. And at some point, I feel like when you're studying astrology, there's a moment where you, it just goes down to the deep end and you're like, boom.

[00:05:48] And it goes really deep, really far. And so by that time nobody can get saved. It's done. You're in the whole astrology. You're done, [00:06:00] you're staying here forever.

[00:06:05] Ashley: Oh my gosh. That is so funny. So I've said in previous episodes I'm really terrible with astrology cuz it's. I know astrology is a spiritual science, I guess you could say that, but it's really to me it's a science cuz it's very detailed and very complicated with different, houses and different things.

[00:06:31] And there's different types of astrology. Like I know there's va dic, astrology I think is slightly different than your, I don't know what you would call the kind of astrology, most people know in the West, but like western literally. It's different. Okay. Yeah. So it's, there's so many different ways to look at things.

[00:06:51] One thing I wanna ask you, okay. In with that, do you find that different systems of [00:07:00] astrology generally end up being the same?

[00:07:03] Sarah: That's really interesting. I don't think so necessarily. I think that okay. Yes and no. VEIC and Veic astrology, what changes really is the signs. They don't read the sky the same way tropical astrology does.

[00:07:23] So in tropical astrology, really, it's not so much about the position of the stars as it is about the seasons on earth. So astrology, tropical astrology that westerners use for the most part is going to be based on season. So spring starts with Aries, and spring starts on March 20th period.

[00:07:48] March 20th. That's the day. And it's the day spring starts and it's the day Aries start. And then same thing on June 20th. 21st starts summer, and [00:08:00] then. Summer is Gemini always starts at the beginning. And so the seasons are really divided into signs. And the signs are really speak about divisions of the seasons.

[00:08:12] For us in Vada astrology, they're much more so looking at the constellations and following the constellations. So this is like a misunderstanding that a lot of people have is that tropical western astrologers don't really use the constellations as the actual markers of the signs. So that's one of the major differences.

[00:08:38] And then in the meaning, Maybe there's going to be different meanings throughout different modalities of astrology, particularly when you spread it out even further than va dic, cuz vadix still has 12 houses, 12 signs, et cetera. But if you think about like Mayan astrology for instance, like you're talking [00:09:00] about a completely other ballgame, when you are looking at more obscure, like different types of indigenous astrologies, you will find like more discrepancies in the way that it is read. And so then the thing is that if the teaching goes through the advice giver, right? And so depending on the advice giver, you might get to the same essence, but that's really gonna depend on the astrologer.

[00:09:35] Does that make sense? I don't know if I'm rambling nonsense, but if it makes sense

[00:09:39] Ashley: to you. No, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. So that brings me actually to the next question is how do you find that astrology best helps people?

[00:09:54] Sarah: So it's it same, it's gonna depend on the person, it's gonna depend on what they're [00:10:00] looking for.

[00:10:00] It's gonna depend on, what type of astrology is being practiced. In my experience, what I got and what I'm trying to share with my students and my clients is that it offers a really, a compassionate understanding of what it means to be a human on earth in these times. These times being whatever times you're in,

[00:10:25] Ashley: Yeah.

[00:10:26] Sarah: Yeah. These times and this place, wherever you're at, you're a human. We understand it's. Not easy. And then again all of humanity where the uniqueness of each person, but also the similarities, the common threads. And then you'll see that people care about the same things no matter what the times, no matter what the place, no matter what the person, they really care about the same thing.

[00:10:57] So there's like a compassion for [00:11:00] being human. So then a compassion for the self that can come through studying. Astrology. And then an understanding of time seen from a different perspective. And so you'll, you are working with cycles, you're working with different themes of different cycles.

[00:11:20] Cycles within cycles. Within cycles. And so you're, you are working with time, literally how to think about time and how to think about being human. And so it gives you, It's a great tool for perspective understanding. It adds like another layer of understanding of our condition. And so that's helpful in every possible way.

[00:11:47] In every

[00:11:47] Ashley: way. Yeah. That's so interesting. I never thought of it like that. Like making sense so much of obviously cycles and helping you to [00:12:00] understand each other and how other people work and go through things. It does make a lot of sense even if you only know and people do this a lot now, right?

[00:12:11] If you only know the basis of the somebody's sun sign, right? Which is I'm a Gemini and that's what, people will say, oh, did that because they're. A Virgo or which is the most basic form of what you're saying. What you're saying is way more complex and way more interesting.

[00:12:30] But , I feel people do that now, right? And it's almost like good cuz people are like, oh yeah, it's okay. Oh yeah. Like this person's app to do this type of thing because of who they are, which is good. I think people, when they always use it for themselves, that can be an excuse.

[00:12:49] But when other people are using it. I think it's like fun and it's a way of understanding why people do the things they do. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I'm talking [00:13:00] about cycles. That's super interesting.

[00:13:01] Sarah: And just like we were saying before, you it's gonna depend on the person and the intention of the person.

[00:13:08] So if you're a compassionate person who's trying to understand people and to come from a place of self-compassion and compassion for others, then it's a super great tool. But if you're like somebody who's trying to judge people and find reasons to judge people and be like, Ooh, she's a Gemini, or whatever, or there's different ways that you can use it. Pentagon, who you are, it's gonna come through the filter of you. Same with an astrology session. It's gonna come through the filter of the astrologer. So there's people who are assholes who do this work. There's a lot of asshole astrologers, there's a lot of like asshole astrology lovers too. And they're gonna use it like assholes, [00:14:00]

[00:14:00] Ashley: absolutely. Exactly. It's just it's like anything and any type of knowledge that anybody has, you can use it for good or you can use it to be an asshole like you said. So that's a good point. Another question I had for you, cuz I don't know anything about this either cuz I was like, oh, you're an astrologer.

[00:14:24] Perfect person to ask. in one of our previous episodes one of our guests, Maurizio, was saying, we are going into the age of Aquarius. What exactly does that mean? And I didn't ask him cause I was like, oh, I wish I knew what that meant.

[00:14:37] Sarah: I love it.

[00:14:38] I love it. I'm so happy you're asking me because I have opinions. Surprise. Oh okay. So you know what? Good job for asking because it exactly links to the thing that we were talking about. So there's actually something called the processions of the ecliptic. And so while earth is like spinning around itself [00:15:00] for the measure of one day, it's also spinning around the sun for the measure of one year, as so it's going like this, right? It's gonna it loops on itself, but it's also tilting ever so slightly on its axis, also much slower than any of the rotations. So actually that rotation is about 25,000 years to go all around.

[00:15:34] Oh, yeah. So it takes two, about 2,100 years to go through what we call a sign. Okay? So it takes every month, every year, and then 25,000, it's like a crazy other rotation. So according to this rotation of the ecliptic, we were in [00:16:00] front of the constellation of Aries. On the first day of spring, but we are moving, we moved from Aries to Pisces.

[00:16:12] Already. And now, okay. Eventually we're gonna move into Aquarius going backwards. Okay. Okay. There's no really there's no real way to say when that is or when that will happen. It hasn't happened yet. Okay. Oh, okay. However, so that's really what we're talking about when we're talking about the age of Aquarius.

[00:16:39] Okay? Okay. However, Pluto a planet, the planet Pluto has entered Aquarius, which it hadn't done for 250 years. Okay. Okay. So [00:17:00] people have been saying it's the age of Aquarius because Pluto is an Aquarius, which will be for 20 years now. But they're not using the words right. Okay,

[00:17:11] Ashley: so no, it's not

[00:17:12] Sarah: the age of Aquarius, which happens in the future.

[00:17:16] And people like, so the predictions go that in the age of Aquarius we will all be free and live the utopia that we all dream to live. So imagine us just like eating and singing and frolicking, all of us like heaven, right? All of us just frolicking. Yeah. Sounds great. It sounds great. Nature is thriving, the humans are thriving.

[00:17:38] Yes. It's peace. It's gorgeous. The age of Aquarius.

[00:17:42] Ashley: Yes,

[00:17:43] Sarah: at some point, not right now, but right now, however, Pluto has entered Aquarius, which it hadn't done for two hundred, two hundred and forty eight years. And last time, wow. That this happened was when the United [00:18:00] States was signing its independence. So it's really, oh, the Pluto birthday.

[00:18:08] Pluto, return of America. Oh, so America is the only girl we know who is 248 years old. We don't know anybody else. No other country has an older constitution. She's the oldest. And so she has, she's the only one we know to get a Pluto return. And so Pluto return can be, you reap what you sow. This is what it means.

[00:18:35] Oh, America. Makes sense. Maybe you should be reaping what you sewed. And okay, so your friend was using age of Aquarius? Not exactly. Precisely, but, so that's what we're talking about, what we're saying. The Aquarius talk right now. This is it. [00:19:00] Oh,

[00:19:02] Ashley: wow. Gosh, this is okay. Part of the reason I do this podcast, cause I learn so much every single time from people and I just love it.

[00:19:10] It's so interesting. I never knew about the world tilting like that. And then that like the different planets obviously. Oh that's so cool. And then the different planets, like you said, the different planets enter different ages cuz they spin at different rates.

[00:19:25] Exactly. So then that's a whole thing too. Geez. You must have to know a lot.

[00:19:30] Sarah: Look, like I told you, you go, you know a little bit. You know a little bit. And if you look very close, boom, you've fallen, then it's a hole.

[00:19:42] Careful.

[00:19:44] Ashley: I know. Yeah, I know. Cause now I'm thinking, I'm like man. So every single planet, the age is gonna be different depending on the planet cuz their days and their years are completely different. I was like, geez. Okay.

[00:19:58] Sarah: Exact, you're touching [00:20:00] on it. This is astrology Ashley. This is a, this is exactly what it is.

[00:20:04] For instance, Saturn is every 29 years, so everybody at 29 years old gets their Saturn return and that's a special moment. Yeah. And so for every planet, their cycles and cycles the moon, as is 28 and a half days. So just like women are 28 and a half days as well, so it's all ooh, cycles within cycles.

[00:20:33] How are we growing together with these planets?

[00:20:37] Ashley: Wow. Man, this is crazy.

[00:20:46] This is so cool. Whoa, man. We could go on and on about this, we're gonna move to our dish of the week. Dishes cuz we are there. We have a few. [00:21:00] So I was on your Instagram cuz usually what I do is I stalk the Instagrams of my guests and I was seeing how to pronounce your last name.

[00:21:10] Cool. Cause it's very unique. Yeah. So it's, yeah. And I saw that you said it's it's got a Moroccan root here. So I was like, oh, that's so cool. I was like, we're gonna do our dishes a week. We're gonna pick some Moroccan Jewish foods that I found that were pretty neat.

[00:21:31] That I was like, Ooh, I would eat all these things. Yes. I love that. I know. So one of the things I found that I thought was pretty cool, Okay, first of all, and I don't think I wrote this down, but I just remember it, there's a specific dish, it's like a stew kind of food. I'm not sure what it's called, but it's a very when I was reading about it,

[00:21:55] it's a Moroccan dish, but they put different ingredients depending on the community. [00:22:00] But what they talked about was that this specific dish was a dish. A lot of people cook on the Sabbath. So what they would do in the olden days is that a lot of the Jewish people would cook the food, put it in the oven, cuz they had to stay in the oven overnight.

[00:22:17] So when the Sabbath started, they're going home, they're gonna eat dinner, but they're not supposed to be using. Those types of things. So their Muslim neighbors would go pick up the food for them and bring it over. I was like, that's so sweet. And they had these community ovens. Some, a few still exist, they said in certain places, but they had these community ovens.

[00:22:37] Where they would keep the food. So then, usually their neighbors who weren't Jewish would come and deliver it for them so they could all eat dinner. I said, that's very nice. I thought it was very cute. I was like,

[00:22:47] Sarah: maybe Eita. I love, love, love that you read that. So the dish is called Dina. Okay.

[00:22:55] The, yes, that's what it was. The dish, Scala. [00:23:00] I still make it every Friday. Okay. I make it on Friday. Leave it either in the oven or in the crockpot. I like it in a crockpot. Now I make it like overnight in the crockpot and it's really delicious. It is a stew. So the thing is that you can't cook on the Sabbath.

[00:23:16] You cannot cook. You're not allowed to use fire and everything, so you have to make your food the time before. But it's very I love what you're saying because Morocco is very unique in that the population of Jews actually predates the population of Muslims in the country, and they've always lived together in peace and they've always had very good neighborly relations.

[00:23:48] And compared to every other country in the Middle East where it's been like a shit show everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. Except for Morocco. So Morocco's super special for that. And both Jews [00:24:00] and Muslims of Morocco were very proud of the way that it's done there. Yeah.

[00:24:07] Ashley: Yeah. I love that. I was like, oh, this is it.

[00:24:11] Just First of all to see the, the phrase like, oh, this was like a community oven. And then to see that the people were respecting these, the Jewish people by saying oh, you know what? You go home, set up for dinner, I'm gonna bring stuff by. You know what I mean? For you. And it's just we're all gonna work together to do this.

[00:24:29] And I'm like, that is just it just warmed my heart to read that. Yeah. Made so happy. Yeah. It was so cute. Anyway, back to the actual food. So we have Dina, which I didn't write everything down cause I was like, Ooh, this is like very extensive. And I feel like there was so many different, variations.

[00:24:47] But it just, it's a stew and it sounds delicious. That's all everyone needs is need to know. It sounds really good. And I was finding all these different names for it. I was like, this is getting confusing.[00:25:00] . Okay, so one thing I found was this it's called fiery olives.

[00:25:05] And it's I can't, I'm I apologize. I don't speak Arabic or anything, so I hope I do not butcher all the names. I will mostly just say them in English so I don't butcher it. So it's fiery olive, so we'll say Zun al had is another name for it. So these are, this sounds really good. So these are green.

[00:25:26] I love olives too. So use green olives, olive oil garlic, tomato paste, tomatoes, water. You can use some lemon, cayenne, cumin, a little bit of salt and some black pepper. And you just mix all of this up in a I'm gonna put the I always put all the recipes in the show notes, so if you wanna make this, please go ahead and make it.

[00:25:54] It's so ya

[00:25:55] Sarah: Mia, I can't even tell you. Oh yeah. I love these [00:26:00] olives. All the olive salads, even chicken, olive chicken, like all the olives I love. So what's interesting about olive of these? So this is considered like a salad, it's like a side, but it's very Spanish in its essence. You know how like Spanish people and they have all of that?

[00:26:18] Yes. Little entrees that they have to before they serve the food. So this is like this, it's like something that you'll put on the table while you're waiting for the big meal or like a side, like a little side salad type of thing. So yummy. I'm

[00:26:36] Ashley: like salivating. It's Sal. I'm definitely gonna make that.

[00:26:43] Sarah: When they're properly cooked like this with the tomatoes and the cayenne and the garlic and the olive oil and a little bit, you know what you can do with the lemon?

[00:26:51] So either you can have like lemons that are brine lemon, like pickled lemon moroccans do that a lot, [00:27:00] oh, they'll put like lemons and like salt in a jar and wait until the lemon pickles and then use that in their salads. So salad is made with pickled lemon. But if you don't pickle your lemon, cuz you're not a psycho Moroccan lady, what you're gonna do is you get grate.

[00:27:20] You could grate the rin of the lemon, like you do like in a cake, to add that real like lemon twist. So while you're cooking your olives, you could grate a little bit of the lemon peel. Done.

[00:27:35] Ashley: I love it. Oh my God, this, yeah. And it's not terribly, probably you probably have people who've made it forever, so it tastes the best, but it's not super hard to make.

[00:27:49] So no. If anybody's thinking oh, I don't know if I could do it. Yeah, you can. It's not that hard. It

[00:27:55] Sarah: is. It's delicious. Even if you don't make it the best. Delicious. Even if you don't make it

[00:27:59] the

[00:27:59] Ashley: [00:28:00] best. Yeah. And it sounds like a delicious si like you said, a side that sounds delicious. Then we have a, also, I have a Moroccan lentil stew.

[00:28:13] Sarah: Oh my God. I love that you have

[00:28:15] Ashley: all these recipes. Yes. The

[00:28:21] Sarah: name of it is really messed up. The name is Rera.

[00:28:28] Ashley: Okay. I'm not gonna tempt that, but yes, that's the name. Everybody. Now you know the real name.

[00:28:38] It's, oh, there's a lot of different, okay. First of all, there's a lot of delicious. They have a lot of vegetables. This is like very nutritious. Also, there's a lot of really good vegetables, a lot of really good seasoning. Not crazy hot or anything like that, but just flavorful, the whole thing. You got onions, garlic, carrot, parsnip.

[00:28:59] You can [00:29:00] put celery in it. You can put, it looks like you can make it with me or without me, if you want. Tomatoes, chickpeas, lentils, lima beans. I probably wouldn't put lime beans cause I don't like them, but that's not a problem. Cumin, coriander, salt, black pepper, parsley, one bay leaf cuz you always need a bay leaf.

[00:29:20] Lots of water and then lemon juice once again. Oh, so is Morocco. Do a lot of lemons grow there? Because it seems like people really

[00:29:28] Sarah: like lemons. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's, the Mediterranean is all the same foods, so really, whether it's in Greece or in Tunisia or in Portugal, or it's all the same things that grow there.

[00:29:43] Italy. Italy, Spain. Yeah. The south of France, Morocco, all of that. They share the Mediterranean. So every, it's the same fish. They all eat the same type of fish. All of these people, even Lebanon, even Egypt, they all have olives and olive [00:30:00] trees. There's a lot of lemon over there too.

[00:30:04] Tomatoes are over there, so it's all of these ways to eat tomatoes. It's, people that come from the Mediterranean actually, it's like really a sub culture. Like all of these people traveled all over, whether it's Moroccan to Italy Yeah. To Spain, to Egypt, to Lebanon. Like it's all a little bit the same vibe and the same foods prepared differently, but you'll find chickpeas.

[00:30:32] You'll find like all of these things are very local. How to prepare them are gonna depend on each country. But there's a lot of vegetables. Yes. And a lot of it's like a, it's a very fertile soil, the Mediterranean, so there's a lot of food,

[00:30:49] Ashley: yeah. Oh God. I love And like any type of medi we talked about the olives, but any type of [00:31:00] Mediterranean salad where we got Fresh cut, like tomatoes or cucumber, onions.

[00:31:06] I'll eat it. I'll eat buckets of that stuff. It's just so good. Agreed. I don't care.

[00:31:18] Okay. Oh, and then we have these cookies that I found too. These are interesting. Where's the recipe? Right here. So then we have these, they call these melt away Moroccan cinnamon cookies. So they're made with a neutral flavor oil such as sunflower oil, grape grapesy oil, or avocado. Then you use sugar almond flour, whole wheat pastry flour.

[00:31:42] Yeah. Whole wheat pastry flour cinnamon baking powder and salt, and. They are really nice cookies and they call them melt away cookies cuz I think you take one bite and then they melt away in your mouth. They sound pretty good. So also very easy to make. [00:32:00] Yeah. Very nice. The thing

[00:32:03] Sarah: for Moroccan, the basic of the Moroccan is the tea.

[00:32:07] Like that's the thing. Yeah. That's the foundation of everything is mint tea, it's like minty in the morning, in the afternoon. At noon. Like it minty everywhere. Everything is like mintish also. So all of these cookies, maybe they melt away cuz you shouldn't put them in the tea because there's a lot of the culture of dipping your cookie

[00:32:31] Ashley: in the tea.

[00:32:33] And you know what I heard this somewhere. Because In a lot of Middle Eastern countries and Mediterranean countries too. There's a lot of tea and there's a lot of coffee. And I'm like, but a lot of these places you think the south of the, south of France, the south of Italy, Sicily Morocco, Tunisia, like you mentioned Egypt, all like all these places are warm.

[00:32:58] I'm like, why are they drinking so [00:33:00] much tea? But then actually I read something that said when a lot of people, especially even in you go a little bit down, like in Africa, even in Libya, Algeria, they said that when people were traveling through the desert in order to hydrate yourself, actually it was better to drink something warm, to match your body temperature than to drink something really cold that would shock your system.

[00:33:28] And I was like, huh, I didn't know that.

[00:33:32] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, that's what I had heard also, because also for me, it didn't make sense where you would wanna drink tea in the heat in the desert, but that's the that's the deal. That's the deal. And also they cover themselves so much, they have a lot of fabric on them because they'd rather be covered from the sun rather than exposed.

[00:33:56] So it's like a whole different vibe of like how to [00:34:00] deal with the sun in the Sahara, there's a lot of yeah. So the countries, sub-Sahara and then Morocco has a piece of Sahara that's actually contested. Politically oh yeah. There, there's a people over there that doesn't wanna be part of Morocco, and that is like in.

[00:34:21] Kind of swallowed under the Moroccan umbrella before Mauritania, where they would like to be. They would like to be independent.

[00:34:33] Ashley: Oh, all I'm gonna look that up and book show notes if anybody wants to read more about that, because that's very interesting. I didn't know anything about that.

[00:34:41] So fascinating. So this is gonna be the part of the show where I plug myself and then we're gonna move on to our next subject. If you enjoy the show, you can like, you can share, you can follow us, you can do that on any platform that you listen to, whether it's Apple, Spotify, [00:35:00] Google, whatever it is.

[00:35:01] Please follow us. You can give us a five star rating if you really like it. You can also follow me on Instagram as at Dine with the Divine, or follow me on Facebook, dine With the Divine, or TikTok, which I don't know how to use yet, but I'm figuring it out and. If you have any suggestions for episodes or you have any comments or questions or critiques, you can feel free to email me at dying with the divine pod gmail.com.

[00:35:27] Don't be emailing

[00:35:28] Sarah: critiques people who does that. Don't do it.

[00:35:34] Ashley: Just leave me alone. I'm just kidding. You could anything you want. Just don't be mean to me cuz we don't need that. Just be cool and I'm more than happy to talk to anybody about anything. So again, so now we're gonna go to our next subject.

[00:35:56] So we have tea time, which is our like educational segment. So I was [00:36:00] also, once again scouring your Instagram and looking at all the interesting stuff that you talk about, and you had a post about the moon and how it had a lot to do with Judaism, and I was like, I don't know what that means. So I went on a deep dive and I started reading and reading and it was so interesting.

[00:36:21] So there's a lot of different things going on here. Number one, most people know and if you don't here, the Jewish calendar is based on the lunar calendar. Yeah. You seem like for a lot of cultures, right?

[00:36:40] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. The, it's a full lunar calendar. The month start at the new moon.

[00:36:49] Ashley: Yes. The lunar calendar makes a lot of sense cuz we're following the cycles of the moon and it's regular, like we were talking about before, cycles that happen all the [00:37:00] time.

[00:37:02] So the next thing that I thought was oh, there was a really interesting story and I'm gonna read this. I got this from shabad.org so I'm gonna read this story so everybody understands. So the Tal tells us that the son and the moon were originally equal in size and luminosity. The moon said to the holy one, bless behe, master the universe.

[00:37:25] Is it possible for two kings to wear one crown? He answered, go then and diminish yourself. Master the universe cried the moon. Because I have suggested that which is proper. Must I then make myself smaller? God replied as compensation go on rule by day and by night. But what is the value of this?

[00:37:46] Cried the moon of what? Use is a candle. In broad daylight, he replied, go. Israel shall count the days and the years with you, but it is impossible, said the moon to do without the sun, [00:38:00] for the counting of the seasons go, the righteous shall be named after you as we shall. Flying Jacob, the small Samuel, the small, and David of the small, seeing the moon could not be comforted.

[00:38:12] God said, bring an atonement for me, by making the moon smaller. So basically the whole story is that the moon in the sun were the same size, but then the moon was mad about it. So what God said was he was gonna make the moon smaller, but all the months and days would be counted by how many moons and he would name people after the moon.

[00:38:34] So that's why we love the moon. And it was just, it was another reason that it has to do with Judaism, which I thought was also interesting. So also according to some Jewish scholars, they say that the moon waxes and we just like Jewish people. Again, I'm gonna read from this website because it's really good.

[00:38:58] For the first 15 days of the month, [00:39:00] the moon grows from silver to a shining disc. In the same way throughout the 15 generations from Abraham to Solomon, the Jewish people grew from a shining, brilliant, iconic class to a powerful nation with a holy temple. From there, things got progressively dimmed Until 15 generations later, our light had disappeared with the defeat of King.

[00:39:23] I pardon. I'm not saying that Ryan, but sorry about that. But like the moon, our stories do not end in darkness, but when the moon is completely hidden, we know that there's light that's once again gonna burst forth. I love that. So just saying how the moon waxes and wanes, so does the people of Judea and the Israelites.

[00:39:44] I like that. And what's the other one that I really love? At the end, I'll tell you the o the big thing that I love okay. So there's a whole, there's a whole celebration. It's not something that people do all the time now, but there is a [00:40:00] sanctification of the moon.

[00:40:00] It's called Kadesh. Lavana. Yep. And it was, yes, it's performed once a month. Not, and it said, when I was reading about it, they said people used to do it a lot more. Now it's just something that. People know of, but people used to make this a big thing. So in certain say it was a certain town where most of the town was Jewish, they used to have this celebration where people, and there's even pictures you can find with paintings where a lot of the men in the town would go to the town square and they would say specific prayers.

[00:40:32] And I also have a link to the prayer that they would say it's really beautiful. And they said you should only say it at this time, that why I wasn't gonna read it, but it's really beautiful prayer. And it was people go outside at night and they would say these prayers and do this ritual and say a selection of psalms, and then they would have dancing.

[00:40:56] I was like, this is so cool. Yes. I [00:41:00] love that. I was like, oh, that's another thing. Everything that I read for this episode made me so happy. I was like, oh, that makes me so happy. People just dancing and having fun in the moon. Oh, another one we have here is that Moonlight is for Torah study. The Talmid Rec records the study habits of several rabbis, some pervert to get a good night's sleep, to learn with gusto during the day, while others saw merit in utilizing the quiet nighttime hours for Torah study.

[00:41:34] Renish Chesh, A Night Owl was, want to say the moon was only created for studying by light. So a lot of rabbis founded studying with Torah at night really helped them understand it better, which I thought was really neat. And. Oh, we already talked about that. Okay. So these are some ways that the moon is associated with Judaism and a lot of [00:42:00] things that I thought were really interesting that I'd never thought about.

[00:42:03] Sarah: Yeah, it's fascinating. I love that. And like I think that in for a lot of cultures they incorporate the moon as part of their beliefs. What I thought was really pretty is when you were speaking about the moon being smaller than the sun. And then I was wondering like, how did people know that the sun was actually bigger than the moon?

[00:42:31] When looking from my vantage point without math and without being told the moon looks bigger, Yeah,

[00:42:43] Ashley: it's true. And like you

[00:42:45] Sarah: can't see this sun is like a dot. It's very bright. I know that, but it's like a little dot and the moon gets to be like really big in the

[00:42:53] Ashley: sky. Yes. And the sun because of the rains of the sun.

[00:42:59] [00:43:00] You can't actually see the outline of the sun too. Yeah. But the moon is there like you see and you just, so one thing that like people will say there's so many different theories of why religion exists or why people that's spirituality is oh, because people back then they were getting murdered by stuff all the time.

[00:43:22] Animals and they needed something. I'm like, no, because there was so many interesting things in the world and nobody understood it. So they were like it must be some mystical force doing this because why is there this giant thing in the sky like every day that just comes out at night and every, and they noticed that every 28 days that it's like this.

[00:43:42] And like you said, they didn't have calculators, they didn't have the internet, they couldn't figure it out, but they somehow were able to do so much learning that they were able to find out. Oh yeah. Okay. It looks like the moon actually is smaller and it's probably because when it's in this position, it's like this and [00:44:00] it's probably this far away, ancient people were super, super smart,

[00:44:04] Sarah: super, super smart. And like you said earlier that astrology is like, oh, it seems super complicated. But for now, for nowadays, it's not that complicated cuz a computer does all the calculations, right? But at some point in history. And so when the ancient Greeks and when the ancient Jews and the ancient Indians, VADK people were designing these systems, they knew how to count the cycles of planets.

[00:44:33] They knew how to predict the positions of the stars. They knew the distance be between the stars. And Jewish astrology is really old and they can account for the cycles of Mercury, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, like everything was already counted in these days. They could like just spend. I don't know, a lifetime in front of the sky calculating [00:45:00] stuff.

[00:45:00] And the astrologers at the time were mathematicians. They knew how to do like complicated stuff and like really deep equations. And so there was no separation in the olden days between an astrologer and a scientist. For them it was one and the same. That was science. That which became later no pseudoscience, like that's not a science now.

[00:45:26] The astronomers would cough and be like, oh, never, we don't know them. Who Astrology? You never heard of them, but real talk. They, we. We, they, the astrologers, the inter we, I was a scientist.

[00:45:45] Yeah.

[00:45:45] Ashley: Yeah. Hey, you may have still been an astrologer in your past life too. We don't know.

[00:45:53] Sarah: Yeah. But knowing my problems that I have with math, like I'm really bad. It's [00:46:00] really bad. I suck at science.

[00:46:03] Ashley: It's okay. You're helping people with your astrology so you don't suck at science. Exactly. You're doing great. I'm the,

[00:46:09] Sarah: I'm a scientist basically.

[00:46:11] Ashley: Exactly. Exactly.

[00:46:12] Sarah: Me a white coat.

[00:46:17] Ashley: Oh, gosh. Oh, and the last thing I am to say is that there is a holiday called Rosh Kashk. Am I saying that right? I hope so. Choda.

[00:46:29] Sarah: Oh, Rosh Kadesh.

[00:46:30] Ashley: Oh God, it sounds so good when you say it. I love when you say it,

[00:46:37] Sarah: Rosh Kadesh, which is the New Moon. So every new Moon Kadesh, it's the head of the month.

[00:46:42] Yes, the start of the month.

[00:46:44] Yeah.

[00:46:44] Ashley: Yes. It is a minor Jewish holiday, they said. But it is a celebration and it is a holiday. So like you said, it's the New Moon. And I love that, that we're celebrating and getting ready for a new

[00:46:57] Sarah: cycle. It's the beginning of the month [00:47:00] like every first of the month if people say happy first of the month to one another, and they're aware also of this sign of the month.

[00:47:09] So in the month of Aries they'll say it's Aries, like they those signs are the same also in Jewish astrology. Oh,

[00:47:19] Ashley: okay. Yeah. Okay. So we've learned about that connection and I'm super happy to have known more now. Alright. Now we're gonna go on to our story time. Today's story time involves five different stories, so everybody just hold on tight.

[00:47:37] It's quite a ride. So today, like I said, we were gonna talk about one of my favorite kings ever and one of my favorite kings is King Saloon. King Solomon has a lot going on. He's known for what everybody knows him for is the baby thing, and we'll talk about that [00:48:00] in a minute. But he was the last king of a United Israel.

[00:48:05] And we'll talk about that too. So let's get into it. So King Solomon, he was born somewhere around nine 90 BCE and died around 9 31 bce. So he was the King of Israel from nine 70 to 9 31 when he died. So before we even start talking about Solomon, we have to talk about his parents for a minute because it's a whole thing.

[00:48:30] Okay? So there was this guy. His name's King David. You probably heard of him before. Now, if you've ever heard the story of David and Goliath, it was about this guy. He was like a shepherd and he fought a giant and he won. So that's David, that's Solomon's dad. So David became the king. There's a long story with that, and we're not talking about that today, but David became the king.

[00:48:51] Just know that. So David became the king, and one day David was, king as the king does. And he went up [00:49:00] on his rooftop and he is just let me think about being the king and like all this stuff. And he saw this really beautiful woman on the other rooftop and she was naked and she was taking a bath.

[00:49:10] She didn't know what anybody's watching her, she's just minding her own business. So David saw this lady and he's Ooh ooh, she is a hobby with the body and I've gotta get over there. So he went over there and starts talking to her. Now, The story differs. Some people say he coerced her, some people say he seduced her.

[00:49:31] We don't know. I wasn't there. So all we know is that they banged. Okay. So in this lady's name, her name was Bash Sheba.

[00:49:40] Sarah: That's my middle name,

[00:49:43] Ashley: no. Oh, I swear. Really? Yeah. That's so cool.

[00:49:47] Sarah: Okay. Okay. I was waiting

[00:49:51] Ashley: to tell you. So exciting patiently. Oh gosh, this all worked out so well. Yeah. [00:50:00] Okay, so now we know two Va Shebas

[00:50:07] oh gosh. But Bash Sheba, she's cool. We like Bash Sheba. And actually when I read this story, I remember knowing this story from a long time ago. I was annoyed for Bash Sheba because like no matter what happened, the king has came over to your house. And he was like, ma'am, like I think you're hot.

[00:50:27] And I think what are you gonna do? He's the king. It's nine, it's a thousand BCE e Come on. Okay. You gotta do what you gotta do. I think

[00:50:36] Sarah: David was hot too. Like the story goes, David was hot though. Yeah. He wasn't just kick, he was like the cute

[00:50:44] Ashley: king. He was hot. And then later on you're gonna find out Solomon was also hot.

[00:50:49] Like

[00:50:49] Very

[00:50:50] Sarah: hot. They're hot boy kings and poets and singers too. Like it's not just like David, David is also like to a rock star. [00:51:00]

[00:51:01] Ashley: Hello. Hello. Okay, thank you. Yes, exactly. David. Like I said before, the whole David and Goliath thing guys, David, he wasn't supposed to be the king, but he was just that awesome that he ended up being the king.

[00:51:13] Sarah: And then he sang the songs,

[00:51:15] Ashley: right? All the Sang songs, he sang songs. It's not a joke. Okay, these, this line of men, They knew how to seduce the lady, how to do things. Yes. So David was hot, Shiva's hot. And okay, that's married. Yes. Here we go. Yes. This is the other problem. Now, big issue. Okay, so Shiba is Mary to a guy named Yu uia, and he is in the army now.

[00:51:45] Now Bashiva and David, they banged and Bashiva got pregnant. Okay? So she goes to David and she's oh. And David's oh no. So he's okay, this is what you gotta do. You gotta call your husband up, whatever it is, what you do back then to call, go send a letter [00:52:00] or something and you gotta go tell your husband to come home and spend the night with you so you guys can bang it out.

[00:52:06] And then he's gonna think you got pregnant by him. And bashy was like, no problem, I'm gonna do that. So she calls him. Now the problem is that UIA is a really good soldier and he's dedicated. So he's Shiba, I love you and my wife, but I can't stay home. I have to go fight. And she's oh my God.

[00:52:27] So this isn't good for her. And David finds out and he's oh, this is not good. So David being very nervous and he made a big mistake. So he tells his like commander, he gives him, oh, what happens is actually he calls UIA to the palace. He gives him a letter. He says, don't read this, but give this to your commander.

[00:52:47] So he gives it to the commander. His name's Joe Ab, and this is like his top commander gives it to him. And in the letter it tells Joab to put UIA in the front lines of the battle, because he knows that if UIA is in the [00:53:00] front line, he'll die quick. So this sucks, and this is a big mistake on David's part, but don't worry, he acknowledges this later.

[00:53:08] It's fine. So yeah, it ends up being not okay, but you'll see what happens. He ghost does this and UIA dies. So then Batsheva, obviously she's mourning cause yeah, obviously she slept with David, but doesn't mean she didn't love her husband. So she was sad. But anyway, then David's it's okay, Batsheva, I'm gonna marry you.

[00:53:31] Don't worry. So he marries her and takes her into his house. Now Batsheva has her baby and everything's fine. Everyone thought everything was fine. So then this guy named Nathan comes by, he's a prophet, and Nathan comes and says Uhuh David. God saw what you did. And David's huh? He's you know what?

[00:53:52] You did. And God is not too happy with you right now. So first David got mad because David, he [00:54:00] wasn't in his right mind. He was consumed by lust. But now he's getting mad at Nathan. Like, why are you coming to me? I'm the king. Why are you fighting with me?

[00:54:08] But Nathan tells him that it's not good. Nathan says, you're gonna be punished for this and your punishment is gonna be that someone close to you is gonna seize your wives and they're all gonna lie with them, which means to sleep with all his wives in broad daylight, for everyone to see.

[00:54:28] If anybody knows the Old Testament, there's a lot of God puts down a lot of strange punishments. So you might be like, that's weird, but this is normal for the Old Testament. This just happens God's punishments are very interesting. So at this, David is upset cuz he's oh my God, someone's gonna sleep with all my wives in public.

[00:54:47] This is not great. So he gets upset and he's oh my God, I'm so sorry. And he tells Nathan, I'm really sorry about what happened. So Nathan's okay, fine. You've confessed and now you have [00:55:00] to just repent. So what he does is . He starts to build a temple to God as part of his repentance.

[00:55:07] Another thing that starts to happen after Nathan comes is that his first son, the son he has with Shiba, gets super, super sick. So David, he's going to this, he's going to the temple. He's praying every day and night. He's God please don't let my son die. But he's super, super sick.

[00:55:24] Unfortunately, he dies. And. David accepted this as a punishment from God for what he did to Bathsheba's husband. And he went into the house. It says he went into the house of Yahweh and worshiped him. So even though he knew like he was super sad at son died he realized that he had done something really wrong and this was part of his punishment.

[00:55:46] So after this, God was like, okay, fine. You, I took away your son. You prayed to me. You did your best. You've repented, I forgive you. So Shiba got pregnant again and she had a second [00:56:00] son and this son is Solomon and this son, okay. So Solomon's name means peace.

[00:56:11] And it's because it represented the peace now between David and God. So I thought that was interesting. . So David got older and his oldest son abil, his oldest son Abil, was like, I should be the king. And David was old and he was getting sick. It says in the Bible that he had this cold, that he couldn't stop being cold. They even brought like other women to try to lay with him to make him warm and it didn't work. I guess that was their solution.

[00:56:43] Instead of using blankets, they're like, bring good looking women, but he didn't get warm so it wasn't great. After this, so da. So Absilant was like, oh, I'm supposed to be king. And David's okay, fine. Whatever. [00:57:00] I'm sick. Like I'm dying. I can't deal with this right now. But then Bathsheba and Nathan came again and they were like, David, don't forget the promise you made to God.

[00:57:08] Now it doesn't say anywhere in the Bible what he actually said or what the promise was, but it obviously had something to do with making Solomon King. So David was like, sorry about the abm. Solomon has to be king. So Ssom was super pissed, but whatever. That's what we're gonna do. And just for your own knowledge, later on a different, one of his sons, Adam Anja, AAN, Aja.

[00:57:33] Anja, I'm sorry, Anja, he also declared himself King. And he's the one actually who went out here. And slept with 10 of David's wives in public to show that his dominance like that didn't work. Like Solomon was still king. It didn't matter. Like you just did that to be weird. So we were not gonna talk about them anymore.

[00:57:54] So now we're on the, so with his

[00:57:55] Sarah: like sister moms or whatever Yeah know, it's like that's your

[00:57:58] Ashley: father's wives like that. [00:58:00] Yeah. Those are like your step moms. That's creepy, but whatever. He didn't end up being king, so it doesn't matter. Like he went into security. We don't talk about him anymore.

[00:58:10] Okay. So now Solomon's king and we're all very excited, cuz again, Solomon was smart and he was hot, so everyone's yes. We're into it. Yeah. So Solomon, the biblical king, we'll start there. First. He was really good at trading. He became one of the richest kings that ever lived in the Bible,

[00:58:29] he made he was making, they say that there was a possibility that he was trading with lands. As far as Spain, like for different stuff, ivory pearls, peacocks, I don't know, gold, silver, like all sorts of stuff. Now the thing Solomon's known the most for that, everybody knows this story. If you're Jewish, if you're Christian, if you're Muslim, if you've ever known anybody from these traditions, you've probably heard this story one time.

[00:58:59] Solomon is the [00:59:00] king, okay? Now. And he, one time, these two women, they brought to Solomon in this problem, they had, they lived, in the same place. And they slept. They both fell asleep at night. Okay, woman a. Had a baby and woman B had a baby, woman A fell asleep and so did woman b. Woman A woke up and her baby was dead.

[00:59:20] She had rolled over on the baby. So she went and took woman B's baby and switched the baby's. So when woman B woke up, she was like, oh my God, my baby's dead. And then she looked at the baby and she's that's not my baby. And she looked at woman A and she said, woman A, that's my baby. And the woman a said, absolutely not.

[00:59:37] This is my baby. And she's we must go to the king cuz there's no DNA test cuz it's the year like nine 50 B, c, d. So so they go to King Solomon. And what does he say? He says, okay, this is what we're gonna do. We'll just cut the baby in half since nobody can get along. And the one woman B, who it really was her baby, she [01:00:00] says, absolutely not let her take the baby then, because I'd rather her take the baby than anybody hurt my baby.

[01:00:06] And solemn noon from that moment that it was woman B's baby, because the other lady was like, eh. Okay. Oh my. Who, who agrees to this? But the original woman was freaking out, so we knew it was her baby. So that's the big story that everybody knows of Solomon and his wisdom. Now, the other thing you might not know is how Solomon got his wisdom.

[01:00:26] So Solomon, he made a big sacrifice to God. I don't know exactly what the sacrifice was, but he made a giant sacrifice and he fell asleep one night and in the dream, God appeared to him and asked Solomon what he wanted. And he said, Solomon being such a good dude, he said he wanted the wisdom to guide his people.

[01:00:46] That was why he wanted wisdom, not just for himself so he could be a good king. So God guaranteed him all the wisdom in the world basically. So he was the wisest person in the world. Now, he also constructed [01:01:00] the first official temple, which his dad had started to God and. It's a big beautiful temple.

[01:01:08] That was destroyed in a couple wars, but it was a first official temple. So we love him for that. Now, also, Solomon, like we said before, he was hot and he was a ladies man, okay? He had mad wives. He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. And when I was reading they said that he, okay, first of all, he married a lot of foreign women, which people didn't do back then.

[01:01:31] It wasn't a thing. You didn't marry foreign women. They said that Solomon loved every woman that he married. They said he was a lover boy. He met women. He's he was in love with every single woman. That's what he said, except the Pharaoh's daughter. They never tell the name of the Pharaoh's daughter, but he said, That was the only one he didn't love.

[01:01:54] He just married her for a political alliance so that he wouldn't have trouble with Egypt. Who knows? But that's what they said about [01:02:00] Solomon. Solomon himself, claimed that he loved all women. There is a text called This Song of Solomon, which is also just like a love poem about how, number one, how much Solomon loves women, about how he just wants to be with ladies all day and all

[01:02:17] Sarah: day.

[01:02:18] And so if you think about it, like that's the wisest man that ever lived, right? Yeah. And so is there wisdom in that, that every time he would meet a girl, be like, I love you. I just, I love you. Maybe that's what happens when you're so wise. Maybe you understand everything, then you see every woman and you fall in love.

[01:02:43] Duh. These fools nowadays don't know. They don't know. But Solomon, he could love every woman.

[01:02:54] Ashley: Yeah. And he probably saw, because like you're saying, he was so wise, he probably saw something [01:03:00] in every woman that he loved about them, except probably, and you, the Pharaoh's daughter though. Isa. He's she's fine, but I don't love her.

[01:03:06] Yeah. These other thousand women, I love them.

[01:03:12] Sarah: But her, no, she's just a friend.

[01:03:18] Ashley: I know they just hang out sometimes, but he's I don't really like her like that, but she's all right. I'm nice

[01:03:23] Sarah: there. But maybe she wasn't nice. Maybe he was like, yeah, I'm too wise for that. We're not gonna,

[01:03:28] Ashley: yeah, maybe she, who knows? She could have been like a little bitchy. Who knows?

[01:03:32] We don't like her but he did.

[01:03:33] Sarah: He loves women from everywhere. And so the only one you, it's a big no-no for Jews to be with non-Jew. That's like roll number one, Jews, Who else was Moses as well? Moses. He went out and fell in love with a lady that wasn't of the tribe.

[01:03:55] So Wise does as wise will do. [01:04:00] Yeah.

[01:04:00] Ashley: Look, there's hot ladies everywhere. Okay. In your community and outside

[01:04:05] Sarah: I saw, knew that he was like these beautiful

[01:04:08] Ashley: women. He's everywhere. I'm so into it. So in one of the very famous stories of a beautiful woman that he fell in love with was we don't know the whole thing, but this is what they say.

[01:04:23] The Queen of Sheba. So he met the Queen of Sheba. I think she went to Israel. Yeah, I think she traveled there, I believe. Yeah. And she, cuz she heard about how wise this guy was and she probably heard about how hot he was. And she was like, I wanna meet this guy. Ok. Here's the thing too. He was wise, he was hot, and he was rich.

[01:04:43] What's the problem? I really, it is great.

[01:04:48] Sarah: And he was in direct communication with God. So if you had a your boy also had a temple and could talk to God and gets shit done. I'm saying and talk. [01:05:00] He was a rockstar. Cuz that's poems. I'm telling you. The daddy and the son, they were like musical too.

[01:05:06] So it's forget it.

[01:05:08] Ashley: Yes. Done. It's, there was no bad thing about this guy. So

[01:05:14] Sarah: the Queen of Sheba, yeah. He wanted herself was like so hot. The queen of Shiba was like, oh, super hot. So they're

[01:05:21] Ashley: like super hot shit. Yes. Is that exactly. And that's what happened. So they met and apparently part of the story too is that they were talking and he was like, damn, you're smart.

[01:05:34] And she's damn, you're smart. And then they banged apparently. So they banged a lot and she. A lot. A lot. And so they said the Queen Sheba, Solomon's stay here with me and you can be one of my wives. No problem. I have 700 others. They all get along, it's not an issue.

[01:05:57] And she was like, no, I gotta go [01:06:00] home. Like I gotta go see my people. So she went home and then from there, so where she was from is like the area, it was like a bunch of different countries that exist today. So it was part of Eritrea, Ethiopia, little bit of Sudan they say. So they say that the line of Kings now from Ethiopia descend from the Queen of Sheba.

[01:06:23] And the baby she made was Solomon cuz she was pregnant. That's what they say. And they descend that line all the way down to the last King of Ethiopia, who is highly cel Lassi, who is highly regarded as the quote line of Judah. Which is the central figure in Rastafarianism. So if anybody listens to, Bob Marley especially, or other RAAF Farian music, they talk a lot about the Lion of Judah.

[01:06:52] They're talking about Heidi Celeste and they call him the Lion of Judah cuz he's related to King Solomon. So that's, that's

[01:06:58] Sarah: what they say. And there [01:07:00] are a lot of Ethiopian Jews. So Ethiopian Jews are like, yes. One of the many nations where there's like a strong Jewish culture and yeah. Yes, there's a lot of Jews in Ethiopia and a lot of Ethiopian Jews who are all the descendants of King Solomon.

[01:07:17] No big deal. Yes,

[01:07:19] Ashley: no, no big deal.

[01:07:23] Sarah: And so the overlap between Raaf, Farian and Judaism is there, there's definitely a Venn diagram where they meet in. And that,

[01:07:32] Ashley: yes. Yeah. Even like Rastafarians have a special diet that they follow, which if you read it is basically like a kosher diet. They don't eat pork.

[01:07:44] They separate certain foods. They stay away from it's ba it's a lot like a kosher diet. It's pretty similar. So it's very interesting. So we have a connection there. What else?

[01:07:58] Oh, the other thing I wanted to say related to [01:08:00] RAs Partism before I move away from it, is Solomon they say was an herbalist because he was so smart. He knew all about these different herbs. So a lot of people. In Rastafarianism, it's known for people smoking marijuana, but they also said that this was like the herb of Solomon and this is what helped make Solomon wise.

[01:08:19] But Solomon may have just known about it cuz he was so smart. Who knows what he did with it. But that's something that they do. And something that they

[01:08:26] Sarah: say. And they found cannabis at the temple. They found cannabis in Thes. I the Oh, didn't temple and the remnants of the temple. In the AALS of the temple, there is cannabis as part of the burning herbs too.

[01:08:40] So yes, the priests makes

[01:08:42] Ashley: sense. Donors makes, yes, it makes sense, right? Like it's bringing you to a higher consciousness. 100%. Oh. Yes. Okay. So now we get to magical Solomon. Like I said , in the medieval times, there were a lot of texts came up [01:09:00] where people started interpreting different things from the Bible, especially like magicians.

[01:09:05] And they found, and this is what they said, is that Solomon was like the king of being a high magician. Like he understood because he was so wise. All these things about magic, about alchemy things that like nobody else understood and God granted him all these gifts. One of the big things that Solomon got from Angels that it has it is said he received four magical stones from angels.

[01:09:36] One enabled him to talk to animals. Two, enabled him to move heaven and earth wherever he wanted them. I guess three gave him dominion over angels. And four, he was able to bind and command demons, which is crazy, but you'll see how this actually works out for him. So part of this story was that he built [01:10:00] this temple and he built a lot of different things. He didn't just build a temple, he was like an architectural genius.

[01:10:05] This guy, he built all sorts of stuff. He built this throne that supposedly moved, I don't know, but it's very interesting. You can read about it. He built multiple buildings cuz he wanted his city to be beautiful and he wanted people to benefit it for it. And he was trying to honor God. One thing that he did do that in the end they say God got mad about was because he had all these wives, and we touched on this before, he let all of his wives practice their own religions cuz they were foreign, most of them.

[01:10:35] He didn't have a problem with that. At the end they say that he got a little too into their stuff and God got pissed off about that. But but my God is jealous. Yes. Yeah, he's Yes, exactly. But he let all his wives practice the religion of wherever they were from. So this was unheard of.

[01:10:58] Like you said, this, the, [01:11:00] it was also unheard of for him to marry all these foreign ladies. So that happened. So he built all these different temples for them and their gods. So Solomon also had a lot of riches. One thing. Oh, he also had a ring.

[01:11:14] All of those stones that I just talked about, he put in a ring, like fano. Like he had literally had a ring and it had a special symbol, which is like the star of David. And it was made of bra, brass and iron, and it had the ineffable name of the creator. So you know the name that nobody's supposed to say because nobody's really supposed to be able to say it.

[01:11:37] He could speak to spirits, animals, and they say demons. Now demons is interchangeable. Because, okay, because now we have to look at the context. The context was medieval Christian, Europe. So they said demons, but before that they said gin. They didn't say demons and gin are different than demons. We could [01:12:00] go on, we're gonna probably have a whole podcast where we talk about gin, but we're, that's not today.

[01:12:04] So I'm gonna give you this quick thing. So gin our magical gin. The Anglo size name of gin is Genie. Okay. This is these magical creatures. Mostly this is like a folklore from the Middle Eastern countries, Northern Africa. And these are spirits. There's different levels to it, just like angels, different levels of gin, different types.

[01:12:27] They're not necessarily evil. They can be like fine and they can be nasty, but they're more just like spirits that are just there. They're also called spirits of the smokeless fire, which I think is really interesting. But in a lot of different countries, they have folklore that involves gin.

[01:12:50] Gin is the same thing like in Aladdin, that kind of gin. And actually there is a connection to Aladdin in this too. That story. So [01:13:00] actually there is some folklore in Northern African countries I read that says you shouldn't leave food out at night because gin could come and mess with your food they're tricksters.

[01:13:10] So they're not necessarily good or bad, but if they are bad, they might poison your food or they might do some type of magic to your food and that's not good for you. But apparently if you put a stick over the food and you say, this is the stick of Solomon, they can't come near it because that's how powerful Solomon was.

[01:13:27] And he controlled gin. So all gin are freaked out by hearing about Solomon. So he also, it says he, he controlled 72 different spirits. They call them demons. Like I said, some say they were gin, but the Christian magicians call them demons. And they even have names of all of them.

[01:13:47] The Christian

[01:13:48] Sarah: magicians. 72 is not a random number also cuz there are 72 names of God.

[01:13:54] Ashley: Oh. And there's 72 Carro cards.

[01:13:57] Sarah: Listen, just [01:14:00] saying

[01:14:01] Ashley: I know they're all Oh, and I didn't

[01:14:02] Sarah: realize that. Wow. 72 names of God. Yeah. 72 names of God for the Jews. Okay. And in Jewish stories when whenever there's a number of something, it's not a fluke.

[01:14:18] They, yes. Just don't joke around with numbers. Yes. Every number is a code for another number that's a code for another number. The whole story is like very codies and codified. So when you take, like for instance, we'll say like a piece of a story here, they will bring it back, there's a call back and another story and they'd be like, remember how he said this about this guy?

[01:14:43] Now this about that guy. And it's all intertwined, right? Yeah.

[01:14:48] Ashley: Yes. It's so crazy. Oh my god, this is, no, thank you for putting that. That's so interesting. So there's also, so speaking of the [01:15:00] demons there is this one demonn, and this is a quick story. So there's this one Demonn, I've copied this off of Wikipedia and his name is, As mos and actually in next week's episode we're So talk about connections.

[01:15:11] The next like week's episode, we're gonna talk a little bit about as Mos too. He's gonna come back up. Okay, so this is a story he goes on to state, to Solomon, that Solomon asks him one day what could make demons more powerful over a man. And as Mods asked to be freed, and then he would freed and give in Solomon's ring so that he could demonstrate Solomon agreed.

[01:15:32] But as Mods threw the ring into the sea and it was swallowed by a fish damn as mods, then swallowed the king and stood up fully with one wing touching heaven and the other earth. And spat out Solomon to a distance of 400 miles. The rabbis claimed that this was divine punishment for Solomon, having failed to follow the three divine Commandments.

[01:15:54] And Solomon was forced to wander from city to city until he eventually arrived [01:16:00] in an ammonite city where he was forced to work in the king's kitchens. Solomon gained a chance to prepare a meal for the Ammonite King, which the king found so impressive that the previous cook was sacked and Solomon was put in his place.

[01:16:14] The king's daughter Nama subsequently fell in love with Solomon cuz duh. And but the family thinking Solomon, Solomon was a commoner disapproved. So the king decided to kill them both. Oh no. By sending them into the desert, Solomon and the king's daughter wandered the desert until they reached the coastal city where they bought a fish to eat, which just happened to be the one that had swallowed the magical ring.

[01:16:40] Damn, that was good luck. Solomon then agree, was able to regain his throne and expel Esmo, so yeah, that's one story about Solomon. And so it said also that Solomon, he controls all these demons, these gin, but the only one he's afraid of is Asmo, cuz he [01:17:00] put 'em through hell.

[01:17:00] So he doesn't really like Asmo and he don't wanna hear his name. So when he wanted also to cons to control these demons, he sealed them in vessels. One story says he sealed them in multiple vessels. One story says he sealed them in a vessel and threw them into the sea. Hence why some stories say that gin are usually in a bottle or like the genie in the bottle in Aladdin.

[01:17:26] It's because Solomon had put all these genies in bottles and they ended up all over the world. So that's one connection to Aladdin and like those stories. Also Solomon, the last thing I'll tell you about Solomon and his magic is that he apparently built a giant castle that nobody can find, and he's the only one who can enter it, and he had the demons build it.

[01:17:55] That was another thing too. They said that the demons actually were the one, he [01:18:00] commanded the demonn so well that he made them build all these architectural projects that he had, including the temple. They said he controlled them and he forced 'em to build all these things. And that's just how powerful he was.

[01:18:12] Like I said, in the end, God got mad at Solomon for letting his wise bill all these temples. And he was real busy commanding all the demons. And and God was like, you're not worshiping me enough. So he got irritated and he told Solomon, I'm gonna split your kingdom in two and there will never be a United Israel ever again.

[01:18:37] So what happened was after Solomon died, his son took over. There was, and they weren't treating like the Northern tribes very well, so they then ended up splitting into the . The Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel, and then the part of the Kingdom of Israel. They were expelled from them lands

[01:18:57] hence why they were called the Lost Tribes of [01:19:00] Israel after that. And they said that was part of God's punishment to Solomon for what he had lacked to do basically. But in the end, Solomon was a magician. He was an herbalist. He knew, oh, he also built a beautiful bath in one of his palace in the temple.

[01:19:18] A, it's called a mikva, which is like a ritual bath for Jewish people. I know that from reading unorthodox. That's the only reason I knew how to ever pronounce that word. And it could heal anybody. It could heal their wounds. It could heal your spirit. It could heal any sickness, which was very cool.

[01:19:38] So that's some stuff about Solomon. I love Solomon. He sounds like an awesome guy. He was really just out here trying to do his best. I so have

[01:19:47] Sarah: A next level of layer for you that you are going to adore. Okay. I'm ready. So there is a word on the street. So these streets, [01:20:00] like I would look for documentation on it, but just a quick Google search didn't bring much, but here's a rabbit hole for you to get into, is that some people say that Solomon became Siddhartha.

[01:20:15] Who became Buddha.

[01:20:21] Some people say that some people, there are people who have said that the times coincide the timeline coincide the stories match.

[01:20:36] Ashley: That

[01:20:36] Sarah: does make sense. So I'm not saying that Solomon is Buddha, I'm just not saying that Solomon is not Buddha.

[01:20:52] Ashley: Yes. I love that.

[01:20:55] Sarah: So there's a story like this, right? Because he then, he disappears. [01:21:00] So then the temples are destroyed and where is he? We don't know. There is no tomb. There is a tomb of David. You go to Jerusalem, there's a tomb of David right next to the old temple. There's no tomb for Salomon.

[01:21:13] We don't know. Where is he? Yeah. Your dude left. He left. And like you said, he had many wives from many cultures. And he was getting into some different types of shit, my God, being very jealous and very possessive. Does not like one to get into cool other stuff. And so some of them might have had to go do his cool stuff somewhere else.

[01:21:52] Ashley: Interesting.

[01:21:54] Sarah: There's a link. And then when you look at, when we match the stories, so of a [01:22:00] lot of the mystical parts of it where they meet an astrology, where the chakras are like the Cabalistic sfi, the SFI are like the chakras for the Jews. And Jewish mysticism. And so they match.

[01:22:21] They match. The stories match on a lot of things at that level of mysticism. And so people think that Solomon is the missing link. Wow.

[01:22:36] Ashley: Oh my God, that's so cool. No big deal.

[01:22:42] It's, that makes sense though.

[01:22:48] Sarah: Oh, damn. I'm gonna, people that up tonight have said that. Yeah. People have said that. So I don't know if there is like such a thing as like proper documentation, but I've heard it myself, like [01:23:00] a lot of times people have told me that. It's part of the backstories of possibility.

[01:23:09] Wow.

[01:23:10] Ashley: That makes a lot, Solomon was into so much That made sense. Yeah. And he just, yeah. It doesn't say, it's like Solomon was dead and we know, like you said, where he is and there was, because he was a king, it would've been a big deal if he died. There's

[01:23:24] Sarah: Trumps for everybody. You go to Israel, there's a room for everybody. There's no home for Solomon. Everybody has one. David has one, Samuel has one. Jacob and Joseph and Isaac. They all have it. They, you know where to find them. You know where they are. Yeah. Solomon. No Solomon. And then another story, which is cool is that, so when the se when the temple got destroyed, when Solomon got temple, got destroyed, so the Jews started getting dispersed for the first time.

[01:23:57] So it's the first destruction of the temple. After there's [01:24:00] like another building of a next temple, the temple gets destroyed three times. All. All in all, until the last one is at the Romans by Jesus time, so much later. But by Solomon, by the destruction of the first temple, the first migration out of Israel is when the Moroccan Jews went to Morocco. So the Moroccan Jewry is since then,

[01:24:35] Ashley: huh? Wow.

[01:24:38] Sarah: Yeah. We're the first

[01:24:40] Ashley: exports export. Ed,

[01:24:44] Sarah: exactly like you said, spice because Solomon Temple went so far and made commerce so far. He was like, you my folks, I sent you for the olives. And my ancestors were like, I aye Captain, we're gonna go [01:25:00] make that olive oil for you.

[01:25:02] Ashley: He brought back one olive. He's I like this. Please get some more from me. How? Joking,

[01:25:08] Sarah: no problem. They're like, just some tomato, a little bit of olive oil, garlic, plenty of garlic, a little bit of cumin. And yes, take the lemon.

[01:25:22] Ashley: You just grade it. You don't have to brine it, but if you want to, you can.

[01:25:29] I love that. Yes. And yeah. Oh my God. And then also, like you had said before, there's a songs of Solomon who like, Like we said, he is a singer. He wrote songs, erotic poems, basically. And then there's a La Lesser K of Solomon, which is a book and The Greater Key, which they also say has some magical text in it.

[01:25:50] So there's a lot of stuff, a lot of people be studying Solomon. And I just wanna say like you brought up Jewish mysticism. I was [01:26:00] like, oh, I wanna talk about Jewish mysticism. But then I just ended up talking about Solomon because you can't just talk about it. It's a thing like, it's very complicated.

[01:26:08] It people study Jewish mysticism for their whole entire lives. Like it's that. Complicated and complex. It's not I remember in the nineties, I think when Madonna started wearing like one red bracelet and she's I'm into Cabala now. And I was like, what? What is that? I love that. This

[01:26:30] Sarah: nu yeah. I should even said, she said, I'm a cabalist.

[01:26:33] And people were like, yeah, girl. No, like ab you're not, you're a pop singer. This, you're the queen of pop. You're the queen of pop. Exactly. Just exactly. And it's cute, the bracelet and stuff, sure, yeah. But a red bracelet does not make you a capitalist. It

[01:26:54] Ashley: does not. No, and like it's, this is like a serious subject that, like I said, [01:27:00] there are just scholars and rabbis who spend their whole entire lives studying this stuff and then even at the end they're like, damn, there's still way more to do.

[01:27:10] But I'm like 99 now I have to die at some point. So it's it's not easy. It's not something you just learn. It's like fascinating when you go down a Jewish mysticism rabbit hole. But I was like, we don't have time for that. But it's

[01:27:26] Sarah: really cool. A funny story is that I was born into that hole because my dad, like when I told you like my dad, he wasn't too mystical stuff.

[01:27:33] So that's why my dad is one of these people who spent his whole life studying and teaching. So it's so funny I had no idea this, we were gonna go there together, but yeah, like this is what I grew up in.

[01:27:53] Ashley: Okay. So weirdly enough, like every, almost every single time I do an episode, I don't know, like [01:28:00] I guess what we're gonna talk about and I try to connect it from like the bare things I might know about you.

[01:28:06] And it always connects in all these different ways. And it's just this is why I like, have so much fun doing this. It's really

[01:28:13] Sarah: all these connections pop out. That's part of like your intuition also about that person. Okay, we're gonna talk about that. Yeah. You're the first person to talk to me about Solomon.

[01:28:23] I'm so grateful. This is like a very obscure area of nerdy for me because obviously like I'm not a religious person. But I'm very Jewish and very educated in these things actually. Like I'm, these stories are, are my stories. Yeah.

[01:28:44] Ashley: It's a big part of your culture too, that's awesome. My, it

[01:28:50] Sarah: really is. And one thing that I wanted to tell you, one of the names that you use on Instagram Sankofa, right? [01:29:00] I was. One day I fell into a hole of retrograde, the meaning of retrograde, thinking about the philosophy of what a retrograde is looking backwards to go and learn.

[01:29:15] And then I went into a hole of the philosophy of looking backwards, and then I fell into this and I was reading about it and reading about Ghana and reading about, and I was like, oh my God. And then when you reached out to me, I was like, Ashley,

[01:29:32] Ashley: I

[01:29:33] was

[01:29:34] Sarah: just looking into that. That's crazy, that's

[01:29:38] Ashley: so funny. Yes. Oh my God. Yeah. It literally means go back and get it. So yeah, like she, like Sarah's saying Sankofa, which is like I tell you guys at the end of the show, it literally means to go return and get it. And it like philosophically means to always like, never forget where you come from and [01:30:00] your culture, cuz there's always gonna be a connection to that.

[01:30:03] Oh, damn, boy. Wow. Yes. Wow. No big deal. Episode. What? An episode. It's my favorite podcast

[01:30:16] Sarah: I've ever done. Period.

[01:30:19] Ashley: Yay.

[01:30:24] Yay. Oh my god. This is so fun, but it's come to the end of our time. Sarah, where do you want to be found on the internet or whatever you wanna shout yourself out.

[01:30:41] Sarah: So yeah, I'm Astro. So my website is astro.com, A S T R O A U N T I e.com. I'm on Instagram. People can find me on the internet and reach out [01:31:00] to me and study with me and do readings with me.

[01:31:02] I do all the things I teach and I coach and I counsel with astrology. Yeah.

[01:31:14] Ashley: Yay.

[01:31:15] Sarah: Thank you so much, Ashley. This was so fun. I really enjoyed it. I'll send you some recipes, girl. Yes.

[01:31:26] Ashley: I will make them. I will definitely make them.

[01:31:28] Sarah: Yes you will. I see you have good

[01:31:30] Ashley: taste. Yes. It's gonna be made of olives for the next couple months now. Yes. Eating every day at work. My, my coworkers will be like, you eat olives again.

[01:31:41] I'll be like, sure. I am. I found this recipe and I can't stop making it. Oh, you're gonna be addicted. Be careful. I'm gonna be addicted. I know. So everybody, like I said, thanks so much for coming for this week. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll just do my short plug one more [01:32:00] time. This is Dying With a Divine and we're dying with a Divine on Instagram and Dine With a Divine on Facebook.

[01:32:06] And like I said, if you like the show, give us a five star rating where if you listen, share, like whatever you'd like to do. And feel free to email me at Dine with a Divine pod@gmail.com. And if you wanna follow me, Ashley, I'm Sankofa hs. S a n K O F A H s, and Sankofa Healing Sanctuary on Facebook. So thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you all next.

[01:32:29] You. Thank you

[01:32:29] Sarah: Sarah. Thank you so much Ashley. Ashley. This was the best. I loved it.

[01:32:34] Ashley: Yay. Okay. Bye everybody. Bye.