The I Ching and the Goddess of Mercy with Benebell Wen

Benebell

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[00:00:00] Ashley: Welcome, everybody, to Dine with the Divine, and I'm your host, Ashley. Today, we'll be exploring the magical, the mystical, and everything in between. So on today's episode, we're going to be talking about a Chinese divination system and compassion personified. So I hope everyone is having a wonderful week, and if you're not, I hope it gets better soon.

[00:00:26] And today, we have a fantastic guest. We have Benebell Wen. So Benebell is the author of Holistic Tarot and the Tao of the Craft. She's Also the creator of the Spirit Keeper's Tarot, which is absolutely gorgeous, her forthcoming book is I Ching the Oracle and it will be released in September of this year.

[00:00:45] So, hi Beneville, how are you? Hello, hello Ashley, how

[00:00:50] Benebell: are you? I'm doing well, I'm

[00:00:51] Ashley: so happy to be here. Yay, I'm so happy you're here. So, usually the first thing I always ask people, and you've been doing this for a few years, you have your The [00:01:00] Holistic Tarot. I remember when that came out. It's a big, thick book full of so much information.

[00:01:03] I love it. When did you get into mysticism and all that good stuff? What's your kind of origin story

[00:01:11] Benebell: origin story, you know, I think it's always been part of my life, but it was the Eastern tradition. So my mom, my maternal side, they grew up in Taoist mysticism. So this presumption that spirits are always around you, that you have to honor ancestors that are not.

[00:01:30] Physically present, this idea that like my concept of reality growing up, there was a huge cognitive dissonance when I then entered school and you're like with white kids and, Christians and atheists. And I realized, okay, so not everybody assumes that, your dead uncle is around, you know?

[00:01:48] Yeah. And so I've always had that part of mysticism growing up, the idea of mediumship, shaman, shamanistic travels and, and all of the altered states of consciousness. And then it wasn't [00:02:00] until I was trying to fit in, in school in upstate New York, that I felt like I had to reject all of that and adopt a more Enlightenment era, Western European style of philosophy and thinking just to try to fit in.

[00:02:16] And so I think I denied a huge part of who I was for a really long time. And then at some point you grow up and you mature and you don't give a crap what other people think of you. Yes. Yes. And that's when I realized that, you know, what I had been denying was something that was really much, you know, baked into my DNA and who I was.

[00:02:33] And the only way to truly be happy and feel fulfilled and grounded is to embrace that part of who I was. And so I rediscovered mysticism, I would say in college in terms of rediscovering Eastern forms of mysticism later on in life. But in terms of tarot and Western forms of occultism, I think I've always been interested in that.

[00:02:54] I started in junior high, and I thought that was a way for me to, scratch that itch without [00:03:00] embracing my own culture, which is awful. But this is one of those things you find a replacement for that thing that you actually want to do. That's my origin story. Not very inspiring.

[00:03:08] Ashley: But you know what, I find that a lot of people we've had several guests who have a similar you always felt this way. I'm the same way. When I was growing up, I was always new, like, okay, this is just, there's ghosts and there's ancestors and I always felt that way. And then you go to school and people think it's weird.

[00:03:26] So, , I felt like when I was, I felt like when I was, like, in high school, my friends would, like, tolerate my weirdness, so it was fine. But then I went to college and I wasn't with, , my home friends, so I was like, I have to be normal. Like, I have to, I have to act like everyone else and I have to, act like none of this is real.

[00:03:44] And I did the same thing. I just , pushed it all away. And then it'll, and then, again, you get older and you're like, why do I give a shit about all these people who don't really care about me that much? This is stupid. So. And I was fully in it. I jumped back into it. I'm reading, [00:04:00] learning to read tarot cards and doing all this kind of stuff and And I think it is hard too when you're like a first generation kid and you don't have like all those people to relate to, like other than your own family, you know what I mean?

[00:04:13] So it's not like you're surrounded by kids who are all like, yeah, yeah, that happens in my house, that happens in my house. A lot of time you might be in a, in a culture or a, area where it isn't a lot of kids that that happens in their house. So you're like, okay, I don't want to bring this up because they're going to think this shit is weird and we eat this on this day and they're going to think that's weird.

[00:04:31] Like, so like you, yeah, you totally like push it away. So I get that. There's, it happens, but, but look at you now.

[00:04:38] You're writing tons of books. Like, and the thing I like about your work, first of all, I love, I love a research project. You extensively research things to the point where I'm overwhelmed by how much you're doing. I cannot even believe you've even written so many books. Like, Jesus Christ, how do you have time to [00:05:00] do anything else?

[00:05:00] You've so well researched all your books. It's amazing. Do you just like really like research? Because like I do do so. I'm not, I'm not even being sarcastic. I really admire the fact that you do all this.

[00:05:12] Benebell: You know, it's funny, , the positives, of course, I love research. I think the negative side or the overcompensation side, if you really want to try to get into armchair psychology, I think , it's almost like you feel this weird, Overcompensation of having to justify your belief systems, right?

[00:05:29] Like, Oh, look at this academic, look at that academic, look at what other people who are much smarter than I am are saying about this. So I'm not crazy. It's almost like this way of justifying your belief system. So the positive product is a well researched, text, but why you did that sometimes, requires self reflection.

[00:05:50] Yeah,

[00:05:51] Ashley: yeah, that makes a lot of that makes so much sense. And again, okay, this may be a little controversial, but I think I could [00:06:00] do it. Because oh boy, oh my god, I was talking to somebody the other day. And like part of the reason I even wanted to do like this podcast is because there's like witch talk and all this stuff.

[00:06:11] And nobody ever like where we, where they came up with that. There's not a lot of people talking about the history behind it. They're just like, this is you blow cinnamon at your door for this. And which is great. And that's awesome. Don't get me wrong. Everybody, there's tons of knowledgeable people on all these subjects.

[00:06:29] I'm not saying they're not knowledgeable, but I really like to know where things come from because a lot of things have a practical. side to it. A lot of magical practices that we think of every day have a practical side or they have a side that this herb is actually also medicinal or you know, they say sage actually helps kill bacteria in the air.

[00:06:52] So those kinds of things. I like to know it because I see exactly what you're saying. It's like you want to for people who [00:07:00] are like, this is bullshit. You always want to be like, yeah, but look at this and look at that and look at this. And I think I have that problem too. I think I'm like, I want to prove to people that like, this is somewhat legitimate.

[00:07:11] Look at this reason. So I think it's good. I also understand what you mean by like overcompensating. I do think sometimes it's like a problem that a lot of us have, but I also think that. It's good to know, I don't think it's always good to, blindly follow stuff sometimes because they heard somebody say it, and that person has 10, 000 followers, so they're like, well, they must be right, and I'm like, well, I don't know, like, look it up for yourself, you know, it's, it's free, Google is free on your phone, your tablet, or your laptop, So, yeah, I see exactly what you're saying.

[00:07:46] I think it's good and bad but don't believe every single thing you see just because someone has a lot of followers. Sometimes people just have a lot of followers because their aesthetic is cute. And don't get me wrong, I love a cute aesthetic. I love a good aesthetic, oh my god, right? Me too, I love a good [00:08:00] aesthetic, but also I'm like, I don't know.

[00:08:02] This person and I don't know what they're saying. Everybody can say whatever they want. So that's fine. Speaking of cinnamon, I

[00:08:08] Benebell: love the history of cinnamon is so amazing. You see like there's a very universal like what we believe how we interpret What cinnamon can do. So before we even get into the traditional Chinese medicine, what you were saying, the medicinal aspects of it, this idea that awards evil is found in a lot of Western cultures in China, it's found in West Asia, it's found in the Mediterranean, it's found in North Africa and it's found in Christian mysticism.

[00:08:32] It's even found in the Bible. And so because of, because cinnamon is part of the Holy, Holy anointing oil that you see in the old Testament. So it's so fascinating that why do so many cultures? Just like say cinnamon wards evil. It's and cinnamon is part of a lot of different Religions exorcistic rituals as well.

[00:08:53] And it also is in traditional Chinese medicine. It is a healing tonic There's so many really cool things about it. And my favorite that I recently learned [00:09:00] it actually helps with dandruff Oh, so if you put because I have dandruff and I was like, oh my god cinnamon is Awesome. But anyway, if you research the medicinal properties of it and the history of it and how it traveled from east to west along the Silk Road, it's just a really cool.

[00:09:18] I don't know. It was just funny that you mentioned cinnamon is one of those things that brings many different cultures together. It can bring world peace.

[00:09:25] Ashley: Yes! Cinnamon for world peace! Cinnamon for world peace. I love, even like, I love cinnamon. My mom actually, I don't, and again, this is like a random thing, but my mom had this list that somebody had emailed her at some point of things that like cinnamon and honey help, and it's cool.

[00:09:42] And honestly, whenever I'm sick now, I take a spoonful of cinnamon and honey. And if I have a sore throat, it really does help. Like it helps, especially honey, honey is good for. So many things and it's like the only food that never goes bad. I'm pretty sure.

[00:09:57] Benebell: Like archaeologists uncover 3, [00:10:00] 000 year old honey and it's fine.

[00:10:02] It's just like,

[00:10:03] Ashley: just said like, We can eat this. It's fine.

[00:10:08] I love it. Okay, so we're going to go to our dish of the week because we have a lot to talk about today. So because later on in our story time, we're going to talk about Quan Yin. So I figured our quote unquote dish isn't really a dish, but it's a tea. It's Quan Yin's tea. We're going to talk a little bit about her tea.

[00:10:24] So, if you didn't know, she has the tea, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, we'll talk about it later, don't worry. So, Guanyin tea, or tea guanyin, is a Chinese oolong tea that grows in the Fujian, Fijian Providence. I apologize, I'm not going to pronounce everything right, I'm going to do my best.

[00:10:43] Okay,

[00:10:47] okay. I, this.

[00:10:50] Benebell: Pronunciation right there.

[00:10:51] Ashley: Okay. You know what?, I wish I, this is my thing. I have a thing, I wish I knew every language in the world. Number one, I I hate, and I say on this podcast all the time that I'm pronouncing [00:11:00] things wrong. I don't like to pronounce things wrong. I hate it. But there's some languages that the English spelling of it is wrong.

[00:11:07] Because, Yeah, especially, It's like, you're mispronouncing it. Yes, especially like Mandarin is one of them. All the, all the English written things for Mandarin are wrong because you're going to pronounce it automatically wrong. It's not how it's pronounced, and it's not fair to Chinese people because every time you say something, it's wrong.

[00:11:27] And I apologize. Even like, Daoism, right? It's T A O. Most people say Tao. It's not Tao, it's Tao. So it's like, I apologize in advance. No,

[00:11:38] Benebell: it's not apologizing. Another funny thing is, I don't think, I actually get really, upset when people get really judgmental about pronunciation because even within the native culture, there are so many different ethnic groups and different dialects and different vernacular and every vernacular pronounces these words differently.

[00:11:56] So what we consider quote unquote correct pronunciation is actually a [00:12:00] dominant group that has probably subjugated all of the other marginalized groups to say my way of pronunciation is correct. If you don't pronounce it this way, you are incorrect. And so to acknowledge the many different diversities of, vernaculars, I just think that we should be more open minded about pronunciation.

[00:12:18] And then if you're from a, you're not even from the culture, why are you want to do? Judging how other people pronounce words. I don't know. That's just my thing. I'll get off this notebook now, but I don't think people should be judgmental about pronunciation. If you try with good faith, that's all. That's all

[00:12:33] Ashley: that matters.

[00:12:33] Thank you. Oh, you made me feel better. Oh. Oh, God. So, this tea, it has a very complex process of making it, and it's actually a secret. Like, only the people who make it... know how to make it because it's like very special and it's actually known as one of the most expensive teas that you can buy. It's very, very expensive.

[00:12:56] And the cool thing about the tea is there's two stories that come with it. [00:13:00] I'll tell the first story is short because and the second story is cuter. So we'll tell the short story first. So the first story is a story of Wang. So Wang was a scholar and he accidentally discovered the tea beneath Kuan Yin rock in Xi Ping.

[00:13:16] He brought the plant home for cultivation and then he went to go visit the emperor and this is in the emperor's sixth year of his reign and he offered the tea as a gift from his village to the emperor and the emperor was super impressed. So he was like, where did you get this? And he said, well, I discovered it between a beneath a Guanyin rock.

[00:13:34] So he was like, okay, we're going to call it Guanyin tea. That's the short story, but that's not as cute as the second one. Okay, so now we're gonna tell Wei's story because Wei's story is cuter Okay, so there was this guy named Wei and he was a poor farmer. He lived in the village but he was just like a really really good dude So every day he would walk by this temple and it was like dilapidated and old and obviously People hadn't been going there in a really really long [00:14:00] time and it made him so sad Huan Yin And he was like, Oh God, I wish I could like clean up this temple.

[00:14:07] This is so sad. So... After a while he kept walking by, kept walking by, and he's like, you know what, let me take a broom to this place. So he, he had a broom. So he got a broom and he had some incense and he's like, I'm gonna go in there. He cleaned it up best he could and he had some incense and he put it in there and like twice a month he would go there, he'd clean up,

[00:14:27] He'd offer his incense to Quan Yin Because that's all he had but he was doing like the best he could here. It was really great So one night after a couple months He had a dream and Quan Yin came to him in the dream and she's like listen Wei, you're doing a great job There's a temple.

[00:14:43] There's a cave under the temple and you're gonna find a treasure there And he's like, okay, so he woke up the next day on his way to work. He's like, let me go find this cave He goes and finds this little opening and what does he find there? He finds a little tea shoot basically like a little baby tea plant in the [00:15:00] cave So he's like, okay, this must be what she's talking about.

[00:15:03] So he takes out the tea plant He puts it in his farm and it starts to grow so he starts making more of these tea plants Then, he got, you know, the other villagers came and they started to cultivate the tea, they started to make it into tea leaves. And, everybody loved this tea. So, it's going far and wide, all over.

[00:15:24] So, he started to make a lot of money, started making a lot of money for the people in the village, and everybody started to prosper. So then, after that, he had enough money to redo the temple, to make it really, really nice. He repaired it. He started going there every day and thanking Kuan Yin, and named the tea Kuan Yin Tea, because she was the one who gave it to him.

[00:15:44] And after that, he always had appreciation for going to work. He was never sad. That's part of the story. It was like, he never was sad about going to work again, because he's like, wow, I've been blessed by this beautiful plant. So, that's the story of Wei, and Wei sounds like an awesome person, so we love him.

[00:15:59] Benebell: [00:16:00] The second story is the one that I grew up with and know, so Fuji, a lot of if you know Taiwanese history mm-hmm. at some point, a lot of people from the Fuji Province, which is where the Tia t is from, they immigrated or migrated over to Taiwan, which is where I'm from. Mm. And so I have Fujii ancestry in me and one of the things that we grew in Taiwan, my family grew was Tia or the iron Tea.

[00:16:22] Mm-hmm. . And so felt was really funny that you brought it up. And then

[00:16:25] Ashley: I'm on the podcast, so yes.

[00:16:26] Benebell: We use the Gros Tian Guan Yin or Iron Quan Yin tea. Okay,

[00:16:30] Ashley: yes. It's very, it's, I've had it, it's very good. So, everybody, I recommend it. It's a very nice tea. Okay. So, at this point, I'm going to do my plug and then we'll move on.

[00:16:42] So, if you enjoy this show, subscribe wherever you listen, Apple Pod, Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify we're Diamond and Divine on all those channels. And if you listen on Apple or Spotify, if you don't mind giving us a review, I would always appreciate it and if you want to follow me on socials you can follow [00:17:00] me on Instagram, Facebook at Dine with the Divine, Instagram, Dine with the Divine, and TikTok at Dine with the Divine.

[00:17:05] I put little clips of the show on there. And if you have any questions or suggestions for episodes, please feel free to email me at dinewiththedivinepod at gmail. com. Okay. Yay. So now we have our little tea time where we talk about something educational. Now disclaimer. I had a very hard time, for some reason, conceptualizing everything about the I Ching.

[00:17:29] I was like, we're gonna talk about I Ching because this is what your book is coming out about. And I would , read, and I swear, I don't know why. It was just hard to, understand. There's so much that goes into this. Maybe, probably, for you, it's way easier because you wrote a whole book on it.

[00:17:45] But for me, I was like, I don't, even just the history, I was like, this is very confusing to me.

[00:17:50] Benebell: Oh, I'm so glad to be here. How can I help? Be of

[00:17:54] Ashley: service, actually. Okay, another disclaimer. I really [00:18:00] enjoy reading about Chinese history. But there's so many dynasties and there's, and I'm terrible at dates.

[00:18:05] So that is, throws me off. Every time they're like, it's this dynasty, it's this dynasty, and this is the date. I'm like, I can't remember which one came first.

[00:18:12] Benebell: No Chinese person can either. I think there's like the 1% of the smart Chinese that know anything about the dynasty. You have to memorize it in school.

[00:18:20] But like, how many Americans? actually know American history and it's only like what a couple hundred years. Exactly. So we don't know either. You're like in great company. You're in the company of billions of people and it's their own

[00:18:32] Ashley: history. So chill. You're fine. No, I'm like 5, 000 years, 5, 000 plus years of history.

[00:18:39] It's quite difficult to follow,

[00:18:40] but like, we'll go over the basics to start. So what is the I Ching? So what is it? You've probably seen it before. So the I Ching is usually translated as a book of changes or the classic of changes, and it's an ancient Chinese divination text that's among one of the Chinese classics. So there's five Chinese classics.

[00:18:59] Don't ask me what the other [00:19:00] four of them. Benabel probably knows not me. So Not off the top of my

[00:19:03] Benebell: head, like bookish songs, blah blah blah,

[00:19:06] Ashley: something like that.

[00:19:06] Benebell: I was forced to memorize it at some point when I was like 12, but it's, those days are gone.

[00:19:12] Ashley: There's nothing in my brain anymore.

[00:19:15] Do

[00:19:15] Benebell: you realize you get dumber? Like you, you actually get dumber as you go. Like when I was smarter at 15, I knew more at 15. Now I just, I

[00:19:23] Ashley: know nothing. I think it's like, my theory is like, you have so much to know, like including all the basic stuff of your life, like that you have to do every day. And then it's like for me to remember.

[00:19:36] Stuff that I learned when I was in high school. It's like, if it's not that important or I didn't find it super interesting. No, it's originally a Okay, so here's the thing about the I Ching.

[00:19:45] I said it's a book and it comes from a book. So it literally was a divination manual. That originates one in one thousand between one thousand and seven fifty [00:20:00] BC during the Western Okay, thank you during the Western Zao period still dynasty, okay, and it was transformed over a course of time with the warring states and the early Imperial periods, which are like 500 to 200 BC, and that's when it turned into a more spiritual cosmos kind of thing.

[00:20:23] And it was written with a series of philosophical, I can't, you know, philosophy stuff, commentaries known as the Ten Wings, which I also tried to understand, and I was like, this is confusing for me, we'll talk about it later. I'm so Oh, so then, as we said before, it became one of the five classics, and that was in the 2nd century BC.

[00:20:44] And the I Ching has been the subject of scholarly commentary and people have been looking into it for a really, really long time. And then people in the West found out about it, so they started looking into it. If you, if you want to know what it looks like, it's a bunch of hexagons, [00:21:00] like, so it's like six lines, each one.

[00:21:02] And the lines are either like full lines or broken lines. And each combination means something different. There's 64 combinations. And there's a book that... originally was written to explain what each one means. There's also, before we talk more about it, there's also a little mythological story that goes with the I Ching.

[00:21:27] Now, there was a cultural hero, and his name is Fu Zai? Oh, Fushi. Fushi. Okay, Fushi. And it says here either he was a dragon or a snake with a human face. And he studied the patterns of the sky and he's found that there was like different markings on birds and rocks and animals and the clouds move differently and the arrangements of the stars were different.

[00:21:52] So he was like, wow, out of this, I could make some of these trigrams. So these were three. Lines. They made eight trigrams, and each [00:22:00] composed of three stacks solid or broken lines, and they represented yin and yang. You guys know that symbol, everyone knows the yin and yang symbol, but like the binary things of the universe.

[00:22:12] And, ahem. Then the trigrams themself represented heaven, a lake, fire, thunder, wind, water, a mountain, and earth. And then from these building blocks, he also added other things, talking about kingship, marriage, writing, navigation, agriculture. And these are things that this mythical, mythological hero was teaching humans all about these concepts, you know, cause he probably knew a lot about them.

[00:22:42] Then the mythology started to turn around when the emperor was like, okay, the emperor in 1046, like, Benobel just said, was like, actually, 1046 BCE. This is a long time ago, guys. A long time ago. As we said, Chinese history is deep. It's [00:23:00] deep, deep, deep. He doubled the trigrams to hexagrams, so now there are six line figures.

[00:23:05] And he had so many different combinations, and they were, there were 64 different combinations. And then he had a book, wait, I forget when they wrote the book, but somebody wrote a book which each one and define each one. And then I read in one of these articles that I linked in the show notes, if you want to go in deep and to read it, I think each, each hexagram has two meanings, I think?

[00:23:33] Benebell: Multiple, well, it has two, it's double trigrams, but it has multiple, yeah, it has sort of the divinatory meaning, but I don't know what two meanings, I'm not sure what. that I may be getting

[00:23:42] Ashley: confused. I'm sorry. You know how like,

[00:23:44] Benebell: you know how like the Tarot, you have a lot of correspondences, the Golden Dawn said, Oh, there's these astrological correspondences, there's Kabbalistic correspondences, and even Crowley was like, there's these I Ching correspondences to the Tarot.

[00:23:55] So I think that might be what you're talking about. So over centuries and centuries, a [00:24:00] lot of different scholars and occultists will be like, Oh, I see X in the I Ching, I see Y in the I Ching, and then all of these really complex correspondence systems were built. So that might be

[00:24:10] Ashley: what you're referring to.

[00:24:11] Probably. That's probably what I mean. So the thing about the I Ching is that it looks... Okay, I want to ask you, Benabel. Is it, is the I Ching, do you believe, good for you know, people argue about, like, tarot, like, Oh, it's not good for fortune telling. You should use this for fortune telling or whatever.

[00:24:30] How do you feel about the I Ching? Is it good for fortune telling? Is it more good for like meaning? Can you dive deeper into it? Or is it like a standard thing? What do you think?

[00:24:42] Benebell: I think the best place to start is what is the I Ching? And so What we believe the 64 hexagrams, because you have yin and yang, are the fundamental binary that the, the binary code that the entire universe is programmed with.

[00:24:56] Mm-hmm. . And then you have the trigrams. And then what we have found out now [00:25:00] is actually this concept of the three built out of the two. That's our d n A as well. You know, the 64 codons, the V P N A, an R n A core that is the foundation of all life is very similar to the idea of two, to three, to eight to 64 that you find in the e chain.

[00:25:15] Yes. And so what we believe is that the eaching itself, the 64 hexagrams, which is are made of all of these lines, this binary code, it's, you know how acupuncture, you have different points and each pulse points triggers something greater. And so this is basically a complete binary code system that represents space time and space time is always a circle, always a cycle.

[00:25:39] And then the unit circle is also the sine and cosine, which you remember from, you know, like algebra back in the day. And so this idea of the ups and down waves of life actually equals a unit circle, which means all of life, all of the universe is always a revolution of circles that can be represented by the I Ching.

[00:25:57] So the I Ching book of map, a book of [00:26:00] changes is actually a revolution, a circle, a unit circle, a mandala. And then the mandala has the four gates. So that's what we believe the I Ching is. Therefore, if you want to understand any aspect of life, therefore philosophy, you can go to the I Ching, this sacred text.

[00:26:16] If you want to do divination, this idea of divination, it's almost, we believe it as a form of science and that it's not that you're so special and magical, you can predict the future. It's that there is like, there's like a logic. A flow like if then statements, life is always different statements. And if you can calculate that series of algorithms of if then statements, then technically, you know, what's coming up ahead.

[00:26:41] And it looks magical, like you can predict the future, it looks like fortune telling, but all it is, is the ability to calculate many steps ahead, just like what mathematics is. And if you look at the way the hexagrams are built, it's very much mathematical. And so we don't have the same idea of, of dividing up intuition and [00:27:00] rational logic, as you see in the West.

[00:27:01] That's not really the way we build philosophy. And so even when, when Western philosophers and psychologists look at, looked at the East, you know, Carl Jung, Carl Jung said, like, we always talk about how he said really wonderful things about the I Ching, but I found one of the quotes that he had. He said, Oh, the Chinese aren't really scientific.

[00:27:21] They mix like that. He couldn't process how we conflated science and intuition and how they're like the way we, like even the fundamental idea of how you approach science versus intuition, logic versus intuition is very different on that fundamental level between Eastern and Western philosophy.

[00:27:40] But back to what the I Ching is, because it is that circle, it's basically something that is a universal truth. You can go at it for any reason. So if you want to use it for fortune telling based on what I just said, of course you can. If you want to use it to understand your own life or to understand society or to understand governments or to understand politics, then you can [00:28:00] also use it for that as well.

[00:28:01] So that's the reason many different people look at the I Ching and think many different things because it is technically all of the above.

[00:28:09] Ashley: Wow. Okay. That was a lot. I love it because what you just said is so important to it's so hard. Like, obviously, like, we live in the United States. I grew up in the United States and I see, I feel like my magical divination, spiritual learning sometimes happens.

[00:28:31] This is why it's good to learn about other cultures because sometimes you look at everything so so one way But that makes so much sense. You're saying that the Chinese were like no. No, this is all part of life So this all kind of goes runs together, but people other people may be like no. No, you can't Carl Jung saying, well, they're not scientific, but no, they're saying that this is how they've looked at it.

[00:28:52] They've looked at it saying everything is one thing, and that makes sense. And it you know, you always see that, like, kind of joke on the, on the socials [00:29:00] that it's like, Oh, witchcraft is spicy psychology, which is honestly a little bit, because sometimes when I do a tarot card reading for somebody or I'm doing like a, any other type of spiritual service for somebody and they're telling me about their issue.

[00:29:16] Sometimes, it literally is just an outside person. I'm not a therapist. But sometimes it just takes an outside person for them to be like, to be like, No, no, no, but this is what you're telling me. You're saying that your boyfriend's cheated on you 17 times and you don't know if he's gonna cheat on you again should you go back.

[00:29:32] Well, here's the thing. If you go back, you have a chance of being hurt again because he might cheat on you again. And chances are if he's done it 17 times, probably gonna be the 18th. But, like, that's completely up to you. It's okay. You do whatever you want. But this tarot card reading is literally, and like I always tell people about tarot, like it's the highest probability of what's probably going to happen.

[00:29:52] It's not for sure. You can dye your hair blonde tomorrow and your whole life may change. I don't know, but it's true. It [00:30:00] all runs together. People make decisions, people do things, and then we're just telling them like, Hey, this is probably what's going to happen to you going down the line. And you're tapping into your own tuition, but you're also tapping into...

[00:30:12] The logic of the universe ? It's not Yeah. If this guy's cheated on you 17 times, probably gonna cheat on you again. This is how that works, unfortunately. So, yeah, that makes so much sense. And, I think now it's Maybe, I don't know. But now, maybe it's a little different that we can look at other cultures and the way that they look at things and start to not look at it so black and white.

[00:30:34] And that's why, like, things I'm learning, I learned this today. I find that fascinating. I also find it fascinating that they have these lines that all work into like, one flow of the universe. That's so cool!

[00:30:47] Benebell: But isn't that, what did you think about it? Isn't that the internet? If you think about everything we know about computer programming and this whole virtual reality that has become so many of our actual reality.

[00:30:59] [00:31:00] Like the idea that whole virtual programming, it is all zeros and ones, everything you see when you open up a website and you see this world on your computer screen at the end. What is that? That's just zeros and ones.

[00:31:12] Ashley: Wow. This is crazy. My mind is being blown. This is so cool.

[00:31:17] Benebell: Even letters, I think, is it letters or like, oh, HTML, colors, it's like six bit strings of binary codes.

[00:31:23] It's, so everything is. Here's this, even the six bit string is something that's a fundamental concept. I don't know anything about computer programming, so I'm beaming, but I do remember the six bit string being important in computer programming. Cause I remember reading this, the scholarship of those who are computer engineers that are interested in the I Ching and anyone who's into the, into computer science and then they learn about the I Ching, they just go nuts about the I Ching because there's so much crossover.

[00:31:49] Ashley: That's so cool. Oh my gosh. My mind is being blown. That like, our ancestors were so smart. People be like, oh they died early cuz they didn't wash their hands. Yeah, but they knew a lot of other [00:32:00] stuff like Just because they didn't know germ theory. First of all, a lot of them did. Like, okay, I'm gonna go on my quick rant about germs.

[00:32:08] Number one. Yes, do it. A lot of cultures did know a lot about germs. Like, a lot of, a lot of cultures were very clean. They only ate in certain areas. They only pooped in certain areas. They, they knew what was going on. So people see a lot of stuff like, oh, no, no, no, back then they weren't clean. They were all full of diseases.

[00:32:26] They weren't really. And it depends where you were in the world. I'm not gonna say I'm not going to shit on one part of the world versus the other, but there's a lot of parts of the world that you look at, that since the beginning, they were like, oh no, this is how we eat, we don't eat, and a lot of the rules around eating, and even like, a lot of the time in certain Arab countries especially, you only shake with one hand, and that's because you would wipe yourself with the other, so they had figured out, maybe we shouldn't do that.

[00:32:56] Shake hands with the hands that we're wiping ourselves with. Smart. [00:33:00] And that happened a long time ago. So our ancestors knew a lot of things, not just magical, mystical things. They figured it out after so many people died. 5, 000 years ago of this. They're like, hmm, maybe we shouldn't eat that berry. Like, maybe we should, maybe we should wash our stuff with water.

[00:33:18] Maybe we should do this and that. Like, they figured it out before we think they did.

[00:33:24] Benebell: Even the idea of demons and being possessed with demons, if you look at what herbs and what oils are used in exorcisms, The oil properties, those herbs, the fundamental properties are all antibacterial and antimicrobial.

[00:33:39] Every single one in every single culture. It's go, I challenge someone to find one that isn't every single culture who has, Oh, this herb is used to exorcise demons. If you look at it, it's antimicrobial. Exactly.

[00:33:53] Ashley: Exactly. And even a lot of magical, mystical practices. A lot [00:34:00] of, first of all, those doctors and shaman and things like that, they were also the first therapists.

[00:34:07] A lot of people were going to them to talk about their problems. A lot of people, oh, so and so, this dude drinks too much, so take him to the shaman, he has a demon. But the shaman was just talking to this dude about his life, and sometimes the dude was sad. So we talked to him about his sadness, and maybe he helped the guy not drink so much.

[00:34:25] Maybe he told the community there is a... Martín Proctel, he is a shaman from, I believe, Guatemala. He talks about, he tells a story about what they would do in that, in the village that he worked in when somebody was seen as having a drinking problem. But they didn't call it like a drinking problem, he said.

[00:34:47] We said that this person had like a perpetual sadness problem. And we all need to rally around this person. and talk to them and figure out why they're sad. And that was literally the rea Like, that's psychology, basically. Except he's not a [00:35:00] licensed therapist. But that's what he was doing. He's saying we all have to rally around this person and see why they're so sad.

[00:35:05] See what's wrong. And once you would see what's wrong with the person and you nurture He's like, we don't put them away. We don't take them to a rehab. We all rally around them to try to figure out how we can help them, how we can nurture them, how we can spend time with this person. Obviously, I know that wouldn't work for everybody.

[00:35:21] I'm just making an example that this is something that people have been doing for thousands of years realizing like, oh, there are certain things that Obviously, sometimes it's a chemical imbalance, I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about, the emotional part of it. Sometimes there are things that we can help or solve, even in some cases, with community.

[00:35:40] So that's what the shaman or the priest or the holy person in the community did. They were just the therapist for everybody. Okay, just wanted to put that out there.

[00:35:49] Benebell: One aspect to that though, one thing I do know, a shamanistic practice in southern Taiwan, so I just want to be specific so that it's rooted in a particular practice that I am personally aware of.[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] So this is even in the Qing dynasty, as late as the late 1800s, early 1900s. So if somebody had an alcohol problem, someone who was an alcoholic, the belief was there was a negative or a malefic demonic attachment to them. And one of the ways that they, the shaman would say to get rid of the shaman, the attachment, malefic attachment is certain people in the community.

[00:36:22] And usually, they were , the better by like they were socially more virtuous type people, you need to surround them with certain types of people because the demon was scared of those types of people. And so if you surrounded them constantly with certain types of people, the demon would not be would be too afraid to stay and would leave them.

[00:36:39] And so if you process the vocabulary that's being used. You know what I'm saying? It's this idea of having, like, exactly, it parallels exactly what you were just saying from a different part of the world. The idea of the community and maybe they don't feel attached to certain, like celebrated members of community.

[00:36:58] And so if they feel that they [00:37:00] socially belong to certain celebrated members of the community, that disincentivizes the alcoholism. Yeah. Now, even the idea of chemical imbalance. If you think about the idea of, oh, there's a demon attached to you, or it's not them who, this is not really them, it's a demon that's possessing how they are behaving.

[00:37:17] That's chemical imbalance in neurotransmitters

[00:37:20] Ashley: 101. There you go. That's it. And it's the same thing as how you're, Your parent may have told you, Oh, I don't like you hanging out with that person. They hang out with the wrong crowd. That's literally exactly what you just said. It's hilarious, right? You know,

[00:37:34] Benebell: that's like literally what they found in just then.

[00:37:36] What your parents

[00:37:36] Ashley: were telling you all along. It's hilarious. I don't like that girl. She's rough. Yeah, exactly. You need to be about brown people who do better things. You need to hang out with your friends who study. I know everybody has heard that before. Oh, I like her. She always gets good grades.

[00:37:49] You should be better friends with her. Exactly. That's what that's what your Taiwanese shaman was trying to tell you

[00:37:55] Yeah, so, let's see what else we're gonna say about the I Ching I'm [00:38:00] sorry, It says I Ching. Again, it's Yi Ching. Yi Ching.

[00:38:06] Benebell: If I'm speaking English, I say yin, I say yang. But in Chinese, it's yin yang. Oh, I didn't know that. But I'm not gonna like switch to Mandarin every time. I'm not gonna be like, Oh, and so this is yin yang philosophy. Like, that's just right? And so I'll just be like, Oh, it's yin and yang philosophy.

[00:38:21] We're speaking a different language now, just, I don't know, it's just my, my thoughts. Yeah, I

[00:38:25] Ashley: totally love it. Okay, and then, okay, the ten wings, so the ten wings are a text, okay, all right, okay, yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna let you take the reins, if you can tell me what this is.

[00:38:43] Benebell: So this is legend because we're going back to 1046 BC, King Wen was imprisoned by the, there was a dominant dynasty and his, his clan wanted to overthrow that dynasty, believing that that dynasty was doing bad by the people.

[00:38:58] And then that dynasty's [00:39:00] emperor imprisoned King Wen because he was considered a rebel and he was threatening his reign. So while in prison, you know how prison has those straws, so Yarrowstock, this is why we have the concept of Yarrowstock divination. So he used the straws, and then he used his understanding of the eight trigrams, which came from Fuxi, and so that was already baked into the understanding of culture and mysticism.

[00:39:20] So he used the eight trigrams, and then he stacked them, and then just math, if you stack the eight, the permutations of eight creates sixty four, hexagrams. And then he used that to, and then he named every one of those 64 hexagrams, and he believed that he could use it to divine that there would be the fall of the Shang dynasty and the rise of the Zhou dynasty.

[00:39:40] And so the origins of the I Ching actually is the first idea, first principle of the mandate of heaven, where heaven will dictate who, you know, who has the right to rule. And so the man of heaven was born out of the I Ching, or that story of the I Ching, and this battle of Muya, this battle that happened during this period of time.

[00:39:59] [00:40:00] So all of it is connected. And then so he created the 64 hexagrams, and then he named the 64. And then he used that to divine the fall of one dynasty and the rise of another. And so actually, divination is the origins of the I Ching, not necessarily philosophy, unless you call that political philosophy.

[00:40:16] Is it political philosophy, or is it divination, or is it both? And then later, his son, the Duke of Zhou, so King Wen's son, then decided to go, and you know how if you have 60 what was it, 384 lines of code, because if you do 64 times 6. So for every single line, the Duke of Zou then wrote like a little verse, like a prophetic oracle verse for each and every single one of those lines.

[00:40:39] And then that itself became the Zouyi, the Book of Changes. Later on, I think about 500 years later, we say Confucius did it, but probably Confucian scholars and not Confucius himself, who knows. But allegedly, Confucius then writes the Ten Wings, and the Ten Wings explains these really [00:41:00] cryptic, difficult to understand verses, because nobody could understand these verses.

[00:41:04] So the Ten Wings explains the verses, and because the verses themselves are so hard to understand, how do you divine with something you don't understand? Therefore, a lot of people rely heavily on the Ten Wings to interpret what these 64 hexagrams mean. So today our understanding of these 64 hexagrams, what does this, you know, completely objective six, you know, six patterns of lines mean?

[00:41:27] Well, we use the 10 wings to help us understand the interpretation. So that's and then now the 10 wings plus that original Zoe together is what we call the book of changes.

[00:41:35] Ashley: Okay, yay! Now we know, because I was like, I'm, all these books, I was like, I'm getting confused. What does this one mean now? I was like, so yay, now we understand.

[00:41:47] Okay, so it was cryptic texts that were then written out. Confucius was busy, he did a lot.

[00:41:55] Benebell: I think either Confucius was busy or he had a lot of followers. One or the other. [00:42:00]

[00:42:00] Ashley: You decide. Confucius was like the, like, Deepak Chopra of his time. he was spitting out books, he was spitting out rules, he was spitting out all sorts of stuff, and everybody's like, this is a good idea, this guy, he's got it.

[00:42:13] He was busy. It was

[00:42:15] Benebell: hilarious and like you think he was fatherless and so like he grew up with I think his mom was widowed or something And so, you know, if you think about that time and place the society that you were in to grow up in a single family home That must do something to your psyche. What do you do you overcompensate and I think it's hilarious like you can like armchair diagnosed everybody in history

[00:42:36] Ashley: Like, you could, you create a whole philosophical system because you're like, man, it really sucked having to grow up with a single parent.

[00:42:44] I mean, it makes sense. Confucius, we, we like you. You, you had some good ideas. We had to overcompensate. Exactly. It's fine. We, we love you. You're doing great. . , the e chicken. If you wanna know more better Be's book's coming out, please read it because that way you'll know [00:43:00] better than my explanation.

[00:43:01] And obviously she's very knowledgeable 'cause she wrote a whole book about it. So she can explain everything you need to know. Your explanation was, oh, . Thank you.

[00:43:14] Now we're going to get to our story time, and our story time today we're going to talk about, we haven't been a minute since we've done like a deity story time, so I'm happy. So we're going to do Quan Yin today. Yay! Now, you've seen Quan Yin before. You ever seen that statue, and she's got long robes, and it looks like She has, it looks like a box shaped hat

[00:43:38] you've seen it, I promise. I'm gonna put a picture on the blog. You'll be like, yes, I've seen this statue before. That's Quan Yin. She is, okay, so to start with Quan Yin, we have to get down some definitions, okay? Let's start at the beginning. Quan Yin is considered a bodhisattva. So what's a bodhisattva?

[00:43:55] You're like, I don't know what that is. No problem, I'm gonna tell you. So a bodhisattva is a lover [00:44:00] of enlightenment. And is literally an enlightenment hero or heroine. They have usually reached a level of spiritual enlightenment permitting them to break cycles of incarnation But then resolves to transform the entire universe Into a realm of abundance, peace, happiness for all and because they're pure of soul and they have goodness and love They postpone their own salvation so that they can help other people.

[00:44:26] So, okay, we start with Buddha everybody remember Buddha? Yeah He's that guy and he was sitting under trees and he was thinking all the time and That's Buddha. He got to a place And one day we're going to have a whole episode about Buddha because it's very interesting.

[00:44:40] He got to a place in his life where he reached ultimate happiness. And he was like, I'm good right here. This is what we call nirvana. He was in a place that he didn't suffer. He wasn't desiring anything. He didn't need anything. He was, what he said, broken away from like the cycle of karma, which would bring him back.

[00:44:59] So [00:45:00] instead of reincarnating again, The whole point of reincarnating is like you haven't learned your lesson, basically. That's the theory. You reincarnate again and again and again so you can figure out what you need to learn about life and get to this nirvana point.

[00:45:12] That's this is like a buddhist. thing. I'm not explaining it the way Buddhists would. This is the lay

[00:45:21] person, non Buddhist explanation. But once you get to that point where you're good and you're like, Oh, I get it now. And I'm, I don't want for anything. I'm happy. I'm content. I'm good. Then you don't have to reincarnate. You just die and it's fine. Your soul goes. Wherever it goes. So Bodhi SFAs, like I said, they get to Nirvana, but then they're like, you know what, we're gonna stay on earth because we wanna help other people get to Nirvana.

[00:45:42] Very, very noble thing to do. So one of the first Bodhi SFAs that we know of is Ava Loki. Is Star Aki? Yes. That's the one. . , yes. He's one of the first ones. He's the [00:46:00] Bodhi Safa of compassion and his. name literally means the one who responds to the cries of the world. Also, he's also called the lord of six syllables because there's literally a six syllable.

[00:46:14] I'll put it in the show notes. Perfect. Thank you. Cause I was like, damn, I didn't write my notes. Yes. You say that and it brings him forth to help you with protection. And he helps, you know, Calm you and comfort you. He's really really cool So he was one of the first ones in this book called the Lotus Sutra Which is one of the first Buddhist texts now.

[00:46:36] It's also one of the first Buddhist texts that was then translated into Mandarin I'm assuming it's Mandarin I think when it just says Chinese because I know there's like more but I'm assuming it's Mandarin that was Translated into so after it was translated the translation of his name was Quan Yin But it and everyone ended up shortening it to Quan Yin and at first when [00:47:00] he was depicted in Chinese Buddhism he was depicted as androgynous or just like a very like feminine man.

[00:47:08] , but at some point, in the 10th century things started to change and his image started to be one of a woman. And that's what they would call then Kuan Yin. And that's for a couple reasons one of the reasons they say is because of the Silk Road, there's a lot of tales coming from.

[00:47:29] the West of Mother Mary of Christ and Mary Magdalene, Isis, a lot of these very motherly goddesses. And then also there is a Daoist goddess named Miao Shan and she also has very similar attributes to Quan Yin. So that's some of the reason people think that Quan Yin ended up changing from this very graceful, beautiful man to a female [00:48:00] character.

[00:48:02] Some things you need to know about Quan Yin. First of all, she's super, super cool. She's, she's venerated as an Eastern Asian folk goddess, and she transcends religious and cultural boundaries. Kuan Yin is in a lot of different, a lot of different countries and cultures around Asia. It's not just a Chinese deity, and also, it goes along more with I noticed that she transcends religious, which she does, but also, it does go along with Buddhism and we talked about this in a previous episode a little bit.

[00:48:35] The cool thing about Buddhism is that Buddhism traveled from India where it started where it wasn't really like picking up the pace of popularity because they were like we already have a major religion here. We don't need another one and it went to the east and then every country and culture and region ended up putting it in their own like folk religion.

[00:48:55] So they have different deities that go in their Buddhism and Buddha [00:49:00] was cool because he's like Buddhism is like glasses, but the kind of glasses that you can snap on those other frames because it's like Like he's like, I don't know if there's a God maybe maybe not you guys decide. I don't really care about that I care about everybody getting to a place of peace So everyone's like, cool, we're going to add our own folk religion into Buddhism.

[00:49:22] So Tibetan Buddhism is different from Chinese Buddhism, which is different from Japanese Buddhism, which is different from Buddhism in like Southeast Asia and like the island countries, like in like Malaysia, it's different everywhere. But in China, China is where the Kuan Yin character started, but then she migrated around.

[00:49:43] Because there are different goddesses in those other regions. Let's say Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam. There are different goddesses there that they were like, Wow, she's like this goddess. Okay, we're gonna take her on. Like, she just became popular for everybody. Plus, [00:50:00] her image of being this very, beautiful goddess that's just floating around and is literally purely just mercy and compassion.

[00:50:11] is something that obviously attracts people. She's not, judging you, she's not doing all this, she's just like, no, I'm just here to, try to make people happy and, make you feel good and forgiveness, everyone can use that. She's recently become the goddess of air travel. I read that.

[00:50:29] I was like, interesting. Maybe because she's always floating. I always see her floating. I don't

[00:50:34] Benebell: know. Well, she's related to air and water. That might be. You know how the one who perceives sound, sound waves travel through air and water. That's true. And so she's often

[00:50:42] Ashley: associated with air and water. Makes sense.

[00:50:44] Okay, that's a much better reason than I thought. I was like, well, she's floating. No, that makes total sense. I think that makes sense too. Yeah. It's a little more literal. Yeah, she's really good with protecting women, children, animals. [00:51:00] She blesses people with health and fertility. She protects in all realms, so in the realm of the living and in the realm of the dead.

[00:51:09] She's also a goddess, like we were talking about I Cheng, she's also a goddess of divination. So she's big there. So in some stories, she's said to have a thousand eyes and a thousand arms. And that's so she can comfort more people and see where people need help. That's how sweet she is. She's like, I need to see everybody.

[00:51:30] She's doing great. She has shrines on all of China's nine sacred mountains. So there's four Buddhist sacred mountains and five Daoist sacred mountains. And she has a primary shrine on Putoushan, which is a mountainous island, which is Entirely dedicated just to her.

[00:51:50] It had hundreds of thousands, actually, of monks and devotees lived on this island and they were dedicated to Kuan Yin. It was sacked [00:52:00] during the Cultural Revolution, but since then, they've reopened some, they've rebuilt some places. Her sacred days are on the 1st and 15th of every month and the 19th day Okay, so there here we go.

[00:52:14] The 19th day of the 2nd Chinese month is Quan Yin's birthday the 19th day of the 6th Chinese month commemorates when Quan Yin became a Buddha and in the 19th day of the 9th month is when she wore her sacred pearls. Cool, she has sacred pearls, just so you guys know. And she is a vegetarian, so most of her devotees don't eat meat.

[00:52:42] And, well, they don't offer her meat, obviously. And some of her devotees don't eat meat. And that makes sense, because there's a lot of areas of China where people are purely vegetarian, and a lot of Buddhists. are vegetarians. So, makes sense. Yeah, so that's Quan Yin. What I've got on her. That was [00:53:00] fantastic.

[00:53:00] Benebell: Yeah,

[00:53:02] Ashley: she's, I've in my kind of, in my practice, I've gotten to work with Quan Yin a little bit. And she's very, like, literally the way that you read about her, all this grace and beauty. And not just beauty, because she's pretty, but beauty from like, you can feel the radiation of her like, love towards everyone.

[00:53:26] What I think about it is, you never read anywhere that she's like a judgmental goddess, and she's telling people, Don't do this, ugh. Everything she does, everything she stands for, is helping people get to that place, because she's a Bodhisattva, so that's her whole job. And... All her flowing robes and being beautiful is just a plus for her.

[00:53:48] Like, she's like, I'm really pretty and I wear really nice clothes, but I'm also just like a wonderful goddess. So that's my experience with Quan Yin. Do you That's one of

[00:53:59] Benebell: the things I [00:54:00] think I love about her story or her mythology is that baked into it is this idea of non judgmental ness. When It's born during a culture and society that was heavily judgmental, heavily classist, heavily about hierarchy.

[00:54:14] And so if you understand that context, like how radical the idea was, was pretty insane. But, you can be, even your karma, you can be a, you can be a murderer, you can be a prisoner. And I will. Will come to you. You can have done anything. I don't care what you've done in your past. I don't care what type of personality you have, I don't care what your social class is.

[00:54:34] I don't care what your gender is. I will come to you if you need help, as long as you need help. That's the only condition is that you need help. Mm-hmm. . So I think it's really radical. Even today, if you think about it, there's this idea, oh, well, you have to do this and you have to make sure you do this right offering and this ritual.

[00:54:49] And for this particular god or goddess to come or, or you have to be a certain way that you can have, you know, there are certain parameters to being a priest or priestess of particular gods and goddesses, but that's not [00:55:00] part of Quan Yin's lore. Quan Yin's lore is anybody can be a priest or priestess of hers.

[00:55:06] Ashley: Yes, yes, that's like, it's so neat. And then when I was reading about all these about the island that she like, it was literally just people again, it wasn't a big thing where these people had to go through 17 different types of initiations, I mean. If they didn't want to, if they were Taoist or Buddhist and they wanted to do that, that's fine, but people would just go there to just be like, Nah, I'm just here to talk about how great Kuan Yin is and give her offerings.

[00:55:34] And people are like, okay, cool. So I just like, like that about said, that's literally who she is. She's like, Oh, you need help. You, you want to offer me something great. I'm here. I'll be there in a minute. Just, you know, call me, beat me. If you want to reach me, that's Quan Yin. She's great. And we love Quan Yin.

[00:55:55] Again, I'm going to put pictures and show notes. You're going to see the picture and be like, yes, I've seen her. You might [00:56:00] say I've never seen her. Yes, you have. I promise you have everyone's seen this statue. I can see it right now in my head. People have it in their gardens. People have it. You've seen it before.

[00:56:09] It's everywhere. Also I live like in an area next to a big Chinese population. Maybe that's why I've, maybe that's, maybe that's why I'm like, I've seen it before because I, where I live, I don't know. Like, so it doesn't matter. You've seen it and you'll see it again. Yay. So we talked about Kuan Yin.

[00:56:26] Yay. We talked about the I Ching and this brings us to the end of our show. Benabel, thank you so, so much for being here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, and so, do you want to tell people where you want to be found on the internet and anything else you have coming up?

[00:56:44] Benebell: Well, I'm on Instagram the most, although nothing there is educational or of substance.

[00:56:49] If you want to know what I had for lunch, you know, that's where you go. It's really not that eventful, but that is where I am

[00:56:56] Ashley: the most. I enjoy seeing all the different things you cook. Because I'm like, mm, [00:57:00] every time you cook something, I'm like, mm, that looks good.

[00:57:07] Yes.

[00:57:09] Benebell: Thank you. And YouTube. YouTube is a little bit, slightly more educational and more substantive because you have to, it's a long form. So I'll try to do more substantive content on my YouTube channel. So those are the two places you can find me or my website, benbellwen. com. Yeah,

[00:57:23] Ashley: okay, yeah. And like I said in the beginning, Ben and Belle Wen has a bunch of, well she has the holistic tarot.

[00:57:29] If you need, if you're like, I want an encyclopedia about tarot, buy it because that's honestly what it is. It's amazing. She has the spirit key, roostero that she's coming out with. It didn't come, it didn't come out yet though, right? Honodo

[00:57:42] Benebell: is currently out, so if you want to buy, right now it's the 3rd, I'm already on to the 3rd edition, it's the Revelation Cold Colored Edition, the 2nd printing of that, so we currently have a bunch of inventory, so if you'd like to buy a tarot deck, that's one place to go, a website.

[00:57:56] And did you, and

[00:57:57] Ashley: you did all the illustrations, right? [00:58:00]

[00:58:00] Benebell: Yes, I hand drew it, but it began as black and white pen and ink line drawings, so I hand drew it, and that was the 1st edition, it was just a literal sketch. scan of the original black and white hand drawings. And then during the quarantine, I decided, you know, everybody shut down.

[00:58:14] No one had work. No one had anything. And so I was like, Oh, let me just teach myself graphic design and and, and digital painting. So then I was able to transform it into full color by using digital painting techniques. So that's why the current edition is in full color, but yeah, it's a hundred percent done by me.

[00:58:29] It's, it's all me.

[00:58:30] Ashley: If you've never seen Venabel's illustrations, please go look because they're so detailed. They're so good. It's actually ridiculous. Every time I see them, I'm like, damn! Like, it's really, really, really good. Her illustrations are fantastic. And the fact, I don't know, I'm not, I'm not going to go too crazy, but it's just so good.

[00:58:53] So detailed. That's what I love it. You have like one card where it's a woman standing in front of like a long corridor [00:59:00] And you can see all the edges of the corridor and like the columns i'm like, this is nuts But it's so so good. So yeah, that's that's better. Well, that's what she's got going on. And again, thank you so much for being here and spending time Everybody.

[00:59:16] Thank you guys too for spending time with us this week again, we're dying with the define you can follow us on whatever app you're listening whether it's apple google spotify blah blah blah blah Whatever there's tons of them overcast I think and all the others And if you want to give us a rating Like I said, I really appreciate it on apple or spotify or you can go on the website and do it Which I super appreciate You can follow me on the socials, Dine with the Divine, Instagram, Dine with the Divine on Facebook and TikTok.

[00:59:44] And if you want to follow me, Ashley, I'm SankofaHS. That's S A N K O F A H S on Instagram and I'm Sankofa Healing Sanctuary on Facebook. Thank you so much for being here and I hope you all have a wonderful week and I'll see you [01:00:00] next week. Bye!

[01:00:02] Benebell: Bye! Thank you!