A Message For Our Time With Keziah Gibbons

So hi,

I'm Tom Evans and welcome to another Zone show.

It gives me great pleasure always to speak to a fellow Insight Time and Meditation guide.

Welcome Keziah Evans,

How are you?

Thank you Tom,

I'm well thank you,

How are you?

Very good and we don't normally timestamp these podcasts because you know people can listen to them sort of two,

Three,

Five years from now but we're you're in in lockdown in in in the Algarve in Portugal and I'm in lockdown in Wiltshire in the UK.

We wish everybody is safe and well out there but we're not going to talk about that we're going to talk about other stuff.

So I've just been listening to your Tarot course on Insight Time and I've been studying the Tarot for years and years and years and years with the builders of the Adityam,

The esoteric Tarot and I learnt loads of stuff from that course.

I know that we're we're kind of in the same sort of space but I'm just intrigued I was intrigued to know how you got there,

How did you end up you know from when you were this child that didn't know any of this stuff unless you got it imprinted when you came in.

What was your journey to learning all this stuff and then to becoming an Insight Time and Meditation guide?

Right well it was a kind of a long way round journey if you like you know I didn't sort of start meditating as a child and carry on.

So I was always very interested in magic,

The magical,

Other worlds or the realities that that sort of live within and alongside ours.

But actually when I was a teenager and in my early 20s I sort of went off and I shall we say spent quite a lot of time misspending my youth rather rather seriously.

So I came back to this stuff I'd done a Reiki one when I was about 20 and I came back to this stuff after being ill in 2012 I had hepatitis C and I had a course of experimental chemotherapy which worked but it was six months of very very difficult side effects and during that time because I had done Reiki one years earlier I knew that what I needed to do was to come back and have Reiki treatments.

So I had weekly Reiki treatments while I was on that chemotherapy and what that did for me was to allow me to tolerate the chemotherapy for long enough for it to work.

And so when the chemotherapy finished I knew that something had to change and my my sort of philosophy or understanding is that life will slap you in the face until you wake up and if you don't wake up it will keep slapping you in the face.

So this chemotherapy had been that slap in the face to wake me up and so when I finished that I went on to go back and do my Reiki one again and then work with Reiki all the way up through to master and to practice Reiki every day from from then until today.

And I also took NLP courses,

Neuro-linguistic programming and I'm now also a trainer of NLP.

And so the Reiki was kind of the gateway into this understanding that energy work is possible,

Understanding how important intention is in shaping our own realities and then the neuro-linguistic programming,

The understanding of the conscious and the unconscious and the importance of the language we use came from that.

And so somewhere in that journey quite early on I got given what is now my favourite tarot deck which you've you will have heard me mention in the course which is a Druidcraft tarot deck and that was a it just was very easy for me to read to connect with to to to understand the these archetypes and the concepts that were presented in that and so I began to read tarot and I'm not quite sure how it has happened but from all the the things which I practice the modalities which I offer as a healer and very early on my journey was very much about self-healing before being able to offer it to others has led me to teaching people ask for teachings and the things I do and so I teach and Insight Timer I came to four years ago now in 2016 I had been running a meditation group so I've been recording meditations for them and then one one Samhain that's the the 31st of October I recorded a meditation with the ancestors and just uploaded it onto the platform because it was a platform that I used for my own meditations my personal practice and and things went on from there really so that's the long short version wow thank you and if anyone's listening that hasn't come across Insight Timer I must explain what it's about now the first thing is it's the only really truly free meditation app on the planet they're very very supportive of meditation guides and new meditation guides I had no idea I was a meditation guide till they found me I thought it was an author with a few meditations on the side and that certainly changed my trajectory and what they do is they give you a platform where you can upload unlimited meditations but also now some premium content like the courses that you've been doing on Reiki and Tarot and what have you but it's more than that isn't it because one it's it's become I don't only realize this maybe even a month or so ago I've another platform just a little bit longer than you maybe five years it's become my social network of choice it's the first thing I open up in the morning because what happens is people can message you and that sort of stuff and and you can and reply but also people can reply to the meditations and I will respond to every single one of them and it I've created some amazing friends the first time we've met I know we've been hovering around each other for years and years and years and we were going to meet in person obviously but that obviously isn't going to happen at this time but I hope it will do in the future but in listening to your meditations it's really interesting we've both taken completely different trajectories but ended up in a similar place so I did Reiki NLP not to the same level that you did and I've done a lot of Tarot study as well and it's really nice for me to listen to somebody talking about the Tarot in a non-linear way in a meta way because many people will say here's the major arcana I'll just go through them from 0 to 21 here's the minor arcana I'll go through all the suits and this is what we all mean and this sort of stuff you've gone incredibly meta with it and said this is what it is as a tool and then explained how different bits of it diving into different bits of it you know and then coming out again how we can use those tools where did you get that level of understanding?

Where does that level of understanding come from?

I think from working with it and also from working with things like NLP and coaching so my Tarot course is there are I have to admit there are two or three lessons which do go through that sort of linear you know this is a major arcana this is a minor arcana but I wanted to firstly encourage people to be intuitive in their reading rather than just to turn straight to the book when they draw a card but secondly to use this as a personal growth tool set so the Tarot course is actually a personal coaching program in disguise and so really as you know Tom the Tarot works a lot with the unconscious mind and in terms of intuition how I work with intuition it's that often it will come through or from the unconscious mind and sometimes you don't know whether it's come through or from the unconscious mind and it doesn't really matter whether it's coming externally or whether it's coming internally what we do know is that the unconscious mind filters and shapes what's coming through and so in terms of actually knowing what to put in the course a lot of that came through unconsciously so I didn't know there would be a structure to the course and this is what needs to be in it and I knew that there would be particular content in the course and and and this is what it would be but I didn't know that it was going to come through in the way that it came through so that is is really about the the creative process going into that state of being receptive and allowing wonderful come through so in a way I like to say I didn't I didn't write the course it wrote itself or the Tarot wrote it because that's just what had to come through at that time but yeah it's there's a lot of coaching tools and NLP tools in there and I think that combination with the Tarot really works a lot of the feedback that I've been getting so people have found that useful which is the intention well one thing we'd like to do on the zone show is not just to chat but to do and demonstrate and you very kindly said on email before we spoke you actually do a reading so should we demonstrate this intuitive nature and we said what we'd do is do a reading about the current situation and we're not naming the thing it's just the situation that we're in in in our respective lockdowns with actually it's like a collective lockdown isn't it which is amazing in some respects because lots of I'd say because as much as terrible as some of the things are going on right now and the people that have succumbed and in many ways there are many many wonderful things happening as well so would you bless us with a reading yeah I'd love to do a reading so I was kind of thinking about how to how to create the spread for this for these unusual times and what I usually do or what I often do when I do a reading is I create a spread specifically for the question that's been asked or the general the general area that we're that we're focusing on okay okay yeah so when I do a reading what I often do is to create a spread specifically for it for the particular question or for the the sort of general reading about a specific area that we're that we're reading for so I've been thinking about how to best create a spread for these unusual times which we amazingly are experiencing collectively as as humans and as beings on the planet and and also we're experiencing in our very individual ways so each of us has a slightly different experience of that so what I came up with was that I thought five positions I don't like to do lots and lots of different positions in the spread you know that there are spreads which have 21 or 42 or whatever it is that's it that seems over complicated for me for my personal style of practice I like something a little simpler because that allows us to go with more depth into what cards actually come so I think I'm going to go with five positions so at the top we'll have the overall the overall energy which is which we're all experiencing now this is the overall energy of our times and then at the bottom we'll have one which represents the the listeners to this show so something for for each of us and then in the middle we'll have three positions for resources that will be one of them for challenges what kind of challenges we we are facing and being asked to face and then for what is the gift or lesson from this situation so Tom is there anything else that you think should be in there as we do that that's brilliant so that just to describe that will that look like a cross effectively I guess so yeah yeah I hadn't envisioned that it has a cross but it is across what we'll do is we'll just well you'll take a picture of this so we can put it in the the web page at the Protestant but if someone's driving and listening to this it'll look like a cross and we'll maybe describe these positions again as we go through it so yeah that sounds great to me and I love that again I love your intuitive approach to it great okay so what I'll invite you to do now Tom and everybody who's listening is just to come into a state of risk activity to be ready to engage with this reading so make yourself comfortable be aware of your body and of your breathing and just be aware of any anything you've sort of brought with you to this moment thoughts sensations emotions and just acknowledge them and then bring your focus into that that place inside of yourself and breathing gently or breathing deeply whatever's comfortable set your intention to receive what you need from this reading now today reading now today whenever you're listening okay so I've laid out the cards and I'll go through them one by one and then I shall talk through them as one of the major takeaways and at the top in the position of what is the general energy around is the hermit and so the hermit is the only major arcana that's come up in this reading and the major arcana for those who aren't familiar with the tarot the major arcana tend to be more about what the um soul path or life lessons are in a in a particular reading so the hermit coming up as a major arcana is is really perfect for a situation of lockdown I can't there are there are different major icons that could have come up I was going to say I can't imagine another one I can but I do think it's entirely appropriate that the hermit has chosen to join us in this position so what this means then is that the the collective energy at the moment is about withdrawal and isolation and of course that is what is happening all over the world as we go through uh physical distancing in our times but the hermit is so much more than that the hermit is one of my favorite cards because often he can represent um something such as meditation or that choice to withdraw so hermits traditionally would would sort of go into a space on their own and they would use that space and that time for their own personal and particularly spiritual development so hermits you used to have them a lot in the Christian tradition and so they would you know they would use that space to be closer to god um of course you can hermit in any tradition you can use a space of withdrawal to recalibrate and realign with yourself or with any deities or spirit or energies that you that you choose to align with that you work with so the hermit is someone who chooses to go into a space on their own or can sometimes have that enforced on them as we as a collective do at the moment have this sort of enforced physical distancing um happening and and there is a there is a purpose we must remember there's a purpose behind the physical distancing that we have at the moment um just so is there a purpose behind the hermit going into that space on his own so the hermit then uses physical distancing so the hermit then uses this space to connect spiritually to to align spiritually to learn and to grow spiritually and the hermit in in most decks you'll see the hermit holds up a lamp and the lamp is shining out so the hermit is using that lamp to find their own way okay so is is in this state of spiritual uh searching if you like the hermit doesn't have all the answers the hermit is still searching but the hermit has chosen to concentrate on this spiritual development but what the hermit has in that lamp is a light that others can see and some hermits will then go on to become teachers for people who would like to go and go into hermitage or hermit ship i'm not sure what the correct noun for that is um so the hermit is in this deck i'm using the druid craft deck by philipp and stephanie car gorm and will worthington and in this deck the hermit's standing on a cliff side which is similar to what we see in the fall and in terms of landscape but the hermit's approach is very different the hermit is stopped the hermit is using the light to notice what's around him i don't think he's going to step off that cliff i think he's just experiencing what it's like to be on the edge of the cliff to be in that liminal space so in terms of this reading the situation we find ourselves in and the position in the reading of this thing the overall energy in one way it's very very simple that you know we are in an energy of lockdown of physical distancing and so this is what the hermit is is telling us you know sometimes the cards have that bit of a sense of humor and they'll tell you the the obvious um and then also there's a there's a kind of an invitation to use that energy to use that space that has opened up to use this in terms of a spiritual realignment and a realignment with things like your values what is important so we have what we have here is the energy of yes of distancing but also of an opportunity to realign to and to remember what is important and to be with that to really be filling with that in in a meditative way so that's the hermit there at the top um now down here at the bottom for the the listeners for us and the listeners we have the the prince of wands so this is a nice card to be here it's a very different energy from the hermit and that in itself that relation between those two cards it may be that um for the prince of wands being in a state of hermit has its own challenges and this prince of wands in this deck he's he's sort of he's charging along he's got a a lance or a staff that he's holding in his hand uh similar actually in the left hand just as the hermit is holding his stuff in this in this card but that but he's he's charging along he's on he's a knight he's on a horse there's movement he's sort of almost flying through the air his horse's hooves are not touching the ground and what he's doing is he's leaping over a um it's it's like a a um a little hill or a tuft of grass so he's actually surmounting an obstacle so it's a positive card for us to have in this position because it is a nice reminder that you know we do have these capabilities within us to overcome obstacles and that uh although we're in this state of enforced hermitage we can find ways of movement in different ways so whether that means literal movement in terms of sort of what you do while you're inside the house and and moving your body or whether that's in terms of again sort of having this opportunity to to decide what direction it is that we want to go in and to use that that decision and to point ourselves in that direction it's a nice positive card to give us that that opportunity and it's reassuring i find it reassuring that he is jumping over this obstacle you know he's he's leaping over this obstacle so it's a nice reminder that although we find ourselves very much as as humanity um in a position where we are we are confronting an obstacle obstacles are surmountable and of course we humans are amazing because we i think are probably the only species on the planet who faced with such a situation can go okay well there's a problem that gives me something to find a solution for and so there's that energy about it as well in terms of sort of advice for people who are experiencing being um in these uncertain times and all the the uncertainty that that there is around there's def there's definitely an invitation to take on this attitude of the prince of ones so the prince of ones is someone who who can do things that doesn't mean that you not to acknowledge anything else that's coming up for you but it's it's an invitation to remember that you are incredibly capable in the ways that you are capable and that you can use those to overcome your personal obstacles as well as the obstacles that we're experiencing collectively and that's the only court card in the spread and that's that's the message for us as individuals and also as collectively as humanity yes so that's for us as individuals i specifically set the intention for um the people who are listening to this and yes it works i guess as humanity as well because we are all a part of this is humanity lovely i'm liking i'm liking the hermit and i'm the prince thanks for bringing those two up oh thanks but i should say thank the cards for them making their appearance yes yeah they they they really come through these cards they they always send the right thing whatever that is so i wasn't expecting these two together but they work very nicely together today okay so that is the we have the hermit at the top is the energy that we're in and we have the prince of ones down here as the um where we're at what you know yeah where we're at i think is probably the best way of describing it and what's available to us it's a court card and it's the only court card in the spread so it's definitely very much an invitation to step into this energy to to be or to embody this energy and then the three in the middle we have are the the first one is the resources that are available and it's a really lovely one it's the six of pentacles so the six of pentacles is very much about giving and receiving and so in terms of resources coming up in this spread in this position it's a reminder that we are those of us who have enough to give are in a position to share and those of us who need to receive to be able to receive with with grace without it having to be a big thing you know something charitable but actually that we give and receive in the ways that we give and receive because we are able to receive and receive because that is the right thing to do and this is a resource for us again collectively for each of us our resource is in being able to give and being able to receive so then this is about this is an invitation for us to look at the ways in which we can give look at what we have to give and to or look at ways in which we need to receive look at what we need to receive and look at how we can use that as a resource in our personal lives but again in this collective situation that we find ourselves in and like tarot readings often are this is again reflective of our situation one of the very heartening things that has come up at the moment is that people have have pulled together to help support communities I know that in in my local community a lot of people we rely heavily on tourism and a lot of people have lost jobs and have sort of uncertain uncertainty financially about their future about how how to feed their children and one thing that's been very heartening to see is that in our community those who who do have enough are making an effort to make sure that that they share that and and and to make that available so again on a community level this giving and receiving at the moment it's really important but also that on an individual level we all have something to give and it might not be resources it might be something else it might be an attitude it might be some knowledge it might just be the ability to keep your head and and to and to keep calm it might be a state so that whatever we have to give giving that and sharing that with others works as a personal resource for each of us as well and and so this is something that we in terms of advice this is something to what we have to give what we have to receive and this this aspect of there's a balance in it an energetic balance to giving and receiving so that is our our resource at the moment in the middle we have what is the challenge and the card that we have is the eight of swords and so the the eight of swords is um traditionally it's a card of challenge the image on it you've got a a woman she's she's blindfolded she's she has her hands tied behind her back and there are eight swords around her so that you have the impression that in whatever direction she moves there is some danger and certainly at the moment it can feel like this you know we have this this blindfoldedness um in our experience because we don't know what is going to happen next we're in a situation where we can't see the future that we thought we could see and we're in a situation where we are bound because there are new rules and norms on on on what what we can do and and what what we can do and where we can go and also we we only have the capabilities that we have so firstly uh what i'd like to say is in this card is that this is a this is a temporary situation so all the minor arcana as these these three middle cards are um often represent sort of external situations so they're not the big energies like the hermit they're just the situation that that we happen to be in at the minute and then secondly in the eight of swords what i really like about the eight of swords is that actually you know here is this woman who's blindfolded and who's bound but there are eight swords around her so all she has to do is carefully carefully move in any one of those directions and pick one of those swords and use that and she can actually cut her own bonds she can free herself oh what a lovely lovely metaphor these cards are just perfect aren't they yeah they're they're they're spot on as as they often are and and so um yeah in terms of the challenges that we are that we are experiencing at the moment you know there is very much this challenge of we don't we can't see what's happening and many of us can't really do anything about it um but a lot of that is is self-imposed another thing about the swords is that they can often represent mental energy things that we're doing with our mind so we may be um we may be creating obstacles in our minds that aren't there so and and just as that we also have those swords as a resource our minds as a resource to to free ourselves oh could i ask something very specific then there because i could you say then there are at least eight opportunities for us to cut these bonds that are binding us yes and and and one of the one of the ways i sometimes read this card it's like it's it's a card of stuckness and and the solution to this stuckness is just to move in any direction to do anything and it almost doesn't matter what what you do because there are these different ways um obviously at the moment that's not advice to to literally move around a lot but um yeah certainly to to sort of not not get overstuck in in beliefs in in in things that we're doing with our minds and to to to just do whatever it is that we have to do um so we could just move away from uh non-stop media for example oh yeah absolutely absolutely and sometimes the a to swords is a funnel it it can it's sometimes directions are closed in the a to swords because you're being pointed in a particular direction and that's not always clear when it's happening so it can be very frustrating to to sort of try and move in any direction and feel that you're being blocked or stopped but that usually that's because there is a better direction for you you just can't see it yet so so yeah very appropriate to our situation wonderful and and then the the third card in this in this middle row is the the seven of swords so the the position is about what are the gifts and lessons in this for us and so it's interesting because it is a minor arcana card so although we have a major happening at the moment it's not a major collective lesson it may be that different people and different communities are learning different things from this collective experience so i think that's why we've got a minor arcana card here and not a major arcana now the seven of swords is uh it's it's one of those cards that have several different interpretations now my interpretation and probably because i do use this deck the druid craft deck uh in this deck you've got seven swords sort of propped up three of them are lying on the table four of them are propped against the table in the foreground and then you've got an older man and he's got a feather quill and he's he's writing something he's got his head in his hand and behind him is an open window with a a waning crescent moon and he's got a candle lighting him as well so this is very different from some traditional seven of swords cards and i have had it come up in readings meaning um it can mean it can be about paying attention to details so details are so important and it can be about um being swords and having this this person sort of writing it can be about bureaucracies as well or that kind of those kind of structures where you have the written word a lot laws um so in terms of gifts and lessons i wonder if we're being asked to review or revise the details of the the rules that we live in that we live by and what their what their intention is and again this is something uh it's a minor arcana card it's a seven of swords it's right next to the eight of swords so it's this kind of temporary um it's got this temporary energy so it may be that this is something that we we pay attention to while we're in this situation and then we um we might find that we we we pay less attention to it once this this situation is over but there is definitely an invitation to um check in on this sort of that our our rules our personal rules for life and also the rules within our community the norms within our community and and to just check that they are properly aligned um and and and again there's a there's an there's something in here about values traditionally in other decks the seven of swords can sometimes be about um some some kind of of dishonesty or getting away with something um so that together with this this sort of details message and this would suggest that this there's a real opportunity to be able to do that and to be able to do that and it's a real opportunity and being in this position of the gifts and lessons there's a real opportunity to um to align with values to to really understand values and intentions and to use those values and intentions as guidance when we create what our rules for living are i'm also very intuitive about having our entitle these podcasts i never have a title podcast interview with with Kazaia,

I'll give it a name and I feel that what you've done there is channel in a message for our time.

Would it be okay if I use that as a title?

Yes,

Certainly,

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Well,

I wasn't expecting something quite as broad detailed and wide as that.

Thank you for that wonderful gift.

Is this something,

By the way,

That you do remote readings for individuals and you teach people how to do readings?

Yes,

I do read for individuals very,

I try to keep the number down low because although the,

It's like work with Reiki or any kind of energy work,

You know,

I usually am a vessel so it's not from me that this stuff is coming,

It just happens to come through me.

So although it's not my energy that I'm spending,

I do have to watch my energy in terms of how I focus.

So I try to keep the number of readings that I do low but I do do them.

And I,

Yeah,

I teach the tarot on the Insight Time course which you're familiar with.

I have an annual course called The Magician,

Which is a small group of people and we meet every week and we have a specific lesson for every week and over the course of a year we go through all 78 cards of the tarot and the kinds of lessons and messages which are associated with them.

Wow,

Is that a remote course?

Yes,

Yes,

It's online.

I did have a retreat which was associated with it but that's not going ahead this year.

And have you got anything else specific to these times that you can offer?

I mean,

I noticed loads of people in Insight Time are uploading specific meditations with the word we're not mentioning in this podcast.

Have you got anything else that you're,

You concocted?

Yes,

This week I've been in the process of creating with Jan Russell,

Who I do a lot of work with,

A set of five audio lessons,

If you like,

Which are psychologically informed practice for these times and particularly for sort of quarantine circumstances.

So circumstances where people find themselves in confined conditions with people they,

You know,

Know and love hopefully but also are not used to spending 24-7 with.

And it comes from psychologically informed environments training,

Which is an evidence-based approach used in the third sector worldwide but particularly in the UK.

It was developed specifically for working with vulnerable people such as homeless people.

So we deliver that training in organisations working with homeless people or people with addictions,

People with complex needs and we've adapted that so that it's available to individuals to really help to deal with these times when there is so much uncertainty going on.

So that's a five session audio course and that is now on the website and available and we're giving that to people for free.

We just want it to go and do its work in the world and we trust that it will and that it will find the right people and that it will help them.

Well,

Very much inspired by the third card in the reading,

Isn't it?

I guess so,

Yeah.

It fits in very nicely with it.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And just so people know,

What's the website address and how do you spell your gorgeous name?

It's Keziah-Gibbons.

Com.

So that's Keziah-Gibbons.

Com.

And if you go to Insight Timer and then it's slash Keziah Gibbons,

People can find your wonderful resources there.

Insight Timer,

By the way,

Used to be app only delivery.

So you could only get access to the meditations if you downloaded the app,

Either for Android or for Apple.

But now you can actually get the full gamut of all the free stuff through the web,

Can't you?

On the web page.

Yeah,

Everything's just gone up on the website in the last couple of months since the start of the year,

Isn't it?

And that's amazing because it's always been accessible and now it's more accessible and that's what it's all about really,

Isn't it?

Yeah.

Well,

Actually I've got to thank you,

Keziah,

Because you've done something with this podcast,

Which has helped it transcend.

And I've always been uncomfortable with the idea of a podcast being a kind of pseudo radio show.

So the last one in the series had lovely Jackie Roberts interviewing me about my transition from author to meditation guide to now to ambient music composer,

Which wasn't a journey I was expecting.

And what we did was intersperse everything with the music,

With the show and what you've done,

And you might not be aware of this because I was listening while you were talking.

It was almost like you've made this show into a meditation itself.

That was such a lovely,

Lovely reading.

Oh,

Wow.

Well,

Thank you.

I hope that it's a lovely meditative experience for anyone listening.

Yeah.

So in this podcast,

Which has slid into a meditation,

Have you got any closing thoughts?

I would just say that,

You know,

That use that energy of the hermit,

Be open to the gifts that it brings and sending lots of love and positive vibes out.

And thank you,

Tom,

For making this possible,

For playing the role that you play in creating community and nurturing community as well.

I know that the listeners will know that and appreciate that as well.

Now would it be a surprise to you,

Kazaia,

If the one archetype of the tarot that I most strongly identify with is the hermit?

That makes me smile,

Yes.

That does this.

Well,

It's been a real joy and a pleasure to get to know you.

I do hope one day we'll meet in person.

And also,

Thank you for all the wonderful work you're doing on the Insight timer and outside the app as well.

It's been a real joy and a pleasure to meet you.

I recommend everyone dives into your work,

Picks up the free gift that's on your website and also takes the lesson from this amazing,

Meditative reading stroke podcast.

And individually,

Collectively,

We are directed by the eight of swords to cut the binds.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Thank you,

Tom.

It's been a real pleasure.

Thank you so much.

So I've been Tom Evans and thanks for listening to the Zone Show podcast.

And I highly recommend you get hold of Kazaia's resources on our website and on Insight timer app.

Also pop over to my website,

Www.

Tomevans.

Co and you'll find 10 specially curated meditations to help you open up during the lockdown.

Take care.