Hello beautiful Souls!!

Welcome to our weekly feature, where we share with you, Witches We Love! This week we have the pleasure of interviewing our friend Jodene Shaer. Just recently Trace and Nix from the Witch Swap team, had Past Life Readings from Jo, and were utterly blown away! Also, be sure to scroll right to the end, as there are some BIG surprises ;)

Without further fuss, let’s get you to know her better too!

Jodene, could you tell us a bit about yourself, please?

Archetypically, I am a healer, and teacher by heart, and mother by passion, although in this lifetime I chose to have no children of my own. As a transformation coach, I use my tools of numerology and tarot, as well as the personal wisdom I have been gifted by the universe to guide individuals. My formula, which spans fifteen years of teaching and coaching, includes the reflective practice of self-awareness to assist with understanding patterns and enabling effective, confident, and conscious decision making.

My life’s work is to assist in understanding the vital foundation of change, through a desire for happiness, self-worth, and self-esteem, F.A.I.T.H (Acronym for Focus, Acceptance, Intention, Trust and Happiness) and financial freedom.

I live in Johannesburg, South Africa, with over twenty years of exploring what it means to be the holistic entrepreneur. I have written two books, The Holistic Entrepreneur (non-fiction) and Ephineah (fiction), and am always writing another.

As a holistic mother, I find joy in healing through food and am a plant-based vegan, who brews kombucha and plans to keep my gluten-free sourdough starter alive for as long as I remain in this lifetime!

Jo, please can you share a little about how you have stepped into your personal practice?

I honestly believe that my soul planned this from long before my birth. Even when I was a child, there was something wrong with the way I couldn’t relate to what I was being taught in school or the way the world behaved around me.

While my friends were studying and being teenagers, I was consuming myself in Lazaris channellings and dabbling in astrology. My family had other plans for me, which included taking over my mother’s business. Although the intention was for me to keep the flame burning beyond her twenty years of a very successful business, I was deeply unhappy. A long story short is that my soul knew this, and I ventured into figuring more about myself through the world of Caroline Myss’s archetypes.

While I was supposed to be the principal of my mother’s beauty college, I ended up teaching the students business and each lesson would start with a few minutes of what I called, ‘happy thoughts’. Little did I know I was slowly stepping into my role as a healer and conscious guide. The universe knew, and as I began to understand my life archetypically, everything changed.

In August 2004, my mother’s business burned down and I got to rise like the Pheonix and become who I wanted to be. It has taken many stops and starts, mainly due to the lessons I had to learn about money and me.

I can honestly say that my personal practice has been the conscious steps, themselves. Fearful ones, considering I grew up in Jewish household with very traditional beliefs and was teased by my sibling for being eccentric from a very young age. The steps started as an exhausting hike into acceptance, which felt as though I was pushing a bolder at the same time! And it’s taken decades to transform into joyous steps of conscious acceptance, as I chose to be this gifted human.

I am not only a tarot reader and numerologist but also have a beautiful energy who I channel.

Of all the steps in my journey, trusting that the voices which floated through my head, and that I was encouraged to speak, was not make-believe and was a part of my life purpose, was the bravest of all.

Every day, I step a little further and always make sure I go first. I never teach or guide anything if I have not braved the work and cannot be an example of it, from the depth of meditation to working with spirit animals, acknowledging and healing past life wounds, and being consciously present and on purpose to live the most authentic life I can.

What drew you to card reading, when you have so many other incredible divination skills and gifts? And what magick, specifically do you feel they bring?

This is an amazing question because it is a perfect example of how I believe that goals and plans are a waste of time.

That’s not entirely true, it’s not the time-wasting that is the problem, it’s in the doing of what we think we should be doing, which stems from the level of our current self-esteem, that is the problem.

Everything we visualize for ourselves is linked to our esteem and in that, I consumed myself in the business world and ran a successful social media agency, with tarot as a gift I would share with my friends and family only. I have been a reader for sixteen years and bonded with my cards for all that time. Little did I know that behind the scenes, way more expansive than the imagination I had for myself, my cards and the universe had other plans. When COVID struck, I had to close my social media agency, and then I had to make money. Once again, I did not plan to use my cards, until the day one of my transformation coaching clients messaged me and asked me whether she thought a tarot reading would help her. I told her powerful I believe the cards are and let her in on my secret, that I was a reader. Can you believe that I had no intention or doing the reading for her? She had very different plans and the door swung open.

I must say that it’s not being the tarot reader that is as important to me as being the transformation coach. My cards know my passion so well, that every single reading I do triggers the first steps into transformation for the receiver. I don’t have to be part of their transformation, but I wish I was, and I am always holding the door open for them.

My cards and I do a two special forms of reading; the spread of seeing the current situation and conscious work which needs to be done and past lives readings.

Can you please share a little about what your past life readings entail?

Absolutely! I love these readings and will start off by saying that I haven’t done one where I don’t feel the joy of witnessing a million pieces of realisation fall into place for the receiver.

It might feel like shattered glass, but although fragmented, there is seeing of the self in the most powerful and transformative light.

My reading looks at four past lives which the soul holds the most memory of. For three of the lives, I pull 3 cards and the 4th, I pull 4 cards. This shows the times that the soul tried to hold onto its purpose, and the 4th, is where the deep wound was created, which is brought into this lifetime.

We can then see the main energy which the soul has pulled through and as well as the theme of this lifetime, with the soul memory that supports it, and the one that holds and carries the fear.

There are three outcome cards, where we see the work that needs to be done in this lifetime.

You're such an Earth led being, Jo. Do you have a preferred season(s)? If yes, which and why?

I love this question, because I am earth mother and deeply connected to nature on many levels. My spirit animal is a wolf, but I also have an owl who pops in and out when I’m not seeing what I need to, as a massive polar bear who comes to me when deep fear of physical pain sets in.

All three of these revel in the cold and yet, my preferred seasons are the three that are not winter!

I adore the sun and all that spring brings, with its blossoming flowers, and change autumn brings as I consciously witness the seasons change.

But my focus is always why winter and I are not friends.

I spend the season apologising to mother earth and to All That Is, and use each season to try dig deeper into why winter triggers me into genuine frustration, at how my body feels during it.

I know the question was my preferred, but I wonder what healing is in store when we look at the one that does not bring us joy. In a past life journey I had, I was isolated in Siberia and lost a great love there. In this lifetime I have lost a great love too. I’m trying not to repeat her pattern of spending the rest of my life alone, which she did .. alone in the freezing cold.

I’m still working on becoming friends with winter because there is healing I’m waiting to acknowledge here, when I get over grumbling about it.

Where do you feel most at peace and connected with Spirit?

I had to think about this for a moment, because I feel so connected to spirit most of the time. My day is lived so consciously, from my morning meditation to dancing at sunrise, singing water prayers in the shower and blessing everything I eat.

My most conscious and connected though, is in the mountains and I feel a part of my soul is incomplete living in the city, although it serves me in being the mother, as I co-parent with my sister.

I also have another career, which is my passion for social media and women empowerment where I am reaching to be an independent non-executive director on boards. I tell you this because it has taken me nearly 50 years to allow myself to be both. Now my work lies in this very question. How do I remain being both but still be most at peace with Spirit … in the mountains?

What is the most valuable lesson that 2020 has taught you?

Wow! 2020 … I imagine how I will be just before midnight on the 31st December because each year I dance into the new one. I am very conscious of the change in numerology at the stroke of midnight, so I say good-bye to the energy and hello to the new one. I can imagine the number of people who will be saying good riddance to this year, but I will be saying thank you.

2020 taught me that I have no clue what I think my life should look like and that being open and flowing, in a trust that I am still learning for myself and wondering how I will ever guide others to, is the purest form of joy and purpose for our souls. This does not mean I do not live with intent and don’t have special manifestations I want to create within my life but now I always say, “this or something greater according to my deepest desires”.

Never again will I say, “I know this is right for me,” or “I want this!” because I have learned how limiting it is to how my self-esteem. I will always reflect back on 2020 and be grateful, as I say to myself, “I am open and receptive to all that comes my way, knowing it is in perfect co-creation with my deepest desires,” and then I will wait to respond to life. It’s way more fun, unexpected and joyous … trust me … being invited here to share my story here is a perfect example of that!

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Jo has SO KINDLY given us permission to gift her book EPHENIA as a download to our community! We are blown away, and sooo grateful! It’s an incredible story, and we hope you will take the opportunity to download it, and experience some of Jo’s magic for yourselves.

You can access the book HERE

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!!

Hehehe! We have SUCH exciting news! Jo has offered up one of her incredible Past Life Readings for a GIVEAWAY! Keep an eye out in October to enter and stand a chance to experience her Past Life Reading magic yourself!

If you’d love to get a hold of Jodene for readings, you can reach her through her insta, twitter and Facebook: @jodeneshaer, or email her at jodene@lifeology.biz - please let her know we sent ya!