PLEASE NOTE: This is a minimally-edited transcript that originates from a program that uses AI.
Anita Rao
This is Embodied, from PRX and WUNC. I’m Anita Rao. Rebecca Auman says she has long been able to tap into the unseen and mystical parts of the world.
Rebecca Auman
I'm just aware of what is the energy, what's the vibration, what's the color or texture? And to me that's magic.
Anita Rao
That sensibility came naturally to Rebecca, but growing up as the daughter of a Methodist minister, she was encouraged to turn away from it for a long time. Today on Embodied: Rebecca’s journey to reclaim her intuition.
Rebecca Auman
I think I've spent my whole life worried that I am crazy. And so part of this, you know, about being 60 is it doesn't really matter so much. Yeah. I mean, my friends would say, oh my gosh, you've always been subversive, but now I'm allowed to be.
Anita Rao
That story and more, just ahead on Embodied.
Rebecca Auman is a self-described witch, like it literally says head witch on her LinkedIn profile. To me, that word evokes a wide range of images. Everything from the spell casting, Sabrina from my favorite nineties TV show to a more subtle reclaiming of nature, spirituality, and wisdom. Rebecca's personal definition points to toward the latter.
Rebecca Auman
To me, a witch is simply a powerful woman, and my use of the word was a reclaiming of that power.
Anita Rao
But when asked to go deeper, she'll share that. Yes, she does in fact experience the world in a different way.
Rebecca Auman
I do not always, but occasionally see things come out of people's heads and when people are thinking, it's almost like green dots are downloads in a linear pattern. I just see energy in a different frequency on a different channel. So I'm like a radio station and you just turn the knob a little bit and I'm a little to the left.
Anita Rao
So what is it like to move about the world when you have this kind of intuition, and how can this skill be a service for others? This is Embodied our show about sex, relationships, and health. I'm Anita Rao.
Today, Rebecca is 60 years old and runs her own witchy business. She offers tarot readings one-on-one, magical support, intuition, training, and group rituals. She also hosts the podcast Voices in the River. It's been a long and winding road to get to the point where she is now confident and proud of her intuitive sensibilities and well honed in her use of magic. Rebecca grew up in North Carolina and was sometimes overwhelmed by the energies she picked up on, like at the grocery store.
Rebecca Auman
I remember going to Wellspring and people, and usually the craziest people would find me in the fresh vegetable aisle and start talking, and I could, I knew they were coming. I could see them coming across the store, and yes, I had to learn. I mean, I think that was one of my first learnings was how to create a boundary, how to stop the information and how to clear myself. From all the energy that attaches to us. And it's not good or bad, it's just not ours.
Anita Rao
I wanna go back to, um, a bit of your family history. So you are 60 years old now. Happy belated birthday. Thank you. From last year. Thank you. Um, but magic has been, um, a part of your life since you were a kid. You grew up hearing stories about, uh, family history of magic. What did you learn as a young kid about. Your family's connection to magic.
Rebecca Auman
Well, actually I didn't learn. Learn. You didn't? Okay. It was a secret. It was a big secret. So, um, my dad was United Methodist Minister Uhhuh in Eastern North Carolina. And the first time I experienced my intuition, he was, we were, I was in a contest for third graders and he was calling out scripture, bible verses, and we were to find them as fast as we could and. I could see the Bible verse come out of his head before he said it. And so I found the scriptures first and I was winning. And it's not really okay for the preacher's kid to win. So my mother noticed what was happening and she pulled me into a Sunday school room and said you were never to let people know. What, you know, and at that time she didn't tell me why.
Anita Rao
Okay.
Rebecca Auman
Um, her, my grandfather was the seventh son of the seventh son, and his father died before he was born. And there's an old Irish tale that. Sons born in this lineage have a special power, and my grandfather could blow thrush or candida yeast. Mm-hmm. Out of baby's mouths. And he worked in a cotton mill, and if people got burned, he could blow burns out of their hands. So people came, he lived in Shelby, North Carolina and people came from all over for him to heal them. My grandmother was an intuitive,
Anita Rao
his wife,
Rebecca Auman
his wife. My family would say she was simply depressed, but she also knew things and she was given a lobotomy and put in an institution. And so my mother was really afraid.
Anita Rao
Wow.
Rebecca Auman
And so for me, as I learned about these stories, which really my siblings did not know until I started going down this path, um, you know, the men were revered for being healers and the women were given lobotomies. And so it's been really important for me to help women find their voices.
Anita Rao
So as a little kid, you didn't have this context, but you did have your mom pulling you aside and saying. You can't do this, right? This has to stop. After that conversation, were there any further ones?
Rebecca Auman
There were a couple of times in school where I knew things I shouldn't know. Um, I'm not a particularly good at math, but I could call out numbers if I saw the answer come out of the teacher's head. And so that was a little suspect for them. But around third grade was when I just completely stopped. So there were a couple of things that came in. Um, you know, a lot of people talk about guides. I mean, I really. Was so connected to Julie Andrews that I, same said she was my spirit guide and I did everything she told me to do as Mary Poppins or Maria von Trapp. So, um, but yeah, really basically about third grade, all of that stopped.
Anita Rao
It's really interesting for me to think about. So your dad, a Methodist minister marries a woman with a family legacy and history of magic. Were there conversations in your household about. Religion and magic? No. Or one? No.
Rebecca Auman
No.
Anita Rao
It just wasn't spoken about.
Rebecca Auman
No. We only talked about religion.
Anita Rao
What was your relationship with religion as a kid?
Rebecca Auman
Oh my gosh, I was so devout, Uhhuh and it was very clear to me that I was to be a leader. And my father early on told me that when he had an altar call, which is when the minister calls people to pray at the altar, I was to go to set an example and that I must always make sure the congregation was okay. So. Not only was I a child reared in the south, a woman, but I also was a preacher's kid who has said, whatever you do must be validated by the external.
Anita Rao
Hmm. So you, in third grade you say you kind of stopped, what did that mean? Like what did it look like to turn those signals off or put that block up for yourself?
Rebecca Auman
Well, I really, my mother said no, and so I did what she told me to do.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
Yeah. I just. I think, I don't know what she did, but for me it just turned off.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
Fear, I think. Fear and I, that's what I would say with most of the people I work with is that. Fear constricts.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
And it constricted my intuition.
Anita Rao
So intuition went away, but your spirituality continued. What did your relationship with spirituality look like in your like teens and as you got a little older?
Rebecca Auman
Well, for me there's a big difference between organized religion and spirituality. And so I would say my devout practice of organized religion continued.
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Auman
Based on the systems that my. Community and my parents created, and I'm not sure I thought about spirituality as different from that until my mother died when I was 19.
Anita Rao
Mm. What happened then?
Rebecca Auman
I, there, I don't, well first of all, I think it was going to college. I mean, again, I went to Meredith College, so very conservative Baptist Women's College. Um, at the time it was very conservative and, but there was something about the education there, the power of women. Uh. The way they taught you to think.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
Um, I was able to determine what felt true to me and what didn't. And also something about my mother's death freed me from something. And I think the freedom really was that at 19, the worst thing that I could imagine happening had already happened.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
And so I could do whatever I wanted. Yeah.
Anita Rao
So there you are, you're in college. You kind of have this awakening, but your intuition is still offline, and then you have this experience in your late twenties that led you to start getting back in touch with your intuition. What was that experience?
Rebecca Auman
I was very pregnant, nine months pregnant. I think this was March 1st, and my child was born on March 14th.
Anita Rao
Okay.
Rebecca Auman
Uh, but a good friend of mine in Durham had gone to see Star Hawk, who is a witch, a well-known seventies witch. And, uh, she had given him a book called Dreaming the Dark, and she had inscribed it to me and she sent me the book and he read my tarot cards for the first time and. It was like lightning went through me and I just felt something unlock. And those women, it was the Daughters of the Moon deck, which is a round deck, a feminist deck. Um, it's not a, I don't even know that it's in print anymore, but the women stayed with me throughout the night.
Anita Rao
Like you felt like they were talking to
Rebecca Auman
you or talking to me, um, or the images were just searing.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
Not in a scary way, but it was like, we have something to tell you. We can work with you, you can work with us. And that really unlocked everything. I mean, that began my journey and Yes, of psychic fairs and talking to mediums and trying to learn about the intuition that I had packed away.
Anita Rao
So as you started this journey, you went to a psychic fair where someone essentially told you like, you need to get right with your relationship with religion. Like you can't put that away in the closet. You gotta figure this out.
Rebecca Auman
Well, you really did your research.
Anita Rao
Tell me that story.
Rebecca Auman
Okay. Um, so I went to a psychic fair at Dorton Arena
Anita Rao
Uhhuh,
Rebecca Auman
and there was this woman named Christal. I remember walking into the building and it's filled with. Thousands of people, and there was a light coming down from the back of the room and I thought, oh, she's my person. And I, I couldn't see her. I could just see the light, and I walked toward it and I met with her and she said, you're not going to go further in your intuitive practice until you get right with Jesus. And she said the way your relationship with him is so skewed by all the stories you've been told, and I really think you need to go to seminary. This was like someone telling me I had to walk the plank. I mean, I, I could not imagine going to seminary.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
But I went home and I think I Googled. I don't even think I googled interfaith seminaries, but maybe I did. And one spirit, interfaith seminary in New York had these amazing questions about spirituality. And so I went to this interfaith seminary and, uh. Got right with Jesus. As Christal suggested
Anita Rao
Just ahead, we'll talk about how Rebecca's growing relationship with her intuition shaped her personal life and even showed up in her day job as a fundraiser. You're listening to Embodied from W-U-N-C-A broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. You can also hear Embodied as a podcast. Follow and subscribe on your platform of choice. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I am Anita Rao. Rebecca Auman notices things in the world that the rest of us often miss for as long as she can remember. She says she's been able to read people and pick up on energy and vibrations today. She puts those skills into practice through her business, which offers tarot readings and intuition training. One of her main goals is to help women reconnect with their own inherent knowledge. She also hosts the podcast Voices in the River. Rebecca comes from a lineage of healers. And Intuitives and began cultivating her connection to intuition in earnest. When she was in her late twenties, she was married and pregnant with her son. When she experienced a powerful tarot card reading, she felt like her intuitive powers were unlocked, but also that this new experience was kind of wild.
Rebecca Auman
I think I've spent my whole life worried that I am crazy. Um, and so part of this, you know, about being 60 is it doesn't really matter so much. Yeah. I mean, my friends would say, oh my gosh, you've always been subversive, but now I'm allowed to be.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
Yeah.
Anita Rao
So it didn't, like you didn't question. It
Rebecca Auman
just felt, oh, no, I always questioned, will I be crazy like my grandmother? You know, will I be misunderstood? Will I, and I, I hear this from a lot of women. I mean, there's this lineage of if we tell the truth, will we be hurt in some way?
Anita Rao
So as you were beginning to turn toward this or recognize it was happening, you said that you were really pregnant, you were married at that time. Mm-hmm. How did your husband respond to this shift in you?
Rebecca Auman
You know, he was kind of a go along to get along kind of guy. And um, I woke up the next morning and I said, we have to tear out the pantry and make it into a magic room. And he did it. Um, and he just went along with it. I often would say that he was in construction and one day he was getting ready to go. He said, I can either work on the roof of this, our neighbor's house, or I can do something else. And I said, oh, if you go work on the roof, you're gonna fall off. So don't do that. Well, he did it anyway and he fell off the roof. Um, so I think for him, mostly it was believing what I said.
Anita Rao
Yeah. Yeah. So he was like, okay, I need to give her her room. So you, you built this room, what did it look like to kind of craft. Cosmology of your own. You have these. Kind of religious influences from your youth. You have a friend who had read you tarot cards. Like what, how, how oriented are you to the world of magic? How are you beginning to build this for yourself?
Rebecca Auman
I think I was afraid to believe. Magic. And so I thought about it as intuition. I had a job and I was the director of a nonprofit, local nonprofit. And uh, at that time there were no electronic calendar. So you had paper calendars and I had a Stephen Covey. Calendar and in it, it had roles and each week you were to go through and write all your roles. So mother, wife, friend, director, volunteer, and so I began to pull cards for those roles to consider. What were the key themes? The key messages are the key. Challenges of my week.
Anita Rao
Pull tarot cards.
Rebecca Auman
Pull tarot cards. And that's really what I say to people now is that it doesn't predict the future. It really is. Archetypal symbols of what your key themes, key questions, key challenges are, and so I used it in strategic planning. I've always used my intuition for strategy, and when you do the strengths finder, my first. Thing is not woo, it is strategist. Interesting. I'm a strategist and a futurist and I'm super pragmatic, so I've always tried to, it's a both. And your intuition, your intellect.
Anita Rao
I want to understand like you, the development of your skillset a little bit more. In addition to beginning to do tarot, were there other magic rituals that you established or. Started doing that, let you kind of sink into your intuition and understand it better.
Rebecca Auman
For me, magic has always been really simple.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Rebecca Auman
And it's not, I mean, certainly there is dark magic and I honor that and I certainly understand the unconscious, but mostly magic. To me is about play.
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And so one of the things that I did in terms of spell casting early on was blowing bubbles. So I would take my child's bubbles and blow bubbles and we'd make wishes under the full moon. Play-Doh is such a great a. Magical tool.
Anita Rao
Oh, interesting.
Rebecca Auman
And so it's how do you craft a cup for yourself so that you can drink from your own cup? What I find for most women is they're so good at being water pitchers and filling everyone else's cup. So part of the Queen of Cups really is how do you drink from your own cup? And so make one out of Play-Doh. You know, we danced by the fire. To me it's about the elements. It's walking in the woods, it's dancing by the fire, it's singing to the moon, it's playing a drum or rattling. You can really only get to know magic as you relate to the elements. Hmm. And so I think for me it was just cultivating fire and water and earth and air, and understanding the power of each of those.
Anita Rao
So you still had a day job, which is, it's funny for me to think about like doing, having this awakening and your intuition coming online, but you had a very standard day job. You were a fundraiser.
Rebecca Auman
Right.
Anita Rao
How did your intuition show up in those spaces?
Rebecca Auman
I was a fundraiser for 30 years.
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And I believe that. Two things that really make a good fundraiser are curiosity about the donor and listening deeply to what has heart and meaning for them. And that's exactly what I do now.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Rebecca Auman
And. I feel like magic or being a witch or having intuition is about listening to signals and so many people in sales and fundraising go in and say, this is what I've got. This is what we can do for you. And I feel like the more successful. Folks are like, what are you thinking about? What's important to you? What matters to you? How can I create space for you to make the impact you wanna make? And that's the same thing I do now.
Anita Rao
That sounds like a very healthy way. Your intuition was helping. Were there, was it ever distracting or disruptive? Like were you
Rebecca Auman
Oh, well it, I think you've probably heard me say I, I'm a terrible at blurting and board brands. Okay. The
Anita Rao
blurting part. Tell me about that.
Rebecca Auman
Yeah, I mean, I'm the worst person to having a board meeting because I will look around and I see what. People are thinking and then I just blurt it out and I don't really even know where it came from. And people are like, um, like
Anita Rao
you've read their mind, that's how they
Rebecca Auman
feel. Yeah. Or I often talk about the thing that people don't wanna talk about. Mm-hmm. Um, my astrologer told me I was the Walmart greeter of the underworld, so that if people don't want to talk about things in the dark, I'm gonna talk about it.
Anita Rao
Did you, with your close friends, like did you have to establish some boundaries around that of like. I dunno. I just imagine if like we were going to get a glass of wine and I'm like, okay, I don't want you. Please don't turn that part of yourself on right now.
Rebecca Auman
Um, there are a couple of friends that I always see what comes out of their head and they know me now way well enough to see me seed them.
Anita Rao
Wow.
Rebecca Auman
Um, but I have learned to always ask permission. I think in the beginning I was so excited that I would just blurt things to everyone. Yeah. And now I just take a beat and ask, you know, I have something that might be a little challenging. Do you want to know?
Anita Rao
So we have you as a fundraiser, your, but then you also have your magic room in your house. As you were kind of getting deeper into this world, how did your kind of orientation shift in how you were relating to these parts of your life?
Rebecca Auman
Well, at the time that. I became reacquainted with my intuition. I lived in North Carolina and I often say the Atlantic Ocean birthed me and the Pacific Ocean rebirthed me.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Rebecca Auman
I got divorced, my father died, which is another unlocking, and I moved 3000 miles away from home and. The Pacific Northwest has a wildness to it that I had never experienced and was so expansive, and they're not as oriented around organized religion as the Bible Belt is. And I remember my first day at work in Oregon, they wanted to have. A fundraising event on a Wednesday night. And I said, you can't have a fundraising event on a Wednesday night. That's church night.
Anita Rao
Yeah, exactly.
Rebecca Auman
And they looked at me like, what? Um, in fact, I, and I traveled with a donor to the East Coast and she noted, she said, oh, we have, um, coffee shops on every corner and you have churches on every corner. That's so funny. So that's kind of the difference. Yes. And so I felt like. Partially, both my parents were gone. I had gotten divorced. I was completely free. I moved to a place that no one knew me and I could be anything I wanted, and so it just gave me. It liberated me. Mm. One of the tarot cards is, um, about what are you attached to that keeps you from being free. And I was so attached to my identities as preacher's daughter, the re, the rebel, the person who was rebelling against that. And so moving to the Pacific Northwest just shifted that whole orientation for me.
Anita Rao
I've heard you say before that while you. Have this deep intuition about other people. Sometimes you are psychically dyslexic.
Rebecca Auman
Yes.
Anita Rao
Especially about your own.
Rebecca Auman
Oh yeah. I don't, I never know from
Anita Rao
it. Tell me more about that.
Rebecca Auman
I, gosh, I just, uh, sometimes I. My intuition is absolutely the opposite of what I should be doing. I just can't do it for myself.
Anita Rao
Is it like, and and do you know that in retrospect, like you feel like you get strong? Yeah. It's retrospect. Okay. You get a strong message and then after the fact.
Rebecca Auman
Yeah, and part of it I think was, I was incongruent. I was so fatigued and incongruent. My life. And as I've become more congruent and integrated, it happens less.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
But really in my younger years, I mean, what a tortured soul I was.
Anita Rao
How did it show up? Like what elements of your life did the psychic dyslexia?
Rebecca Auman
Oh, mostly, mostly in love relationships. I had a terrible, terrible picker.
Anita Rao
Okay.
Rebecca Auman
Yeah. I just could not, I could not. Um, and I got in so much trouble in so many ways. And then I think also. Well, my career went pretty well, but I think sometimes what I chose to tell people, yeah. I mean, I'm sure now they're like, oh my gosh. She was really crazy.
Anita Rao
Yeah. So your colleagues and people that you were interacting with in a professional setting, would you reveal this part of yourself or
Rebecca Auman
people recognize you? People who are intuitive tend to recognize you.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And so there were people who would come and say, would you pull a card about this or. I brought you a rock, or is there something I can do about this particular problem? I don't know how they knew.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
My board chair, even who I never disclosed anything to, came to me and said, I went and had my aura photographed and I wanted you to look at it.
Anita Rao
And I thought, how did you respond?
Rebecca Auman
I said, okay. But I didn't say anything.
Anita Rao
So you mentioned earlier like. This question of like, am I crazy? Like you've wrestled with it your whole life, but as you were in Oregon, you kind of moved away from the the southern roots. Like did you feel like you could lean more into the woowoo parts of yourself without that other voice? Or how was your relationship to that part of yourself?
Rebecca Auman
Yeah, I think part of it was distance. Mm-hmm. From the identities and roles. I think part of it is just the wildness. I had the opportunity to live at the Oregon coast. I think being submersed in. That kind of energy was amazing. It truly is sublime in that it's incredible beauty and a little terrifying.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Rebecca Auman
Like the storms, the king tides that would just wash you away. The trees that fell, the majesty of it all. So I was living in the sublime and I think, I don't know, that just really affected my internal compass. So.
Anita Rao
We have you in, in Oregon. We have you really grounded in nature. We have you succeeding in this fundraising career, but as you said, this tension, this disc congruence was showing up for you. Take me into that and, and the shifts you began to feel like you needed to make.
Rebecca Auman
I really was quite successful in fundraising and I worked in principal gifts, which is raising money, um, from people who could give a million dollars or more. And I had just an incredible team and we raised a billion dollars for the Knight Cancer Challenge and. It was time for me to leave and I did leave, and six weeks later they called me back because five leaders had left and they said, we actually need you to come back and heal this organization and. I don't know that I made the right decision, but I did go back and I stayed for 18 months and, uh, put some pieces back together and really again, tried to be curious about what people needed and listen deeply just as I had with the donors and. Then I was just so burned out.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And so I left and I was fortunate that I could take a little bit of time off and my goal really was to walk on the beach every day, eat something green every day, take a nap every day. That's really all I did. And then someone who had been my executive coach worked at the Moonshot factory for X, and she said, there is this group of women leaders at Google and we are going to do a retreat, and I want you to come to the retreat. As the witch.
Anita Rao
Ooh.
Rebecca Auman
And so that was incredible opportunity. It was in March of 2020.
Anita Rao
Okay.
Rebecca Auman
I finished that gig at, uh, on March 13th. I rode home on a plane with five people. And then there was shut down.
Anita Rao
Wow.
Rebecca Auman
And when I was there, I had booked people to come to my home for group retreats, to do ritual and work on their intuition as it applied to their intellect and their strategy in the tech world. But again, all that had to go online. But I was fortunate that during 2020 and 2021, I had solid business online.
Anita Rao
So was this your official turn toward magic? Full-time?
Rebecca Auman
Yeah. I was like, oh gosh, I can really make money doing this.
Anita Rao
Yeah. And then you moved to North Carolina?
Rebecca Auman
Yes, and I can't really explain that move. I just felt called back. I think I'd always been such a rebel, and I felt like I had to come back and go a little deeper in terms of who I really was and could my integrated magic work here. And when I first started my business here, because I was a little bit afraid, I mean, reading tarot cards is still illegal in North Carolina, so I'm an intuitive coach.
Anita Rao
Ah,
Rebecca Auman
and tarot is a tool, but I do it globally. But I worked with a shaman to do a medicine bundle, a depac, a prayer for me, and I said, is this business sustainable? Can I make money? That was my question. And he said, you are moving into a new place where the question is not, will I make money, but how can I serve?
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And that was another bolt of lightning and it was like, oh, I have to change my paradigm to how can I contribute? How can I be of service? How can I help?
Anita Rao
That's a big shift for someone whose job it had been to make money for decades.
Rebecca Auman
Oh yeah. I Decades. I only thought about money. Yeah. And it was my livelihood. I was like, oh my gosh, how can I do this?
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
But I think it's Peter Block who says, are you willing to pursue your purpose without the promise that it will provide for you?
Anita Rao
Oof.
Rebecca Auman
Yeah. And I, it's still, I mean, I, I do think about this, you know, there being an entrepreneur, there are. Good times and bad times, and it's in the dips. Are you willing to hold, have faith in that your purpose is your purpose, whether it provides or not.
Anita Rao
Did you have, I, I talk a lot with artists about the how your, how your relationship to your art changes once it becomes your living. I'm curious about that shift for you, like was there any tension for you around turning this thing that had been very. Fulfilling a big soul connection. Really life-giving to being. Now I'm doing this for the potential exchange of money.
Rebecca Auman
I don't think that was hard for me. Mm-hmm. But maybe 'cause I was a fundraiser first. Uh, money's just not the thing for me. Uhhuh Uhhuh, um, I mean, I have respect for it. I see it as energy, but yeah, I don't, money's not usually my issue. I have lots uhhuh, but not money. Um. I don't know. The question again was,
Anita Rao
so like, did it
Rebecca Auman
Oh, is it hard?
Anita Rao
Yeah. Or did it change your relationship to your. Intuition or to this part of yourself once you like needed to, needed to do it in, in a more scheduled way for people who were paying you for it.
Rebecca Auman
I think there've been times where I've gotten tired and it's like, how do I remain a seeker? When you're helping every, when you're the one that has the an, I don't have the answers. I help people find their own answers. But how do you stay in this curious state? How do you listen deeply and. What's been really fascinating for me is that I've just moved to a rural area and I've always lived in college towns and I live with a herd of five horses.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And feeding horses, grooming horses, scooping a lot of manure is one of the most spiritual experiences I've ever had.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And. I think it's the Buddhist who say, before enlightenment you carry water. After enlightenment, you carry water. I just feel much more grounded in my practice and much more integrated, and I love what I do because I see. So many people recognize themselves and in human design. I'm a reflector and there's only 1% of the population, so I'm essentially a mirror. I don't have my really, a lot of my own thoughts. I mirror other people's thoughts, which is interesting given what I do, but just being a mirror for people and they're brilliant. It's so magical and I, I love what I do.
Anita Rao
Just ahead, Rebecca and I will talk about the tarot reading that she did for me and how she deals with skepticism about magic, especially from journalists. We'll be right back.
This is Embodied. I'm Anita Rao. I'm talking today about intuition and magic with Rebecca Auman, a self-described witch based in North Carolina. I first met Rebecca last fall at a podcast festival in Richmond, Virginia. Rebecca was there giving tarot readings and recording them for her podcast voices in the river. Her show explores how people, particularly women, can reclaim their power through intuition and magic. I am not sure if I believe in magic with a capital M, but I've always been curious about what I can learn from folks like Rebecca who have a different sensibility about our world.
I didn't get a chance to get a reading at the festival, but I did connect with Rebecca virtually a few months later. She told me that a tarot deck has 78 cards that represent universal themes, specific emotions in the four elements. And when Rebecca reads for a client, she asks them for a question they'd like answered, and then pulls 10 cards.
Rebecca Auman
I am looking at what the story is between the cards and what are the key themes and how are they talking to each other. It doesn't tell you anything you don't already know. It helps you remember things you've forgotten and it's like going on an art walk of your inner thoughts.
Anita Rao
For my reading, the question I posed was, what can I invite more of into my life this year? Rebecca pulled several cards. We chatted and then we came to this pair of cards and a few pieces of advice that especially resonated with me.
Rebecca Auman (from Anita's reading)
So this is the four of Pentacles. So she has her feet on two pinnacles, and she's holding clutching a pentacle. This is the card of maybe holding on too tightly, being a little constricted, and the invitation is to open your arms to breathe some spaciousness into the physical world. You also have the Four of Swords, which is rest. So the invitation I think for you is when you don't know it's time to take a nap, that there's, you can't necessarily figure it out. Yeah, I think that way. True. Just, yeah. So just cast a little intention of I'm gonna take a nap and when I wake up, I'd like to know the answer.
Anita Rao
Yeah. Okay. So I have to tell you that I've taken more naps in January 20, 26 than I can remember in my life. Life. Love that. And. It's not that I've woken up with like, ah, this is the answer. But I feel like the practice of I'm someone who in the face of an obstacle, will always lean in, will always do more research, will always ask more people for their opinions, will always like just get to the intellectual bottom of it. And this idea of like. Doing something physical that shuts my brain off. Like that actually turns me into a different modality, is like so on point. And like I feel like I've been working on that in therapy for years. But like the simplicity of the way you put it, of take a nap like was so resonant for me.
Rebecca Auman
Well, I'm glad.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
Folks that I've worked with for several years say that my advice really boils down to three things, which is drink a glass of water, take a nap. Now it's probably make yourself a cup of tea, take a nap, and go stand barefoot on the earth. Magic is changing consciousness at will and so what is it that we can do to get out of our. Thinking brain and move into our heart and what we really want. And a lot of times that space and breath and it doesn't take very long. It just takes a couple of minutes.
Anita Rao
You also, one of the things I posed after we talked about that was that that actual set shifting is really hard for me of going from the more intellectual part of a day to. Part of a day where I could be inviting in more opportunities for rest or other kinds of connection. But transitioning is very hard and like an app is a great way. But you shared a couple of other tools. I would love for you to share any of any others that come to mind for you of like. Yeah, shifting those ways of being.
Rebecca Auman
Well, I work with a lot of working mothers and you come home and I, I don't know, my mother used to call it arsenic hour, but you know, it's five o'clock. Everybody's hungry, they have low blood sugar, you're exhausted. And so when my son was little, we would have special time.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Rebecca Auman
And I would play classical music and light candles. And he was in charge of the time, so if he couldn't pay attention, at least he was watching. We got an egg timer that was for five minutes, and so he could just watch the sand go through. So we had a five minute special time. That was our transition. A lot of people keep a pot of dirt by their front door, and children love rocks and. Adults do too, but just pick up a rock and blow your day into the rock and leave it on the earth to mulch all that is not yours. I think we may have talked about a ring for a very long time. Um, I had a ring that I wore and I would move it from my right hand to my left hand when I went home and when I went to work. I moved it from my left hand to my right hand, just as a reminder that I was shifting the neural pathway. But anything that gives you just a minute of space, a time to, uh. Just be at your own pace for a few minutes can shift.
Anita Rao
I love that. Yeah. I think the only other one that you said that felt very simple and doable was washing your hands.
Rebecca Auman
Oh. So I worked in academic medicine for a long time, not as a a physician, but as a fundraiser, and I was constantly. Because I'm also empathic. I just could feel everyone's angst and I would often go to the restroom and just wash my hands and say, I let go of all that is not mine.
Anita Rao
I love that. So I've been thinking about our reading. I've been listening a lot to your podcast Voices in the River, and I've been wanting to talk. To you about the relationship between some of the words that you frequently use, like intuition and magic. Mm-hmm. And we talked some in my reading about my relationship with intuition and how I think about it. And I do feel like as a journalist and an interviewer, I have intuition. Mm-hmm. Like, and there are moments where I'm like, oh, I wanna go this direction, and I can't explain logically why. It just feels like the right thing to do. Mm-hmm. I wouldn't call that magic. And so I'm curious about like the relationship between intuition and magic and how you think about those things and the distinction between the two for you.
Rebecca Auman
Well, just as you said, I mean, intuition is knowing something you can't explain. Yeah, right. Intuition to me is that still small voice within, and to me it's not an either or with intellect. It is. An important companion to intellect and. Maybe that's where the magic is and the space between.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
But again, to me and I, I think this was Ally, Esther, Crowley, and then Starhawk who said, magic is changing consciousness at will. And I think changing consciousness comes more from intuition.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
Than intellect because intellect is designed by systems that don't necessarily serve our natural rhythms.
Anita Rao
So when you say changing consciousness at Will, can you break that down for me a little bit? Like how that operates in your view?
Rebecca Auman
That's such a good question. How it shows up. I, I don't know that I can talk about it for me though. I wish I could. When I think about the people with whom I work, it's about the fear that we have. About our own intelligence and our own brilliance.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And that a lot of times those fears come from original parental family things. Sometimes they may come from other lifetimes, we don't know. And so how do you change consciousness to hold a place for abundance rather than scarcity to hold a place for hope or faith rather than fear? And what are the tools or the practices that we use to do that? When people called me, they wanted to know how to work on things, and now most people are saying, I want to be held.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
And so it's how do you create a container for the things that matter?
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
For shifting the way you see things.
Anita Rao
I'm thinking about, you're saying the, the questions people have asked you differ, but I feel like one thing I've heard you talk about that people bring to you a lot is like, I don't know if this is anxiety or intuition, like I don't know if this is a message coming from a deep place of fear or whether it's like a
Rebecca Auman
right
Anita Rao
knowing message. How do you differentiate between the two?
Rebecca Auman
Well, I think it's both in tarot, in one of the spreads, one of the cards is what we hope for and what we fear, and it's the same thing.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Rebecca Auman
And so sometimes our intuition is the thing we fear most. And one of the women I interviewed on my. Show voices in the river talked about getting a very I off. I also get messages in the shower. I think most people would say they get messages in their car, like with a song on the radio or in the shower, but she was in the shower and it was like, you need a divorce. And she was like, go away. And it came back a year later. And at that point she knew she could no longer ignore it. But I do think that fear and intuition are the same.
Anita Rao
That's so interesting. I wasn't gonna tell you about this, but now it's coming up and I'm, I'm curious to have your reflection. So I have a lot of friends who are deeply intuitive and like more prone toward the witchy. And throughout my life I've been like, sure. Like I'll also hop on the phone with this person. And so I've talked to a few, like intuitive healers, I think they call themselves. And I've had such mixed experiences. Like there's one woman who I've spoken to a few times who was like. I was trying to decide whether or not to move from New York to North Carolina, and I was dating someone at the time, and I, we'd been long distance and I didn't know what to do and she was pulling cards and she's like, well, the card that I see is a burning, building a fire. So like, I guess you gotta go. And like, and in that moment that was like, okay, like I needed that message, I needed that clarity. I've talked to another person who was like hearing my guides as she was talking to me. But like laughing because my guides were really funny and like there was a part of the experience where I was just like, you're losing me. Like this has gotten, this has gotten too woo woo. I'm getting kind of freaked out. So like there's a fine line I think when you're like seeking a service like this between it, feeling comfortable in between, it feeling sort of like you've lost me. How do you deal with that, with clients of like meeting them where they are and any skepticism they may have about what you're offering or what you're bringing to the table?
Rebecca Auman
Well, I've had the opportunity because of my audio show to read for a lot of journalists and I would, I would say I would ready for a skepticism. The journalists are very skeptical. Um, you know, for me, I'm not really channeling guides for people. I don't feel like I have a message for you necessarily. I feel like I can shine a light on what you already know.
Anita Rao
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Auman
So that's a little easier. But then I also can see, I mean, some people. Really get overwhelmed and I just check in. Yeah. And I say, please put both feet on the floor. Take a breath, maybe write down the three things you wanna remember. And we don't go the full time. There's some times where I've told people the truth about something and they get really angry.
Anita Rao
Mm.
Rebecca Auman
And a couple of years later, I'll get a call and said, you know what? That was right.
Anita Rao
How do you personally deal with that? Like, does, does other people's skepticism or hesitation or anger affect you?
Rebecca Auman
It used to, but, but not anymore.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
I mean, yes. I mean, I'm a people pleaser at heart. I want people to like me. I mean, my goodness, I was a fundraiser. Um, so yes, I mean, does it hurt my feelings? But I don't, it doesn't stab me in the heart anymore.
Anita Rao
Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
I think about it.
Anita Rao
So you're doing this work now in the south, in a place that. Is steeped in religion where you have a deep personal history with religion. Where are you in your relationship with religion and, and being in the south now that you're back?
Rebecca Auman
Well, my relationship with organizational structures is the same as it's always been. Like I, I'm not good in organizational structure. I do appreciate the depth. It's like in seminary when we looked at seven different religions and they said, don't dabble. Pick one that you're gonna go deep into. And I got kind of wrapped around the axle about that because I was like, I, I'm a dabbler. I'm never gonna go deep into another religion. I'm just not gonna be fanatical about anything. And they were like, oh honey, you've already done it. You've already been the deep dive Christian, like you, you understand it. And so it's been interesting to come back to the place where my depth is, my depth of practice. And the cool thing about the south, which I would not have said earlier, um, when I lived here 30 years ago, I mean, there were no metaphysical bookstores. No one talked about tarot or magic or any of that, but. So many of the good Christian women I meet, especially the Catholics, because they already have the incense and all that cool stuff, are all into ritual and ceremony and magic and that, and they do both. So I think it's a both and here, and that's been really cool.
Anita Rao
Hmm. It's a moment now where I think there more people are self-identifying as witches. There's more witch. Hashtag which culture?
Rebecca Auman
Oh my gosh. I cannot even believe it. I mean, I'm old. None of this was
Anita Rao
true. What do you, what do you make of it?
Rebecca Auman
Um, I think it's a reclaiming of the matriarchy.
Anita Rao
Yeah.
Rebecca Auman
Yeah.
Anita Rao
Do you have people reaching out to you, like, because you're an elder, asking you for mentorship or guidance and and how do you respond?
Rebecca Auman
I do. I mostly, it comes from, I. They're just so glad to hear me say how many times I've messed up in my life and that I'm still alive, that I was able to forgive myself and that I'm alive. That I, and um, again, I believe that everyone has their own answer, and so I'm happy to be a guide in helping people figure that out. But I have way more questions than I have answers, and I do try to ask questions that will help. Unlock something for somebody.
Anita Rao
I'd love to end with just kind of placing us in this, this relationship to your ancestor and your witch. You've said before that like no one becomes a witch. You remember that? You are one. So is there a moment recently when you've really. Remembered.
Rebecca Auman
Um, we have had an ice storm and my horses are wild mustangs and one of them, she grew up in South Dakota, so she didn't take seek shelter. She stayed out in the ice and her main and her coat were just. Had icicles just hanging onto them. And so I went out to feed her lunch and I brushed her and dried her off. And there was something in that moment of caring for a large mammal that connected me to what we're here for.
Anita Rao
Hmm.
Rebecca Auman
Which is that spirit connection. Caring for others, caring for the earth.
Anita Rao
Well, thank you so much for sharing so much of yourself and your story and your energy with me today. This has been super fun.
Rebecca Auman
Thank you so much.
Anita Rao
You can find out more about Rebecca Auman at our website, embodiedwunc.org. Today's episode of Embodied was produced by Kaia Findlay and edited by Amanda Magnus. Sara Nics provided additional editorial guidance. Adesina Newkirk is our intern, and Jenni Lawson is our technical director. Quilla wrote our theme music. This program is recorded at the American Tobacco Historic District. WUNC is a broadcast service of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I'm Anita Rao.