Episodes

  • 🎙️Liberation Magic: A Conversation with Aki Hirata Quetzalyolotzin

    🎙️Liberation Magic: A Conversation with Aki Hirata Quetzalyolotzin
    Jul 26 2026

    Liberation Magic: A Conversation with Aki Hirata Quetzalyolotzin

    This week for the Magicians series on Living the Spiral, Alison sits down with Aki Hirata Quetzalyolotzin, a medicine woman, storyteller, and founder of Minka Brooklyn and Minka Mystery School. They talk about claiming a cosmic slut identity after divorce, what magic actually means, why decolonial liberation starts with desire, and how love and grief are the same act.

    Topics covered

    [02:00] On claiming a new identity after divorce

    [08:00] On work as an offering rather than a role

    [11:00] On what magic really means

    [17:00] On liberation and undoing separation

    [24:00] On desire as a creative engine

    [53:00] On trauma culture and what comes after naming it

    [55:00] On love as a brave act

    [1:04:00] Aki's offerings and where to find her

    About Aki

    Aki Hirata Quetzalyolotzin, also known as Jewel Moon Medicine Woman, is a multidisciplinary energy healing facilitator and community organizer whose work centers on decolonial spiritual liberation. She has dedicated her life to studying mysticism, philosophy, and various healing systems. She lives between Japan and the US and is teaching this summer in LA, the Berkshires, and New York, including a Young Witches School for teenagers working with intuition and oracle cards, and a Reiki training during the Lion's Gate portal built around what she and her teacher call Earth Evolution Reiki.

    Writing: Field Notes from the Inbetween on Substack

    Instagram: @soulflowermedicine

    Teaching home: Minka Brooklyn

    About Alison

    Alison is an ecosomatic astrologer, Human Design guide, breathwork practitioner, and creative sovereignty coach based in the high desert outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work lives under the name Hearth & Spiral, where she blends astrology, Human Design, somatic practice, and myth into a path back to the body and the land. She hosts Living the Spiral as both a podcast and a Substack publication, and co-created ELA Map with her partner Jackson.

    Writing: Living the Spiral on Substack

    Instagram: @hearthandspiral

    Website: hearthandspiral.com

    Interested in being interviewed on Living the Spiral: Magicians? Send Alison a DM.



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.livingthespiral.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • 🎙️ Leo Season 2026: Expansion & Release

    🎙️ Leo Season 2026: Expansion & Release
    Jul 22 2026

    Leo Season 2026: Stepping Onto Pride Rock

    If you want to go deep into your own chart and how this season lands for you personally, my books are open at hearthandspiral.com. And I also want to invite you to join the waitlist for ELAmap, the new astrocartography app my partner and I have been building- it's going live next week on the Aquarius full moon!

    This Leo season episode traces the sign all the way back to Babylon and Egypt, through the Thema Mundi, the ancient world chart with the sun in its own home in Leo, and into the Human Design gates of the season and the transits of an eclipse-charged summer.

    We cover the nodes shifting into Leo and Aquarius, a Full Moon in Aquarius standing cazimi opposite a Jupiter-Sun conjunction, Mars easing into Cancer, and the total solar eclipse in Leo on August 12, the first of a new two-year series and the season's real centerpiece.

    The season's invitation is to step fully into the light, and to figure out which parts of that radiance are true and which were only ever built for applause. Come out of the den before Virgo season asks you to get to work.

    Key dates:July 24/25 · Mercury stations directJuly 26 · Nodes shift into Leo and AquariusJuly 29 · Full Moon in Aquarius / Sun cazimi Jupiter, Gate 31August 1 · Lughnasadh/LammasAugust 6 · Venus enters LibraAugust 9 · Mercury enters LeoAugust 11 · Mars enters CancerAugust 12 · Total Solar Eclipse in Leo, Gate 4 (Formulization)August 17 · Venus sextile JupiterThanks for listening! Find more posts at livingthespiral.com, or on IG and TikTok @hearthandspiral



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.livingthespiral.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 12 mins
  • What's Provoking You Right Now?

    What's Provoking You Right Now?
    Jul 4 2026
    Hey friends,I’m trying something new here on Living the Spiral. For years I’ve moved through forecasts of different shapes - weekly deep dives, then biweekly on the full and new moons, then monthly, always tracking the sun and planets through the signs, gates and seasons. That work isn’t going anywhere- it’s my foundation. But today I felt called to record without a plan, to speak from the hip instead of from research, and to let whatever wants to come through actually come through.This is new for me in a specific way. I’m a 5/1 in human design, and that one line in my unconscious profile is about investigation, about laying a foundation before anything gets said out loud. I’ve spent years earning trust with myself by going deep before I speak. So sitting down to talk without that groundwork first is its own kind of edge. But as a self-projected projector, I need to speak out loud to know what I mean and what I desire. So it’s also, I think, exactly what today is asking of me. Listen in the player above or find Living the Spiral wherever you listen to podcasts <3.The Gate of the NowIt’s Friday, July 3rd as I record this, and we’re sitting inside the Mars-Uranus conjunction in Gemini, in Gate 20, the Gate of the Now. Mars and Uranus meet up roughly every two years, so the conjunction itself isn’t rare. What is rare is the sign. This is the first time this pairing has landed in Gemini in about 84 years, after about a decade of these conjunctions happening in Taurus. A new flavor of energy is moving through, and it’s arriving right as the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.I don’t think that timing is incidental. The Fourth of July always falls when the sun is in the Gate of Provocation (39), whose gift is dynamism and whose siddhi is liberation. There’s no liberty without provoking or bringing attention to the thing that’s making you feel trapped. The gate of Provocation is a Cancer gate, and I keep thinking of the crab: a creature built to withdraw into its shell, and also built with claws. Hiding isn’t the only option. Sometimes the claws come out because the shell alone won’t do the job anymore.So we’ve got Uranus and Mars electrifying the present moment while the sun sits in the gate of Provocation, and the message underneath all of it feels pretty blunt: look around at where you believe yourself to be trapped, and take action. Shock the system a little. Move.My own Chiron in thisMy natal Chiron sits in the Gate of the Now, so this conjunction is landing directly on it. Chiron is the wound we hold that can eventually become the thing we teach from, once we’ve alchemized it. For me, this wound is about not feeling heard and not feeling fully seen by my community. Gemini rules communication and local networks, and this placement sits in my 11th house, the house of larger community and friendship groups, so having Uranus and Mars stir that up is landing in a very specific spot.What I’m noticing under the provocation is a pattern I’ve built without meaning to. I tune myself down sometimes. I round off the complexity of what I actually think so that I’ll be easier to receive, softer to meet in the moment. And that habit, born out of wanting to be understood, ends up being the very thing that keeps me from being fully met. A Chiron wound reopening tends to work that way. It doesn’t just point at the wound. It points at the strategy we built around the wound so we don’t feel it as intensely, and asks whether that strategy is still serving us. The pain can turn into medicine once it has an outlet.This is where self-understanding becomes part of the medicine. I've spent years with astrology, human design, the gene keys, meditation, and deep reflection, and what they've shown me about my own wiring is specific. The only channels active in my chart are collective understanding circuits, and my sun gate is Gate 64, the gate that alchemizes Confusion into Illumination. So much of my design leans toward the big picture, toward zooming way out across long stretches of time and pattern. So when my Chiron is met by Uranus and Mars in the Gate of the present moment, I feel real friction there. For a long time I treated that friction as something wrong with me, something to smooth over or apologize for to my community. Now I hold it differently. It's information about how I'm built, and it lets me meet the now on my own terms instead of forcing myself into a shape of how the now should look that was never mine. I think this is available to anyone doing this work with their own chart. Getting to know yourself this closely means you can choose your response instead of running the old strategy without noticing. And once that kind of self-knowledge starts to settle in, it stops feeling like a personal project, and starts feeling like part of something much bigger moving through all of us.From tribal bargain to individual ...
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    52 mins
  • Wyrd Magic: A Conversation with Petah Raven

    Wyrd Magic: A Conversation with Petah Raven
    Jun 25 2026
    Wyrd Magic with Petah RavenPetah Raven is an editor, writer, and the creator of Pandora's Lost Gift, a Substack weaving together astrology, tarot, myth, and mysticism. Petah writes with the rigor of a researcher and the honesty of someone reporting back from inside the experience - and this conversation reflects exactly that. We meandered through goddess mythology, the magic of words, integrating polarity, and what it means to wield power responsibly in a world drowning in information.Find Petah at Pandora's Lost Gift on Substack and watch for his forthcoming book, The Living Language of Tarot.In this episode:(00:00) Introduction - who is Petah Raven and how we found each other through Inanna(02:00) The origin of Pandora's Lost Gift - the myth of the jar (not the box), hope as the lost gift, and the feminist lens on Zeus(07:00) The audacity of hope and the audacity of magic - what it takes to claim either(09:00) Petah's visitations by the goddess - what they were, what they weren't, and what they asked of him(13:00) Being initiated into women's business and sleeping under the stars in a sacred circle(16:00) Imagination, magic, and the imaginal realm - why something doesn't have to be historically real to be true(19:00) Astrology as meaning-making - why engagement with the symbols matters more than whether the planets "actually" do anything(21:00) Words as spells - the etymology of wyrd, spelling as casting, and the runes as the original language of magic(23:00) Imaginal cells and the butterfly - sitting in the goo before the new form arrives(24:00) Rune notes passed in junior high and the history of codes and ciphers in magical practice(26:00) Neurodivergence, following breadcrumbs, and why curiosity is the real spiritual practice(28:00) The pollinators of Gemini season and the Gate of Enthusiasm - on cross-pollination of ideas and following what lights you up(30:00) The Wild West internet as hyperlinked oracle - and how the algorithm ruined the surf(33:00) Magic, power, and responsibility - what happens when you hand people chainsaws without teaching them to wield the blade(36:00) The magician card, Trump as magi, and how trickster energy shows up in politics and propaganda(39:00) World building, myth making, and who gets to plant the seeds of new stories(42:00) Finding your path - Petah's long and winding road from private school misfit to writer and archeologist(45:00) Gnosis, presence, and how you actually know when you're on the right track(48:00) Polarity vs. duality - why yin yang is one word and what gets created in the space between opposites(51:00) Full moons, the infinity loop, and integrating the opposite sign's medicine(55:00) The I Ching's first hexagram - how even pure yang contains the instruction to wait(57:00) Fuxi, Nüwa, and the cosmic polarity woven into creation myths across cultures(59:00) The Golden Dawn, tarot, and why creation requires polarity - from Waite and Colman Smith to sperm and egg(01:01:00) Non-binary figures in the Inanna myth, two-spirit traditions, and the rising integration of the sacred third(01:02:00) Petah's upcoming book The Living Language of Tarot - developing visual literacy and building your own relationship with any deckMentioned in this episode:Pandora's Lost Gift - Petah's Substack: ravenastrology.substack.comSand Talk by Tyson YunkaportaThe Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deckThe Tarot of the Witches (the deck from Live and Let Die - yes, really)Fuxi and Nüwa - the Chinese creator mythThe Inanna descent myth and Enheduanna, the world's earliest recorded authorThe Lord of the Rings / Tolkien on world building and the imaginationThe I Ching / Yi Jing - hexagram one and the hidden yin in pure yangAbout Alison DaleAlison Dale is an artist, writer, astrologer, and Human Design guide based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work lives at the intersection of ancestral systems that track the seasons and the planets, embodiment practices, and earth-based spirituality.Book a reading or explore more of what she offers at hearthandspiral.com, follow along at @hearthandspiral on Instagram, or on Substack at livingthespiral.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.livingthespiral.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Your Cancer Season Horoscopes are here!

    Your Cancer Season Horoscopes are here!
    Jun 22 2026

    Cancer Season 2026 Rising Sign Horoscopes (Part 2) | Chiron in Taurus, Mercury Retrograde & Jupiter in Leo

    I welcome you to Living the Spiral for part two of my Cancer season 2026 rising sign horoscopes, and I explain why rising signs are the most accurate way to track how the season lands in your real life (and where to find yours), while noting part one covers Cancer’s history, Human Design gates, and the season’s major transits. Then I move sign by sign, tying Cancer season to the house it activates for each rising sign and highlighting the big dates: Chiron entering Taurus on June 19 (an ~8-year healing journey), the Capricorn full moon on June 29, Mercury retrograde in Cancer from June 29–July 23, Jupiter entering Leo on June 30 (a year of expansion), and the Cancer new moon on July 14 as a fresh seeding moment. I wrap by sharing where to listen, subscribe, book readings, and grab my Cancer season guidebook.

    00:00 Welcome and Overview

    01:50 How Rising Signs Work

    02:43 Aries Rising Home Roots

    06:48 Taurus Rising Voice Care

    10:50 Gemini Rising Values Worth

    17:15 Cancer Rising Season Reset

    21:31 Leo Rising Inner Retreat

    27:02 Virgo Rising Community Check

    31:39 Libra Rising Career Nurture

    36:12 Scorpio Rising Big Beliefs

    40:09 Sagittarius Rising Deep Healing

    45:33 Capricorn Rising Relationship Axis

    50:50 Aquarius Rising Routines Health

    55:36 Pisces Rising Creative Bloom

    01:00:11 Closing and Resources



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.livingthespiral.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Cancer Season 2026: The Fierce Embrace

    Cancer Season 2026: The Fierce Embrace
    Jun 18 2026

    Cancer Season 2026: The Fierce Embraceif you want to go deep into your own chart and how this season lands for you personally, my books are open for Soulshine Readings at hearthandspiral.com.

    The crab is older than you think. This episode traces the sign all the way back to Babylon and Sumer, through the Thema Mundi -the ancient world chart with Cancer rising - and into the Human Design gates of the season and the transits of a busy, electric summer.

    We cover Chiron entering Taurus, a very full end of June (full moon, Mercury retrograde, and Jupiter into Leo all in one day), the Mars-Uranus conjunction on July 4th, and the New Moon in Cancer on July 14 in the Gate of Details.

    The season's invitation is to go dark enough to find out what's incubating inside you. Come home before Leo season's stage calls you out..

    Key dates:June 19 · Chiron enters TaurusJune 20/21 · Summer SolsticeJune 29 · Full Moon in Capricorn (Gate 58) / Mercury Rx begins / Jupiter enters LeoJuly 4 · Mars conjunct Uranus, Gate 39July 7 · Neptune stations retrogradeJuly 12 · Mercury cazimi, Gate 56July 14 · New Moon in Cancer, Gate 62



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.livingthespiral.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 9 mins
  • Emergent Magic with Britten LaRue

    Emergent Magic with Britten LaRue
    Jun 4 2026

    In this episode of Living the Spiral: Magicians, your host Alison Dale interviews astrologer and community builder Britten LaRue. She's the creator of Emergence Astrology, author of the book Living Astrology, and host of Moon to Moon podcast. Alison and Britten chat about magic as change and the willingness to be moved by it. They discuss skill as a Saturnian devotional practice developed over time, “voice” as the sum of our choices and boundaries, and one of Britten’s guiding phrases, “there’s no such thing as potential, there’s only emergence,” as an antidote to shame and striving. The conversation contrasts astrology as a living language with predictive approaches, distinguishes divination from fortune-telling, and connects desire, unshaming, and self-trust to magical practice.

    Britten shares her path from academia to astrology after a mystical period of intuition and lunar guidance, and she describes restructuring her offerings, clarifying Living Emergence as a community space and Emergence Astrology Pathway as a multi-year school.

    About Britten LaRue

    Britten LaRue is a recovering academic who now teaches, writes, and offers transformational readings from a place of sacred unknowing. She is the creator of Emergence Astrology, the author of Living Astrology, and the host of the Moon to Moon podcast. Her work invites us to think of the signs and planets as a living language designed to equip us to meet what is happening with our fullest, most vibrant power.

    Work with Britten:

    Enrollment for the Emergence Astrology Pathway opens at the summer solstice. If you've been looking for a long-term home for your astrological studies that feels mystical, spacious, and genuinely transformational, it's worth exploring. You can also find her in Living Emergence, her ongoing community space for practice and belonging, and pick up her book Living Astrology in her shop.

    Visit brittenlarue.com to learn more, follow her on Instagram at @brittenlarue, and subscribe to Moon to Moon wherever you listen to podcasts.

    About Alison Dale

    Alison Dale is an artist, writer, astrologer, and Human Design guide based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Her work lives at the intersection of ancestral systems that track the seasons and the planets, embodiment practices, and earth-based spirituality.

    Work with Alison:

    Book a reading or explore more of what she offers at hearthandspiral.com, follow along at @hearthandspiral on Instagram, or on Substack at livingthespiral.com.

    Timestamps:

    00:00 Meet Britten LaRue

    05:21 Claiming the Magician

    05:58 Magic as Change

    08:29 Emergence and Voice

    11:32 Skills Desire Guidance

    15:57 Unshaming Astrology

    18:13 Saturn and Skillbuilding

    25:06 From Academia to Astrology

    28:55 Neptune Awakening Leap

    32:38 Why Community Matters

    39:06 Maui Intuition Moon Call

    40:15 Moon Ritual Beginnings

    41:16 Learning Lunar Astrology

    49:22 Deconditioning and Unshaming

    50:33 Divination and Trust

    58:49 Restructuring Offerings

    01:03:52 Community vs Pathway

    01:05:29 Imaginal Spaces Online

    01:07:25 Compost and Rebrand Metaphor

    01:08:17 Where to Find Britten



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.livingthespiral.com/subscribe
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    1 hr and 10 mins
  • Gemini Season Horoscopes

    Gemini Season Horoscopes
    May 24 2026

    Get your Gemini Season Guidebook here!Alison of Living the Spiral shares Gemini season 2026 horoscopes by rising sign. With Uranus newly in Gemini and a Gemini New Moon on June 15, each sign is guided through the house Gemini activates and what Uranus may revolutionize over the next seven years, with key dates including the Uranus cazimi around May 22, the Sagittarius Full Moon on May 31, the Mars–Pluto square on May 25, Uranus square the nodes on June 12, Venus entering Leo on June 13, and the Venus–Jupiter conjunction in Cancer on June 9. She has a Gemini season guidebook available at hearthandspiral.com and invites listeners to work with her through astrology and human design readings, coaching, and her Tending the Hearth offering.

    00:00 Welcome

    02:47 Why Rising Signs Matter

    03:09 Gemini Season Big Shift

    03:31 Aries Rising Third House

    06:00 Taurus Rising Money Values

    08:26 Gemini Rising Identity Rewire

    11:19 Cancer Rising Twelfth House

    14:22 Leo Rising Community Shakeup

    17:33 Virgo Rising Career Calling

    20:21 Libra Rising Beliefs Travel

    22:48 Scorpio Rising Deep Transformation

    25:39 Sagittarius Rising Partnerships

    28:41 Capricorn Rising Routines Health

    31:15 Aquarius Rising Creativity Play

    33:34 Pisces Rising Home Roots

    37:01 Wrap Up Resources and Links



    This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.livingthespiral.com/subscribe
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    40 mins