Return to the Source with Julia Gordon Bramer

george grombacher 0:15
weapon This is George G and the time is right welcome today’s guest strong and powerful Julia Gordon Bramer. Julia, are you ready to do this?

Unknown Speaker 0:23
I am strong and powerful. I love it.

george grombacher 0:25
and powerful. Absolutely. Julia is your writer, scholar, a poet, tarot card reader. She’s the author of fixed stars Governor life. And I think, Julia, this is your third time on the show. So welcome back.

Unknown Speaker 0:39
Yeah, thank you, thank you actually have three books and two more coming out. The three books that I already have are around the poet Sylvia Plath and her mysticism. The book coming out, both my books coming out next year 2023 with inner traditions, publishing, and another one on Sylvia Plath called the magician’s girl, the history and mysticism of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. And what’s maybe more for the masses is the taro diaries, and it’s real life experiences as a professional tarot card reader. So, so that should be a little more fun, less scholarly, you know, but I’m really looking forward to being able to talk about that. I don’t have release dates quite yet. But I’m very excited to be working with inner traditions there. They’re an amazing group.

george grombacher 1:32
Excellent. Well, we’ve got a lot going on in the world. What’s, what’s what’s what’s top of mind for you?

Unknown Speaker 1:40
You know, I’m 2020 brought a lot of changes for me, as everybody I think, you know, I think it was really a sink or swim time. And so lucky for me, you know, I chose not to get caught up in the fear cycle. And I decided to be an active force against Division toward unity, which, of course, is a it’s a tough battle right now, you know, but I am, you know, just determined every day, I start the day with a prayer about being a source of love and light to whenever I talk to joy, you know, joy is my weapon, I like to say, and in this dark time, and, and really just, no matter who I’m dealing with, you know, whether it’s just some random person on Twitter, or, or someone in the grocery store, or you know, whatever, looking at those moments where I can learn and grow, looking at what gifts they have, for me, even if they rubbed me the wrong way. And, and just taking that opportunity to, to send them love. Because, you know, there’s that old saying, hurt people hurt people. And I think that’s so true. And I think the the nastier someone is the more attacking someone is they’re in a world of pain. And they may not have the tools to deal with it. Right now. So. So we need to be the light. And, you know, I just read a quote from Neale Donald Walsch. And, and he said, You know, I mean, I’m loosely paraphrasing here. But I don’t want to, I’m not looking for love. I don’t want love. I am love. And I think that’s so important. You know, when I do tarot card readings for my clients. I say that I can read your cards because we’re connected just by being alive. I call that lifeforce God, I don’t tell people how to do God, what to call God, you know, that’s your business. But if you can go there, if you can say, Okay, I’m alive, I’m hooked into the God’s system, you know, then then you’re a part of it. You’re, you’re a child of God, as we all are. So, so, you know, I just work really hard on owning that. Getting back to 2020, I made a lot of changes. I, I’m a student of A Course in Miracles and keep it right here on my desk all the time. And I started a study group, which I lead once a week on Zoom. And so that really gave me a powerful little community to, you know, just find some answers outside of fear. And the world is throwing at us. It’s been really good for me. I’m also part of a Buddhist women’s group. I think we need community now More than ever, oh my gosh, during COVID More than ever, I really saw people spiral into depression during all of that, and in fear and panic and certainly was not a good place, but, but I grew stronger. And I’m really, you know, I’m not happy with how the world has gone. But I’m happy with where I am. And I do see that there were valuable lessons and a lot of growth opportunity for me in the last couple of years for sure.

george grombacher 5:31
I certainly appreciate that. I appreciate everything. You said. This, this lifeforce that is around all of us. You you believe that it’s inside all of us as well. am am I is God inside of me. Is he? She everywhere?

Unknown Speaker 5:49
Yeah, like so. You know, I’m not of the old school that God is this man sitting on a throne in the clouds, right. I believe God is more. As I said, that lifeforce. And so that lifeforce is at the origin of the universe, that lifeforce we can, you know, we can put the sperm and egg in a test tube and unite them to create a human being but the sperm and egg have to be alive. You know, we have never created life. And, you know, we can we can make circumstances for life and we can take life away, but we can not form it. That’s the magic. And, you know, whether you want to get all the way down to life inside an atom, you know, it’s it’s inexplicable, and, and maybe beyond our comprehension, and that I believe is God. I believe we can harness that lifeforce. I think, you know, in everyday human experience, attitude is a huge part of it, you know, doctors know about the power of the mind, with the placebo effect, with the will to live. Athletes know about the power of the mind with visualization and, and seeing themselves crossing that finish line or racing past the competitors or whatever. An athlete would never obsess, you know, what if I trip and fall? What if I don’t make it to the finish line? You know, because that opens up the space for the negative to happen. Our minds are very powerful. And with that in mind, you know, taking it back to COVID Look at the power we gave COVID with the focus on the fear, you know, oh my god, what if I get it? What if my parents get it? What if, you know, what if society falls apart? What, you know, it’s, we we created a monster with us truly. And I’m not saying ignore our world circumstances, but certainly we need to handle them in a different way. If we if we operate through fear, nothing’s accomplished, you know, if the the mountain climbers stare at Everest with fear, they’re never going to go up. You know, it’s, it’s a really limiting paralysis, and not using our God power at all. So yeah, that’s kind of where I am.

george grombacher 8:17
That is super powerful. I was just scribbling down notes furious fear furiously? Well, I wanted to, I wanted to ask about how it is that we tap into it. And then you, you, you answered my question. And I think a lot about my perspective, and my attitude and how I look at different situations. And I think that we all intellectually know that, but as you were talking, I didn’t, I never put it together, just how incredibly powerful that that really is, and our ability to do that. And to shape the way that we’re viewing the world, which has helped you experienced the world, which is life. I just, I always knew how important it was, but I’d never really thought about how that is, you know, a divine power.

Unknown Speaker 9:05
Yeah, I mean, I suppose it’s just semantics, really. I know very spiritual atheists, and spiritual agnostics. And they’re just aware that, you know, they might not call it a God, they might phrase it energy, you know, and I’m good with, like, I’m like, whatever you want to call it, whatever works for you. You know, I grew up in a in a Episcopalian Church and had a more traditional Christian background, which I value. I think I learned a lot from that. But you know, to a fundamentalist Christian, I’m pretty controversial, and maybe even blasphemous because I was talking about owning the God within yourself, right. But, um, but I do think that there is so much potential that’s untapped. That you know, I would say God has given us but you know, we could say has, you know, formed within us just by being alive, you know, scientists to proven energy doesn’t die, energy goes somewhere else our bodies crap out and you know, for whatever reason, they’ll give up, get too old or you know, God willing, that’s that’s our path. But but the energy goes somewhere else. And so in spirituality however you want to define it, it’s about returning to the source. And, and maybe coming back again as a human being, you know, maybe staying in the ether that that individual faith, you know, some people believe in Heaven and Hell, I’m, I’m of the mindset, it’s probably all right here. And it’s for us to choose where we want to live, and how we want to live. And there’s a whole lot of people in hell right now. And that breaks my heart, but I do think some of its changeable. But, but you got to own it, and in faith lessness and powerlessness, and fear is the way to hell. You know,

george grombacher 11:09
we trap ourselves in this prison of our own creation. Yeah, I wrote down again, feverish, feverishly, that, that, that we can’t create life. So in order to make a person we can measure the sperm and the egg and use science, but you know, the chicken and the egg kind of thing, life has to be here, in order for us to propagate it, move it forward, we are able to manufacture life, like Frankenstein story COVID, we literally created this awful monster, which is also how we create these prisons that keep us trapped when we’re denying our ability or not embracing our ability to, to, to own the God within ourselves. And it strikes me right now that we want so badly to have to decentralize the control. We’re sick of getting information from legacy media, we’re talking about decentralizing our currency, we’re talking about how we educate our kids and how we police our communities. People are just fed up.

Unknown Speaker 12:09
Yeah, yeah. You know, when we look too much to outer human beings, to to dictate, you know, to tell us what is right and what is wrong, to tell us who to hate to demonize another side. That’s really taking you away from your heart, away from the truth that, you know, away from any kind of unity. You know, there’s a popular quote by I believe it was Herman gearing, the Nazi at the Nerman Nuremberg trials, and, and I don’t know it by heart, and, and, you know, he’s not, I don’t like, quoting Nazis. Sure. But he talks about the the one way to gain control or power over any mass group of people is with fear. And he’s like, it’s worked this way. You know, from time immemorial, it’s, it’s always been this way. You tell the people, they’re being attacked, you tell the people, they have something to fear, and they follow you, because they want to be protected. And that’s what we’ve had going on in the last couple of years. And you know, and I don’t want to get all political. But we’ve seen it in a number of different ways, across our society in the last several years, socially, with COVID, with health, all kinds of different ways. And it’s about weakening and dividing and controlling. And in that is getting us away from our God’s self. And what we know, is true and right for us.

george grombacher 13:47
So how do we respond? Or how do we return to the source? How do I start to stop looking outside of myself and start looking inside for these answers?

Unknown Speaker 13:59
A big part of it is to unplug. I think it truly is to unplug. And so if you’re always on social media, if you’re, you know, it’s funny, in my job, I have some sort of requirement to be on social media, but I control the time and I have a bot that does some regular posts just to keep me you know, in the algorithms seen, you know, on Twitter and what have you. And I and my goal in places like Twitter, which I’m at J Gordon Bramer is, is to put love and light out into such a dark place. Oh, my goodness is so dark on Twitter. But you know, same same for Facebook and all the others I want to be a source of unity there. But you know, what we can do for ourselves, I think, meditation, which does not have to be you know, some people think that you have to take classes Unlike Transcendental Meditation, no, no, no, it’s as simple as quieting the mind for 10 or 15 minutes. But to do that, once a day has huge benefits, it has health benefits, it slows down our blood pressure, it improves our breathing. And, and it gives us peace and it takes away anxiety, and it lifts depression. And you know, it does things biologically to us, which are very, very positive. I tell some of my clients, especially when I see a need for meditation in their tarot cards, which might show up in the four of swords, or the Hermit card in reverse. And I’ll say, you know, if you have the busiest office, I want you to go sit in a parked car at lunchtime, and turn off your phone. And don’t tell anyone where you are. And just take some deep breaths for 15 minutes, or close your eyes and take a nap. I mean, even that is a is a, you know, just kind of grounding yourself and toning it down. And so important, because we get tight, we get wound up, we get what the Buddhists called the monkey mind, where we can’t let go of everything. And it’s one thing one thing, one thing one thing and, and it’s not a place of peace. And, and, and it’s really easy to get, you know, to sort of spin out in panic. And that’s where anxiety comes from. So an anxiety is a huge problem in society today. So, so yeah, if your listeners, or people watching can take one tool away from this discussion, I would say, quiet your mind for 10 or 15 minutes a day, and see what happens. And see how much better you feel and how much calmer you are and how much powerful and happier, you are just doing that instead of the continual programming. And, you know, I’m not just talking political programming, which is such a big topic right now. You know, marketing marketing’s everywhere, we’ve all had the talking about something and then all of a sudden the ad comes up on your phone, or, you know, it’s like, oh, horrible. So, so we need to unplug. so, so important to getting back to our humanity and our unity.

george grombacher 17:26
I think that that’s well said, and so simple, yet so hard for us to actually do that. And to to make the time to do it.

Unknown Speaker 17:38
Right now, so is that, you know, is that hypocritical? You know, some people might, might tease me about that. But, but what we, you know, it’s like diet, you know, when when you have a diet, you have to pay attention to what you put in your body, right. And diet goes beyond food. So what you put in your mind, you know, so your life blood podcast here, it’s about being positive in various ways. It’s about improving your life, it’s about enriching, you know, what, you know, and how you work with others and, and treating, you know, treating others kindly, and all of all of these themes. That’s kind of like eating a lot of good fruits and vegetables and keeping away from processed foods, right? So and so is the meditation part. So just like we want to fill our body with good nutritious food, and we want to move our body through gentle exercise, we need to fill our brain with good positive information. And, and news, of course, isn’t really news. It’s the bad news, because that gets ratings and that keeps us you know, even I was glued to hurricane in yesterday because my son is in Sarasota. So you know, so um, the whole time just, you know, this crazy storm, and I knew better, but I got caught into it, you know? And, and so we all do, we’re all human, but we just just like, I may have a weekend where, you know, oh, we’re having a couple parties and you know, or we’re on vacation or something and maybe I will eat you know, some fried food followed by an ice cream sundae. You know, it’s a free day practice. It couldn’t be an everyday practice, or I’d be in some poor physical shape. And, and so, same thing mentally. You got to watch what you do mentally and what your everyday practices mentally.

george grombacher 19:43
I love it. Well, Julia, thank you so much for coming back on where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you?

Unknown Speaker 19:50
Awesome. Yeah, my website is Giulia Gordon bramer.com. And that’s ju li e a g o RDONBR. are a m e r.com. I know that’s a lot of letters, or they can call me at 31451758

george grombacher 20:09
Love it. If you enjoyed as much as I did show Julia appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to Julia Gordon bramer.com Certainly list that in the notes of the show along with all the other wonderful social media that we’ve been talking about today. But there’s opportunities for you to engage directly with Julia and to do to do do readings, tarot card readings. And you can go back to I think the last episode we did where Julie actually did a live tarot card reading with with on me on the show, so check that out. Definitely take advantage of it. Thanks again, Julia.

Unknown Speaker 20:46
Thank you, George. Take care.

george grombacher 20:48
And until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai