My favorite Astrology, Human Design, Enneagram and Other Apps, Practitioners and Tools 🌟

A Field Guide to the Invisible

Hi there,

Before I start, I’d like to invite you to a special event at Manolo Blahnik in East Hampton. I’m excited to shop for his incredible shoes, preview Diana Frank’s Photography Series, and help support CaringKind and 100 Women of Impact (which I am honored to be a part of). CaringKind not only empowers families and caregivers with support and education, but they also fiercely advocate for brain health research and preventative brain health care. Looking forward to seeing you there!

PART TWO

Art by HHEININGE

Following up from last week’s Part One, let’s get into this week’s newsletter!

These days, you can spend an hour on the spiritual side of TikTok and you’ll surface a dozen systems Gen Z is fluent in that their grandparents mostly weren’t: Human Design charts next to birth charts, Enneagram numbers dropped into dating bios, akashic record readings sold alongside energy clearings. Most of these practices are centuries or millennia old, but the sheer density of posts and information, and the openness to them feels new.

Of course some many of these tools get used and misused, and there is so much out there. So I wanted to share some of the things I have been doing, maybe some of them can be a good start if you are curious about them. Enjoy!

Divination and Metaphysical Systems & Self-Knowledge Tools

Astrology (Western)

I have been reading Susan Miller ‘s Astrology Zone for more than a decade now, and no matter how many others I find, she is always the most spot on. People on social media complain a lot that she is always late on delivering the monthly forecast (it’s true), but I don’t take this that seriously to be that upset if she is late  . I also listen to Jessica Adams weekly horoscope podcast. She is very prolific and her website has a ton of information too. Chani Nicholas ‘s readings don’t resonate with me most of the times, but she has an app a ton of resources there such as meditations, journal prompts etc, and your birth chart “lives” there, which is always helpful when you want to do a quick consult. Her readings based from your ascendant – or rising sign, not your sun sign. I do read both on Susan Miller’s and Jessica Adam’s. PS: If you are a fan of astrology, I hope you enjoyed the Lion’s Portal and yesterday’s eclipse in Leo!

Human Design

Human Design synthesized in the 1980s from astrology, the I-Ching, Kabbalah, and chakra theory. It produces a detailed “chart” sorting people into energy “types” (Generators, Projectors, Manifestors, and so on) meant to describe how each person is built to make decisions and expend energy. It’s fascinating and I find it extremely accurate. I love the app Align created by Jenna Zoe on My Human Design (they also have a podcast) that generates your personalized Human Design chart and bodygraph. It explains so much in text or in audio, but also because we can add other people to it and learn about them. I have my children and husband there and it’s fun to read all about them.

Enneagram

A nine-point personality typing system with roots in early-20th-century spiritual teaching, developed in the 20th century by modern esoteric philosophers and teachers like Oscar Ichazo and Claudio Naranjo, drawing from various global wisdom traditions. Unlike most of the systems here, it isn’t really divinatory, and it doesn’t claim access to unseen information. It’s closer to a map of motivation: what each type fears, wants, and does under stress. I first heard about it through Glennon Doyle’s podcast, where Suzanne Stabile explained the system. This is another fascinating tool to know yourself better and the people around you. The podcast episodes are this, this and this. Suzanne Stabile is an internationally-recognized Enneagram teacher, and the co-author of The Road Back to You, and the author of The Path Between Us and The Journey Toward Wholeness. Suzanne’s husband is a United Methodist pastor, so she also teaches with a Christian leans, but enneagram is not a religious practice.

Tarot

Angie Banicki with Billie Eilish

Covered in the last piece, briefly: a 78-card deck used less for fortune-telling today than for structured self-reflection, prompting a reader to project meaning onto ambiguous imagery in the presence of another person. I use it a lot to tap into my intuition, and I learned from Angie Banicki, back when she used to host workshops. She is amazing, I highly recommend you schedule a session with her. I use the original Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, and also Angie’s Explorer of The Soul deck. I used to sell Pamela Love’s jewelry in my shop in Sag Harbor, and Pam came once for an event and gnerously read tarot cards for my clients. And now she has beautiful deck called The Infinite Door, I pre-ordered and it should be arriving soon. I also have a few oracle decks that I sometimes use if I want some extra guidance: The Flower Oracle and L’Oracle du Jardin by Le Jardin Retrouve (the company’s owner Clara was kind enough to gift me one, I used to sell candles and diffusers at my shop as well).

Feng Shui

I have moved many, many times in my life, and I have been using the help of a Feng-Shui expert since around 2003 – more on this very soon! Feng Shui is a practice for arranging physical space like our homes, offices, and furniture to direct the flow of energy, or qi, in ways believed to affect health, wealth, and relationships. Feng Shui is about the environment rather than the self, though the underlying logic still relies on unseen forces and energy. My home is my ultimate sanctuary, and I will always be up for anything that can make it the most harmonious possible for me and my family. I will be sharing more about my favorite practitioner, and will share more resources too, so stay tuned.

Psychics & mediums

Now this is a tricky one. I’m about to consult with a few people soon, and they come highly recommended. But I remember when I lived in NYC, out of curiosity I went to see that famous physic that was located on Bleecker Street, her name was Zena. At first, things were fine and she went about her “regular” reading, but towards the end of it, she started to “see” things that she could fix – for the modest amount of 5,000 dollars. I knew it then that she was a grifter, so I thanked her and left. 10 years later, I read in the news that she had been found guilty for stealing 138,000 from clients. I have a feeling she stole a lot more than that over the years, and I’m glad she got caught.

These predatory practices are all over the place, so I’m super careful and very skeptical. But I grew up in Brazil, where it’s very common to meet people who are mediums, and ask for their help when you need them. The most infamous of them all is John of God, who was indicted for sexually abusing about 600 women. Netflix had a documentary about him and his crimes. It’s so infuriating and unforgivable that he used his position to take advantage of vulnerable women who were there to seek help. And if half f his abilities were true, it’s a shame that he decided to waste them.

This type of healing modality is not as common here in the US, and there is a lot of skepticism, rightly so. If you want to find someone, make sure they are always recommended by someone you know and if they ask for a lot of money upfront, I strongly recommend that you walk away. My mom sees this medium in Brazil who says being a medium is not her choice, she believes it’s a mission that was given to her by God. She lives in a very modest house, and never charges anything – she relies strictly on small donations, so I know she isn’t fleecing anyone. I’m not saying everyone needs to work for free, but be careful out there with the crazy large fees.

A few members of my family also had some extraordinary experiences with mediums, so I am open to this practice so long as they come highly recommended.

I don’t use Numerology (though I know my numbers), I-Ching, Runes & pendulum work, or Akashic records, so I can’t recommend them. The most mysterious and hard to grasp of them all (to me, at least) is the Akashic records.

The claim, drawn from Theosophical tradition, is that a non-physical archive exists containing the record of every soul’s experiences across lifetimes, accessible through meditation or a trained reader. I hadn’t heard about them until recently, when someone asked me if I believed in them. I read this article about it, and learned a lot. In it, they explain how Edgar Cayce (who has been called the most documented psychic of all time as well as a 20th-century mystic) gave readings, or psychic dissertations, using the Akashic Records as his primary resource material. He talent was his ability to access and describe information from the Akashic records to enable a person to discover everything from their purpose in life to the root cause of a long-standing problem. Read the full article, it’s fascinating. It seems that the purpose of the Akashic Records is to keep track of and assist with each soul’s personal growth and transformation.

There are so many more I don’t mention here. To me, all of these modalities can be helpful tools to get in touch with our inner selves, our intuition, and the unseen world outside of us. Life is challenging, and full of mystery, and sometimes using these tools can be comforting, reassuring, hopeful and also a lot of fun. I use it to support my decisions, to help me see a bigger picture, and also as a form of play and entertainment.

Whatever you do, and whether you believe in these tools or not, I hope this has been interesting and helpful to you. Sending love,

Patricia