Transcript
Christian Yordanov: Hey, welcome back to the show. Christian Jourdanoff here. Today's special guest is Lara J Day. She was introduced to me by Brandon Thomas, our good buddy. He's been on the show multiple times, the expanding reality podcast host and all around awesome dude.
Christian Yordanov: I really appreciate the introduction. Lara is the author of the 13 holy nights oracle deck and she's also the creator of neurogenic qigong, which some sounds very interesting. um Her unique and innovative healing method interweaves Chinese energy medicine with tension and trauma releasing work.
Christian Yordanov: She has been teaching energy arts since 2003 and is unspeakably grateful for her teachers for the practices themselves and for the chance to view this absurd and perfectly magnificent life from the energetic perspective. um So a lot to unpack there. Lara, thank you so much for joining us today.
Lara: Thanks so much for having having me. It's fun to be a in communication with somebody in Portugal and here I am in California.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So can you tell me how did you get into Chinese energy medicine?
Lara: Yeah, so i I had been teaching yoga for, I think, six years or so and when I had my daughter. And three months after she was born, I got sick and couldn't seem to get better.
Lara: I tripped into chronic chronic illness. And so I ended up, somebody recommended my teacher, <unk> be the woman who became my teacher to me. And I went to go see her. I had no idea what qiggug medical Qigong or Qigong healing ah was. And i I had no idea what she did, but she came very highly recommended by a very good friend. So I just signed right up.
Lara: and i had a session with her, ah an individual private session. And she's incredible. And she is profoundly tapped into energy and the world of energy and spirit.
Lara: And she's terrible at bridging the gap between complete beginners to the place where she's at. And so I walked away from that ah first session
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: Having no idea what she had done, she had thrown a bunch of language at me that I didn't understand, words that I'd never heard before. I had no clue. I still had no clue what Qigong was or any of it, but I was so profoundly affected by that work. She hadn't even touched me. You know, it was energy work. and And I literally felt like when I walked away from her office, I felt like I had been breathing underwater and not knowing it.
Lara: And suddenly my head was above water again.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: Like I felt more space in my lungs and I literally felt actually physically taller. I remember going to the grocery store after that treatment, the same grocery store that I always go to.
Lara: And I was standing in line at the register and I, it was, it was bizarre. Like I felt like I literally had a different perspective of the cash register. just are Like, did I actually grow an inch?
Lara: I mean, it it was, it was so, so. profoundly physically tangible the difference that I felt internally and so I Literally that day I signed up for her four -year medical cheat on training and it's been you know a deep endless dive ever since and Will continue to be a deep endless dive. It's a beautiful practice. It has a just completely changed the way that I experience reality and my body and my emotions and my mind and, you know, tangibility of this soup of energy that we're all swimming in. So.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, I have a few books and whatnot on the courses and whatever on Qigong. Every like year or two, I try to get back into it. I know so eventually I will stick with it, but just for like, I still, even though I have all this stuff, I still consider myself a beginner. So what does, how do, how do you take a beginner and what do you do with a beginner to to help them sort of learn the ropes with Qigong?
Lara: Oh man, you just start. The practices are very simple. You know, the, the personal practices are very simple. Um, and anyone can do them. That's something that's so beautiful about Qigong. In fact, you know, typically if you go to a Qigong retreat, it's usually a bunch of older folks because they're gentle, right? It's not like going to a power yoga class or something. So, uh, so they're quite gentle exercises and often very simple and yet profound, right? Really profound. And so,
Lara: Uh, so yeah, so you just, you just start with the simple, there's, there's so much available online now, as you know, um, the blessing and the curse of the internet. And so but there are plenty of, of teachers online, plenty of videos that you can access.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah.
Lara: Uh, and, uh, yeah, I would say just, just start there's, there's no magic formula.
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Christian Yordanov: yeah Yeah. And so what do you think is happening when someone performs healing energy work to on another human? but you I mean, it's I know it's such a dumb question, but it's a profound question. Like, what do you think happens that actually causes the healing? Is it the person's mind being unblocked or what do you think is going on?
Lara: That's such a deep question that could be answered in so many different ways.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, I know.
Lara: A bunch of them are popping into my my head right now. but Well, ah energy is real, right obviously. everything physical is made Everything we think of as physical is made of energy.
Lara: Our bodies are made of energy. And in qigong, we say the mind leads the qi, or the mind leads the energy. and so um
Lara: When we're looking at the body from a medical qigong or qigong healing perspective, we're looking for places where that qi or that energy is constricted or out of balance or or yeah, constricted or out of balance. And and then helping to bring flow to or balance to those places.
Lara: And so as a qigong practitioner, you learn to use your mind to lead the qi. You use your mind to direct the qi. And then you know additionally, in any kind of energy work or healing work, it's always ah good to remember that that the the the energy is really moving through you. The healing is really coming through you. It's not you.
Lara: as an individual really doing anything, but also opening or holding space and for for that that mystery or that magic to unfold between two to to souls and two individuals, two humans.
Lara: um A lot of times it's, this is where I'm just kind of, I'm just riffing about all the different things that ways to answer that question.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: A lot of times in the work that I do, it's It's just holding space or or me, um I work with the five elements and all the themes that come along with the five elements. And so, often part of the healing is me helping the client become aware of where their own imbalance is. And then that awareness itself allows for movement in that place that has been stuck.
Lara: and there The process that i but I do is a, is is physical and emotional. And so we work on the three levels of, in Qigong, what we call Jingqi Shen, or at body, physical symptom level, heart, emotions, meridians, and then ah mind, Shen, thoughts, right? And so I'm working on a ah physical level with my client with the tremor work that I do.
Lara: And then you know on the emotional level, level often there's there's things that flood or bubble up to the surface that we we allow for and even encourage and make space for. And then we're also you know having this this dialogue and interaction of the mind.
Lara: Again, like I had said, maybe naming some things, right? That once they're named, then they no longer have power. I'm all over the place with answering that question, but again.
Christian Yordanov: No, no, no, please go on. No, it's very good. It's very good. I just, ah I just hope all the questions that came to mind, I could, I could bounce them right back at you because like every, every kind of time you pause for breath, I was like, damn, it's like you said, this like we could go down a rabbit hole.
Lara: ah to be answered in a million ways, so.
Lara: Yes.
Christian Yordanov: I just a couple of things off the top of my head. Um, ah this doesn't have to be a long answer, but do you think Things like toxins or nutrient deficiencies can block the flow of G or like cause it to stagnate.
Lara: I do, I absolutely do. um Yes, yeah, I believe that you know poisons can affect and block our chi or affect the ah way that it's circulating or or not circulating.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: ah and yeah And nutrient deficiencies as well. And and then you know to just to play devil's advocate, I mean, my mind is constantly bouncing back and forth between extremes.
Lara: You know, like, well, this is maybe the way it is, and then we'll know what about this.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And so but so I also, I also often ah think about, ah are you familiar with Anita Morjani?
Christian Yordanov: no
Lara: She was a near -death experiencer. And ah she's one of the most famous near -death experiencers. She wrote a book called Dying to Be Me. It's one of my favorite books. And she, uh, she, she had end stage cancer. You know, she weighed like, I don't know, 80 pounds or something sores all over her body that weren't healing tumors, the size of lemons all throughout her lymph system. And her organs started shutting down. She goes into a coma. She has a full on near death experience. That's really extensive and basically has a choice at some point to come back and decides to come back knowing that
Lara: because she has actually experienced and knows in an experiential way who she truly is as a magnificent, eternal, infinite, you know, soul and spirit being, that the cancer will not be able to coexist with that frequency or knowing. And so she comes back and She heals spontaneously.
Lara: Her doctors are floored and in a place of disbelief and trying to prove that it couldn't be so. And so they force chemo on her, even though she knows, I don't have cancer.
Lara: They can't find it. They can't biopsy it. they They literally cannot find the cancer, but they're just like, well, that's impossible. So you have to do chemo anyway.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: right And she had been previously terrified of chemo and had tried to go the natural route and and because she understood that it was poison being injected directly into her body and her veins.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And so she she's in this plate of place of complete ecstasy. knowing who she truly is, she's healing spontaneously day by day, and ah and they force chemo on her.
Lara: And she says, you know what? She finally goes, fine, it's for you. It's not for me. And she she goes, she understood in that moment that even the chemo couldn't hurt her because she knew who she truly was.
Lara: And so ah so even, you know, she said previously, just the sight of the skull and crossbones on the bag of poison, being dripped into her veins would have terrified her enough to kill her. But she said because of this knowing of who she truly was, even the chemo couldn't hurt her.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: So so you know so I go back and forth between how much of this experience here is belief and how much power we truly do have as you know infinite, magnificent beings of spirit, and then how much we are subject to the laws of this physical realm.
Lara: And ah I don't know. I don't know.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: What do you think?
Christian Yordanov: Oh, Jesus. I mean, yeah, like ah I'm constantly like up and down as well. It's like a, like a wavelength types, uh, because on the one, and I understand I have, um, uh, a fellow functional practitioner, but buddy, uh, Brendan Vermeer, he has a great saying called.
Christian Yordanov: um thoughts become protein so something straight up non -physical like a thought we know the mind is not in the brain it's like and the brain is an antenna like a TV a receiver for the mind so We know with a thought you can create physical proteins to be released and such in the body, and that can cause you to feel good or bad or, you know, whatever else in between.
Christian Yordanov: And, uh, we also know if like a person has sufficient damage to the brain or the, or the body or deficiencies, or even if a person is tired, they're not able to muster up the same
Lara: Mm hmm.
Christian Yordanov: Uh, stuff from, from their mind, ah you know, like even in the morning, you're a lot fresher. You can do stuff. You're more creative than in the evening. You can't remember, you know, what you had for breakfast, if you're super tired. So I think there's a lot of.
Christian Yordanov: <unk>s there's a lot of There's a massive interplay already in our everyday between the physical and the non -physical, but we just have been brainwashed to believe that thoughts are you know the electrical impulses circulating around the brain, the memories are stored somewhere in the brain we don't know where,
Christian Yordanov: We'll find out eventually. um And then you know you have like guys like Brandon, who I had a clip on on Instagram of him saying, no I'm open to the possibility. this I'm paraphrasing the guy now. But he's like, I'm open to the possibility that in a few years time because we're like shooting lasers out of our eyeballs and stuff.
Christian Yordanov: Um, so I, I absolutely think belief creates a lot of maybe even like it, uh, your belief it's like, you know, how like some, some people are like so adamant they're going to be successful or whatever, or they're going to be a great athlete or whatever, that the it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. So what you believe your future will be on earth, whether that was like what you decided before you, you actually incarnated or not.
Christian Yordanov: if you believe it strongly enough you will create it so that's kind of i don't know what do you think
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: but
Lara: i do i think I think ultimately I believe that everything is belief. I think that the underlying reality is it consciousness, right?
Lara: And so ultimately I suppose if we were all, I hate to use this word, but enlightened or fully occupying our are place as you know awakened to spiritual beings who knew, if we knew who we truly were, just like Anita Morjani woke up to having had her near -death experience.
Lara: if we If we were standing in that place of spiritual authority, then these physical laws would hold less power over us, right?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: But when we're not standing in that place of um spiritual authority, which is what I you know I think is a work in progress for every human being on the planet, ah then and then we are more affected, I think, by the physical laws or or or the or the subconscious beliefs that we're giving our power away to just because we don't know any better, right?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah. It's like when when my my daughter was born some, you know, about two and a half years ago, um my mother -in -law would be, you know, visiting and she'd be like, drilling into my daughter's skull,
Christian Yordanov: like her name, you know, telling her her name, you are this, you are this. And I'm there like on the sidelines, I'm like,
Christian Yordanov: like I mean, it's you know it's not like I'm judging her.
Lara: where
Christian Yordanov: We're all like that. you know We're teaching the kid who is mom, who is dad, who's name, grandma, whatever names.
Lara: yeah yeah
Lara: one To a degree, they have to be able to navigate.
Christian Yordanov: and Of course, but at the same time, I'm i'm like, you are not that name.
Lara: you
Christian Yordanov: You are, you know, you are, but you know, you know, spiritual being having a human experience.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: You just probably decided to have it here for a specific reason. You might be like ah part of a over so with potentially infinite ah ah coexisting incarnations in and potentially infinite universes, you know, this kind of stuff should be stuff.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: um But also at the same time, just by virtue of being in the physical realm, it's hooked into you by virtue of these things happening. you know
Lara: Yeah, and maybe that's okay. You know, maybe we're here to have a physical experience and and and there's a certain amount of ah descending into the physical that we do as children, you know, before we start to like,
Lara: disentangle ourselves and make our way back out, you know? and And maybe that's why we're here. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, children, they're not all one -bodied, right?
Christian Yordanov: You know, sorry to interrupt you.
Lara: when they They're not fully, like, landed in in the physical when they first arrive.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely not.
Lara: They're still really, like, one foot in, one foot in in both realms.
Christian Yordanov: Oh, yeah, yeah, for at least for three or so years, if not more.
Lara: Yeah, yeah, there's there is a, there was a,
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah.
Lara: ah and a video that I saw somewhere about the they showed babies to drawers that were closed or boxes that were closed. and And every single time the baby would crawl to the box that had like a favorite toy in it or something.
Lara: you know it's like and There's all kinds of neat experiments that they've done with.
Christian Yordanov: You want to bring that baby to the craps table, maybe help you out there a little bit.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: But you know, ah the just to what you said earlier, you know, ah this is kind of my tongue in cheek excuse when my sister visits
Lara: yeah
Christian Yordanov: And she sees my my office here. She's like, you have a lot of crap, Christian. You have a lot of clutter. I thought you were like a spiritual person.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: You don't need all this materialistic crap. So now my my latest tongue in cheek thing I s think back at her is like, well, I am here to have a physical experience.
Christian Yordanov: We are in the physical realm. So we have to honor the physical realm by having a lot of cool stuff as well, right?
Lara: No, it's so hard to walk that way. It's, you know, it could be in like any topic in any realm of our life is always like,
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: It's so hard to hold center right and into so the middle path.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, which kind of brings us to ah ah actually, before we get into, um, you know, the, thirteen the 13 that verse 12 nights of Christmas, I did want to ask you, because you said your bio said you're the creator of neurogenic.
Christian Yordanov: She gone. Can you tell us what's, what's kind of the philosophy behind that?
Lara: yeah Yeah. So neurogenic means pertaining to the nervous system. And I have been, like I said, I got into qigong via, you know, my own crisis and, uh, and, uh, I'm just so glad I did, but, but I've been practicing, uh, qigong for 16 years now. I, and, uh, and five, I don't know how many years ago, I must've got in more than five years ago, six years ago, maybe I ended up, uh, going through a training with a,
Lara: a ah group called TRE or an organization called, they call themselves TRE or Attention and Trauma Releasing Exercises. And their work is the work of a man named David Vercelli. He was a trauma therapist specialist working in the Middle East in war -torn zones. This was a long time ago.
Lara: And he very quickly recognized that he did not have the tools to reach the number of traumatized people that he was trying to help. And he also started developing symptoms of PTSD himself and wasn't even able to to help himself. And so he was in a bomb shelter one day and he noticed, but you know, there's war happening outside, bombs being dropped. And he noticed that the children were shaking and tremoring and the adults were not. And he got really curious about that.
Lara: And basically what he came to is that all mammals have this innate tremor mechanism. It's an involuntary tremor, right? And it is actually the nervous system releasing the tension from the overstimulating event.
Lara: So you know if there was a loud noise behind you, you would tense up, right? You would sort of go into fetal position. Your muscles would contract. You would like open up real wide and and and go like, what was that?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: you You lock down, right? And so that shake or that tremor is allowing the tissues and the nervous system to, again, release that stored tension or the trapped tension from the overstimulating event.
Lara: So you've probably, most people have experienced this at some point in their life. Maybe they got in a car accident or just something. Maybe even on your wedding day, you know overstimulating the nervous system, right? Or public speaking. or But that shaking feeling, we are socially conditioned. Humans are socially conditioned to hold it in, to make it stop. you know Shaking is just awkward. It's not a socially accepted behavior. So you know if if you're somewhere in a public space and
Lara: and a friend started shaking, or even a private space and a friend started shaking, we'd all go, oh, how ah how do we help you make that stop? you know Not like, oh, you're having a release.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah.
Lara: like Let it out, friend. you know like Let it rip. we'd We'd try to make it stop. And we'd try to get it under control because we don't know what it is and it scares us.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And so so when, in fact, it's quite beneficial. So um I often talk about the analogy of a gazelle being chased by a lion. Right. Once it finally recognizes it's not going to be breakfast, lunch, or dinner, it's actually really safe. It will shake and tremor.
Lara: before going back to the herd to graze, like no big deal, healthy gazelle, nothing happens. There's no PTSD there, you know? And so like the other gazelles don't come over and go like, do you need a shot of whiskey or an Ativan?
Lara: Like, how do we help you make that stop, right? It just unfolds naturally and then they proceed with their life.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah yeah.
Lara: so So I studied this modality and trained with them. I'm a quote certified trained TRE provider. And I started experimenting with combining the qigong healing that I had been doing for you know maybe a decade at that point with the tension and trauma releasing tremors. And so so neurogenic qigong is my own mashup of these two modalities that have been powerful
Lara: and profound for me individually, but even more so when combined. So ah so a neurogenic qigong session with me looks like ah me guiding the client into that tremor response in a way that is actually surprisingly easy. And you know I've never had a client that hasn't been able to tremor. If you have a healthy nervous system, your body knows how to do this. And so once they get comfortable in that tremor, ah then I will interweave the five element Chinese medicine ah via meridian work, point work, and then also bringing in Qi Gong healing sounds and things that I know about the themes within the five elements and how we might work with those, you know, just ah lots of different creative ways to interweave the two modalities.
Christian Yordanov: That is so amazing for sure.
Lara: So.
Christian Yordanov: I mean.
Lara: It's a big experience. people There's a lot of energy that moves. I love it because it's empowering to my clients because they're able to learn how to tremor and then you know put that in their tool belt of and of you know practices and tools that they can take home and carry with them and do on their own.
Lara: And and so you know it's also really effective. And so um stuff comes up, energy moves, people get relief from all kinds of things, whether it's physical or emotional.
Christian Yordanov: Oh, yeah, yeah. Stuff you can't remember probably.
Lara: yeah
Lara: but stuff you Yeah, you mean like a memory surfacing that have been repressed?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lara: Yeah, absolutely. Many, many clients who've had memories come up that either they had just sort of not thought about in a long time and they kind of spontaneously bubble to the surface.
Lara: That's really common. And and or actual repressed memories that come up that they had no access to.
Christian Yordanov: Hmm.
Lara: So because of the body -based, that' right?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: So we're we're working with unlocking the subject
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: what's trapped in there.
Christian Yordanov: So can I get certified in this if I want to?
Lara: Absolutely. like Well, oh, neurogenesis.
Christian Yordanov: T -R -E? I mean, first one, then the second one, I would say probably going in order, I would say.
Lara: Yeah,
Lara: yeah why I currently do not have a training. This is just the modalities that I've gathered along the way. And I'm now um seeing clients, maybe someday I'll think about putting a training together. That would be interesting.
Lara: um But yes, anybody can become certified with the TRE but organization. I think it's a two -year process. i can't I can't remember if it was two years, that sounds about right.
Lara: And I don't know, I don't know, I did this before COVID, so I don't know if they have trainings available online.
Christian Yordanov: OK.
Lara: I actually had to go in person. It was in the Bay Area, and I studied with a a trainer there. And so, So I'm not sure what their program looks like you know post COVID.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah.
Lara: I would imagine that they offer online trainings now.
Christian Yordanov: I'll look into it for sure. Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, I'll for sure look into this because um as silly as it might sound, my dog taught me this. um you know like I mean so many examples but where she would be scared because she she we we um we adopted her apparently she was found like locked up um apparently like she was maybe even abused by by the owner or their kids so she was always very she still is very scared of people like that she doesn't know
Christian Yordanov: and so we have even like couriers bringing stuff and then you know if the guy comes up the stairs she might like bark and start shaking but five minutes later her pulse is back to normal and she can like just fall to asleep, whereas a super stressed person, so if you stress to be Jesus out of a person at 10 a .m.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: or 10 p .m. at night, they're not gonna fall asleep at 11 or 10 30, no problem, but dogs can do it.
Lara: Yeah. Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: And when you think about it, what what are they doing there? Getting the that tension out of their body, then problem solved, amazing stuff.
Lara: Yeah.
Lara: And then reset the system. Right. So.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah, this I think will be absolutely I don't want to see game changing, but it would be such a huge addition because definitely a subset of my clients have some kind of trauma and whatnot.
Christian Yordanov: I mean, everybody has report something.
Lara: oh know you have trauma And that's actually why that particular organization, they changed, they were originally just trauma -releasing exercises. And they changed their title to tension and trauma -releasing exercises because so many people have this idea dia that if we're talking about trauma, it means, oh, you were a soldier in a war, or you had an abusive situation, or you got an accident, like some big deal thing.
Lara: No, trauma, quote trauma, small t trauma is just part of the human condition, right?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah.
Lara: And so, so being you're gonna experience bumps and bruises being human and walking through your life.
Christian Yordanov: Absolutely.
Lara: And so to have a tool to be able to help you release right i the the stress of of being human is is a wonderful thing.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Oh yeah. I think trauma is super subjective and relative. Like you could be traumatized by very seemingly benign things. It's all how you handle it.
Christian Yordanov: And whether like you say, whether you process it physically or it it gets locked up in your nervous system or your body somewhere. So a quick, quick question on that, by the way.
Lara: Right. I think that's what I was just going to say.
Christian Yordanov: Sorry. Sorry. You were going to say something.
Lara: I think it was Joe Dispenza who says something like, you know, ah what is trauma that no longer has a charge that's wisdom, right?
Christian Yordanov: Ah, I like that.
Lara: So, yeah, something like that.
Christian Yordanov: That's really nice.
Lara: Para -freezing.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Uh, just curious. Now I, I, I recently whipped out my ah vibration plate after a long hiatus. So I use that almost every day for like 10, 20 or 30 minutes and you shake a lot, obviously.
Lara: on it and oh i love those things
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Yeah.
Lara: one
Christian Yordanov: So do you think that actually has a benefit in this context or in this sort of.
Lara: and I do think it does. I think that's sort of a a ah device that is stimulating from the outside, something that our bodies can do from the inside. and i would I would say there's a little bit of a difference because when I work with a client or in my own body,
Lara: theres there's more of a space for your body to unwind and tremor in the way that it wants to. And nose is best in order to unravel the pattern of tension that is there. And so, like I often use this metaphor of when my daughter was young, she got into knitting.
Lara: and and she would bring me you know it's like a five -year -old she'd bring me these balls of yarn that she'd gotten all tangled up that were a mess and she'd be like mommy can you untangle this and she had been already trying to untangle it on her own by doing what like yanking at the end of the string Right.
Lara: And so what was that doing? It was like tightening it down more and more.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And I think that's the predicament that a lot of us end up in where we're trying so hard to untangle the mess that we've got bodies in our hearts and our minds into.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And so, you know, we'll find some yeah modality and and we're like yanking at the end of the string, like, no, this is the place where I need to fall.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And our bodies and our subconscious know the truth of what's going on in there.
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Lara: And it's not always available to our conscious mind. And so what's so cool about the neurogenic tremor is that it you're not from your conscious mind and choreographing the order of the body parts that are going to tremor or where the waves of the energy are going to flutter through.
Lara: And um so that's a little bit different than an external ah machine stimulated shape, which is just going to be across the board flat.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: You know what I mean?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: It's still beneficial, absolutely beneficial because I i also feel that when we just shake things up, like there's voluntary shaking in every kind of culture and shamanic practice, you know, all over the place and throughout the ages, there's always been these shaking practices that are voluntary where you're, youre you know, you're moving your body, you know, intentionally to shake things up.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Yeah.
Lara: And when we when we dislodge ah stagnant energy in that physical way, where you know we're just consciously, voluntarily shaking.
Lara: This is why exercise feels good.
Christian Yordanov: Mm.
Lara: you know Because you're bringing movement physical movement to the system. You're allowing places that are stagnant to shift. And and then my belief is that if you can if you can bust up the places of stagnation, then often the energy will spontaneously rearrange itself in a more beneficial, more organized, higher frequency, more intelligent pattern, right?
Lara: And so so so a lot of the struggle is to just bust it up and like to move those stuck places.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, that's so well said.
Lara: And mark there's lots of different ways to do that, right?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And so, yeah.
Christian Yordanov: I think, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So well said. that that That's why everybody likes a massage or getting acupuncture or whatever.
Lara: Yes.
Christian Yordanov: Anything like getting somebody's hands, especially like a professional hands on you.
Lara: Yeah. yeah
Christian Yordanov: Hell yeah. Sign me up any day of the week.
Lara: Yeah. Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: That's what I was telling my wife, you know, if we ever like get mega rich, I'm just going to have like a live in much sewer or whatever. Like.
Lara: I want that too.
Christian Yordanov: That's before even I have a chef. You know what I mean?
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Like that's how important that is.
Lara: yeah You know, I think we can help each other. I think, obviously, individually, all healing is self -healing. And ultimately, or we're each on our own journey, right?
Lara: But we can also help each other. And we can use, you know, devices and, you know, like, go for it all, you know, where it's, I don't, I don't, nothing is off limits for me if when you're on a healing journey.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Yeah.
Lara: And in fact, I think more ways that you approach it,
Christian Yordanov: Absolutely.
Lara: you know You'll find the combination of things that works for you as an individual.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah. And you know, I'll be um just share something i had like a few years ago when we bought our apartment, when I was kind of buying the furniture and stuff, I did a it was a little bit of an imp impulse buy, but I splurged and I got ah a massage chair. It was a couple of grand, but I was like, you know, screw it.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: and because we just had the our kid and like like I was stressed we're all stressed obviously so I was like screw it I'm getting this thing and you know in the last three years I've probably like I hope this thing doesn't break touch wood you know um But the last three years, probably I missed maybe two or three nights that I didn't use it before bed.
Lara: yeah
Christian Yordanov: And oftentimes I fall asleep in it. it's like the The massage relaxes my nervous system so much that I actually have to time when I get to ah the the threshold of too relaxed.
Lara: Yeah. Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: so that I don't wake myself up, jolt myself, and then it's hard to fall asleep when I get in bed. But it's been so beneficial. No matter how hard the day, I know that for the 20 to 60 minutes, I mean, that chair listening to a podcast or whatever, a lecture, it's just going to be like working on my body.
Christian Yordanov: And it's not as good as obviously as a good massage therapist, but heck, heck yeah.
Lara: Sure.
Christian Yordanov: it's I mean, if you count a thousand days, the two grand, I don't know what, like two bucks a day. ah I think that's a very good investment ah for the health.
Lara: Yeah, that sounds amazing.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: sounds amazing.
Christian Yordanov: So speaking of frivolous dumb purchases, ah
Lara: wow
Christian Yordanov: tell us more. you have the let's Just ah give us more insight. So you have the 13 Holy Knights Oracle deck. Give us an idea.
Christian Yordanov: What is this 13 Holy Knights guided experience that you do? um Looks very interesting.
Lara: yeah Yeah, so this is totally separate from my Qigong work, although I have found so many parallels. And I learned this practice from my Qigong teacher 16 years ago. I learned it the year my daughter was born when I got sick and I met my teacher. And she taught me this practice and many, many other practices. I cannot imagine navigating my life without her wisdom and guidance and mentorship. But but the 13 holy nights I just fell in love with it. And the backdrop of this particular practice is that, and by the way, it's not a qigong practice. It's more Steiner based. She borrowed it from the anthroposophic community and sort of made it her own. And then I took what she taught me and and made it my own. And that's what's taught in the the oracle deck that I created. but But the backdrop of the practice is that we're aligning with nature and during the winter solstice season, right? so if you just
Lara: Take a look at what nature is doing all around you. The trees have dropped their leaves. The plants and grasses have often receded back into the earth. The animals are slowing down or hibernating. Everything is sort of ah conserving energy or drawing energy inward.
Lara: Right. And then here we are in the Northern hemisphere, at least shopping compulsively over indulging in sugar, out sugar and alcohol, which is taxing the body as opposed to conserving energy. Our calendars are jam packed. It is the busiest time of year for most folks. Right. And just social obligations and so many things happening, uh, you know, a slap in the face to the darkness of the true season. We've got led lawn decorations everywhere.
Lara: you know, and we're just like, no, no darkness. And so, so and but this practice is about aligning with the true nature of the peak of winter, which is stillness, quiet, darkness, introspection, and this conservation, drawing inward of energy. So ah the that's the sort of again, the backdrop and then the practice itself, the structure is really delightful and fun in that it's 13 days long and each day corresponds to a month in the coming year with the exception of the first night, which is a reflection of the entire year to come. So during these 13 days, the practice starts on the solstice, the winter solstice, the longest, darkest night of the year. You have the first initial three days to prepare
Lara: and kind of think about what it is that you want to bring into this magical window of time that is going to be a foreshadowing or a reflection of the coming year. So essentially you're co -creating a blueprint or a roadmap hand in hand with source or spirit or the field or the one or God or you know whoever, whatever that something greater is for you, it's non -denominational. It's not either or, you can continue your current traditions and just bring this in on the side Um, it may slowly take center stage over the years and that other stuff might take a back seat or maybe not, you know, it's, it's, um, it can be individualized in that way. But, um, so, so you have these first three days to prepare and think about what do I want to bring into this window of time? What do I want for my coming cycle of seasons? And then the actual holy nights, the 13 nights begins at sundown on December 24th.
Lara: And the only part of this that's a little bit confusing is that each holy night, what I refer to as a holy night, or soon they'll be called sacred night because I just got a publisher and they're changing it to the sacred nights. But each holy or sacred night is really a 24 hour period sundown to sundown. So the first sacred night starts on December 24th and carries through until sundown December 25th.
Lara: And that first 24 hour period, sundown to sundown, is a foreshadowing of the entire year to come.
Christian Yordanov: Uh
Lara: So um with my oracle deck, you would draw three cards on that first night, one animal card, one herb card, one crystal card, that will be your constant guides or themes throughout the entire new year, right?
Christian Yordanov: huh.
Lara: And then the second holy night, is sundown the 25th to sundown the 26th. That would be a representation of January. Sundown the 26th to sundown the 27th represents February and so on the 12 calendar months. So during these 13 days, you you're basically, you're co -creating your roadmap and and there's two things that you're doing. You're one receiving guidance by drawing the oracle cards and also by just journaling everything that's happening in your life. So just being super present
Lara: and paying attention to all the details that are unfolding in your outer world and in your inner world, and you're writing it all down. it That could look like random bits of information that do not feel important at all, like this song came on the radio today, or I had this interaction with the checker at the grocery store.
Lara: You know, it could be just completely random bits of information. it could It could be profound internal thoughts that you're having, but it doesn't have to be. You're just journaling everything. And then the second bit, so that's the receive bit, right? You're receiving all these clues, all this information simply by drawing oracle cards and then also being present and paying attention. it's so And so the second part of the practice is that you are planting your dream seeds in what I call the womb of winter or the fertile soil of the darkness. So the things that you're wanting for the new year, instead of just writing them down on a new year's rest list of resolutions, you're actually doing those things during that 13 day window. So if you want to do more qigong,
Lara: make sure you do qigong during those 13 days. If you want to cook more, make sure you do that during the 13 days. If you want a certain person in your life, make sure you reach out to them during those 13 days to ensure that that person will be a part of your coming cycle. So it's as if you are co -creating again by receiving and then also giving your inspirations, planting your inspirations. You are creating an actual legitimate energetic physical imprint that then just gets swept right into your future.
Lara: It's like it's it's honestly like there's a real riptide of energy that's moving through and it just just sweeps everything right into your into your future. And so that's the practice of the 13 Holly Nights.
Lara: That's what's in my my book and my Oracle deck. And that's also yeah what I've been really mostly consumed with for the last
Christian Yordanov: So cool.
Lara: season of life.
Christian Yordanov: That is so cool. I was just looking at a sampling of the cards on on your website. as As you were talking, there were absolutely gorgeous these cards.
Lara: Oh, thank you. I actually, i I worked on those images with a good friend of mine who's an artist and she was actually with me some 20 plus years ago when I got bit by a rattlesnake, which is the whole another story.
Christian Yordanov: Oh, geez.
Lara: but and But it was so appropriate that we all these years later ended up doing this practice or this project together.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: she She was my main artist and it was a really collaborative um artistic process, but I can give the the majority of the bulk of the credit to her for her artistic genius.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. ah Just to, I may have had a verbal sort of slip up earlier. When I said talking about dumb frivolous purchases, tongue in cheek, I meant we're going to talk about the consumerism around Christmas.
Christian Yordanov: I didn't, I wasn't talking about the cards guys, or, or Lara's stuff.
Lara: Yes, I got it. I I understood.
Christian Yordanov: um
Lara: And that really is my mission. my I say that my mission is to take the over -commercialized winter holidays back from the makers of materialism and to return the soul to the solstice.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: Because this time, right the peak of darkness, the solstice, it has been honored, witnessed, celebrated, you know revered by humans ah as far back as we can peer into human history.
Lara: We have these prehistoric solstice sites and ruins all over the earth on every single continent that were clearly designed with care and precision to capture the first rays of light that ah that come, start streaming back in after the solstice.
Lara: And so these cultures were were very aware that this, you know, you wouldn't go to all that trouble to build these incredible, you know, ceremonial sites if there wasn't some
Christian Yordanov: Yes.
Lara: some reason behind that. And it really is a legitimate cosmological happening. There is a potency during that time that is very tangible. And as you return to this practice year after year, you start to become more familiar with that and you start to be able to to sense it and to feel it and and to really experience the that there is there is actually something special about this time.
Lara: It's the potency available, the magic available, the the power I think that em but is embedded in this and window as is being hijacked by this hyper -commercialized bonanza that we're all being distracted by.
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Lara: So yeah.
Christian Yordanov: And, uh, can you get the stuff on Amazon, the cards at least or.
Lara: Right now you can't. i So I self -published five years ago and I am i am a and fairly stubborn one -woman show that probably has to do with my own trauma.
Lara: Like I can do it by myself. ah so So right now they're only available on on my website, and which is either there's, right now there's two yeah URLs.
Christian Yordanov: Okay.
Christian Yordanov: okay
Lara: That's 13 Holy Nights, Oracle, dot com So the number actually one three and then holy nights plural oracle dot .com 13 holy nights oracle .com and the other yeah URL is Lara J day. L A R A J D A Y. They both go to the same place. I've got tons of information on my website. You can get the cards there. I also have a 13 day guided experience that I've been leading for the last few years.
Lara: i you know I created the Oracle deck and then lots of people started asking if I was leading it in person and I was fairly resistant for a while because I was like, come on, I wrote a book for you guys. Isn't that enough? you know But i finally I finally surrendered and got over myself and gave in and and started doing this led guided experience.
Lara: and it a you Also, I should say for me, you know the practices has been very individual. And while I shared it with my daughter and we draw our cards together and you know it's all very sweet, but for the most part, it's a very personal individual introspective practice, or at least it has been for me.
Lara: And so i for that reason, additionally, I also had some resistance to like, no, i I gave you the book, like now you go and do this practice on your own.
Christian Yordanov: Heh heh.
Lara: It's an individual practice. But like I said, I finally surrendered and started
Christian Yordanov: Mm.
Lara: leading these groups online for the last few years. And as soon as I did, I remembered, oh, of course. you know When we come together in numbers, the magic is amplified exponentially. And there is something very beautiful about ah being in a community and sharing the cards that you draw and sharing the process. And unorchestrated by me, as soon as I released the Oracle deck, spontaneously these little Holy Night's groups started popping up all over the place and people leading their own circles, which I think is fabulous.
Christian Yordanov: wow
Lara: Please do. um you know and and And people sharing their, oh, what did you get?
Christian Yordanov: That's so cool.
Lara: And then like, you know, reflecting back to each other.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: and And so there's magic in that as well. And so if you want to take this practice and just crawl into a cave and and do it on your own, great. and And then, you know, if you want to organize a group where you're kind of sharing your experience, that that can be fabulous as well. In my guided experience, I, of course, interweave the qigong. And so there's a qigong exercise ah practice for each evening of the holy nights and meditation and, you know, like that. So lots of different ones.
Christian Yordanov: And I see on on the website, you also have a quote from Robert Peng. He's a pretty famous Qigong master. I have his book, The Master Key, like I said earlier. I have a few books on Qigong and whatnot in Tai Chi and and stuff.
Christian Yordanov: And Robert Peng's book, The Master Key, is one of the first ones I actually bought.
Lara: yeah so Yeah, go ahead.
Christian Yordanov: So he says, the wisdom and depth of many years of good practice shine through in this beautiful work regarding Laura's 13 holy nights oracle. And he says, Laura's 13 holy nights oracle offers us a profound way to touch into the sacredness of the dark nights of winter, a beautiful ritual with the potential to transform your life. That's really awesome. Wow.
Lara: Yeah, so Robert has been a teacher of mine since 2015.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: and And i I have to tell a really funny, quick story about the Master Key. So I started reading that book to my daughter when she was really little, because as you know, it reads like science fiction, right? and It's amazing. And like you don't need Star Wars if you've got the Master Key. wait so So she would ask me to read it to her often. yeah and And one night we got into bed and she said, mommy, read me the Master Key. And my brain was just scrambled for some reason. and
Lara: And I said, read you what? Like it it just didn't, I couldn't understand what she had asked for. And she goes, the master key. And I said, what? Read you what? And she goes, you know, like a big wide mouth frog. She opens her eyes for a wide and she goes, mom, the master key like that. And, and I literally, my brain heard, you want me to read you dumb ass turkey?
Lara: And she goes, she goes, mom, Robert. And then I, and then I finally, my brain clicked and I got it. And we cried so hard that we laughed. Like my stomach was shaking.
Christian Yordanov: he
Lara: Um, so now, you know, we always, we always joke and say like, you know, let's read that ass Turkey.
Christian Yordanov: That's so cool. So so he so he's who he was a teacher of yours.
Lara: So, uh, Yes, he is still currently a teacher of mine.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: i Robert is, ah he's phenomenal. i I have so much love in my heart for him and his wife. And he's just, he he really is a true master and yet he's so humble.
Lara: And I just, I can't even, I don't even know the adjectives to describe what a beautiful human and soul he is.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: I'm so grateful to him and for him and And yeah, please, everybody who's listening, get that book, the Master Key, the story. The first half of the book, get the book done, Master Key.
Lara: The first half of the book is his story, right? About how he met his master and the things that they did together, which is heartbreakingly beautiful and mind blowing.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And I can tell you after studying with him for however many years it's been, I have zero doubt that everything in there is true.
Christian Yordanov: Hmm.
Lara: And then it will read like science fiction. the Your mind will question no way. That's not being possible. But I have experienced things with Robert that if I didn't know any better, I would have thought that somebody spiked my lunch with psilocybin.
Lara: And so yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Wow. Wow.
Lara: It's all, and and and that goes back to what we were talking about earlier, right?
Christian Yordanov: I believe you. I believe you. One million percent.
Lara: Where we we have not awoken to the truth of who we are. And we have no clue um what we're really capable of. and And so you have these masters who who have achieved some you know level of of mastery over over their own energy, body, and capabilities that most of us have not attained.
Lara: And and and it it's a little, a glimpse of of what's possible. and And I think even beyond you know what what these masters have achieved, there's there's more beyond that.
Christian Yordanov: yeah sure
Lara: but and yeah so
Christian Yordanov: yeah Yeah. I mean, i'm I'm just like mad at myself because I keep on saying I'm going to finally make it a daily practice and whatnot. And I know one day when I actually do, I'll be like, Oh my God, that the then life will be before doing the stuff.
Christian Yordanov: And then after doing the stuff, and it's going to be like God knows how much better, but it's probably part of the journey.
Lara: Okay, so I have a thought for you that I hopefully will help. um So I approach my qigong practice like it's a hot date with the divine. And so I so I don't practice because I have to or because I'm self disciplined or because it's like some regimented program that I am. I practice because I like to practice.
Lara: because it actually feels amazing. And so for me, my qigong practice is like a cross between playing with, massaging myself with and in, dancing with, making love to this suddenly tangible energy that is within us and all around us always, but we have to freaking pause and do a practice to remember that it's there, right?
Lara: And so, so again, for me, it's like, I get to practice, not I have to practice. And if you can shift, if you can shift your perspective a little bit to like, this is this amazing, you know, it's like you don't sit in your massage chair every night because you have to.
Christian Yordanov: I get you.
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Lara: Like you want to do that because it feels incredible. Right.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Yeah, I get to.
Lara: So, yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: So, so we, we practice because we love it, not because we have to.
Christian Yordanov: It's really well put.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: If only Christian will listen. in one ear and out the other. ah ah But you know, I swear to God, like Lara, because like even while you were talking about the 13 Holy Nights experience and ah I really loved on the website the the four, what was the four words? Sorry.
Lara: Receive replenish reset and create or co -create
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, that that is, ah you can see a lot of, not just work in terms of creative effort, but a lot of actual like divine inspiration seeped into this project.
Christian Yordanov: um But even as you were kind of, and um I apologize, of course, for for saying this, but even if as you were saying what it's about, I'm like, that sounds in my but in my head, that sounds great.
Christian Yordanov: I don't have time this year. I won't have time this year, maybe next year.
Lara: oh I'm so happy you brought this up.
Christian Yordanov: You know what I mean?
Lara: I'm so glad you have no idea because I just received an email this morning from a woman who said she's all excited about the practice and she's got her oracle deck but she was like I'm going to be at my in -laws from this time to that time.
Lara: can't there's no I just won't be able to give the practice the attention that I intend to, that I would desire to.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: Can I do the practice you know later? Can I start the practice on January 1st? and um and And so I adore that you brought this up because I get this same question every year. And and most frequently, it's I'm going to be at my in -laws, which cracks me up.
Lara: Nobody seems to want to do the whole eight nights practice when they're going to be at their in -laws for some reason, which is funny.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: But it it can also be and good.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: We're going to be on family vacation, or I have this work conference, or you know whatever. My life is just slammed.
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Lara: And here's the thing. It doesn't matter because the practice is about receiving what is available during that window and the window is real. it's not The window is a legit window based again on um the cosmological happening that this is the the peak of darkness. And so you know the peak of darkness doesn't change because we're at our in -laws or we have a work thing. you know It's just the peak of darkness.
Lara: now Does that mean you can't do the practice because you're at your in -laws? Of course not, because the point is just to be present. And so why would you say, well, I can't be present because I'm going to be in such and such a position? That's that's half of ah of the gift of the practice is teaching us to be awake and and and mindful in our life, regardless of what's going on. And so so last year, for instance,
Lara: My mom had hit her head, she's got dementia, and she had hit her head a couple months before, or a month, maybe it was a month, only a month before the holy nights. During the actual holy night, she was still in a facility um because she was still in recovery and she couldn't come home yet.
Lara: And she was confused and she thought that she was in her house and she was like beating up on the caregivers and trying to kick them out of the kitchen. It was like this. This is my mom who's been like a, you know, peace loving hippie your whole life. And she's like causing all this chaos at this boarding floor. And um the boarding care was like a half an hour drive from my house. And so I was driving to the boarding care twice a day there and back. So like two hours of driving a day to go diffuse.
Lara: situations with my mom during the Holy Knights, you know? Now, did I like not do the practice because of that? No. Was I kind of bummed that I was more stressed and pulled out of my little Holy Knights cave than usual? Yeah. I mean, it was an unfortunate situation. I mean, truthfully, it would have sucked no matter what season it was in. But, um but no, I just wrote it in my journal. This is what's happening, you know, in my Holy Knights journal. And so, so you don't get to pick.
Lara: always what happens during that time. You don't always get to crawl into a cave. Some years, maybe you'll have more space to to make it the way that you know we would all prefer, which is like I have all the time in the world to said just you know do these nurturing things and and and create this this beautiful ceremonial womb.
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Lara: you know but ah But that's usually not the case for most of us. So um so you do the practice.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: It's a practice in mindfulness. in life, being human with all the messiness during this window. And we so we slow down to the best of our ability.
Christian Yordanov: ah Do you ship these out yourself or is it like when you buy it?
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: You ship them out yourself.
Lara: yeah i Again, that's the like, I'll do it all by myself thing.
Christian Yordanov: Oh my God, that's a lot of work.
Lara: I've been for five years, I've been shipping them out. You should see my living room right now. It's like there's boxes and boxes and boxes of Oracle deck.
Christian Yordanov: I can imagine, oh I can imagine.
Lara: This season I thought I've had a a few really ah big podcasts drop, Kelly Gore's and Alex Zach. and And so I've had this influx of, and of, of orders.
Lara: And then at the same time, right? Like on November 25th, my publishers and handed me the manuscript that they, with the first round of edits that are really big deal edits.
Lara: Like they want me to add like 37 exercises to the bottom of each card.
Christian Yordanov: Whoa.
Lara: because some of them have exercises and some don't. I mean, it's all stuff that I agree with and it's brilliant ideas and some of the things that I even wanted to do the first time around, but I kind of just got to this point where I was like, it's good enough. Just produce it, you know? But and so so, but they gave me a deadline of December 20th. So I'm just laughing. I'm looking up at the, you know, the sky going like, really?
Lara: But but ah so so so i I'm like burning it at both ends right now, working on my manuscript. And I've got doing all this packaging.
Christian Yordanov: Damn.
Lara: I even drove out to Texas to do the podcast with Alec in Texas. It's like a 20 -something hour drive. And I packed my car full of Oracle ducks so that I could go and stop at post offices along the way.
Christian Yordanov: ah gen Oh Oh my god.
Lara: And distribute, continue to distribute. you know so
Christian Yordanov: my god.
Lara: so
Christian Yordanov: You need an assistant at this point.
Lara: Yeah, so it's been it's been all me for the last five years, and I'm really, really grateful to welcome on board and to collaborate with these publishers who are fabulous.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: a And so so next year, it will be on Amazon, it will be all the things that will be much more accessible right now.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: I have people ordering from Europe and all over the world, really Europe and Canada and Australia, even in New Zealand and remind me to come back to how to do the practice in the Southern Hemisphere.
Lara: But and but people are paying more in shipping than they're paying for the Oracle deck. And I have no way around international shipping costs. I don't have distributors in foreign countries.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: you know so So it's not like I'm making money on shipping. It's just expensive. And then some and sometimes people are having to pay taxes once it arrives.
Christian Yordanov: No, I completely understand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's now, I was going to order one for my wife, but now I'm almost like, I don't want to put you through the the pain.
Lara: So it's like it gets really expensive. ah so
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Um,
Lara: I mean, you know, I, every order I'm so grateful for because I, I do, I really genuinely, the way that this practice has transformed me internally and the way that I moved through my life, more aware of and in communication,
Lara: um with the divine, more aware of this constant conversation that we are always immersed in, whether we know it or not. Our consciousness is always in communication with, you know, a higher consciousness source, you know, whatever you want to call that.
Lara: um And so it's this partner dance. and and And we're dancing whether we know it or not.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: We're either getting like drug around, like half asleep or completely asleep, or or we're aware and partaking in the dance. right and And that is what this practice woke me up to in a kind of boots on the ground training, you know like a bootcamp and in being mindful, being present, being aware and awake of this co -creative process that's always happening whether or not we are we're paying attention.
Lara: And so I do, I really see how this sort of delightful, sweet holiday ritual
Christian Yordanov: Amazing.
Lara: has the potential to to awaken us on an individual and collecttic level collective level to our our own internal divine co -creative consciousness.
Christian Yordanov: I love it.
Lara: Yeah, and so so please order. Order the Oracle deck and I would love to ship it to you wherever you are.
Christian Yordanov: So what we can do yeah is yeah just a pro tip. Europeans, if you want to get this, maybe contact Lara first, because what i I would think would be the best way to do it if you label it as a gift to me.
Lara: good
Christian Yordanov: and put a low value like $15, it will generally, there there won't be um charges. like ah There's just charges to process it out of customs, but they won't be adding extra charges.
Lara: oh
Christian Yordanov: There's like 15 bucks you pay for the the the processing, and it allows allows things to get in a lot easier through through customs.
Lara: So if I,
Lara: so if i if I market as a gift instead of merchandise
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, if you can put a low value because I think $15 to $20, I think $15 is safer. $15, then a lot of places, a lot of countries, the customs, they have like a threshold of, let's say, $26, whatever.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: So if I'll definitely order one now. I would like to order more, to be honest, as gifts. But let's order one now just to get one from my wife. Then maybe we can we can talk off camera about how to get more through this method so we don't have to like, you know, deal with extra customs.
Lara: Yeah.
Lara: Yeah. The other thing too to know is that for folks in Europe who want to do the practice and don't don't have the the funds to pay for the shipping and the tax and all the things, aye you can do this practice with a different oracle deck. So you don't necessarily have to use my oracle deck. Now, the 13 Holy Nights oracle deck does teach the practice and it has the chart of the days and everything else, but you can also get that information from listening to the many, many podcasts on my website.
Lara: i There's an article in Best Self Media that I wrote. There are, I give a very brief description of how to do the practice on the website itself, on the 13 Ollie Nights page.
Christian Yordanov: the Yeah.
Lara: So um you can get the structure from from my website and from all of these podcasts. And then you could use another oracle deck until next year. when Beyond Words will be hopefully distributing internationally.
Lara: like I don't, that's not set in stone yet, but I know they just, they went to their a publishing event in Germany and they said there was a lot of interest for for foreign New York warm rights, so.
Christian Yordanov: That's soft. So so how how long have you had this or Oracle deck now? Have you had the whole thing?
Lara: So this is my fifth season of self -publishing and self -distributing, and then next year,
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: all I won't be doing it all by myself anymore.
Christian Yordanov: Like they say, it takes 10 to 20 years to become an overnight success, right?
Lara: Yes, that's right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: It's amazing. ah we also ah i I just hope that we can get it in time, you know, for Christmas.
Lara: Yeah. And again, if you don't get it in time for Christmas, and you know, you can still you can still do the practice. You're still journaling, right?
Lara: You're still paying attention.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: So, so you can just go get any journal or even, you know, you don't have to buy a ah fancy pretty well, though I always like to get a really special journal for the holy nights, but you can add a paper if you wanted, you know, and a spiral down to notebook. And, and on the first page, you would write, um, first holy night and reflection of 2025. Right. And then you just journal everything that's happening in that first 24 hour period, sundown to sundown.
Lara: And then, you know, sundown on the 25th, you turn the page, you would write at the top of your journal, a second holy night, January. Right. And then you just journal what happens in that 24 hour period. And so, um, if, so if you if you don't get the deck in time or, or, you know, you're not able to financially make that investment, then you can still do the journaling or you can use an Oracle deck that you already have.
Lara: Uh, or you can, um, uh, yeah, I like you said that I have my guided experience.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: So there's ways to do the practice.
Christian Yordanov: Awesome.
Lara: If you can't get ahold of the org this year.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Yeah, I really liked the idea, but just a fun little story. I don't know why, and maybe maybe you can give ah give me some wisdom here, but I am not the kind of guy that journals.
Christian Yordanov: My wife got me the, there's this thing called the best year ever journal, I think like three years ago.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: And it starts with, you know, what are you great for this year? And every six months or whatever, I um i say, i' I'm going to do that journal this year or for the next 12 months, whatever.
Christian Yordanov: And I just keep going back to like things I'm grateful for. I fill that out. I'm like, okay, I'll get to the rest of this later.
Lara: a
Christian Yordanov: And like I have probably like a dozen different notebooks, journals, ah diaries. I don't know why. And then Eventually, I'm just like writing stuff on pieces of paper like here and it's just a stack of papers.
Lara: like wait
Christian Yordanov: What is wrong with me? like What kind of trauma healing do I need to to do to get this out of my body?
Lara: Okay, well here's the good news about the 13 holy nights is that it's only 13 days. And maybe you can think about it as just logging instead of journaling, right?
Christian Yordanov: Okay.
Lara: Where you're just, you are just recording what's happening during those 13 days. And you don't have to make it, you know, depending on who you are, some people get really into journaling.
Lara: They love to write. You know, that's not your skill. So what? Everybody has different talents and different skills, right? And so, so, um so maybe,
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Lara: Maybe yours is more nuts and bolts and just, I did, this those were the things that I did today.
Christian Yordanov: I'm a big picture kind of guy, baby. Yeah.
Lara: Here's the funny thing about the journal is that, I don't know what your experience is but with your journey into spirituality, but I have found that God or source or spirit or whatever you want to call that something greater has a hysterical sense of humor.
Lara: and and When you start to pay attention to that world and synchronicity, things line up in a way that just makes you laugh out loud, right? And so with peace the journal that you create during this 13 day period, the the the point is that for the rest of the year, you can refer back to this this information that you gathered during this you know foretelling 13 days, this foreshadowing period of 13 days.
Lara: And so when the proverbial shit hits the fan, excuse my language, and in my life, the first thing I do is go, what the heck did I write down in my journal?
Lara: So I'm gonna say, don't don't don't use post -it notes and at least make sure it's bound, spiral bound. if one you know Because you wanna be able to have it easily accessible
Christian Yordanov: Okay.
Lara: throughout the rest of the year. Otherwise you're missing like the whole, you know, the reason that we gathered this information in the first place is to be of service to us throughout the rest of the year to guide us, right? So that we can refer back when something's off and go, what did I write in my Holy nice journal for the month of August or or whatever, you know, month it is. And inevitably there's something that you wrote in there that sparks some different perspective, gives you some insight, you know, just shifts the way that you're thinking about things, or at the very least um is such a in your face correlation. Something you wrote really is just precisely exactly what's happening later in, you know, in that month. And it's a, it is a experience in, in strengthening your faith.
Lara: in the unseen world of energy and spirit and in reminding you and proving to you that there is some greater order unfolding here, right?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And so so it's, yeah, I don't know if I answered your question.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. So yeah, yeah. I, I, I, I, so I, I placed the order with you. So that's what I'll do now is probably after I'm going to buy this really nice diary, maybe even leather bound, God knows.
Lara: and
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Or maybe I'll get my, my initials inscribed in it and then I'll be like the last one first page. And then it's, it's there with the other, like I kid you not like,
Lara: You can use one of the journals we already have.
Christian Yordanov: you you see you see all of these four here literally yeah yeah
Lara: Use one of those. Use one of those. And then tell yourself, it's only 13 days. I got this. Because most journals, it's like an ongoing practice. And I'm supposed to do this every day for the rest of my life.
Lara: And maybe that feels a little overwhelming or unrealistic to you. But if you can remember, okay, 13 days. I'm gonna do this thing for 13 days. Maybe that's more of a chunk that you you can feel like you won't be able to buy off from here.
Christian Yordanov: I can do I can do 13 something for sure.
Lara: Yeah, right? So for 13 days, this isn't for the rest of your life.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: It's just 13 days of logging or recording what's happening in your life.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And it and there you go.
Christian Yordanov: I even have Brandon's journal by the way.
Lara: Beautiful.
Christian Yordanov: Maybe I can use his one.
Lara: How cool is that?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: Yeah, so the trick then is to, you you're going to do the practice for 13 days, but then you have to remember to keep it accessible and to look at it throughout the year and to let it be your your own you know personal crystal ball, the best therapist you ever had, the most insightful best friend, because this is information that you gathered and co -created personally with the divine with your team, right? So of course it's going to be incredibly insightful and and miraculously accurate and all of those things because you co -created it.
Lara: so
Christian Yordanov: um so i totally i you know and i ah going back to the whole sort of belief discussion, I totally believe that... it its It is a source of guidance because we when some years ago, before before we ah we we we had our daughter you know with my wife, we would do the tarot cards and for the month or for the year ahead. ah It would be the 13 cards, you know the theme of the year, one for each month. And then we would even like go back and look on it or sometimes even just asking the the cards to give you insight on a specific situation.
Christian Yordanov: I don't know how, why, through some mysterious force, the stuff works. Because at the end of the day, you could like, I don't know, look out but like like coffee or the clouds. And if if there's an answer you're looking for inside you, the the subconscious mind has the answer. So it's about just tapping into this deeper mystery aspect. So i this is why I'm actually pretty excited to to kind of do this because ah I know i notice this.
Christian Yordanov: I have two copies of the I Ching. It's kind of like my my whole um the intention to eventually learn that kind of side of things. I know this stuff works because like the the all the most powerful sort of monarchs and and leaders and whatever, they have people freaking doing this stuff for them.
Lara: Thank you.
Christian Yordanov: So you know this stuff actually works.
Lara: Yeah, it does actually work. And I think a huge and reason for that is simply in the asking, right? When we open ourselves up and we ask for guidance, we receive, but you got, you have to ask, you have to ask first.
Lara: And so, you know, asking, and you shall receive what, what there's some of these other, you know, um,
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: There's no prayer that goes unanswered, right? It's like they have to ask first. And then so and so that the oracle deck or tarot cards or the I Ching, they're just a structure that gives you some agreement between you and the other side as to how this information is going to be transmitted, right?
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And so it gives you a little bit more structure rather than, you know most of us are, are still learning and we're finding our ability to just pull downloads from this greater soup of consciousness, you know?
Lara: And so so this is just like a tool that that helps you facilitate that process.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Love it. Love it. Let me see what what else we wanted to talk about. So actually something ah that's kind of been, um I was talking to Brandon, I don't know, like a few weeks back and I was kind of giving him an idea for a project, i kind of sort sort of even, not even planning, but thinking about, do I ever want to do it? ah yeah I think he said,
Christian Yordanov: Actually, yeah he said best to not like start doing crazy, like work into something until the 5th of December or after. And it's crazy because today is the 5th of December, you know?
Christian Yordanov: But I'm just wondering what's your take in terms of, the and the reason why actually this 13 days of Christmas, ah ah sort of, I'm gonna call it challenge.
Christian Yordanov: You know, like the ice bucket challenge or whatever.
Lara: few challenge.
Christian Yordanov: ah
Lara: I like that.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, the 13 days of Christmas challenge for Christian. ah The reason it kind of resonates with me right now is because I have a really a lot of different projects that I could do in the new year. So it's about, I need to figure out what's the right thing. So I've been a little bit hard on myself in the last month for not like yeah doing super deep work on anything necessarily, just kind of skimming a lot of different surfaces. What's your take on um the fact that now we're,
Christian Yordanov: you know, shorter days, darkness, cold, you're talking about conserving energy. So what's your take on this other thing? Is this probably just a natural thing that I shouldn't fight or just someone being a lazy bastard?
Lara: this just sounds like you're in a particular season in your life and you have ah maybe a lot of ah options that you know you're just deciding between and thinking about. And I wouldn't get down on yourself, but I would and you know use this time, this time of darkness to just marinate and get some clarity within yourself about which which direction you want to take.
Lara: come spring. when you know So right now you're in this incubation period. We're all in the womb of winter. There's there's more darkness, less light. So they' there naturally should be, you know if we're paying attention and not just you know soaking under LED lights until midnight every night. you know right There naturally you know should be, if we're in more alignment with nature, more time for introspection. And so the the action comes in the spring.
Lara: right So one of my underlying philosophies is that the more we align with nature, the more we align with our own highest human potential. And the more we ignore her and you know close ourselves off and shut ourselves out and stay away from the sun and the trees and you know eat all kinds of stuff that didn't come out of the earth and whatever, inject things into ourselves, this the sicker and the more dysfunctional we become.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, yeah.
Lara: Right? And that the the blueprint of nature is brilliant and magnificent beyond what we can wrap our minds around. And so just align and entrain to that. And so that's when we when we start off with this practice of the 13 Holy Nights and we begin to pay attention to what the energy, the natural energies are of each season, it begins to align us more and more with those rhythms, with the cosmic pulse, you know, and and we start to to recognize that it's empowering to step into that flow as opposed to swimming upstream, you know?
Lara: And so, yeah, this is a time when we're sort of, we're we're like in the womb and we're incubating and and maybe there's this mess of possibilities, infinite, right, actually, that we're that were
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: thinking about and and marinating in and drawing from. And then we can get a little bit more clarity with our Holy Knights practice of, you know, what do I want for the new year? And out of these infinite possibilities that I'm exploring at the moment, what are the things that that I'm going to choose to to flash, you know, to to to bring focus the light of my consciousness on in this next coming cycle? And then you just start to gel that blueprint a little bit more during these 13 days and nights. And then in the spring, your inspirations will start to sprout. In the summertime, we're living the dream. We're fully expanded. We're we're out here. you know and And then in the fall, we're harvesting the fruits of our labor, maybe deciding what we want to throw on the compost pile, what we want to keep for the next cycle and seasons. And then we're diving back in during the season of darkness.
Lara: so So it sounds actually like you know you're kind of aligned with what this season is all about. You're sort of floating around in the infinite possibilities. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Christian Yordanov: yeah It's so it's ah it maybe it's just such a stark contrast from last ah winter when I was trying to write and edit and publish my last book.
Christian Yordanov: And that was like five months of head down all winter long.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: So I'd be waking up at like 2, 3 a .m. and just working crazy hours.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: And I think just just the trauma of that, I i haven't vibrated it out of me yet.
Lara: What are we supposed to be doing?
Christian Yordanov: so ah
Lara: I mean, that's, I think, the curse of the Western world, right, is that this mindset that we always are supposed to be pushing, we're always supposed to be doing, we're always supposed to be producing because we have to continually have economic growth and more production, more production, more production.
Lara: And so we don't allow ourselves to pause and relax and rest and
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: and You know, it's like, uh, Paul Chek, who I recently did a podcast with talks about how people try to live an endless summer. He works with a lot of athletes who literally follow the summer around so that they can have an endless, uh, sports season, you know, and, and then they start, they're like really strong and, you know, physically, you know, fit, but their, their bodies, their health is breaking down.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: And it's like, because they're in this perpetual push mode. So yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, this was a bad time last ah month ago. i ah I picked up tennis again after like a decade long hiatus. So I started playing like four or five times a week and I got a cough last week and I just can't shake it because I rest for a day or two and I'm i'm almost better and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to go play today. Two hours in the cold draft, you know,
Lara: yeah yeah you know it's it's a challenge sometimes to listen to that inner voice and inner knowing when the fertile world is is dangling all these carrots in front of us and all this
Christian Yordanov: And then the next day I'm like, oh, stupid, stupid guy. You never learn. Will will you ever learn? Even today I play it again and then I can feel like my body's like, you were a dumb, dumb dude.
Christian Yordanov: You're supposed to be like curled up on the couch reading, you know, kids books.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: yeah
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: ah ah Something I wanted to actually talk about um is where does the, so the current tradition of around Christmas or Santa Claus, the Christmas tree, the gift exchange, where does that come from?
Lara: yeah Oh, so I took a really deep dive into the history of the Holy Knights and our current holiday culture this year because my publishers asked me to write a history section.
Lara: for the new edition of the book coming up next year. And I realized that as much as I love this practice and have fallen completely, you know, head over heels with it and have been doing this practice for 16 years, I actually really had very limited and idea of where it came from, where it actually came from. so and So I dove into that. And one of the rabbit holes that I went down during all of that investigation and research was and this, it it was why I read a book called The Battle for Christmas by Steven Nissenbaum. And he is, he's a historian and he details and lays out what happened in the colonies. And to me, it was shocking and hysterical and fascinating and unexpected. And basically what happened was in the very early days, the earliest days of the colonies,
Lara: the um Christmas season, what they literally called Christmas, looked nothing like what we think of as Christmas today. And it was actually much more reminiscent of Saturnalia in ancient Rome.
Lara: And Saturnalia was a time of complete misrule and societal upheaval. It was more like carnival or a burning sun or something.
Christian Yordanov: Wow.
Lara: It was like cross -dressing and roll release roll reversal and gambling and debauchery and gorging on and you know lots of food and meat. And part of it was because it it was based on their agricultural society. And they had just gone through the harvest season. So there was all this freshly fermented ale. Likewise, it was finally cold enough for slaughter time. And so there was all this fresh available meat, which would the majority of which would be you know salted and not as tasty throughout the rest of the year. So there was an excess of food and drink.
Christian Yordanov: Interesting.
Lara: But but it was also um it was the whole society was in on it. And so the upper classes and the lower classes, everyone was in agreement that during this two -week period, the whole society would be turned upside down.
Lara: It was just a complete inversion. and And so the slave owners were serving the slaves, and the children were bossing their parents around, and promiscuity in the streets.
Christian Yordanov: What?
Lara: And like I said, you know all the things, cross -dressing, gambling, And so that's what was, these were the traditions that were carrying forward as quote, Christmas in the colonies in the early days. And then you have to remember this was alongside the Puritans and the Puritans were like not having it. They, you know, they were just, they were like, first of all, they didn't even believe in celebrating the birth of Christ on the 25th. Historically, nobody actually knows when Jesus was born.
Lara: The decision to to declare December 25th, the birthday of Christ, was made by Emperor Constantine in 4th century AD. So I forget the date, it was three something. And ah and he worshiped Mithras, who was a son sun god, sun deity, solar deity. And so there are examples of solar deities throughout history, all the different cultures,
Lara: ah Their birthdays are always on the solstice, which makes sense, right? This is the return of the light. It's the rebirth of the light. The sun has gotten, you know, we've gotten to the peak of darkness on the solstice. The sun the sun appears to stand still for three days. Sol sistere. Solstice literally means sold sistere to stand still. The sun stands still. So the sun appears to stand still on the horizon for three days.
Lara: And then on the 25th, the light starts to creep back in. And so you have all these solar deities that their birth date is declared on the 25th, born of a virgin in a cave or a virgin.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: There's all these correlations to the story of Christ. And and so so anyway, so the Puritans are going, well, no, we're not celebrating the birth of Christ on 25th, because that's a pagan adaption.
Lara: and and Furthermore, you know, this is the the greatest disgrace to Christ. All of this behavior is, you know, and so there's this tension between the Puritans and the working class and then the traditions that they were just, they'd always known and were bringing over from their homeland, you know? yeah And if what happened was they actually succeeded in outlawing Christmas for 22 years. I forget when that was, but in the 1600s or 1700s,
Lara: And what eventually happened was that the upper classes stopped wanting to uphold their role. They were like, we don't want to play this game anymore. So there would be bands of lively youth, probably inebriated, showing up at, you know, wealthy manners and demanding ah to be able to perform their satirical plays, which they called mumming, or to sing their satirical songs, which they called wassling.
Lara: yeah we go a loss of length, right? Don't know if you've ever heard that term.
Christian Yordanov: Ahh.
Lara: yeah And they would expect to be given money or food, sweets or food and and in exchange for their performances.
Lara: this was These were the traditions that they had carried over from the old world. And the upper classes started closing their doors and saying, no, we're not going to let you in to perform you know all your silly antics. And we're certainly not going to pay you for it. you know and so so Or serve you food. And so so you can imagine how very quickly that turned sour. And suddenly you have violence and wealthy homes being vandalized and windows being broken and all kinds of nastiness.
Lara: falling out from from the upper classes no longer being willing to participate. And again, in ancient times, the whole society was in on this ritual. And so the upper class willingly participated kind of with the understanding, well, if we if we allow them to let the steam out of their kettle, so to speak, for two weeks, then we'll all go back to regular life for the rest of the year, and everybody will well go back to their assigned roles, and it will be fine.
Lara: and so And so that's happening in the colonies, this violence and, you know, it's just got started getting really ugly. And a very, what happened was a very small group of elites, basically, a and very small group of elites basically came together and dreamt up our current holiday traditions. They literally have rebranded Christmas and the intention behind their rebranding was to to offer an alternative to this mayhem that would keep people calm and quiet and confined within the walls of their own home and not out on the streets making a ruckus and vandalizing and you know all the things. So they dreamt up the deity of Santa Claus
Lara: They said, the house of Ayl will not be vanquished by the house of God. And so we're going to provide an alternative deity. And here's this chubby, jolly, relatable, working class guy. He works in a workshop with his hands. He smokes a short pipe. you know Instead of a long pipe, the gentry class smoked a long pipe. He shorts he he smokes a short pipe. he's He's this very relatable character. He does break and enter.
Lara: like Well, he does so without making a peep, right? And he leaves presents instead of demanding gifts. And maybe some leftover of that exchange is the cookies that are left out for Christmas for Santa Claus, right? And then and then the Christmas tree. So they took these pagan traditions from the old world, but they cherry picked. So my understanding, my uneducated you know assumption was that our tradition of Saint Nick and and the Christmas tree and all of these things was a slow organic trickle from old world pagan traditions. And that's not actually what happened. i think they were These traditions were cherry picked, sometimes very obscure traditions, were literally cherry picked by this very small handful as of elite intellectuals in order to
Lara: create a holiday that would satisfy the lower classes in their yearning for the old world, but again, would shift their behavior to one that was more desirable to the upper classes. So this this new holiday tradition would be celebrated inside the walls of the parlor. This woman found one obscure reference to a fir tree bringing bon being brought into the parlor in Germany, and she decided to add that into the rebranding of Christmas in the picture.
Lara: you know, again, the creation of the deity of Santa Claus. The gift exchange was a sort of their way of tipping their hat to this i this, what used to be the inversion of roles between the upper class and the lower class, ah now became the giving of gifts to the children. Because at that time, children were not as well respected as they are today. They were almost seen as a lower class.
Lara: And so they sort of maintained, well, well ah the the gift exchange will be to the children now. So it's still within the family, then the house, but they're still sort of, you know, kind of throwing a bone to that role inversion idea.
Christian Yordanov: And.
Lara: And so again, it was this cherry picking and rebranding of Christmas. And and that that to me was that was, that was very unexpected information. Again, I thought it was a slow trickle and organic happening, and it just was not that at all.
Christian Yordanov: That is fascinating. it's ah It's interesting how when I was, I guess, I don't know, seven, eight, nine, that that sort of age, I was still living in Bulgaria and we had a slight, yeah so had the the we didn't have Christmas is the main one. it was the New Year's was the main one. But at that point, just ah like a few years after sort of communism falling and stuff, um the these sort of Western things started to permeate ah you know the Eastern Bloc or whatever. And
Christian Yordanov: So it started with like, so we we used we we still have this tradition where for ah New Year's Eve, the kids would make a thing called a Survachka, which is like you make it from the branch of a specific tree.
Christian Yordanov: and you kind of hook it together so it's like it's like a ah rod with two of the branches kind of tied at the top and then you decorate it with various kinds of things like dried fruit and tinsel whatever the hell you have around the house popcorn nuts and you decorate it, and then you go around to the older folks in your home, and then you you do this, um you say this, ah ah not not a prayer, but like a thing, you you hit them on the back gently, and you say these things, that it's gonna be like for a good year, almost like a prayer, but like a incantation or whatever, for a good new year, for health, and you kind of, they give you a template, and you can make your own one, and I remember we would also then, and then they would give you money.
Christian Yordanov: right all the older people would give you money and then we would go up in our ah a apartment block you know and then we will do that this was late like maybe ten o 'clock in the evening um and we're like tiny kids and we'll do that and you would like we have pockets full of like cash
Lara: yeah
Lara: yeah
Christian Yordanov: You know, and we're like, this is awesome. But then like ah maybe a year later, we'll still do this even when we kind of moved in other countries and we're still kids. But then eventually we started like doing like we went to South Africa, then we do it like um it would be more like the the standard template.
Christian Yordanov: But it's interesting to have a lot of these sort of from the pagan, I suppose, from the pagan times, things that are still remnants in in tradition that still haven't been taken over, ah you know,
Lara: Yeah. Yes.
Lara: yeah Yeah, I think that's much more prevalent in Europe. It would be really fun to explore all the different traditions that, you know, in each country that are still in existence and to and to sort of research where they came from and where they trickled down from. You know, and some of that probably from things like Saturnalia, some of it um individual to each culture and a lot of the pagan traditions had to do with, ah again, honoring the rebirth of light, the the the ultimate triumph of light over darkness, you know the honoring of the evergreen and the red berries of the holly. ah you know all All these things are, there're they were from cultures that were immersed in nature. And so the the the honoring of the evergreen is as the honoring of life carrying through the season of darkness.
Lara: You know, and, and so, yeah, it's, it's a big, it's a, it's a bottomless, bottomless of this, of, of cultures and history and things before.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah, abyss is the word, yeah.
Lara: And probably a lot of it is buried and, you know, and, yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. Oh, and it gets it goes deeper. I don't know anything about Bulgarian history, really, but we also have this, um the guys would also then dress up with these big kind of like, almost like, um furs and like this massive mask.
Christian Yordanov: They would do these dances. They would scare away the evil spirits.
Lara: That's a lot.
Christian Yordanov: and And then you also have like the the bravest men in the village because a lot of these things were done in the villages.
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: They would like jump in the icy cold river and whatever to see who has the you know who who's got the most balls or the the tiniest balls I suppose after the after the fact.
Christian Yordanov: so it's kind of I like the fact that they still do these kinds of things um because there's a very rich history that at you know at one point in my life I'm gonna get like a history book or if you know what I mean and just kind of understand the mythology because there's a lot of
Lara: Yeah.
Christian Yordanov: like I don't know if how much you know about Bulgaria. I don't expect much, obviously, because it's such an obscure country. But we have some of like the oldest remains of cities, like 8000 BC and whatever, and like all kinds of artifacts. so there's there's god God knows how many layers of previous civilizations there are under the ground, if you know what I mean.
Lara: We don't know. And we we've again, like history has been so twisted and so manipulated. And and and we just have such an incomplete picture.
Christian Yordanov: yeah Yeah, very extra and very fabricated like you already kind of alluded to.
Lara: Very incomplete. Yeah.
Lara: and and yeah
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: yeah yeah
Christian Yordanov: Well, yeah, this is fascinating stuff, you know. um Yeah, Lara, so this has been really, really awesome conversation. I really thank you so much for coming on the show.
Christian Yordanov: Just as we kind of wrap up, maybe just summarize all the places folks can connect with you again, just so, you know, we kind of leave folks off with that.
Lara: yeah
Lara: Yeah, as far as social media, I'm really mostly and only on Instagram, LaraJDay. L -A -R -A, don't try to sneak a U in there. People are creatures of orbit. LaraJDay is my Instagram. It's also my Facebook handle, but I really don't go to Facebook much. And then the only other way is my website, which is larajday .com. For a short period of time through the rest of this season, you can also get there via 13holynightsoracle .com.
Lara: and so Those are the ways to reach me. I do, um I have five seasonal Qigong courses that I offer throughout the year. and And then my book is available there and also, you know, private sessions, which I do in person and also via Zoom.
Lara: So yeah, yeah.
Christian Yordanov: Awesome. Awesome. Going to have those links down below, guys, if you if you want to refer to those. I've already ordered my ah Oracle. So. ah Yeah.
Lara: So that, One more international customs forum that I'm filling out.
Christian Yordanov: Oh my God. I apologize in advance. I know like just, just dealing with the the receiving end.
Lara: i use
Christian Yordanov: I know how painful that is. So I can only imagine if you're on the other end as well, like jumping through hoops for these Jabberonis, but apologize in advance.
Lara: yeah
Lara: it's <unk>leration and I really do when I'm changing them up, i I send a little prayer with every single oracle dog.
Christian Yordanov: oh
Christian Yordanov: no
Lara: that I do as i' as I'm packaging them up is I'm like, may this, you know, may this practice help, help this person awaken to their own light. So, own it in the light.
Christian Yordanov: yeah Yeah. And anyone touching it in customs, let's let's hope they're in a good mood, love and light to them, all the good stuff.
Lara: yeah
Lara: Yeah. yeah
Lara: yeah
Christian Yordanov: Yeah. yeah you know yeah I'm sure things will get a little bit easier when when you have a bit of you know the ah publisher handles the distribution.
Lara: yeah
Christian Yordanov: That's probably going to give you...
Lara: Yeah, i it's going to be fabulous. I'm excited. Yeah. And I'm excited that to get the practice out to a wider audience.
Christian Yordanov: Yeah.
Lara: I can't ah can't do everything all by myself, although I try.
Christian Yordanov: Absolutely. absolutely la Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Lara: Yeah. yeah yeah
Christian Yordanov: Thank you.
Lara: You're so welcome. Thanks, Christian.
