Ambika Devi is an astrologer, author and creative dreamer. She stuffs her backpack with colored pens, a journal, a kindle, a passport and a deck of tarot cards. Her pockets are filled with multiple degrees and years of teaching. Her work is as a Master Astrologer, Professor, Ceremonialist, Author, Publisher, Yoga-Next educator, and Guild certified Tarot Grandmaster.
I’m so excited to have with me today, Ambika Devi. She’s a master astrologer, a ceremonialist. She just has this really cool vibe to her that you’re going to feel here in just a second. On top of everything else, she’s an author of two phenomenal books; Unfolding Happiness, that won one of the Top 100 Notable Indie Published Books for 2016, as well as her book, Lilith, that got second place in International Book Awards in Spiritual Fiction. She’s done a few things in the world. Please join me in welcoming Ambika to the show. Welcome, Ambika.
Thank you so much, Tonya. It is such a pleasure to be here.
We’d like to jump right in and ask, what are your superpowers?
Wizardry: Disconnect from the ego mind to be really, truly led by a higher power, higher energy.
My superpowers are empathy and divination skills; being a life-long student and professor, and really teaching people to feel what intuition feels like and to disconnect from the ego mind so that they are really, truly being led by a higher power, higher energy, and get them confident in that, and then launch them on the path of their passion. As Rumi says, “Letting the thing they love be what they do.”
Let’s just calm down the noise and move through the world in this way that just feels really good on us as individuals. That’s the imagery that I get, this nice comforting cloak that all of us can choose to put on that isn’t a shroud but highlights the essence of who we are. It’s such a beautiful imagery. How did you get into all of that?
The book, Lilith, will tell you the whole story about me, because the lead character, Lilith, is based on me. Actually, most of the characters tell stories that happen in my life. As a fiction novel, I did fictionalize and construct certain stories within the book, but it is pretty much about me. In a nut shell, the tarot cards came to me when I was seven. Even prior to that, I was having conversations with other realms. I was fully-awaken, aware, knew that I had lived before. About two and a half, I told my parents I was from Lhasa. All these stories are inside Lilith.
Were they open to that? Did your parents dialogue with you?
The thing is they might not have understood it all in the beginning. God bless them, they never squelched it. They always encouraged my creativity. It funneled into a lot of hands-on creative things, like art and crafts as a younger person, writing, music, dance, just all the creative expressions. They opened that path, like The Artist Way teaches. I was given this incredible education. On top of that, as a child, they sent me to Quaker school. Quaker school teaches you to meditate. I got into meditation in first grade because we had to sit for an hour in silence once a week together. We also did sing-alongs. I really attribute a lot of who I am to our Tuesday morning sing-alongs and our Wednesday morning meeting for worships. really silent-seated meditation. That really gave me a lot. Plus, our campus had a lot of nature.
The first school I went to was in Pennsylvania and it was on land that William Penn had originally owned. We had these beautiful ancient groves and stone buildings. I went onto several other Quaker schools after that. Just really got that opportunity to be artistic, to be creative, to explore spiritualities and not be boxed into something, but rather be given the opportunity to read and study and discuss all of these different ideas about who we are or what we’re doing here, what we came to give to the world. This started when I was six years old. It’s pretty phenomenal. I thank my mom for it all the time because it really set the foundation.
I just see that as being this amazing, almost a trampoline, if you will, into this being that you are able to embody in the world. You’re able to really be the essence of that, which is so beautiful. When I was looking over your bio, I love the concept of the ceremonialist. There’s something about that and the intentionality around really crafting time and space to devote to something. Can you talk a little bit more about how you use that?
Wizardry: I believe that winning the lottery of getting here on this earth is something that is worthy of celebration.
I believe that everything, of winning the lottery to getting one of these bodies here on this earth, is something that is worthy of celebration. I’ve also, because at that early age was studying about all these different spiritualities, really developed a newer merging of all of these ideas. I became really interested in ritual and the goddess. My path led me to be in goddess circles and started taking Yoga class with my mom when I was little. I learned a lot about all of these things. Later, I decided to become a minister, so I could actually conduct ceremonies legally, like weddings. Early on, I ended up doing a lot of grief counseling and teaching people about birth and death are really the same thing. Perhaps that’s because of my Scorpio-ness. I did a lot of memorial services, even more than I’ve done weddings, just to really help families and people deal with that. I’ve always had a real ease of seeing through the time-space continuum. That’s definitely a superpower, Tonya.
Also, being able to really see what’s going on and how people cope with that. Just like the Buddha said, “The reason why we suffer is because we get attached to the idea that this is it.” That’s me really encapsulating it in a nut shell. I just spell it out a little bit more in Unfolding Happiness as for the four different doctrines. I believe a lot of people are trying, in what they’re putting out there, to share the idea. We need to be grateful. We need to live every moment. We need to be aware that this is all a gift. That’s what inspired me to do this. Ceremony-wise, over the years, I’ve led New Moon Circles, I have a real affinity with the new moon, and meditation groups, all different ways of tuning in. I do a lot of work one-on-one. That’s really my passion because, with an individual, I can really get deep with them and focus on where they’re at in that moment.
What type of work do you do individually? Is it eclectic, pulling from all of those disciplines?
I do a lot of counseling. I use astrology and tarot and my abilities. I can address any and all topics. People come to me for all sorts of relationship questions, whether it be in their personal relationships, with family, work relationships; everything in life is a relationship. I also, with astrology; look at timing and placement, and assist people when they’re in transitional points in their lives to make sound decisions and give them options. The divination arts all give potential. It’s up to the individual to make a choice what they’re going to do with it.
I’m a big fan of the conversation around choice and just the depths to which that really goes, and how far we can extend our ability to choose and what we’re willing to be in awareness around. I love exploring those topics.
One of the conundrums that people get stuck in is thinking that everything’s faded. I heard you talking in a previous show about movies. I’m a total movie freak. I love movies. I love books. I love all story-telling. I think a great movie, and this is one I’ve assigned to lots and lots of clients and students over the years, to understand free will and choice, is Bruce Almighty. That one really talks about free will. It’s so important for people to understand that. It’s something that a lot of people don’t get.
You’ve mentioned so many resources and things that have attributed to your growth. Are there others that you want to talk about with regard to influences?
Wizardry: One of the conundrums that people get stuck in is thinking that everything’s faded.
I’ve had so many amazing teachers. My dad loved travel. As a little kid, he started taking me out of school for longer periods of time than were allotted for regular school vacations and taking my family to Europe and different places. He made a deal with my headmaster that when I came back, I would give presentations and slide lectures. I was a little photojournalist in second grade. I was giving assemblies and my version of a TED Talk.
My mom is 94. I moved to Florida so I could be around the corner from her and just hang out the rest of her time with her. I have a friend who wants me to do some chat with the elders. I may do something like that. It will probably be informal, off my Facebook page, so people could stalk me there for that.
That’s another ceremonial thing, Tonya. The thing is I came in with this real tribal sense. I’ve been, all my life, bringing more of the tribal good vibes to as many people as I can. One of the things our society is just heinously lacking is honoring the elders. They have amazing stories. They just are a wealth of fun and laughter and stories. This inspires me. I declare now. I’m going to do this. Every time I do a live feed with my mom, so many people tune in and tell me how good it made them feel and how much they loved hearing her laugh. I will definitely do some more live story-telling with my mom.
We have one of our Super Power Experts, Tatiana, out of Massachusetts is really deeply rooted in a lot of the tribal elder wisdom arenas. It’s been such a nice accompaniment to our family in the Super Power world because I think there’s so much richness there. It’s definitely something that I wasn’t drawn to this lifetime. I love how it rounds that out. It really does bring this layer of the stories. It’s so rich and fleshy. You could feel it. There’s so much to it. I love that she embodies that and brings that in. Please, if you choose to do something like that, please let us know. We’ll promote it or link it. I do think that there’s real value in that.
Definitely, I’d like to see more and more people do that.
One of the things we like to share with our listeners and our members is the concept of a time, living your power story. I know majority of your existence is intuitively guided, if not all of it. Maybe even think back to when it wasn’t as second nature or if it always has been, but something you can share with people.
Seriously, there are so many amazing experiences and teachers. I could definitely concur that when the student’s ready, the teacher shows up. When the students are ready, it’s your turn to be the teacher. I just took on a new teaching gig with the Grey School of Wizardry. Right now, I’m in the background, upgrading and rewriting curriculum. The whole school is about divination and wizardry and superpowers.
The one story I could share with you, Tonya, is maybe times when I denied it and tried to suppress it, then came back around realizing that’s the only way to be. Trying to squelch that is actually really damaging. I’ve made decisions on going on trips, for dreams, a lot. I’ll have dreams or just in meditation. When I meditate, I meditate silently. I don’t look for anything in the meditation. If something comes forward, I just let it zoom by. It’s that moment right at coming out of meditation that usually has that, that’s something to focus on or check out or look at.
This is a daily occurrence. This has happened. I was led on a trip last year to go to the UK and walk in the steps of Merlin and Morgaine and King Arthur, and went to all these amazingly magical places, and met phenomenal people and saw so much energy, captured some on film, and showed it to friends of mine who were from England. They said, “Next time, I want you to go with me when I go home because I never even saw these places.” There have been some incidences where I thought, “I should go study this or I should take a class with that one.”
Wizardry: It’s always the true intuitive that leads me on the most fantastic journeys.
Now that I look back, I can say that was an ego-based decision. That didn’t work out and I let it go. It’s always the true intuitive that leads me on the most fantastic journeys. That could be with everything, from walking into a book store and picking up a book, or just thinking of looking something up online and that leading on a whole adventure. That’s how I got the job at the Grey School. Actually even before that, I had experimented with different titles to go with tarot. I have been calling myself, Astrology Expert, but I hadn’t really found the right tarot title. I was looking for a second word. I tried “expert,” but then it was redundant with astrology. I tried “master.” I tried all sorts of things. Then I changed it to “wizard” then boom. Then I had a conversation with a friend of mine. She kept clinging on to the word “wizard.” I came home, I Googled, School of Wizardry and now, I’ve got a job with them. There you go.
I love how you are willing to give testament to ego-based decisions and trust and really how those things unfold, but also not beating yourself up over. You acknowledged it and you moved on. I think that’s absolutely beautiful. I know folks are going to want to find out more about you. Where can we send them?
They can go to AmbikasWisdom.com. That’s my homepage. You can get everything from there.
Ambika, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been really delightful to reconnect with you and just to hear some of your stories. I really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for having me, Tonya.
To all of you out there, as always, we appreciate your loyalty. Until next time, go out, uncover your superpowers and change the world. Thanks, everyone. Take care.
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