Elle King: Dreams & Ghost Muses
This week we explore family intuition, starting with singer-songwriter Elle King who opens up about seeing spirits and the psychic connection between the women in her family. Then, Michelle’s mother talks about a strange family heirloom — a lucky number dream book.
Elle King: It was three spirits. It was her, and she was really huge. I'd never seen or experienced any spirit that was so big and great like that before, like she would tower over me. And then there were two younger male spirits that buzzed around the room constantly.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: This is Your Magic, a Spotify Original from Parcast Studios and Your Magic Media. I’m Michelle Tea.
On part one of today’s show, we have singer, songwriter and spirit-seer Elle King with some stories to share about her own familial magic, her psychic intuition, and having a ghost muse.
After that, we hear from my mom, Theresa Tomasik, about her memories of my clairvoyant grandmother’s number one intuitive gambling tool — her Lucky Number Dream Book.
And we’ll end by sending you off with an inspired recipe for an enchanted and poetic sleep.
Stay with us.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: I’m wondering about the difference between superstition and witchcraft. Like what’s an old wives’ tale? What’s a spell? How is a lucky charm different than a talisman?
Here’s a case in point: When I turned eighteen years old, a very serious tradition was bestowed upon me by the women in my family. I had reached a coming of age, I was ready for my initiation. They took me to a church basement. It was all women in there, mostly older women. Elders. Each had assembled an altar of sorts before her — little dolls, photos, you know pressed flowers, coins. Rosary beads. And between each woman and her little altar, there were sheets of paper stamped with rows and rows of numbers. The air was filled with smoke. The mood was tense, very anticipatory as we waited for the ritual to begin.
I’m talking about bingo.
The women in my family were nuts about bingo. To this day, you know, I aspire to arrange my own altar with items as fiercely charged as the very simple things a woman brings to charm her bingo game. They practically vibrated with intention. How was this not witchcraft?
I got so hooked on bingo that first night. And I won! I got to call bingo! And then the very strong occult energy in the room was immediately directed towards hexing me, as tables of elder women spat Shit! And otherwise grumbled and glared at me. “You’re lucky,” my grandmother said, a benediction.
Since then, I’ve won lots more bingo games, so maybe my grandmother was right. Always I have my own little makeshift altar — my concert tickets, and rocks, and broken jewelry, and pictures. I had been mentored not only in the rules of the game, but how to prep for the game, spiritually. How to conjure luck from knick-knacks properly charged with the desperate, electric energy of bingo.
Today on Your Magic we’re going to talk to musician Elle King about her own family lineage of intuition, as well as astrology, visions and spirits.
Here’s Elle King.
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Michelle Tea: Hi. Thanks for being here.
Elle King: Thank you for having me
Michelle Tea: What's your astrological sign?
Elle King: I'm Cancer. I'm double moon Cancer with Gemini rising.
Michelle Tea: Oh, cool.
Elle King: Yeah, so I'm, I'm insane. I'm very emotional and I don't like to leave my house.
Michelle Tea: You totally have Gemini rising because you have such great style. Rising is how you appear to other people. And Geminis are pretty stylish. As are you.
Elle King: Oh, thank you.
Michelle Tea: You're very welcome.
Elle King: OK cool. That's my Gemini. Great.
Michelle Tea: It sounds really like a perfect balance for a performer though, because you have, your music is so soulful, right?
Elle King: Thank you. Yeah.
Michelle Tea: You're welcome. And that is very Cancer-y. Right. To have access to those deep emotions.
Elle King: Totally.
Michelle Tea: And then maybe without your Gemini rising, you'd just be like sitting in, on your front porch for your whole life with your banjo, just like, you know...
Elle King: Which would be cool, but I'd probably get bored.
Michelle Tea: Yeah, your Gemini lets you be like hey.
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: Go out into the world with it and be a performer as well as a creator.
Elle King: Totally.
Michelle Tea: Can you talk about your weird experience that you had that pushed you towards wanting to seek a more defined spiritual path?
Elle King: Well, I've always had a, I mean, like throughout my life, I've always had weird experiences, like things wake me up at night. And then I was going through a really rough time and I was making my last record in Texas. I would stay up all night and everybody would sleep in the house. And I didn't sleep. I just I couldn't sleep at the time. And so I don't know how much of it was just like me being crazy and insane or how much of it was my mind or how much of it really was like some other thing bigger than me. But there was like this spirit there that I communicated with, like the whole time that I was in Texas who basically would kind of give me ideas for music. It was but she was really like tough and would kind of yell at me. It was weird. It was a really weird, insane experience. And I'm not the only one who's who kind of saw her or felt her. Two other people there kind of went through some of the same experiences with me. So it was just really strange and it kind of shoved me into this... I don't know, I just wanted to, like, find things out and I got kind of obsessed with, like ghosts and spirits and what's around me and I don't know.
Michelle Tea: So you had a ghost muse?
Elle King: Kind of. Yeah.
Michelle Tea: That's very cool.
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: It sounds like you forged a relationship with this spirit and it really fed your art. And I'm wondering, like what what is that like to then not be around.. Is it like a friend that you...
Elle King: I felt her.
Michelle Tea: Uh huh.
Elle King: I felt her in other times. And it was it was three spirits.
Michelle Tea: OK.
Elle King: It was her and she was really huge. I'd never seen or experienced any spirit that was so big and great like that before, like she would tower over me. And then there were two like younger male spirits that like, buzzed around the room constantly and I don't know. I have felt them. I, I know that there's a spirit in my house now. And I don't know, I just I don't see things the way that I used to see them. I don't know. Like everything has changed.
Michelle Tea: Yeah. So hearing you talk about it, it sounds like you can feel them and see them.
Elle King: I see them. I don't hear them. I'll get an, I'll like see them in like this kind of like gas sort of like looking flame. And then I'll either see, like a picture in my mind.
OK. I'll tell you one story that's different from Texas, but I must have been 23 or 24 and I was dating a guy here in California. And I hadn't, I knew that some of his family members had passed away and but he was very, very secretive and private, and never shared anything with me. And then I had told him that some I had had some, like, weird experiences and stuff. And one night I was woken up by this man clapping over me. I look up and I see him and I, I know that it's his dad and he shows me a spinning car. And then he shows me like he pulls like a, a rabbit out of like a top hat, like showing me like magic tricks. So I like write down magic tricks. And then he points behind, he points at me. And so I look behind me. I can see a memory of him pulling my ex-boyfriend and his two sisters around on like, like a blanket on hardwood floors. I woke him up. I said, "Hey, like your family's here." And he was like, "Uh OK." I was like, "I just thought maybe you'd wanna know." And he was like, "OK." Like went back to sleep.
So I couldn't sleep. I went for a run and I called my mom and and my mom knows about all this stuff. My mom has other really intense, like intuitive stuff. And she was like, "You know what baby, just go back to the house, just read him what you wrote down. Just just tell him what they showed you." And I was like, I came back home and I was like just mortified, just so embarrassed that, like I told him that that happened and blah blah blah. And uh and I was like, "do you want to know, like, what I wrote down?" And he was like, "Well, sure, yeah. Like, I'm curious." Also, like, you're a crazy person. And. And I showed him everything and I said, "Well, he woke me up by clapping." And he said, "Well, he was the captain of the I mean, the the coach of the football team. And everyone knew that you could hear his clap really loudly through like helmets or like anything out in the field. He was just known for clapping really, really loudly." He had a heart attack in his car, which I never knew how he died. To get the kids to settle down for dinner, he would do magic tricks for them. And then I told him about the memory and he was like yeah my dad used to do that. And so, like, from that experience, I, I don't like judge it or think too hard. I just like write down like if this happens, I write down what they show me and, you know, deliver a message to somebody.
Michelle Tea: What a gift.
Do you have any ideas or philosophies about who or what these spirits are? Like do you think that they're souls that have passed over? Or do you think that they're entities like angels or aliens or, you know, other other beings?
Elle King: Yeah, I mean, I think there's it's kind of all all of them.
Michelle Tea: You think so.
Elle King: Right? I mean, I, I believe that there's a great spirit that it's I don't necessarily believe that it's a man with a long white beard. I think it's something that we can't see or know or comprehend. But it's bigger than us. And I believe in that. And it makes me feel good to know that. But I also believe because I've had these experiences that like there are things around us constantly and we can shut them off totally and we can pretend like they don't exist. And that's fine. You can totally get through life fine that way. But I think that there's beauty in tapping into it. I mean, if you're able and there's so many, even if you don't see things or hear things or dream things, like I have like there's there are so many ways to tap into it, like tarot cards or just meditation, which I can't do. I can't sit still. But there's, you know, all kinds of different things. Prayer, everything I don’t know, whatever, I don’t really pray, but I have.
Michelle Tea: So you said your mom sort of has similar abilities.
Elle King: I don't know. She and I are connected. I had an experience where I got really sick and ended up in hospital and didn't tell my mom. And my mom said that some big spirit, like she woke up and started screaming and kicking because there was this like big black spirit over her and it left her. And she followed it. And it went into my bedroom and she opened it and she said that it smelled like death. And I almost died that night. And she called me and and didn't know where I was. So it's like a weird, like, connection thing between myself, my mother and before my grandmother died, her as well.
Michelle Tea: OK do you feel like you're a witch and do you feel like the women in your family also have a sort of gift that has been passed down from you guys?
Elle King: I don't know if I would consider it witch-y, because I'd probably get smacked if I ever said that around my grandmother.
Michelle Tea: It's a loaded word. Yeah.
Elle King: But do I think that, like, there's something magical in like the hills of where my family comes from um that's passed down from the women? Yeah, totally.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Do you have an issue or something you'd like some clarity or insight on a problem you need solving that we can address the tarot?
Elle King: I'm wondering if I should move and sell my house and just bite the bullet and just do it. It's been a whole thing. And you know where I should move to or if I should stay.
Michelle Tea: So where are you located right now?
Elle King: I live here in Los Angeles.
Michelle Tea: OK. Do you have ideas of where you would maybe like to live instead?
Elle King: I said that I would spend time in Nashville because half my band and they're all my best friends and like my management and everyone that I love now lives in Nashville.
Michelle Tea: Cool.
Elle King: However, I used to live in Nashville and it was a pretty rough year. Things are different, but I feel like I don't want to be like taking steps backwards when I. I don't know. I have this issue of, like, wanting to move to a city that I love a lot and then it takes the excitement out of visiting there.
I would like to eventually live in New Mexico, but I don't know how practical that is for my job right now. And my house is, I feel like I'm like drowning under my house. It's just so many problems.
Michelle Tea: Yeah, it’s kind of a drag to own a house.
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: All right. So you're considering Nashville, even though you have some concerns because of the past.
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: You’re, it sounds like you're considering New Mexico.
Elle King: I want to live in New Mexico.
Michelle Tea: There's a dream. That's a dream. OK. Are there, is there like a third spot or are those the two places?
Elle King: Oh, my goodness. Either. I'll end up in, like Joshua Tree or or I'll end up in New Mexico.
Michelle Tea: OK. So Joshua Tree is a possibility.
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: OK. And then of course, remaining here, being murdered by your house.
Elle King: Yeah. I guess.
Michelle Tea: Is another option.
Elle King: That's one option. Yeah.
Michelle Tea: All right. So to start why don’t you shuffle these cards and ask the cards: what does it look like for you to move to Nashville acknowledging that you had a hard time there in the past, but also acknowledging that you're a different person and it's a different time. You have community there. You have people there. It's a cool town.
Now shuffle and ask, what does it look like if you do move to New Mexico, even though it might feel a little like, oh, is that that practical or, you know, do I want to live in my happy space or do I want to save my happy space as my escape route? You know, what would it look to be like? No, I'm going to live in this magical New Mexico place.
Elle King: I've only been to New Mexico twice. I had a lot of fun.
Michelle Tea: That's like 90 Day Fiancé for moving.
Elle King: Yes, I know. But I'm crazy like that.
Michelle Tea: All right. And Joshua Tree you're wondering about. Not too far from where we are here in L.A.
Elle King: Yeah should I just go home to the desert.
Michelle Tea: Yeah. A closer and more familiar desert.
And then we will do one last for what does it look like for you just to stay here in L.A. and see it through for a bit longer? Maybe not forever, but for now.
Elle King: Stick this out.
Michelle Tea: Stick it out.
Elle King: If I stay here. That’s OK.
Michelle Tea: OK. So Nashville, what does Nashville look like? Sorrow card. Three of Swords.
Elle King: Great.
Michelle Tea: Then Dominion Card.
Elle King: Oh.
Michelle Tea: Two of Wands. And then the Prince of Disks. This is interesting. I think that what you're saying about your past there and the way that that you kind of hold that city in your psyche is really real. I mean, I wonder. I don't know how harsh that was for you. If it's to the extent that you are carrying a little PTSD about that era that would get triggered.
Elle King: Interesting. Yeah, I went through the pretty big trauma there.
Michelle Tea: Really?
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: Yeah. It looks it looks significant. It looks like it's not something that is going to, you can't really shrug off.
Elle King: No.
Michelle Tea: That said, you do have the Dominion card next to you and the Dominion card, Two of Wands. It's you know, it's Mars in Aries and it's all about taking control and being like, No. You know, so like I'm in charge of my life, like I'm in charge of my energy. If you do want to do this, there's a way in to Nashville that is affirming and cool and fun. But it's through recognizing and dealing with whatever this trauma is because that trauma is going to come with you. So it's like.
Elle King: Ugh.
Michelle Tea: Yeah. And your final card here is the Prince of Disks. And he is a very practical card. He's hardworking and he's slow. So it's sort of like, it makes me think of, you know, when there's a when there's a real trauma that we need to deal with it like lives in our bodies and lives in our psyches. It's a slow process. Like, we can't just like phone in a therapy session and be like, I'm better. You know, so it's like it requires a bit of commitment. And the Prince of Disks is committed, like he's slow-going, but like, look at that little bull that's pulling his chariot. Like that bull is not going to stop until, you know, it hits you know, its victory. So it looks like really, if you're going to move to Nashville, you're also moving into an era of your life when you are proactively handling whatever this is.
Elle King: Well, at least we're starting off light.
Michelle Tea: It's true. I mean, the tarot, the tarot will tell us what we need to hear all the time. And it's. Yeah, and it's often, it does really hit, it hits our our spots where we're carrying heavy emotions.
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: And where we've had peak experiences and peak experiences aren't always fun and games. You know, the experiences that shape us are often experiences that were really hard, hard to go through.
Let's look at New Mexico. You have the Two of Disks, which is Works. Four of Disks, which is Power. And the Fool. Dare you? Dare you move to a place you've only visited twice? But like lives in your mind as like your dream landscape. It looks like it would take some work for you to do it. You know, the Three the Three of Disks card is called Works and it's about really putting the pedal to the metal and applying yourself. It's another Mars card. It's Mars in Capricorn. And it's interesting because Capricorn is like all business and just thinking of you also as a business lady. And you having said, it's maybe not the most practical place for you to live regarding your career, it does look like you'd have to work that out. But it absolutely looks like it's workable. You could do it. And you move from Mars in Capricorn to this Power card, which is Sun in Capricorn. So I absolutely believe that this is saying that it would not affect your career in any negative way to move there. And the Fool card is like a new beginning following like chasing a dream that it's the kind of dreams that people are like. You're a fool and you're like, you don't know anything. I am following my bliss right now. And so, I mean, the Fool card's kind of my favorite card in the deck. I tend to listen to it when it pops up because it's really pushing us to take the risks that we really want to take in our heart. It's a high-risk card, but it's it pays off. It's really beautiful.
Elle King: Wow.
Michelle Tea: OK. Let's look at you staying here in L.A. in the house that you don't seem to like. You could do it. Doesn't actually doesn't look bad. You have the Nine of Swords. It is saying it's going to it would take you buckling down like it would take you summoning some sort of inner strength to be like, OK, I'm gonna I'm gonna do this. You know. You do have next to you the Chariot, which is about, it's you know, the Chariot is like you're taking on something when the Chariot comes comes up. It's like it's a it's an undertaking. And you're like going here's like committed to it. You're going to do it. It's the Cancer card. So it is about home, you know, in this particular illustration the man driving or the figure driving the Chariot who's wearing armor, we can't really see what they look like. They're so protected. So it's kind of a situation you might need to protect yourself from a little bit. They're holding like a bowl of of blood and it's supposed to be speak towards a sacrifice that needs to be made in order for you to get what you want. So it seems like. Yeah, I mean, you're signing up to what you know is going to be kind of a rough road. But what I think this is saying is that it's in you to do it. However, you end with another queen, not the queen of Swords, who is so clear-headed up in the sky. But the Queen of Cups, who is very not clear headed. She's very emotional. You can't even see her face in this illustration. She's so obscured by fog and steam.
It looks like, you know, you can do this. This is telling you a little bit I think what you already know. You can do this. It would take a lot of effort for you. And you have a lot of emotions like are you somebody who gets very unsettled if their house, if their living situation is is sort of messed up.
Elle King: I'll leave the house and never return to that city.
Michelle Tea: Really?
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: It's very extreme for you. It feels really-.
Elle King: I'm a very extreme person. Yeah. I left my apartment in New York and I said, "Oh I'm I'm never going back there. Ever again." And I had somebody pack it up and that's how I moved to LA. I rented a house without seeing it.
Michelle Tea: Oh, my God. I love that you did that. You know, you don't-.
Elle King: I'm insane but...
Michelle Tea: You don't necessarily want to do it again here.
Elle King: No, no. I'm trying to slow down. This is, I've never finished a lease anywhere. And now I own this house, and I've lived there for almost two years.
Michelle Tea: OK. Is that the longest you've ever lived in a place as an adult?
Elle King: Yeah.
Michelle Tea: And then we have Joshua Tree. Ooh the Aeon, the Sun, and the Queen of Swords. OK, forget everything I said about New Mexico. Joshua Tree is like you're more practical New Mexico. It's like you're it's. Yeah. This is beautiful. The Aeon card is about a new beginning. It's like if you look there's the illustration of the goddess Knut who's the Egyptian goddess of the sky. And so she's forming a sort of doorway and is inviting you to walk through this cosmic doorway into the next era of your life. It's really a powerful card. And when it comes up in readings, I always take it as a very cosmic yes. It's like I don't quite know what I'm doing, but I'm going to trust my gut here. I know I'm going to be able to figure it out. I really want to change my life. I really want to take this turn and move to Joshua Tree.
OK, so your next card is The Sun. Which like is the most beautiful, happy, joyous, celebratory card in the tarot. It's lovely. It's a big yes. And the Queen of Swords is a really interesting card. She's a queen, which is cool. Swords represent the mind and mental processes. So when the Queen of Swords comes up, you know, especially in this illustration, she's sitting on a cloud above the Earth, looking down with her sword drawn in one hand and her other hand, a severed head, not to be grisly. What it's talking about is like being kind of detached from your life, getting a little bit of perspective, being able to look down and do what you need to do, cut away what needs to be cut away in order for you to have the life that you want. So I feel like this is a total helper to you saying like pull back, what do you need to do to get out of your house that you're in right now? What do you need to do to cut away so that you can make a new move to Joshua Tree and like, set up a new life in Joshua Tree? It's going to take some figuring out and some processing. But like, you absolutely have the power to do it. And there's another read on this card where that's not a severed head in her hand. It's a mask. And there's a read on this card that says that when she comes up, she's also helping you get more real about who you are, you know, taking masks away. So there might be something about moving to Joshua Tree where you feel like you are able to connect more deeply with your authentic self.
Elle King: I do. I go there and I stay there for, like, a couple weeks.
Michelle Tea: Yeah.
Elle King: And don't see anybody and just play music and look for rocks and sit in the sun.
Michelle Tea: Sounds so dreamy.
Elle King: It's pretty great.
Michelle Tea: I mean, this could be your life, Elle King. Doesn't have to be a vacation. I say go to Joshua Tree.
Elle King: OK, cool.
Michelle Tea: Yeah.
Elle King: It's pretty clear there.
Michelle Tea: It's your destiny.
Elle King: It is.
Michelle Tea: Dare I say.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Man, I want to move to the desert! That sounds very cool. I really loved Elle talking about this magical energy being passed down through family lines. I happen to have a very witchy woman in my lineage — my maternal grandmother, Phyllis Mansfield. Her place and time really kept her from really owning her psychic gifts and identifying as a witchy person, but it didn’t stop her from trying to make a buck off her prophetic dreams — and with that she had the help of her Lucky Number Dream Book.
[Music]
Theresa Tomasik: It was a very thin book, probably, I don’t know, less than, 50 pages or less in a comic book style reminiscent of the 40s. It was an old, old book and I think that it had like a little witch on it or something. It was white and blue and I think it had some black lettering on it. It had every month of the year. And all the dates to those months and each date had a number assigned to it. And she would play those numbers on those days. It also had an alphabetized dream book, it was a dream book. And anything that she would dream — and she remembered her dreams very clearly, very vividly. And she would look up what she dreamt of and there'd be a number beside it and she would play the number with the bookies. This was before lotteries.
This particular man was elderly. He was an older man and people would give him money and their number. And the number had to do with, I believe, the racetrack. Certain numbers that would come out — that's how they would get a payoff.
But I remember a few times, one time she dreamt of blood. And she looked up the number for blood and she played it and it didn’t come out. And then she thought, Hm, I should have researched that a little bit further. So she looked up “red,” and that was the number.
She was working in a small department store downtown. She probably could have been a millionaire but she never played a lot of money. She nickeled and dimed it.
But she dreamt that she was late for work and when she woke up, she wasn't. But she went into work and told everybody, when I looked at the clock, you know, it was right. But I kept dreaming it was 9:15. Oh, everybody everybody in the store played the 915 and this was like 9 o'clock in the morning and it came out at one in the afternoon. They all won. So she hit on that dream.
They all hit too. Yep. Whole store.
She just liked numbers and dreams. She was really into her dreams. That the dreams had a meaning and they had a number that could make you rich.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: That was my mom, Theresa Tomasik, sharing some memories about her own witchy mother, and her prophetic and sometimes profitable dreams.
And, as cool as it is to have wild dreams that foretell the future, mostly we want our dreamtime to be peaceful and restorative and deep. Here is Suhaly Bautista-Carolina with a sleep spell for just such a slumber.
[Music]
Suhaly Bautista-Carolina: Peace, my name is Suhaly Bautista-Carolina of Moon Mother Apothecary and today I am sharing with you a sleep spell poem that I wrote inspired by Jaqueline Woodson’s book Brown Girl Dreaming.
Darkness like a cape that we wear. Moving in the shadows, welcoming mystery. Revealing myself to me. Sweetness like honey between my fingertips, savoring sleep, remembering our bodies are so deserving. Interwoven like the dance of the sun and the moon, reminding us that we are made of star stuff, celestial and beyond. Dreaming our shared horizon among the stars, wishing, affirming our fantasies come true.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: It’s cool to remember that every single night we face the unknown. We slip into the mystery, we let our subconscious — the place where intuition and magic reside — steer the ship. We wish you some inspired daydreams and soothing night dreams, and that all your heart’s desires come true.
[Music]
Michelle Tea: Thanks for tuning into Your Magic. Thanks for tuning into Your Magic. Make sure you follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thisisyourmagic, subscribe to us here on Spotify so you never miss an episode. Sign up for our newsletter at thisisyourmagic.com for more musings from our team of spiritual seekers. You can email us at hello@thisisyourmagic.com, we would love to hear from you.
This episode was produced and edited by Molly Elizalde, Tony Gannon, and Kristine Mar. We got production support from Veronica Agard, Vera Blossom, and Raven Yamamoto. Our executive producers are Ben Cooley, myself and Molly Elizalde. Our original theme music is by John Kimbrough.
Join us next week for a conversation with Roxane Gay. Thanks for listening!