Tracy Lynn Dice Oral History 2022/03/23

also known as Mambo Elizabeth Ruth

Self-description:
“I’m a Voodoo Priestess. I’m a spiritual worker. I’m a small business owner, a mother, and instructional designer of online courses; so, you can imagine what my life has been like the last couple of years. And, you know, community servant. You know. I do the things I do, not just to help myself, but to help the other people in my community spiritually.”

Some of the things we spoke about included:
Opening a business in May 2019, managing shutdowns, and reopening in 2021; business thriving
Having worked at home for 12 years
Growing closer with some family and further from others
Bug Out Bags
Getting vaccinated, masking, and social distancing
The dangers of anti-science perspectives and anti-vaxxers
The economic status of many esoteric practitioners
BLM
Being pro-Black; the strength of the Black community and Black spiritualists; Black joy
Learning about the pandemic and preparing for the first lockdown
Daughter’s lost graduation and redirecting of post-graduation plans
Daughter not seeing partner for an extended period of time during lockdown
Loss of physical fellowship and shared spiritual spaces
The foreign feeling of going into a restaurant and nail salon again; getting braver without becoming foolish
Attending a pandemic wedding
Social media and privacy
Conducting divinations with people who’d lost people to COVID; burning out
Astrology having predicted the pandemic and 20-year cycles; the Age of Aquarius
Capitalism; the great resignation; colonial and patriarchal labor expectations
Ancestral and generational trauma and pain
Pursuing art and crafting
Lakewood, Denver shooting spree in December 2021
African cosmologies; mind-body-spirit
Gardening, smoking, exercising, eating
Laws about pregnancy, abortion
An exodus from conservative Black churches
Having been hospitalized with sepsis during the pandemic
Considering healthcare providers’ COVID-19 safety policies
Medical racism in the USA
Environmental destruction
Learning about community, like Italians singing arias to each other from their balconies

Other cultural references include: Kroger’s grocery, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, 9/11, Lowes, Netflix, Hersey’s Kisses, Ivermectin, Trader Joe’s, Henrietta Lacks

March 23, 2022 11

Kit Heintzman

Tracy Lynn Dice

Kit Heintzman

English Biography

English Community & Community Organizations

English Education--K12

English Government Federal

English Health & Wellness

English Healthcare

English Home & Family Life

English Race & Ethnicity

English Social Issues

business owner

motherhood

community

family

mask

vaccination

capitalism

racism

activist

ancestors

aquarius

astrology

Black

BLM

climate change

Columbus

divination

elderberry

hospital

joy

LGBTQ

magic

masking

medical racism

microaggression

mother

nails

Ohio

online teaching

pagan

priestess

psychic

race

racism

rootwork

small business

social media

spirituality

trauma

travel

vaccine

Voodoo

WWIII

Black Voices

LGBTQ+

Motherhood

Religion

08/16/2022

09/28/2023

10/26/2023

03/23/2022

Kit Heintzman

Tracy Lynn Dice

Columbus

Ohio

United States of America

Video

English

01:23:25

Opening a business in May 2019, managing shutdowns, and reopening in 2021; business thriving. Having worked at home for 12 years. Growing closer with some family and further from others. Bug Out Bags. Getting vaccinated, masking, and social distancing. The dangers of anti-science perspectives and anti-vaxxers. The economic status of many esoteric practitioners. BLM. Being pro-Black; the strength of the Black community and Black spiritualists; Black joy. Learning about the pandemic and preparing for the first lockdown. Daughter’s lost graduation and redirecting of post-graduation plans. Daughter not seeing partner for an extended period of time during lockdown. Loss of physical fellowship and shared spiritual spaces. The foreign feeling of going into a restaurant and nail salon again; getting braver without becoming foolish. Attending a pandemic wedding. Social media and privacy. Conducting divinations with people who’d lost people to COVID; burning out. Astrology having predicted the pandemic and 20-year cycles; the Age of Aquarius . Capitalism; the great resignation; colonial and patriarchal labor expectations. Ancestral and generational trauma and pain. Pursuing art and crafting. Lakewood, Denver shooting spree in December 2021. African cosmologies; mind-body-spirit. Gardening, smoking, exercising, eating. Laws about pregnancy, abortion. An exodus from conservative Black churches. Having been hospitalized with sepsis during the pandemic. Considering healthcare providers’ COVID-19 safety policies. Medical racism in the USA. Environmental destruction. Learning about community, like Italians singing arias to each other from their balconies

Kit Heintzman 00:03
Hello.

Tracy Lynn Dice 00:04
Hello.

Kit Heintzman 00:05
Would you please start by stating your full name, the date, the time and your location?

Tracy Lynn Dice 00:11
My name? Well, my uh pseudonym is Mambo Elizabeth Ruth. That is not my government name. Uh, my government name is Tracy Lynn Dice. It is 11 o'clock. I'm in Columbus, Ohio. It's March 23rd.

Kit Heintzman 00:28
2022.

Tracy Lynn Dice 00:29
2022, Yes.

Kit Heintzman 00:31
Ah, and do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly released under Creative Commons License attribution noncommercial sharealike?

Tracy Lynn Dice 00:41
Sure.

Kit Heintzman 00:43
Would you please start by introducing yourself to anyone who might find themselves listening to this? What would you want them to know about you and the place you're speaking from?

Tracy Lynn Dice 00:50
Well um, I'm a voodoo priestess, I am a spiritual worker. I'm a small business owner, a mother and instructional designer of online courses. So you can imagine what my life has been like, this past couple of years, um. And um, you know, uh community servant, you know, um I do the things that I do not just to help myself, but to help the other people in my community spiritually.

Kit Heintzman 01:20
Would you tell me a story or two about what life in the pandemic has been like for you?

Tracy Lynn Dice 01:25
It's been insane. I mean, you know, I opened my business in 2019. In May. And, you know, less than a year later, we were told, okay, well, first of all, everybody's dying go home. Um, you know, um we are a what considered to be a non-essential business. So we had to close our store and do for, for a few weeks, it was just our website, which was the great thing was because the website has been what's always powered the business. Um, but um, so we we went to just fulfilling the orders that were in our queue when we had shut down for a couple of weeks. And then we went to mail order only, and then we um, moved things to pick up, we turned on pickup on our POS system. And people picked up for about a year. And we kept going. And now you know, when it's a couple of times we tried to reopen, you know, people just you know, wouldn't wear masks just were really strange, about, you know, everything, you know, it made it really difficult for us to reopen.

Tracy Lynn Dice 02:35
So we've tried to reopen once in the summer. And then we ended up and I apologize for being in my basement looking for some things 'cause we are in the middle of a store move as a result of all of this, um. And uh, you know, we tried reopening a couple times, and it took until I would say 2021. Yeah, for us to reopen the store with a lot of restrictions, you know, hand sanitizer, masks and things like that. And so, it was a really, it was a really difficult time, because, um you know, uh I had to figure out, what, I was going to do to keep my business afloat. Luckily, we have a lot of customers and loyal fans that kept ordering and things like that, and um we just made it work. And now you know, things seem to be unquote, unquote, going back to quote unquote, normal, but I learned a lot in that pandemic, that a lot of the things I was doing and experiencing in my life really weren't normal. And, you know, people want to talk about this new normal, but I really don't think that anybody ever took the time to define exactly what that is. Found my drill bag.

Tracy Lynn Dice 03:54
So it's, you know, had to do just a lot of reach shifting of priorities. Um. For me, you know, I suffered some losses, but not financial, you know, people um and not due to COVID even but the, but, you know, I knew people that have people that had COVID In fact, it wasn't until this year that members of my family, not my immediate family, but my extended family even caught COVID. So it was you know, it was very, they got hit with that Aroma, Orion or whatever strain that that was. So to see people living in the same house, people infected people not infected. It was just crazy. It was insane, you know, and um it just changed everything. I normally had my nieces here for the summer, they worked in the store. And one of my niece's has sickle cell. So we had to be very, very careful and that's one of the reasons why we tried to reopen, and then we, we couldn't so but for me, it was a time of growth. It was a time of um severing ties with people, places and things that weren't good for me, teaching other people how to do that too. Because, you know, we always have these platitudes about our lives where tomorrow's not promised and live for today and seize the..., but it, I don't think it became as apparent for a lot of people until that pandemic. And so I was able to, you know, the people who I loved the most, who loved me the most, who were right for me, I was able to grow closer to them, especially my daughter and her, her husband. Um, but it was, it was a really, it's was earth shattering, you know, it still is, still very much earth shattering.

Tracy Lynn Dice 05:56
Um, it just changed your perspective on everything, on the way you thought things were going to be. You know, and people have had to, uh, you know, people call it resiliency, I don't know, survival. I don't know what it is. But we really just had to say, okay, figure out all of the many different ways we're gonna make this work. You know, and, you know, my family, my daughter, and her son, my son in law, especially. And then my uh good friend, Lady Speech came here, [inaudible] my friend Carla. [inaudible] They all work for the store and Ashley, they just, we just all came together, and you know, just figured out how to make it work. And it's been challenging, you know, when first-world problems, supply chain issues, different things like that. But for me, I'd been working at home for 12 years, I wasn't new to this, I was true to this. So it wasn't the adjustment that I had to make that was so impactful, because I was picking up my groceries from Kroger, you know, I was, uh, you know, I, but but it really makes you like, Man, I just want to shop someplace physically.

Tracy Lynn Dice 07:11
I'm not a person that goes to clubs and stuff like that. But, you know, for the first time in a long time, you know, it was like a year went by before I even even ate in a restaurant, then I tried it a couple times, and surge happened again. And and then another year went by, you know, to be you know, where we could go out? And just be you know, it was it's, it's, you know, it really touched your gangsta. It really does. And um I feel like, you know, and it's like, and then now things, things aren't better. People want to believe they are. They're not, we're at, you know, and the economy is suffering, and people are suffering and people are having to go back work and get infected in places where they shouldn't, you know, oh, um, the witnessing of just major stupidity morons that don't believe in science that don't want to be vaccinated. I oh, you know, one of the things is, you know, we had all of that stuff, Black Lives Matter. And all of that was very necessary. You know, I tell people, as much as we hated the assault to our psychological health, Trump was necessary, people do really need to see what was really going out here on out here for black people, you know, and I saw stuff that made me go, you know, wow, like, I was coming into a friend the other day, you know, those polarities of race, I'm like, You never once in any of those videos, saw a black woman, like, you know, or any black person, purposely cough on someone, because they were being asked to wear a mask.

Tracy Lynn Dice 08:56
And the behavior, the behavior of white people really came to the forefront. And, you know, um even though I've been an activist most of my life, definitely pro-black, which is not anti-white. Um I really got to see what we were dealing with here. And I mean, I had an idea, but you know, and ah be, I was never shocked. But I was always surprised if that makes sense. It's like, wow, you know, I could still have that incredulous -ness of some of the stuff that was going on. Um, but, you know, it's, it's different with technology. It's different with the internet, you know, and I've been doing this online instruction design for 20 some years. And um I work for an education system that trains people who serve the public, like psychologists and educators and nurses and um, you know the shifts and the things we've had to make, that they didn't want to before that we'd been encouraging the doom to do before. But now you could see how it's incredibly necessary. You know, not, my daughter didn't get to go to prom, her graduation was kind of bootleg, she took a year off, she took a semester online with Columbus State. And then she finally went to OU this year, but I really think that helped. Because it just gave her a minute. I think all kids need a gap year. It it just, the the pandemic has just showed me what this capitalist um colonized system, how a lot of it is so wrong for us, and why even in that we continue to thrive, we continue to flourish, we continue to thrive, but God damn, you know, it's like, you know, um I think more with the technology having to have it presented to you on a regular everyday basis, and the way the inhumanity of certain people. It really it just it really taught me where I was in the world with everybody I knew personally, and all this stuff politically, it just really let me know what I was facing.

Tracy Lynn Dice 11:21
Um, and so it's, it's been sobering, it's been a learning experience, and for all the good things I got out of it, you know, and my business even thrived. But the loss is been so tremendous, it can never really equal the gains, the loss of um interpersonal relationships, the loss of being able to travel, to worship, and and my practice, not a lot of voodoo science in Columbus, you know, um the fellowship losing that physical fellowship with people that that that I didn't even think I liked people that much, because like I said, I've been, you know, between being in my house, going to the grocery store, going to my store, but I did, I had the option if I wanted to go to an event. If I had to go out, if I wanted to go out if I wanted to get a meal and break bread with my friends. Um, [inaudible] it took a longer time for it to wear on me than others, but it has.

Kit Heintzman 12:31
Do you remember when you first heard about COVID-19?

Tracy Lynn Dice 12:35
Oh, yeah. I'd just gotten back from California for a business trip for my day job. Um, I remember, I came back on Valentine's Day, everybody was doing things as usual, but by March, um I heard about it. Probably late February, and then I thought it was gonna be something like the bird flu or something like even Ebola. I didn't think it was going to reach the magnitude that it did. But by March, I remember very specifically, the most, the defining moment where I'm like, where shit got real, was when my stepdaughter and her boyfriend, not her boyfriend, her best friend came into the house. And I looked at them and I said, we we, because they were talking about shut down on Wednesday. And I said, we really, really, really need to go to the grocery store, we need to stock up. And we need to be prepared to stay at home. And I told my daughter, as far as her fiance at the time was concerned, I was like, he can come here. And he can stay with us. Or he can stay where he is. But either way, we're locking it down. And they went months without seeing each other. Conversely, my stepdaughter, she thought she just was business as usual. In fact, her best friend told me I was being a fear monger when I told him that we needed to go and stock up. And ah, sure enough, I ended up cussing him out after uh it became very apparent that no, you know, this was very necessary. And you know, and then it just became how are we going to do this? And you know, you know, you got to see what people would do, you know, would they put their you know, family in danger to be outside or to go somewhere and do something with people and, um, like I said, I really was proud of a lot of people like my daughter who committed to quarantine and they only saw each other on video and stuff like that and very disappointed in my stepdaughter who decided she didn't want to quarantine so therefore you can't live here. You know, you know, so I haven't seen my two grandkids in a couple of years. And uh, you know, I don't even know if she considers them to be my grandkids anymore. But, you know, I had to do what was necessary to save my own life. And, you know, I think a lot of people have had to do that. And I just, you know, woo, the people who lived alone, [inaudible] I just don't know how, you know, and I'm, I'm a pretty solitary person. But I don't, I just don't know how people did it. You know, you know, and it was, it's been devastating. I think that we're going to see a tremendous rise in substance abuse and mental health issues coming out of this, in in addition to long term COVID. So yeah, that's when I remember when the state was like, this is a problem. Go home, close your door, as you know, restaurants, bars, care shops, nail shops, I just recently started getting my nails done.Uhm. And even then, it's, it's kind of scary. You know, you used to go to the nail shop, scared of what they might do and mess up your nails, not to the point of, you know, if I go and I do this, am I gonna die? So ...

Kit Heintzman 16:09
Would you share something about what you had mentioned, sort of, like, first time going back to a restaurant and first time going back to get your nails done? What did those first times feel like?

Tracy Lynn Dice 16:19
Terrifying. Initially. Somewhere in the middle of the midst of all of it, you get back into what the purpose of why you're there. But it is, it's foreign. And it's like, you know, I don't know, there's a series on Netflix, where they this guy had had these women in this hole, it's a comedy, actually, I can't remember the name of it, but it had a weird name. And, you know, it's like, you know, like, I don't think I think they call them the mole women, it's like, you feel like a mole person. It's like, oh!, you stuck your head up from up out of the ground. And, you know, and it's like, everything's familiar, but it's not the same. It's a, it's a very weird feeling. Also, kinda like, it feels like you're doing something wrong, especially if you've been staunchly opposed to people doing these things. You know, I literally, I've got, I've got 1000s of I've probably got like 5000 followers on Facebook, almost 5000 friends, and Tik Tok and Instagram and you watch people doing things that really, they had no business doing during that time, and basically them not caring, um. And I don't know, sometimes I don't know if that was a bad thing, or a good thing.

Tracy Lynn Dice 17:38
Very few other people, none of the people that I know, like, went and traveled somewhere and enjoyed themselves and came back with COVID. You know, they would like I'm going, airfares was cheap, the airplanes was empty. And they were out. My friends that went to Africa and other places. And you know, we had different kinds of borders and stuff being shut down. But when the borders was open, folks was gone. And I, I looked incredius.. incredulously like, woo. I committed to a friend's wedding, shoot, like, a last fall. That was supposed to happen to February and I'd already been vaccinated. I didn't think that I thought it would be substantially better than it is. When it was time to go to the wedding, it was not. Prayerfully we went, we had an excellent time. They made face guards for the bridesmaids, but nobody wore 'em. We just wore our masks out, you know, in all the other activities when we weren't eating, but we ate together, we got our makeup done together. We got our hair done together. We the whole ceremony, everybody you know, mostly unless you're very guests with the bridal party. We weren't, we weren't wearing masks. And that was strange. And that was terrifying. But I lived and I didn't get sick. So it was one of those things of like I said, test your gangsta. It really makes you, um, say, you know, cuz like, they're just some things like, you want to be there for, you know, um when I think about all the people that had babies and their parents couldn't come and get to see the babies and sometimes it's equally the grandparents died before they could see their their grandchild and different things like that, you know, but um, yeah, it's a it's a mix of terror. And it's a mix of Naha, you know, like, I'm bucking the system. I'm like, I'm free. You know, hey, nobody touched me. So, you know, we went through all of those things, you know, and I've got these new glasses now that fall off every time I put a mask on them, and I'm just like, Oh, is there ever going to be a day and I don't know. If there's ever going to be a day where I'm going to be comfortable not wearing a mask around people. You know, the going out to eat has, and traveling a few times during this has made me a bit braver, but it certainly hasn't made me foolish.

Tracy Lynn Dice 20:08
You know, still trying to limit you know, being out here around other people, especially because then you know, people talk too much, especially on the internet, there's no way I should know that Ashton Kutcher doesn't wash his legs, or doesn't wash on a daily basis. And yet, we all skip a day, but I just realized there's a lot of nasty ass people out here. And um, just stuff like that, that came out up, you know, things that people took the time to talk about, that they never really did, and started finding out stuff about people, you just like, I didn't need to know that. You know, people have gotten really, really good at sharing. And if you thought that social media was an issue with oversharing, before this pandemic, put it on 25. I mean, I have had students and clients I've had to pull aside and be like, take that down. What is wrong with you? And it's not a matter of pretending to be somebody or not, it's just that not everybody deserves all of you. And that fine line when the only way you can talk is via an electronic medium. So I man, my, my spiritual family, my core homies, we came together at the beginning of the pandemic, one night for what we call a Kiki. People that I knew, some of them I was close to some of them I wasn't. And man, just the the the family, the spiritual family that grew out of that, the support system that grew out of that very much needed because I very significant things happened to me during this pandemic, spiritually, personally, and just having that community. You know um, my uh, my roommate Lady Speech, she did a video about community and one of the things she said the difference between um the races, white people really don't have a community I've met neighbors here on my block that have never spoken to other neighbors, it kind of blew my mind because in my community, we we walk up when the moving truck is there. Hi, how you doing? Who are you? Where you come from? Who's your momma, who's your daddy? You know, we we check lineage. Um, and so that, that strength of [inaudible], the black community, and especially black spiritualist, really, really came through, uh, during that time for me, you know, because that could, it could have been, it could be closing my store.

Tracy Lynn Dice 22:43
Instead of moving my store, moving my store because I got a slumlord. And, you know commercial landlords, they're pretty much here you go, do what you wish but if it's raggedy to begin with, no. But you know, when I think about all of the other things, other ways, all of this could have turned out, we could have gotten sick, I could have had to close my store, I could have had to do a lot of things. And um, I definitely worked harder than I ever worked in my life with my store doing a lot, a lot of divinations to make up for not being in the store selling things, that was taxing. I talked to people with lost spouses who'd had COVID themselves who've lost family members, other family members. And it was very, a very difficult time where I burnt out to the point where I stopped doing divinations for a minute. Um, and uh, you know, um, but you really you just you really, you know, it's like pain on display, you know. All different types all over the world watching in India, the mass cremations, and the millions of people dying everywhere. It's, it's, it's sobering. It's Earth rocking. I'm glad that I'm older, I would not have wanted to be a young adult at this time, because I would have lost my mind. But I'd really rather not have experienced that at all. You know, I'm like, man, you couldn't wait 20 years?

Tracy Lynn Dice 24:15
But you know, if you believe in astrology and you study cycles, this was you know, this type of thing was uh slated to happen, according to astrology. I remember reading the astrological predictions for the year, the year the tower was the card for the year from the tarot deck and that's a card where everything the foundations of everything you believe are going to be turned upside down. In the picture on the card, people are jumping from burning, the burning tower, and the tower is falling. Very reminiscent of 9/11. So we look at these cycles that come around about every 20 years like 9/11. I was pregnant during 9/11 and then now this, my child just recently turned 20 years old. And I read that and I thought, Oh, this is just some pagan panic. [inaudible] And whoo, I had eat my words. You know, um I just thought it was a little extreme, I did not, when they said the foundations of everything was going to be shook everything that you know, everything that you hold to be real, is going to change. And um, you know, there's going to be a lot more speaking on what's right, and justice and the truth. And all of its going to come to the water and what, you know, and then Okay, once I accepted that, I saw how, yeah, this is, you know, outside in society, how this is coming, but then it started happening in my own life. You know, it's been a, it's been a real hard season of truths, that I feel that my spiritual development helped me with, to make sense of it, to survive it, to navigate it, pushed through it, sometimes climb over it, go around it. But in any case, you know, you learn new ways.

Tracy Lynn Dice 26:12
And, you know, so when I remember, my daughter used to fuss at me, because I never left the house to go to the grocery store, pretty much anything. I went, I stayed here, and I went to the store, and then I go out to like, flea markets, special events, I didn't even vend anymore. And this was before the pandemic. And so I remember her saying to me, You don't ever want to go anywhere. This was before the pandemic. And then when the pandemic started, and we were sitting down having our evening libations, I looked at her and I said, Yeah, you see why I didn't want to go anywhere before? She got it. You know, so you know, the understanding that within yourself, you have to be, be good with yourself. And understood, it's easier, it's easier to live by yourself, with yourself isolated. When you have your, basically your moral constitution. In order, you know who you are, you know, what your limitations are, you know what your boundaries are. Um and sadly, a lot of people didn't get that chance, especially if they were essential workers and died before that could happen, or they were rushed to go back into work. But what I've seen among the people, and you know, people who also tend to study esoteric sciences, a lot of us, you know, we're not poor. And a lot of us do administrative type of work. And we were able to work at home, and we were able to find all those places, uh those holes in our lives, things that we didn't even know were holes. And how effectively we filled those holes is another question. But we found them. You know, I mean, you know, I mean, I literally would go, we went to Lowe's, the Memorial Day weekend of 2020. And the line was out the door. Because people were looking at their yards, and their homes for the first time, really hard. Probably, maybe in ever. And the things that just did not do well for them are the things that they needed to get rid of, or the things they needed to fix, was sitting there staring them in the face every day. And they started fixing them. And I believe that a lot of us started not just with their houses and our property and you know, or I have too many clothes, I've got time to sort them out and give things away. But with with everything with the core of their being they've learned what to give away and what to keep. If there was a biggest lesson that I've learned in the pandemic is what to keep. And what's important. And the only thing I have and the only problem I have, the only fear that I have is that so many people didn't take that opportunity for themselves. That they missed that opportunity in all this madness and all this grief and all this death. They missed that. And so they'll go back to quote unquote normal, but it is my hope that we all have uh collectively done better than that. And that we will no longer accept those things that were considered normal. Going to a job that you really didn't have to, spending gas money that you really didn't have to, doing just as much if not more work because you were at home because see the whole thing about people making people go into offices and work is to watch them. It's a colonialist colonizer overseer activity, it's a patriarchal activity. Let lord over you, while you slave and make me millions of dollars. And so, if anything, I really hope that people have gotten to say, no. If you want me to do this, and I've seen it, I've seen people, you know, the they put the memes on the internet, putting their jobs because they're being asked to come in and work on their day off and telling their boss how far they can suck it, and how they can keep that job.

Tracy Lynn Dice 30:29
You know, or there was this one story of this engineer, he was the only person who knew how to do this particular thing they were, they do for other companies, which was dumb, which shows that they were overworking that person, and not investing in the right resources. And when he wanted his PTO, he wanted to take vacation, he wanted to be, even though he was working at home, he wanted to be solely concentrated on his family. And they were like, No, we can't approve your PTO. He's like, Well, guess what I can't approve of being here anymore. And they're like, well, we'll pay you your salary, you know, how they backtracked and were like, what they give him because he quit. You know, I'm wanting to see more of that. For all of us, because we have gotten into the habit of working, working, working, working. And there's nothing wrong with working, especially when you do what you love. But there's something wrong working and you work so hard that you have tunnel vision, and all you can see is what you're doing. And on the outside of those blinders are your family, your friends, your hobbies, even your own personal finances, being able to afford to get to places. You know, and then, you know, just and we saw a lot of people who were in fast food work and other places that were well equipped, intellectually and experience wise to go work someplace else. Definitely customer service on the telephone. And so while people were quitting fast food, nobody was getting rich on unemployment from fast food. You know, you got to see a lot of rumors about people not wanting to work, no, people don't want to die. People don't want to be treated like garbage, because you're frustrated because there's no toilet paper in the store. And so, you know, it was really refreshing to me to see people stand up for themselves in those ways. Ways that I had done 10 years earlier, when I just said no more to a lot of things in my life, especially on low paying jobs. You know, I'm like, "No." I mean, in 2009, I lost my house, I lost my, got laid off my job, I had to have a hysterectomy. And when it came to looking for a new job, I knew all of what I didn't want. And so I was able to craft that life that was became so very necessary, during this time. I knew what I wanted, I knew what I didn't want. And um I've been okay, you know, way more okay than a lot of people. And I know that and I acknowledge that and I understand my privilege. You know, this time, I didn't lose my home. This time, I kept my job. This time, my role expanded. This time, my business thrived because everybody was trying to get right with spirit. You know? And um it was it was it was, you know, it's a weird paradox. It was really weird to see all of that. The juxtaposition of extreme joy and self acknowledgement with the same time of facing extreme grief, paranoia and pain.

Kit Heintzman 33:57
I'd like to ask about your decision to take a step back when you realized you were burning out. How did you, how did you come to notice that it had reached that point where that was a need that you have, and then how did you decide to pursue the break?

Tracy Lynn Dice 34:12
Well, you know, I'm spiritualist, I'm a psychic. I know myself best, I know myself first. I know that every time I do a reading for somebody, I'm not only tapping into my spirits and my ancestors, I'm tapping into their's too. And we you have the levels of generational pain that many African Americans who are my core client audience go through the and I don't, you know PTSD. No, there's no P take the P off this off the front. The levels of trauma you just know okay, you know, I can't do this anymore. Because this is emotionally and physically task. You know me and I just wanted at at at some point in that pandemic to insulate. I knew that that's what I needed. Just like you know, we have days where we just don't get out of bed. We get that bag of Hershey's Kisses and turn on Netflix and, or, you know, so here in my home, I light my fireplace or I go down into my craft studio. And I just knew that I needed a minute, I did a painting for the first time with acrylic paints, and I've got all these paints and things now and I want to get back to that, I'm a miniaturist. I worked on my doll house. I just was like, Man, I gotta like the, you know, the denial. There's there's two types of denial, I think. One that's very public denial, that's absolute ridiculousness, when it comes to denying the problem that we really have going on. That's not what I'm talking about. But that denial that I can be affected by it. You know, I had to be you know, it's basically protecting your spirit. It's like saying, you know, you shall not pass, this is not gonna wreck me. Like it's wrecking so many people that I see and I knew that in order to come out of this and be a better spiritualist, be a better diviner, be a better parent, be a better everything, that I couldn't carry everybody's everything right now. Because my everything was a lot. And, you know, we do that a lot of diviners, um my roommate Lady Speech, she recently lost some friends in that Denver shooting, and she had just moved here. And I was like, my god, if you had not moved here, he targeted these people, he probably would have targeted you too. The guy had ties to white supremacy, and he killed indigenous activists and tattoo artists in in Denver. And she took a break. She really because I mean, you know, she was taking a little break to unpack, but she had to take a break break, like a month long break. And I've done that before, when my cousin was murdered, I've just, you know, people die around you that you care about, you know, especially when you talk to the dead for a living, sometimes you just got to sit back. And I just had to sit back. And it was just, you know, you you uh ah most people who are not like so mentally ill or insane that they can't hold on to reality anymore. Usually, there's a breaking point. And you and you know, when you're approaching it, and some people can, like, stop that, or that ball keeps rolling. So I was just like, you know, we were gonna stop this ball for just a minute. You know, and it, it you know, I, you know, I know, it was what I needed to do. Um it didn't make me any less aware. It didn't make me uh care less. It just helped me save the little pieces of myself that I felt falling away. And I, I really had to do that. And I think that [inaudible] we ah in the pandemic gave people the opportunity to do that. But I don't know, if people saw that. You know, how to fill those holes, how to fix that leaky sink, basically, replace something that has been troubling, you always take up a new skill, learn a new thing. Um, you know, um lots of lots of people did that. And, you know, the growth I've seen in everybody around me, and even in society is is encouraging. But, you know, spiritual practitioners also believe in balance. And I balanced it with all of the ignorant shit I saw. You know? And it's been, it's been an interesting trip.

Kit Heintzman 39:04
Would you tell me what spirit means to you?

Tracy Lynn Dice 39:07
Spirit is the energy force that guides everything. You know, people, sometimes they believe in God, sometimes they don't, you know, and in African traditional religions, we believe in a supreme creator for me, because I also believe in science. It's like the Big Bang. And so, spirit is energy. We all have one. And we are comprised of the spirits of our ancestors. So a lot of times and a lot of uh when we have racial discussions, you'll see um, especially white folks that are still living under white privilege talk about, "Well, that wasn't me that was my grandparents or great grandparents." Well, guess what? You benefited from that. Acknowledge how you benefited from racism and oppression. And so people don't understand that you are your your spirit is the sum of all of those spirits that came by for you, you know, to venerate your ancestors is to celebrate yourself. So energy, and everything that lives and breathes has this energy that nobody can explain. Nobody can explain that when the body failed was why does spirit for a lot of people not stay present? Where does it go? What does it do? And so I'm from this mentality and spiritual practice that it's all around us. It never really truly leaves, it may have its own realm of existence, but it travels back and forth between these realms. And spirit is renewable, and reincarnation is real. And so it's whatever this animating force, whatever causes things to get up, walk, speak, grow, eat, you know, everything from plants, to animals, everything, even crystals have an energy, something whatever it is that causes them to be is spirit. And some people's spirit, they great, and some people's spirit shine. But it depends on what you've done to fill those holes. So a lot of people within this pandemic had to really sit down and look at those holes. What's missing that I want? What's missing that I need? What's, what did I never have that I so desperately needed? And so yeah.

Kit Heintzman 41:31
How have you seen those questions, coming up with clients of your services?

Tracy Lynn Dice 41:39
A lot of them are wanting to know what's next. And sadly, though, and then they found out through the readings that I give them that what's next is in what's in what's going on right now. Everybody's beginning, you know, every beginning have some other beginnings end. So, you know, a lot of them weren't facing what was in front of them. Be it too painful, be it too shameful, being you know, everything, you know, a lot of people fail, businesses failed, relationships failed. And, you know, they just wanted to see what was next. But didn't want [inaudible] it that's like that all the time. But when you get into a situation like COVID it um, it exacerbates that. When people want to know, am I gonna be okay? What do I do? How do I do it? And they don't realize that a lot of the answers were already there in them for them. But they were in the midst of all this distraction that we call life, and they didn't get a chance to look at those things. And so then, you know, it was a time for people were just was like, this is where it is, this is what I got to do. You know. And so, you know, that's, that's what I saw a lot of, and some of them that couldn't or wouldn't, or were scared to do the things they had to do. But that just it's just the human condition, you know, times gazillion. As far as the impact, were going actually out to the grocery store, or traveling or going and dealing with a sick loved one could mean your very life or death. And you make folks look at things differently.

Kit Heintzman 43:51
You had mentioned the KiKi at the beginning of the pandemic and also not being able to travel to be a part of other spiritual communities. I'd love to hear more about how you've been maintaining spiritual community over the course of the pandemic and also where maybe it hasn't been maintained.

Tracy Lynn Dice 44:10
Well, it hasn't been maintained in like physical groupings and things like that. I mean, I went to a Misa, which is a psychic worship service, basically to explain it. Base terms, um you know, and we just electronically, like what we're doing right now. You know, and understanding you know, especially when you're in [inaudible] electronic you know, people tend to be their more authentic selves. Um. You know, but yeah, the the getting together and communing and doing ritual and things like that. Yeah, that's suffered, you know, a virtual ritual is not the same as being there. It just isn't, then so then you have to find that ritual within yourself. Especially if that's some of the things that powered your, is just like people going to church, you know. You got people that lived their whole lives every day of the week at church, and then all of a sudden you can't go to church, then you start to sit down with yourself and figure out, 'Okay,' was it just the church, when you find out what your true beliefs your true spirit, your faith is, when you're just you mano a mano, you know, and very few people around you to influence that. And it can it for me, it was extremely liberating. And it helped me cut ties with a lot of things and people and places in my life that I say, oh, no, this ain't good. You're just doing this, because you know, you feel spiritually obligated to do it. But you know, it don't sit right with your spirit. So some people were able to make those choices, other people didn't.

Kit Heintzman 46:03
Would you share more? [Inaudible] Ah, were you doing um the majority of your divinations, were those taking place online or on site?

Tracy Lynn Dice 46:09
Yes, they've mine have always been online. Just because were the store's set up, there wasn't enough privacy. And plus, I didn't have another person that could do divinations that wanted too, other than me. My children are not experienced diviners. They know a little bit about it, you know, trying to get them to learn. But until Lady Speech came, so my my classes, I'd I had shut this down a year or so before the pandemic. I used to have people come here to my home, to learn how to make different magical things as an workshop and hosted these people in my house. And that had gotten to be too much just disrespectful, or just not, you know, people that I want in my environment. And so I'd taken everything online, by the way before the pandemic. So it just, it worked for me in ways that didn't work for other people. They had to adapt, they had to learn, you know, because at one time, really, I was the only one and I still am one of the few that have built an online, you know, education system for magic, for people to access, it was already in place when the pandemic started.

Tracy Lynn Dice 47:27
Now, I see a lot of people who wasn't having classes before, or were having them in person at different locations, doing it online. But it wasn't an adjustment for me. It just got to be more intense, the demand for it became higher. So I went from being the only instructor on my website to now having three or four people offering other classes as well. Because we made a name for ourselves in that area. And so it worked out, it worked out really well. Last year, not my classes, but what I paid my contractors when I did their 1099 $25,000 in all of my, you know, distributed among my instructors, what they made that year, and that was because of STEMI. And people have been more time and things like that. But yeah, like for for that we didn't we didn't miss a beat I didn't. Like I said I had to cut down. And I stay booked now, but I also have severely reduced my divination schedule. Because I it's it's a lot to do readings all week, and then you know, every day and try to run the store. And you know, because I am the store. So, you know, people come in and I'll have small consultations with them. But they have to book a divination online, you know. And so it like I said, it's this technology has made that so much easier, so much better. You can see someone's face, you can connect and you can talk. And that's a good thing.

Kit Heintzman 49:13
In your own spiritual practices, is there anything you're willing to share about? What it's like to connect with someone for something like divination online, in contrast to when you had been doing it in person.

Tracy Lynn Dice 49:26
It is, there is no difference for me. Spirit travels everywhere. I get the same messages from them if I appeal to them at the beginning of the reading as if I would if I was sitting in front of you. So from a divination standpoint, things that are not communal, don't really involve community, there's there is no difference. The difference comes like as far as spiritual ritual practices that involve the community, that that is the part that changed drastically.

Kit Heintzman 50:07
I'm curious, what's the word health mean to you?

Tracy Lynn Dice 50:12
Well, health is uh um all these things mind, body and spirit. In our in African cosmologies, we believe they all work together. And we have seen that if your mind breaks down your body will follow. Um you know, there have been associations made with depression and anxiety that things like fibromyalgia, definitely stress with diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure. So um, spirit is all of it. It's that animating force, and that animating force can either grow you or eat you up. So it's, it's whatever this intangible thing is that animates us that makes us get up and move. You know? So yeah, that's, that's, you know, spirit to me. And spirit being part of this pentacle that represents earth, air, fire and water, and how they all integrate. Because we came from the earth, we will go back to the earth, m'kay. And um there is water in the earth, there's fire in the earth, there's air in the earth. Everything works, uh you know, just like mind, body, spirit, those elements of spiritual being and awareness, they all work together. And so yeah, there's there's no separation. The soul is your spirit and your body. You know, but, you know, um that's what, that's what, at least I believe. The combination of the two.

Kit Heintzman 52:02
What are some of the things you want for your own health?

Tracy Lynn Dice 52:04
Shoot, I'm going to quit smoking. Yeah, that was, that's impossible. In those times. Um, I would like to be able, I, you know, got a Y membership, right when they opened and then the pandemic hit, I want to go to our water aerobics, I want to exercise this, I'm 53 years old, the arthritis is coming in. I want to be able to go to farmers markets and buy fresh fruit, I want to continue to be able to grow my own things, which I always had done. And then there was this big uptick of everybody doing it. And I'm like, Yeah, I've been doing this, you know. I want to live in a world where they try to stop and slow climate change as much as humanly possible. My health is, this pandemic has shown how much my health is highly dependent on the community. And I don't, you know, like [inaudible], I just, I don't want to be sick, I don't want to have things that are going to slow down my life purpose, stop my life purpose. You know, those types of things, I want to be able to um survive to feel good. And health is just so many things. And it's not just it all will it at some point is going to merge down into your physical space of being. I mean, that's what that's what it all accumulates in. But how it gets there is a variety of things. You know, your internal life, your external life, your relationships with others, your replace [inaudible] relationship with yourself, your relationship with food, all of those things um have an end effect. But people tend to look at just the end of the road, rather than the road that it took to get there.

Kit Heintzman 53:59
You had mentioned uh some of the anti science narratives of our moment. So I was wondering if you could explain to someone what that what that means to you for someone to be anti science?

Tracy Lynn Dice 54:14
Well, like just for someone to say, Oh, I understand that uh vaccines can have side effects, anything can have side effects. Herbs, roots can have side effects, because that's where they get all the medicine from anywhere. Um you know, just not understanding how this works. You know, I've seen I had arguments with a girlfriend that I know and I wanted her to work in the store. I wanted her to, you know be around and hang out with us, be a part of our quarantine crew and she didn't want to get vaccinated. And she didn't want to get her son vaccinated. And I'm like, What? You and and and you know, the fact that she's mad because, you know, they're telling her that her son has to be vaccinated to go to school. Your son had to be vaccinated with every goddamn thing else. But you didn't have no problem, then? Oh, it hasn't been tested. And then you show? Well, actually, it has been for a long time, they just didn't have a use for it. So they had to ramp up to get this out and make sure. And even then with the people don't understand, you know, different strains and all those types of things. You know, um hold on just a second, I'm sorry.

Tracy Lynn Dice 55:31
All right. My contractor contract contacted me. But um, you know, it's like, you know, they don't do believe that I mean, like, you know, taking our horse medicines. Continuing to go out un, uncovered, unmasked, masks are gonna have CO2. I'm like, if masks provided caused CO2 poisoning, then why did all of the doctors and nurses they'd been wearing it since the beginning of whatever, if that's what masks did? Why would contractors not use the, will they use those uh, the ventilating masks and things like that? You know, it just doesn't make any sense. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Say that it's uncomfortable, it's not nice, I'll tell you, my new glasses fall off all the time with these damn new with my, my new glasses fall off with these masks. I don't like it, I like wearing makeup, I like wearing a full face of makeup and not having it in the mask, when I take it off. But let's be for real, you know, there are things that we could have done, should have done, other countries have displayed that could save your life. You know, just sit down. People just does not understand how viruses spread. You know, washing your hands. Um, sometimes I'm incredulous that I've survived this. But then I'm also realized that I earned this, there are things that I did to protect myself, including being vaccinated, including staying my ass at home. You know, and so when I see these people, and it's like, I don't know where they get, I don't know where they get their information from, you know um, but you get to see the paranoia. Know, people that don't trust science that have really used religion as their excuse to harm themselves and others. And it's mind blowing to me, you know, because that's something as, as a black person that has always been educated in predominantly white institutions. And they're, you know, [inaudible] you see the fights for the availability to talk about science and evolution and things like that, you know, and watching, do you know the people who like, you know, push for these types of initiatives, you know, what we see as a culture, then turn around and want to talk about God and in conspiracy theories, and they're very people who are mostly affected by these conspiracy theories. Ones that we've been talking about that they said didn't exist. You see, who've come out the woodwork with the most preposterous shit imaginable. It's like you, you're playing it with me, right? You really honestly believe that you get to see I mean, really stupid people exist on this planet, and who was making our laws, and that's why you can now see that they've been able to get away with it. So like a woman that has a Fallopian pregnancy can't have that terminated. When science and experience life and statistics tell you that a woman is going to die, and that baby's going to die too? It just shows how much they don't care about us but it's all about when you see things like that, especially from racists and uh people who are um fundamentalist and things like that, that they're dying out. The Age of Aquarius is upon us.

Tracy Lynn Dice 59:11
There's a lot of change in the numbers of people who have left the black church they left in droves have left Christianity because they see oh, yeah, well they've been using this to kill us since the very beginning and and they're gonna keep doing it. You know, because your major major opponents to that scenes have always been religious right and religious fanatics. And then you have to see at a point this isn't working. This is not how this goes. And you know, just this like I said, I've just got my friend. I'm like, You got him vaccinated before now all of a sudden, you worried about this and that and the other and you getting stuff off of YouTube people. You know, I have a brother who's very much vegan and into natural stuff and sending me all these crazy videos. And I'm like, these people aren't talking some, even scientific theory. I mean, all science is a theory. Truth can change. You know, but like how a virus works, how a vaccine works, that that doesn't change.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:00:29
And to see people that I once regarded with some level of uh intellect, they just dumb as hell. And make it so bad. It's like, I really always thought about human beings, which also makes me believe maybe we're not of the same species. But usually, you know, I would think that we would do anything to protect our lives, that money and social [inaudible] the activities we were used to doing, wouldn't mean more than your life or your child's life. And I've seen it, I've seen them, do that. Do things that are everything but self preservation. And it's, it's mind blowing to me.

Kit Heintzman 1:01:28
What does the word safety being to you?

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:01:32
Keep me from harm. But, see this is the thing. Um, as a black woman in this country, I've never been safe.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:01:41
So, like I said, I'm not new to this, I'm true to this. Safety means keep me from all harm. And there has never been a time in my life where I've been kept from all harm. Where there wasn't the propensity or the possibility that I will lose my life, trying to live. Driving my car someplace for a job interview. Driving in the car with my wife. Carrying some Skittles and some tea back from the grocery store. Even all the way back to Emmett Till, hanging out with my friends at the local general store only to be accused of flirting with someone and been losing my life. We've never been safe. I had no illusions about my safety, especially during the pandemic. So this is a situation of trauma that black people, people of color and women sadly enough and there's not enough women that recognize this, white woman especially, that we ain't never been safe. We've operated from a position of trauma and still somehow found Black joy, because that's what sustains us. When you live in a situation, in an environment where your life means nothing to people none of these things like I said were a surprise to me during the pandemic they were only amplify.

Kit Heintzman 1:03:36
Would you tell me what joy means to you?

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:03:40
Joy means uh being um happy being not um under stress. And living in joy doesn't mean that you don't experience these things. It's how you experienced these things. With the understanding that trouble don't last always and the joy cometh in the morning. You you learned that you could get through it, if you live; and if you dead, you dead. You know the ultimate healer is death, it stops all your pain.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:04:14
[inaudible]

Kit Heintzman 1:04:17
Where are some of the place oh ...

Kit Heintzman 1:04:20
Go ahead, sorry.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:04:21
Joy is being self actualized understanding who I am, what makes me happy. What I like to do, who I like to be around, what I like to eat, you know, the music I want to listen to, the services that I want to see people have, there's a lot of things that contribute to my joy but you know at the foundation of joy is um safety and so, you know from being from a people who have to do everything extra to stay safe that people who have white privilege and don't live under the shadow of oppression and institutionalized racism, they don't have to consider. When you are privileged, you don't know you have it. That's privilege. So joy is those things that make you want to continue in this human existence. And joy is knowing that when this existence is done, that you are not.

Kit Heintzman 1:05:41
Thinking in the really narrow confines of how safety has been discussed under COVID, how have you been deciding what feels safe for you?

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:05:51
Oh, the level of people in any place I go. I'm not trying to be in nobody's mosh pit. But see, that's another thing culturally black people don't do certain things. And like, you know, that, you know, like, really, really being in thick ass crowds and stuff like that. Unless we got a concert or something on a regular, we don't do because we become accustomed not to being in crowds. Because anytime there's a crowd of black people, the police are called whether they're doing anything or not. So um yeah, I always look at the level of people that are going to be in a place I tried to shop at hours where people are less likely to be in the store, if I go into the store, wearing my mask, stay'in my ass at home to this day. You know, it took me oh god a long time to even go back to IKEA. But even seeing the differences there with the amount of people that were there, when now you go out here, I mean, nobody's wearing a mask. A lot of people are going about life as usual even more than before which in Ohio, Wow. They were ridiculous here. Um, you know, just you know, driving myself not being involved with too many people limiting who comes in my house. People who will come in my house who are don't have vaccines, they gotta wear a mask, I wear a mask when they're here work people. You know, I've had a lot of stuff done here in the house. Those people have to wear masks. So just washing my hands. I ended up with sepsis last year at this time. I ended up in the hospital for almost a week, you know. I couldn't even get them to keep my damn door closed. And it was a horrible experience. I mean, there's a nursing shortage. It was a horrible experience anyway. But there's been, any hospital visit is not a good experience. But then you compound it with COVID. And then people not taking the precautions in the medical field that you think like when I went to my dentist, the receptionist didn't have on a mask and that was June of 20... 2020. She told me it was optional. It's made me rethink I don't really want to go to that dentist anymore. But wearing my mask, washing my hands, getting my booster, um and staying the hell away from people unless I absolutely positively. I mean, this week was the first time I think last week that I even given customers hugs. You know, feels kind of weird. But all of those things I've just you know um, especially I was really, really intense about it before we had vaccines. But I'm still I haven't really let my guard down, no, at all.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:09:19
Because there's never going to be a time without COVID ever again. And so, is it going to be as simple as me getting an inoculation, or am I going to have to wear a mask for the rest of my life? It blew my mind that this came from China, home of the mask you know you know but like I said, choosing my events carefully. You know Trader Joe's didn't have online pickup. So you know, I would, didn't go there, especially in the wintertime, because you had to stand outside in the line. But like I said, now that things have gotten a little bit back to pre pandemic, because I'm not gonna call it normal, pre pandemic activities, then what I see is um there's still a a reduced amount of people involved anywhere I go. And I like that, and working at home helps, I can go out in the middle of the day, even if you work at home, there are some people that can't leave their home when they're working. Except during, [inaudible] you know, after business hours, I don't have that problem. I can go when I want, how I want. So, you know, I do try to be like, you know, black people are the same, Who all over there? Somebody asks you to come to event or like, we're all at the house, you know, chillin, smoking, whatever. And black folks be like, well, who all over there? Because we, we've been doing that. We've been saying that, just for safety, you know, because there are people, even black folks, I'm like, you don't want to be around either. They're, you know, sometimes they're criminals. Sometimes they're just undesirable people. Sometimes they're bringing negative energy and they're shit starters. And all of that is unsafe. So like I said, we we ain't new to this we true to this, we've we've been looking out for our safety. Um, but you know, like I said, So that always amazes me and astounds me. But I also understand a lot of black people's mistrust of the scientific community because we were used as guinea pigs in a lot of scientific experiments and research. They done took this one woman's DNA DNA, Henrietta Lacks, and they've been able to solve and uh treat a lot of different things because of her genes. You know, but we're used to people getting you know. LaLaurie was a slave owner that used to do different torture things. You know, there was a gynecologist that used to work on black women without anesthesia. So there's a very big trust, distrust of medicine, especially as black people get more into our spirituality and natural healing modalities and things like that. They uh that helps that, and I've watched that distrust grow. I watched that how that you know, had a big effect on what people did. You know, when people were all out here trying to take elderberry we couldn't keep elderberry in stock, until Uh oh, I found out that elbo... to eldo... Elderberry actually aggravates COVID. You know. So, you know, we we are very conscious of our safety on the regular just out here in what they call the normal world when we are out here facing microaggressions and different things like that. And think about all the people that found out about terms and stuff like that for the first time. Because all they had was their house and the Internet and the television.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:13:04
Again, like what's a micro aggression? Hehe. You know, we we we black folks knew what they were even when we didn't have a word for it. You know, and just seeing the things that are acceptable and unacceptable for ourselves at this point. All um you know, that help defined safety, safety but really the honest to god thing is safety, having shelter, having food, you know, and we've seen people across the board lose shelter, lose food, all of that stuff is involved in safety. You know, and so like I said, we ain't never really been safe. So this is not these are not unfamiliar waters. I'm just tired of swimming in them. You know, for people who are already living under trauma, more trauma either is, 'here we go,' I deal with it. But more trauma on already trauma traumatized people, just it leads to more damage. And I don't think people get that. You know, it did what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Uh yeah, maybe if you got the message. If you took the time to really say, you know, hey, this is wrong, or this is right for me. Yeah, you know, there's a lot of I think there was a lot of missed lessons that people um experienced. I know I probably missed some shit. You know, it it it happens you know, I'm I'm sure I missed some things I was supposed to figure out from this and I might figure it out later on, you know, down the bye the bye, it may happen. Um, because life is learning, you learn until the day you die, when you stop learning, you're dead, your purpose is over. But every day is a chance to learn something. So I'm sure that um as as much as it has done for me, personally, and what I've seen it do for the world and the people around me, while I see all of that, I noticed gonna be people that missed the lessons, because sometimes I miss the lesson. Sometimes my roommate has to say stuff to me, like, you know what, you know, that's, you know, that's a result of colonization. Or you know, that's a result of capitalism. And think about those things, because you're really seeing all this stuff at the head. You know? And so like I said, I'm not coming out of this, an angel and perfect, and, but I am coming out of this refined. I'm coming out of this with knowledge. And no, can I say that was worth, oh you know, what is it almost a million people here? They said 250,000 people would die, Psych. Is that, that's just here. You know, was the was the lesson worth it? I don't know. I don't know. I may not even, I may not even live to see was the lesson worth it. But I do understand nature. And I do understand science. And I do understand that human beings are wrecking the Earth and the Earth fought back. The virus, we are a virus, we're just another damn organism. On millions of organisms, if you know the size of the universe that we can get to, the once, we got planets we can see we can't even get to, we are but star dust.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:16:55
So if you want to look at like collateral damage and shit, well, maybe it is worth it. You know, we got some real fucking troubling times coming ahead, especially with the state of this environment. Politics, World War Three on the brink. And you think about all those old people that died from COVID. That might have been nature being kind. Because I know, I remember my roommate was like, Oh, I was built for this. When Russia invaded Ukraine and what we knew even if war never came to this land, we knew the implications of this. I'm like, I'm not, I'm not built for this shit. So when you stopped to think about the elderly, but they were on the way out anyway. Maybe we don't know what we're facing yet. We might find out at the end of the day that that was merciful. And that those we [inaudible] we lost did not deserve to go through some of the shit we're about to go through right now. That is a possibility. I would like to think that millions of people have not died for no reason. But I, I didn't want to see this. And I don't think anybody did, however, for the changes that it created. It but me and the world around me. Oh, you know, I've been at the beginning of the pandemic, on the internet, listening to the people in Italy, singing arias and things like that to each other, from their porches from their balconies. That beauty should have been existing. That community should have been existing. It's taught us about everything we lack. It definitely teaches us when you take away everything, it teaches you what you don't have, and what you didn't have to begin with, and what you will fight to death to get back. And, you know, that's everything. And probably the only thing that has really kept me sane. Through this entire adventure or misadventure?

Kit Heintzman 1:19:32
We're getting close to your hard cutoff of 1230. So those are all of my questions, but I just wanted to open some more space if there's anything you'd like to share with historians of the future or anyone who might find themselves listening to this, please.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:19:47
It's funny, because when this pandemic first started, you know, I'm a parent. I'm a psychic. I'm a spiritual diviner. I'm a priestess. Therefore that puts me in uh a very active leadership situation. But above and beyond all I am a leader at home with my kids, and I remember very specifically sitting down with them. And you know, I've even gotten us some buga, bug out bags I'm like, Hey, we got to cut and run, I want you all to start to think about what's necessary for your life, which you can't live without and oh have it in close proximity and be able to have it in that bag, because I don't know what the fuck is gonna happen. And I still don't. But one of the things I looked at being when all this stuff started going down, I said, I know. I know you all are used to me, you coming to me for advice or something goes on and I have an answer for you. How we're gonna handle it, what the plan is, whether it's business, whether it's dinner that night, but with this I got nothing. Future historians, yeah, look back on this and realize that this psychic has no idea what the fuck is going to happen. And a lot of times, yeah, I might even be able to ask it, find out I don't want to know, that I don't. I just want to work on building the things within myself to get through whatever is going to come and whatever is going to happen. That's what I'm coming to. And I pray to God, I've just, I was incredulous. The other day, I'm like, 'You have not caught COVID,' survivor's guilt or wondering when that other shoe is going to drop.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:21:46
But I learned a long time ago especially becoming a spiritualist, I am never gonna sit and wait for the other shoe to drop. I'm gonna keep on keepin on, I'm going to live this life and run the fucking wheels right off of it until I'm dead. Because that's what I was given life for. And so the biggest thing about this whole pandemic is I haven't been able to do that. And I'm hoping that that will change and I'm hoping that will get better. And I'm hoping I get to live my life, travel more, value experiences more than I you know, money is great, we all need it. But what this has taught me and I already knew, see these are things I already knew, that just become amplified that life is living. It's the experiences through those experiences, you grow spiritually, mentally, intellectually. And I just want the privilege because I do know it is a privilege to keep doing that. That's you know, I just want to fucking live, and I want to live, I don't want to live miserable. I want to live fulfilled, I want to live happy. I want to live in service to other people. I want to live in service to myself. I want to be happy.

Kit Heintzman 1:23:15
Thank you so much.

Tracy Lynn Dice 1:23:17
You're welcome. Um, yes and whenever the, however this is published or whatever, please keep in touch with me so that I can you know