Today we’d like to introduce you to Jane Anne Thomas.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jane Anne. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
My journey into the Mystic as a profession began formally after a personal trauma completely reshaped my world in 2007. But it was truly the product of a very gradual (30 year) process of accepting that I was in fact in direct dialogue with an undeniable force that commonly lived outside of sheer explanation.
I had always experienced vivid supernatural events from the time I was a small child and found myself deeply spiritual at a young age as a result. But like most of us I kept these experiences generally to myself operating under the assumption ( partial hope ) that this phenomena was something that would dissipate as I matured and be relegated to that fuzzy etheric realm of half-forgotten memories; something to be put away like so many childhood relics.
This assumption proved to be a kind of naive wishful dream of normalcy after a series of shocking awakenings unfolded in 2001. Beginning with an unbidden revelatory moment of being able to see through the walls and the vibrating cellular structure of objects after sitting up from śavāsana at the end of my first yoga class; a phenomena which continued at the close of class for several weeks. That experience was promptly followed by a windfall of hair-raising hauntings mingled with repeated bouts of sleep paralysis; as well as open visitations from souls who have passed on and some who have never to come into human form entirely. It was nothing short of a supernatural circus for which I was woefully unprepared. I found myself unwittingly immersed in a mind bending trial-by-fire orientation process that culminated in an elaborate oracular visitation in the 24 hours leading up to the 9/11 terrorist attacks; where I was shown a skewed version of the events that would unfold in New York City alongside telescoped views of the greater global consequences.
That moment served as an existential revolving door around which I spent the greater part of my 20s privately battling and at times desperately seeking reconciliation with my place at the apparent intersection of time, reality, sanity, and self-concept. My assemblage point for all of the above had been blown wide open and yet I was still responsible for this young human body that needed to eat, sleep, drive, show up on time, work and learn an entirely new trade in a new school, town, and state where I didn’t know a single soul. It was a crash course in juggling multiple realities and the beginning of an initiatory journey that would take a decade to metabolize.
There were stretches of time when it seemed the visions had stopped, but then like a geyser they would erupt again when I visited historic sites, experienced natural disasters or extreme emotions; and increasingly wild birds (ravens, crows and owls) would show up when the visions descended. So I began to see that there was a clear connection between nature and these liminal experiences where time and normative reality stood still. However reluctant I was; no matter how much I tried to negotiate; it was clear that I was up against a part of nature that would reveal itself unrelentingly with or without my consent until I turned toward my fear and transformed it step by step into a breathable trust with the Unknown. Needless to say for a girl raised devoutly by an intellectual mother in Bible-belt Texas with absolutely no context or support system for what she was experiencing – it was a process that took patience and permission, but which in time came to define my path entirely.
After this “getting-to-know-you” trial-by-fire orientation period subsided I threw myself into my athleticism and my newfound yogic practice as a survival tool to balance the intensity of my non-physical experience. With Hatha Yoga, I learned to breathe in new ways, to intentionally calm myself and listen to the nuances of my bodies response to its environment. I rekindled my lifelong love of ballet which helped me with the intersection of laser focus and graceful navigation under pressure; and the classical music in class was a wellspring for my soul. In 2003 I was introduced to meditation, mantra, and chanting practices of Kunadlini Yoga which helped me greet the space that I access psychically with intentional sound and body integration together which was a revelation and key piece of regaining a sense of autonomy in the endless expanse of the psychic.
With the help of these practices at the beginning of my journey I slowly came to know these experiences as extensions of myself; as gifts. I learned to greet these distinct passages of intensification ( also called “quickenings” ) as a kind of training process where I was being given the opportunity to rapidly expand my relationship to the scope of our capacity as human beings. When not predetermined, not approached as a fixed entity – our world embodies a clear intelligence that is far more expansive and relational than we could possibly understand with the mind alone. But I also realized that we don’t have to understand it in order to experience the unbound potential (scope) of perceptive reality in palpable, life-affirming ways.
In late 2006 I began to undergo another quickening. This time it presaged a traumatic series of events in my personal life and led to a tectonic shift in the way I understood the role that Nature would take as my teacher. Telescoping back it’s interesting to see so clearly how life has a way of clearing your slate; of conspiring through a series of events to unilaterally strip you of your idealogical cohesion, your health, your material foundation, not to mention the mass of superficial desires along with the social circles that support them – all in the name of new path. By 2008 I was homeless, humbled, and face to face with basic survival in way that left no room for anything or anyone who was not substantive, sober, honest, and reliable. Suffice it to say when you are both young and living in the heart of Hollywood that is obviously a tall order. The soaring virtue of this time was that I was rapidly introduced to several brutal truths of human nature and then just as rapidly to the ability of Nature to repair our blindness. I realized that for every experience of pain we are offered an equal solution to its source within ourselves. The question was, can I rise to it? … or more appropriately how quickly can I forgive myself when I don’t…?
I was living the great inversion wherein finding myself “lost” to my dreams in the material world, I was waking to the profound reality of my inner world and was astonished at seeing the degree to which my intuition spoke to me in the language of nature. Everywhere I met myself. She was there. Visions, visitors, messages arrived with such directness that I was was saturated with a passionate sense of duty to offer them in a way that allowed others this same connection, this well of renewal. It came on with an urgency and immediacy but felt equally important to proceed in way that was reverent, respectful, and energetically clean. So I pulled my courage close and began by offering readings to my closest friends as gifts to ceremonially mark new beginnings, birthdays, big transitions. It started as a gift but became abundantly clear that massive amounts of energy were being moved in the course of reading together ~ that we were reclaiming lost rites of passage; re-animating forgotten selves like phantom limbs once prized for their expert grace. It wasn’t long before friends started asking me to offer readings to their close friends and eventually the circles expanded and I was asked to read for complete strangers. It was a gradual process but an organic one that felt each time like I was jumping off a cliff into a weirdly comfortable, total free fall; sharpening an un-namable skill with unknowable parameters. Each time I read I felt more solid, grounded, and clear as if in putting myself aside I was somehow touching a far more expansive, inspired sense of self-hood through the person in front of me.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
One thing I learned from my Meisner teacher DW Brown that always stuck with me profoundly is that your problems in life become your problems as an artist. The deeper you commit to your passion the more you realize there is no separation between you and the work. They are the same thing. So you are ultimately tackling the challenges and obstacles of self-improvement first and foremost. The more willing you are to overcome your past, your trauma, your stories and limiting beliefs the more you liberate the scope and potential of your work in the world and most importantly your ability to find a sense of satisfaction, purpose, and healthy self-worth along the way.
So yeah, that’s a piece of cake, right? 😉 I’m sure you can tell from my earlier attempt to walk you through my story that it’s been an absolute rollercoaster with storybook highs giving way to abject lows. I could spend all day enumerating the ways I’ve been turned inside out and upside down by this path. Somedays I’m walking into walls (literally) and other days I feel so good I almost believe I could just walk right through them. My experiences with the mystic alone are a testament that things are seldom what they seem on multiple fronts.
The joke I always say is that all of the artists I know secretly wish they were housewives and all of the housewives I know all wish they were artists.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the House of the Standing Moon story. Tell us more about the business.
Over a span of 16 years of working in art, academia and the film world of Los Angeles, my path took me from art historian and archivist to artist; intellectual to intuitive; from actor to medium and full-time mystic. My work of the last decade as an artist and mystic practitioner is an integration of these worlds in many ways.
I was initially thrown into this field through direct experience, without training, and driven by an urgent need to create a functional relationship with the gifts so that heavily marks my approach to the work and my passion for helping the increasing number of people who find themselves in a similar position.
My work is unique for its integration of mystic scholarship spanning cross-cultural and historical perspectives while embracing the wisdom of emotional intelligence, the primacy of Nature and it’s ultimate role as teacher, friend and healer of the human heart.
I offer one-on-one and group readings in the Santa Fe area, remote session work for clients across the globe, as well as traveling “Totem Tours” and Vedic astrological immersions with my Of Stone & Star collaborator Eve James.
When asked, I give talks and Q & A’s on psychic development and the growing dialogues around the intersection of animal, ancestral, terrestrial and celestial intelligence. I also work as a contributor and collaborator with a number of NY – LA-based publications and events such as Tidal Magazine, Mercado Sagrado, Spirit Weavers Gathering as well as The Bodhi Tree, WMN Space, and AY^AM.
The last few years I’ve shifted much of my focus to writing, teaching, and co-authoring a book that marries the Vedic celestial teachings with the wisdom traditions of the natural world.
Contact Info:
- Address: 1217 Bellevue Ave
- Website: www.standingmoon.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janeannethomas/
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/houseofthestandingmoon/
Image Credit:
Paul Baxendale, Taryn Slawson, Erica Shires, Elena Stonaker
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