Reaching Beyond: A Conversation with Mystic and Queer/Trans Witch Krysta Venora
Photo courtesy of Krysta Venora.
When meeting Krysta Venora, there’s an immediate sense of warmth and light that comes through, like how the morning ray of sun manages to break through closed window shutters. They have such an inviting presence that almost compels individuals — and even entities — to converse with them; and it more-or-less reflects the work that they do.
As a psychic witch and spiritual counselor, Venora has always been a spiritually in-tune person. However, it wasn’t fully embraced and explored until later on in life. Like their queer and trans identity, their mystical and psychic abilities work in tandem to form the individual that they are to this day.
Photo courtesy of Krysta Venora.
Today, Venora works to aid individuals in spiritual channeling through mediumship, and offers guided meditation sessions and a plethora of services that can be found on their website pinkopalmagic.com. Venora ultimately wants individuals to understand their natural presence and essentially their purpose and belonging to our planet.
It’s because of their way of speaking and their genuine instinct to connect to others that they were featured on an episode of Disney Plus’s, The World According to Jeff Goldblum.
In our conversation, I was mesmerized by Venora. With every question asked, they would give a response that fluctuated with so much detail, information, and enthusiasm — which they blamed on their many Gemini placements. But I’d argue that there's a beautifully crafted, sacred tale behind everything that they say and practice, to which many could feel compelled to listen.
I wanted to first ask: how and when did you realize that you had your gifts as a mystic, as a witch, and as a spiritual counselor?
My mom just had this sense of something in the invisible world being real. Then she kind of did a 180 and converted us all to Mormonism when I was like, 11 or 12. I found myself in these churches, like listening to people say things that I either didn't understand, or even at a young age, full-on disagreed with.
But I could feel the energy shift when people pray and have an intention together; there is something that is affected.
But also, I grew up on “Charmed.” I grew up on all of this, like witch media and “the craft” and it's always something I've been into. It wasn't until 2012 or 2013 where I was like, this is something that people do and I could do it. I jumped in all the way; I read all of these books. I watched a million YouTube videos. There was a Wiccan who worked where I was working and she was like, “read this, read this, read this.” And it kind of exploded, and all of a sudden, nothing else mattered to me.
What was it like to finally embrace that aspect of yourself?
That feeling of finally accepting that part of myself was absolutely euphoric, in the sense that it was just like coming out. It was just like realizing I was gay, and then realizing I was trans.
And that expansion of authentic living, I mean, ecstasy is how it feels. And ecstasy is intense, and it can be painful.
But ultimately it changed my whole life and let me see myself for who I am. It's kind of like death... The euphoria of death isn't a feeling of dropping off something that you're done with, or that was never really you. It’s about transforming into something that is wholly authentic.
In a holistic way, this has always been me. This is the root of me, the center, and letting that out and living in that place on purpose… Really, it felt good. But it also gave me all the tools to navigate this multi-marginalized identity life that I'm living. It was *chef’s kiss* honestly.
I love that! It’s interesting to see the duality between your queer/trans identity and your psychic/spiritual abilities. And it’s funny how you brought up death… I was reading my cards the other day, and I pulled the death card. At first, I was scared, because we see death as sorrowful and painful; but as you said, it’s also a very good thing, because it entails being reborn again, a more-or-less euphoric feeling.
Absolutely, it's this spiral, right? It's a life, death, rebirth cycle, and that's reflected in the universe.
The connection from my magic and my queer identity are linked; they're intrinsically connected.
And I don't necessarily think that that's true for everybody.
So, uncovering that queerness simultaneously, queer people are already primed for magic. They're primed for transformational work, because we've already done that big step of manifestation of seeing something inside of us, and working against everything to make it manifest in the real world, right? Bring it from inside to outside of us. And that's really all manifestation is.
So, to have come to a place where you realize that you are queer in some way, and then doing some incredible, magic, powerful work — like coming out, transitioning, expressing the truth of you — that's real magic. And so, when queer people look at magic, in books, or in spells, and actual practice, I feel like they're already a little bit softened to it. Because they know that there's a possibility of a life or an experience that is good and real and visceral.
Exactly. That's awesome. And to tie in with your work as a spiritual guide, can you walk through that process of what it's like receiving those messages from the beyond? There was a post on your social media, and you had mentioned — I think it was regarding the Jeff Goldblum special — you mentioned how you would twitch when you received messages from spirits or ancestors; and I wanted to ask like, why was that?
Yeah, I used to twitch, so much. And I always tell people, of course it’s mystical and other-worldly, but it is because you have a body. When you are a spirit without a body, you don't need psychic ability if the only way that you communicate is energetically, right?
So intuition and psychic ability is a human body thing. It's physical.
And for me, my body heats up immediately and I start to sweat. Now I don't twitch very much, but I do a lot of exhales and sighs. Like, literally the other day, a spirit came through like a procession instead of just stepping forward. First, it was the feeling of sunshine on a really warm, hot day and the sound of a flute and these ribbons kind of like a mayday pole, like ribbons dancing all around; and then they stepped forward, and they pressed on my subconscious.
I don't know how it physically works, but they press on my awareness. And they decide the way that they want to come to me. Some spirits look like people, some spirits just have the energy of water, air, a mountain, or a tree. Some spirits deliver explicit sentences that I don't have to interpret. And some of them show me signs and symbols that I have to work really hard to put together. And so it really depends on who's coming through.
I also wanted to ask, how'd you get involved in Goldblum’s show on Disney Plus?
Really, it was just by chance. Somebody thought of me and thought I would be a good option for the show. And so, the whole show just came together because we were the ones that were available and could be there, because we were local and had a plan of what we wanted to show him.
Of course, we filmed so much that wasn't there, because it's a tiny segment. They only showed you the part that was emotional. It didn't show you the whole reading. It was an hour that I was sitting there talking about [Goldblum’s] family, his grandpa, his sister, his dad, like all these people that were telling him how to continue on and keep going.
Yeah, he got pretty emotional on the show. And I wanted to see if it gets emotional for you, when you receive those messages. Like, is it overwhelming? I imagine it would be?
It's not often overwhelming. Because when I'm delivering something from the spirits perspective, it is imbued with the energy with which they're communicating.
When they say “I love you”, it's a big love.
It's pure and overwhelming in the sense that when I was starting and having my body full of that feeling of love or joy or pain, I would cry if the spirit is doing something that is emotional; or if I'm personally connected to what they're talking about.
When some spirits are talking about trauma that is close to me, I'm going to be affected by it. And I think any medium who tries to keep themselves and their body and their emotional body separate, they're going to have trouble interpreting what should be shared because we don't want to be involved, right? You don't want to be emotional. But this is emotional work.
Photo courtesy of Krysta Venora.
Nowadays, I don't get overwhelmed to the point where I have to slow down or stop. I'm very good at saying, “This is too fast, or coming in too hot. I don't understand you. Repeat that. That doesn't make sense to me.” They're asking me to expand my vocabulary. They're asking me right now to expand my understanding of being able to identify flowers and animals. So it's not overwhelming in the sense that my body can't take it.
But I'm always emotionally invested, especially when you're talking to spirit guides who are for the first time being able to speak to someone. It's almost always like, deliver this feeling of support, deliver this feeling of love; because the fear that stands in the way of people talking to their guides is a huge hindrance, and they'd rather you not believe in them than be afraid of them.
Earlier, you kept mentioning how we have these guides. I wanted to know what you meant by that. Are these guides past ancestors, loved ones, or are they more in tune with our own inner spirit, or even past lives that we've lived if that makes sense?
It's a fluctuation of so many more things than just that. It depends on who you are, and what your situation is. I mean, any given person has at least one. Most of us have a team of spirits that are ancestors. There are some ancestors who are just ancestors, and some that do double duty as an official guide.
There are animal spirits, there are ancestral spirits that are connected to our spiritual lineage, not only our body’s lineage. I know some people that have Norse guides, even gods, deities, and spirits from mythology, not just ancestors connected to their body’s lineage.
The spirit world is vast and unknowable. Sometimes they look like a person. And sometimes they look like a rainbow. And sometimes they look like a key.
It's really wild.
And so, you know, most people have an ancestor, a main guide who was a human at some point. Sometimes, a lot of people have a guide that's never been a human. There's a lot of celestial beings, like angels and star things and other things that live in space that have never been human. I have no intention to ever incarnate as a human, but they work as guides on our part.
I mean, I love animal guides, they're so wild and unpredictable. And so sure of themselves, even though some of them are really tricky.
But any given person's team is a wide variety. And the thing that some people don't realize is that that team changes. It shifts.
Like, some guides are here to literally just teach you one lesson, and then bounce. Some guides are here for like a whole season of your life.
We all have the ability to communicate directly with them and always know what's going on. I've been doing this for a while and I was just introduced to a completely different spirit than I've been speaking to, and I'm like, “Oh, we're working together now? Okay, cool. Welcome. What do you need on the altar?”
That's really cool. Just hearing your story from the beginning to where you are now… I know this might be a heavy question, but what's your overall mission in life as you continue your work as a spiritual guide, as a mystic, as a witch? And do you have any advice for anyone who is curious about witchcraft, specifically for queer and trans individuals?
Totally. Of course, we have a million purposes in life and a million missions. When it comes to this spiritual work that I do right now, the most important thing to me is to be able to reach people. And yes, I'm focused on queer and trans people, but I have a lot of clients of various different backgrounds.
But for queer and trans people to realize, understand and accept their innate power, right? It is not about hierarchies. It's not about control, but about understanding your natural presence, your purpose, your belonging on the planet.
Many of these patriarchal religions and traditions have purposefully separated queer people from engaging in spiritual work. And many of us have experienced religious trauma to the point where we're completely separated from any kind of spiritual practices that would help us see ourselves and work towards change.
Because queer people have always been on the forefront of humanity.
We are the trailblazers, we're changing things, we're seeing things from a different perspective and understanding that life can be that way.
And that's always been a threat to power.
And so from my perspective, connecting you to your spiritual energy, even in your own body, delivers the messages from the world around you, from the plants that love you, from the mushrooms that love you, from the guides, and your ancestors.
I mean, so many of us think that we're the first queer or trans people in our families, and that's just not true.
Connecting us with people like us in our ancestry, understanding that we are natural and purposeful actually can and will change the world. It will help us get to a more equitable place. So for me, the most important thing when I get another queer person on the other side of my camera, is to get them to a place where they can at least be curious about what is possible for them and what kind of life is possible for them to live.
That authenticity is our greatest power. And it does affect change inside us and around us. Queer people, even if you decide not to procreate, have a legacy. And we can have life in this world, in a society that is supportive of us. It starts with connecting our spirits to our bodies, and fighting that abstraction.
I love queer people. I love trans people with all my heart and I know how inherently magical they are. I want them to know that there is more… And more is possible for them. Always. Because just like the trees belong here, we belong here. We are on purpose. Not an accident or a mistake.