In this episode, we’re excited to have Melody interviewing Karla Refojo, a plant spirit medicine colleague and creator of the Tulku Oracle deck! Karla shares the inspiration behind her talismanic jewelry and Oracle deck, which blend elements of Nepali and Tibetan culture with animistic perspectives. She discusses her creative process, including the challenges of writing and the importance of quality editing. Karla also reveals her current project: an ancestral Oracle deck that draws on indigenous wisdom and her connection to nature.

The conversation touches on personal growth through creative work, overcoming self-doubt, and finding one’s authentic voice. Karla offers advice for new writers, emphasizing the importance of commitment and allowing creativity to flow. The episode concludes with a brief Oracle reading, highlighting themes of liberation and lightening one’s burdens. Listeners will gain insights into the intersection of spirituality, creativity, and personal development.

Karla Refojo’s links:

https://tulkujewels.com
https://tulkuoracle.com
https://paintedream.com
https://tulkujewels.com/tulku-oracle

Ep. 45: Interview with Karla Refojo

Dave Hogan, Gina’s Pop
0:02
Welcome to Around the Writer’s Table, a podcast focusing on the crossroads of creativity, craft, and conscious living for writers of all ages and backgrounds. Your hosts are Gina, Melody, and KimBoo, three close friends and women of a certain age, who bring to the table their eclectic backgrounds and unique perspectives on the trials, tribulations, and the joys of writing. So pull up a chair and get comfortable here around the writer’s table.

Melody, A Scout
0:43
Hello, listeners. This is Melody from Around the Writer’s Table, welcoming you back to another podcast. I’m here today with a good friend and plant spirit medicine colleague and artist and talismanic jewelry creator, plant spirit medicine healer, spiritual. She is just really talented. I met Karla Refojo at the Blue Deer Center in upstate New York. And we didn’t meet often, but there was such a connection. I just love your gentle sweet nature, Karla, and I invited you on today to do an interview with you to talk about some of your creations and, specifically, you created an oracle deck. Is it called Tulku Oracle deck. What’s the official title, name of it?

Karla Refojo
1:47
Yeah, it’s called the Tulku Oracle deck.

Melody
1:52
And so welcome, Karla.

Karla
1:55
Melody, thank you so much. What an honor and beautiful intro. It’s nice to be here with you. 

Melody
2:01
Anytime we have a conversation—my favorite thing—it goes deep, and we talk a lot of wonderful things and we make connections about we’re always seeming to land on a lot of things we’re doing and going through at the same time. And tell me a little bit about how the Tulku Oracle deck came into being and your jewelry, which is fabulous.

Karla
2:32
Oh, wow, that’s a long story. So let me see how I can make it as concise as possible. But the Tulku Oracle deck came into being after this line of jewelry that I’ve been making since like 2006. And the jewelry is all, the main focus of it, are like talismanic, as you said, amulets and different kinds of beads and things like that to go with that are designed and inspired to help people, support people in their lives. The name Tulku means a recognized reincarnation on the human level, but it’s also something that comes from spirit, and it’s right time, to this plane, to this world in order to support and teach and heal others. 

So I hope that makes sense. But that’s where that name came from, and at the time when they were created, well, I have a long relationship with Nepal, and with the Newari people there in Nepal, who I’ve been working with and spending time with for over 20 years. So the amulets come from a place that’s very interwoven with Nepali culture, Tibetan culture, and like that. So that’s where that came from. 

As you said, we met at the Blue Deer Center. We both are PSM (plant spirit medicine) practitioners or have family who are trained in that and that’s, I imagine, your listeners know something about that, from what you so beautifully wrote in your book. That’s a very animist kind of view and relationship with the world. I went into that from a long 18 years living in an ashram that was more tantric, Hindu, Tibetan, Buddhist orientation. So, the oracle deck, this is the long story trying to tear it down, but the oracle deck was born from the need for me to integrate all my journey and the learning that I had been steeped in over many, many years and to weave them together, this animus perspective that felt much more kin to my soul, with the other piece that was also a big part of my heart and my being as well. So does that make sense?

Melody
6:06
It makes sense to me, and I’ll invite our listeners to go to the TulkuJewels.com page where you can get a look at some of this gorgeous jewelry. I mean, I was so drawn to it. I first saw it at the Blue Deer Center, and someone gifted me a pendant with one of my near and dear plant allies, mugwort, the leaf of mugwort on it. And I have practically worn that out, wearing it. In fact, I had to buy another one from you because I was harvesting valerian one day and valerian decided it wanted to keep it because I never found again after that. 

So anyway, all these links for Karla’s products and creations will be on our website. But then from that was born, did you use those images? Am I understanding that correctly, from some of the pendants and the talismans? 

Karla
Amulets.

Melody
Yeah. That’s the word I was looking for.

Karla
7:25
Yes. I’m very image driven to begin with as a visual artist. So the symbols and the different—there’s also totems and deities in this oracle deck, mantras, chakras, a whole range of different beings that also have an amulet to go with every image—and so that intention in integrating ‘how do I actually relate to these amulets now?’ I mean, it’s changed. It’s morphed a lot over the years. It’s deepened. And so I decided and I also wanted to bring back the visual art, the two-dimensional visual art that I had set to the side for a while in just being a designer for the jewelry, but not actually painting much or anything like that anymore. So I decided to create an image for each of the main amulets, and then the writing part was to really stretch myself and find words that adequately express what the voice for each amulet authentically is from this new ground that I was standing on, if that makes sense.

Melody
9:06
Yes, and your artwork is stunning. Energetically, I just get the same vibrance and wisdom from the oracle deck. It’s truly a beautiful deck. You can tell it was a labor of love. I’m curious now because it seems like when I was writing Soul of the Seasons based on plant spirit medicine, my challenge, somebody told me something very wisely, it is always easier to make something simple complex than it is to make something complex simple. Yes, trying to keep it in a clear, digestible format. And so what was that writing practice like when you started writing the companion book for your oracle deck?

Karla
10:13
Oh, boy, well, I had great resistance to the writing part because of not really feeling not at all formally trained, but also not feeling confident in writing. And that whole project took, by the way, 10 years to complete. And so I started with the images. I created the images that was more like no-problem piece. But in the writing, it was really COVID that blessed me with that. All the other pieces of my life, I was doing a lot of events and selling and like that at events and traveling a lot; all of that stopped with the pandemic. So then I just knew, okay, this is the time. 

With the writing, it took a lot. Like you said, a ton of information was put into those documents. And it was really such a massive blessing to find Terri Kempton, as my editor, to really, really pull it all together in a massive way and help me reorganize it, help me get some kind of an idea of an outline, and how to format it. And then really, she did so much work in refining what I had put there and drawing more out of me. We worked together really on it after a certain point. That was huge for me.

Melody
12:07
We’ve talked on the podcast before, the value of quality editors, and how much they can assist and help us shift our work and make it easier, make it clearer. So I can tell you had someone who knew what they were doing in the editing, because the writing portion of it came out very well. I thought it was clear and concise. Also, as art often does, even with a written word, it reaches beyond the intellectual, often, and places wisdom or awakens wisdom within us. I can tell when someone has spent time doing that. That’s beautiful. So I’m wondering, what inspires you personally.

Karla
13:17
Nature, definitely. Nature really, really inspires and teaches and I feel is behind a lot of the words that come out. I’m currently in a new writing process for a new oracle deck, which I’m excited about. Yeah, I’m really excited about this new one. Not something that I anticipated doing because the last one was so much work and so much beyond what I thought it would be. But I heard, I woke up one morning and heard my ancestors who I’m in connection with saying, Okay, now you have to do an ancestral oracle deck, one that is about this new work that I’ve been doing, relatively new work. So this new deck is very, very spirit driven, very nature driven, and the spirit in nature is hopefully very present in the words and in the images, but also this ancestral, indigenous component that’s not indigenous in the sense of peoples that are foreign to what I carry in my own DNA this time around, but rather ones that are indigenous to my people right there that we all, in this knowing that we all have, an indigeneity way, way back when even though we might be very separate from it in this lifetime. So it’s inspired by that. And I’m inspired by that.

Melody
15:13
Oh, well, I’m looking forward to seeing your new deck, and it just sounds so relevant to these huge, seismic transitions we all seem to be going through right now. When you’re writing this, have you gotten to the book portion or are you still in the creation of the deck?

Karla
15:36
No, I’m working on the writing, which is very different than the first time around. I feel like I’m falling in love with the words and in this kind of active courtship of stringing words together, and also of the images themselves and hearing what they want to say. I finally created a kind of a ritual, which is what helps me to write, which is just containing my time and making a time every morning to start my day with writing, and no matter how it turns out. But really, in this process—I created, I think, most of the images already—I come with a question, some kind of a longing or some kind of curiosity that feels really present for me to the writing table. I have a folder on my phone with all of the different images of the cards, and I just ask the question and I pick a card that way. I just point and see what shows up, and then that’s the one that I’m having a dialogue or a conversation with, that one. What do you have to say about relationship, for example. Or what do you have to say about bringing healing to the world or, you know, different questions like that. Sometimes very personal, sometimes more collective, and then the words kind of emerge from there.

Melody
17:40
Nice, I really like that. I found when I was writing Soul of the Seasons, I had the structure of the five elements, the five seasons, but then had to hold that loosely, as you were saying, to see what each of those elements and seasons had to say to me during that time. Yes. I really liked that. Do you find now, is the writing easier, more difficult, different than when you wrote the companion one for the first deck? 

Karla
18:23
Yeah, all of the above. I mean, I’m just 24 cards in, in terms of the writing and, of course, the editing will be a whole other phase of it, but I feel, yeah, I feel much more held, I guess, in the process. Maybe because of my connection, my deeper connection with my ancestors and my more conscious connection. Spirit allies are help, you know. I feel more connected in that way. So at the risk of sounding maybe woowoo to some people, that really provides a kind of support for me. I feel like I’m leaning against a massive ancient oak tree and the words are flowing through those roots. They’re arriving on the song of the hummingbird and the raven and the different animals and birds around me. So there’s just a different quality to the writing process for me.

Melody
19:46
Wow, that is beautiful. I could just see it as you were describing it and feel the energy of it. That is so cool. What do you find is the most challenging part of writing, for you?

Karla
20:00
The most challenging part is definitely well, kind of art organizing. I heard one podcast where you all were talking about different strengths that different writers have. Some are very creative, and it just all flows out at the same time, and so it’s hard to sort and separate. There’s others who are more, like, there’s more of an outline or more detail, or I don’t know, something more organized, right, and I’m definitely not the latter. 

So there’s a lot. That’s where I come back to that whole editing process. It’s like sometimes, like, my way of sculpting, for example, is to put the clay down, take it away, put it down, take it away. It just keeps adding, subtracting, adding, subtracting. It’s not a straight line or a straightforward process. It’s the same with painting. And so it’s also the same with words. I feel like it takes a while to wind into that deep place where the real kernel of the message they’re bringing, it lives. There might be all these different aspects but in the writing of the oracle piece, it presents a challenge because I know I’m speaking to an audience. If you draw this card, what does this card want to say to you? And so being streamlined in that, allowing the card to speak to me directly with the trust that whatever I need to hear other people need to hear as well. And just trusting in that if makes sense.

Melody
22:04
Nice. Yeah, it absolutely does make sense and you also offer oracle readings from your deck, and I have gotten some from you, and I have found that experience to be true and I’m really excited that you’re going to do a short reading today. You said you pulled a card from the deck earlier. Did you have an intention when you pulled it? Are you just like what comes up for today? What’s your process with that?

Karla
22:36
I just drew one card for today just to see what the energy around this time together with you would be like, what do the cards have to say. I got one of my favorite cards in terms of the image and also the meaning. It’s a rising up. It is number 11 and it is Moksha which is a Sanskrit word that means liberation, freedom. It is this lightening of burden. The image on it is a hawk with wings out-spread, rising up into a sunrise of a sky, and there’s another hawk beneath them also rising up.

So the feeling. There’s a glow in the heart area of the hawk, and so it’s this feeling of release of burden, but not without having done a lot of work before, if that makes sense. So, the rising up or emerging from a place of having carried a lot and having done a lot of work on oneself. I think of that as a reading for the collective. Today’s the solstice, by the way. Happy solstice. Yeah. So it’s beautiful, like this place of the brightest light, that place also from that elemental perspective as we were taught, of the sun shining on us and our innate gifts, sparkling and being seen and being witnessed and how that witnessing and that value, if we can receive it, how it gives us wings to soar. It lightens the load that we feel, that we’re not good enough or we have to carry everything, those different things that we all—I think most of us, at least—can struggle with.

Melody
25:32
Oh, absolutely. And I have to say, that hits close to home personally, too, as I get ready for a new transition in my life. I want to get closer to the plant medicine and create a space of my own to do that and a space where others can come in and be with the plants and heal with them. I felt that heaviness, like this weight of responsibility of all that that involves to do that creation, but it makes sense. The work has been done, the internal work has been done. So, it just feels spot on for me personally. So thank you for that card, and we’ll put an image of that card up on the website. 

Karla
26:30
Okay, yeah, I’m also thinking in terms of the work that you’ve done, what comes to me is that, not only internal work, but you’ve done a lot of work to, like your feet on the ground, just like working in that way, out in the world. And there’s this letting go of trust, which is part of this card as well, of just like, yes, your prayers or your efforts have been seen, they’ve been witnessed. And so allowing yourself to receive that feeling of support that that witnessing brings, and releasing into a kind of a trust that, okay, I’ve done what I can do for now, and now it’s in greater hands. It’s in the hands of source, your destiny, or however you want to word that. 

Melody
27:43
I really like how you say that. That makes sense. And it feels, when I think about that process, it feels calmer. I’m able to release the excess of responsibility I put upon myself instead of just opening to that longing and allowing it to come un. So that makes so much sense. Wow, that’s beautiful.

Karla
28:18
Thank you.

Melody
28:19
So when I wrote Soul of the Seasons, it was such a powerful medicine that I studied, and continued to study as I was writing. It changed me just in the writing of it and deepened my self-awareness and personal understanding of myself. What would you say you have learned about yourself during your writing process?

Karla
28:55
Oh, that’s such a beautiful question. I feel the same way as what you just described for yourself in writing Soul of the Seasons. I feel like I’m being crafted or something. I’m being rearranged and deepened. And there’s something that it’s making me feel more aligned within myself, aligned with and attuned with the world around me. I feel like, What have I learned about myself? I guess that I have carried a lot of doubts or insecurities around writing and around pretty much everything.

Melody
I know. What’s that like?

Karla
30:09
But that I could just put those down. Those are, like in this card, right, those are burdens I don’t need to carry. They just have no place anymore in my life. Maybe they can keep me humble, for sure. But they’re, I think, I’ve got that down pretty well by now and I can put those down.

Melody
30:44
Practice, practice that enough. I don’t need to relearn that. Yeah. Well, it sounds like it helped you find your true voice. Would that be an accurate way to put it?

Karla
30:56
Yeah, I feel like I’m finding it for sure.

Melody
31:00
Nice. So what do you have to offer new writers?

Karla
31:04
Oh, just really put down those doubts, for sure. Allow the creative fire to ignite your imagination, your intuition, your playful curiosity. I feel like that is a powerful ally. I also feel like that place, if you tend to be more of a creative bubbler type, where a lot flows through you and maybe you get distracted and start one thing and then start another and then another and have 20 projects on the plate, which is a place I can go, to create a ritual container almost around your writing time. For me, really anchoring in commitment is what changes things. So with this ancestral oracle deck and with the writing piece, I was like, okay, I can create the images, no problem, but really deciding okay, I am going to go through with this. I don’t know how it’s going to end up. I don’t know where it’s going to end up. It might be only something for myself as like up a path that I’m on right now of deepening my connection with myself and what’s authentic and all of those different things, and really deciding, okay, I’m committing to this and I’m gonna keep doing it and creating the time every morning or afternoon or night, whenever that is, to just say whether something really makes sense that comes out of my hands and my mind and my heart comes out or not, I don’t care. I’m still gonna sit myself down and do this every day for just a certain period of time, and that makes a difference. Then from within that container allowing your imagination to be part of the process is a really beautiful piece.

Melody
33:40
Yeah, to hold the structure of it, which is necessary. I mean, we all need to set some boundaries both as a writer and personally, but that we don’t hold them so tightly that the creativity cannot rise.

Karla
33:59
Perfectly, said.

Melody
34:03
Nice. What did you love most about creating your oracle deck and the book that went along with it?

Karla
34:12
I love that it actually works. It worked for me in the integration process of really… and also discovering, oh wow, I kind of know things from years of working with these symbols, working with these energies. I love that it’s supportive for people. I get incredible feedback; that’s very magical for me to receive. And that’s really very rich for me. Yeah, I yeah, there’s something, I love the magic that has shown up in the whole process and in the result that I wasn’t anticipating.

Melody
35:15
Nice. I like that. Do you have a favorite out of the deck?

Karla
35:23
Favorite? That’s a good question. I love bear eagle goddess. That is just who’s coming to mind right now. I like the way the image shows up. The images are layered, kind of a bit collage, collage-y, I guess you could say. Some have physical paint and things like that, and some are more digitally oriented with a layering up, but with the bear eagle goddess, that was more painted. And she has taught me a lot. I didn’t really know much of who she was to begin with. And that’s changed over time and through the writing.

Melody
36:17
That’s nice. I don’t know about you, but one of the things I loved about plant spirit medicine and five element medicine was, to me, my curious mind and my desire to learn fuels me a lot, and to me, it’s always expanding with this medicine and this practice. You can’t exhaust the wisdom and the beauty of the elements or the plants. And I imagine that is probably true with your oracles as well and your art.

Karla
37:03
I hope so. I love what you just said, just so deeply true and alive. You honor their spirit with your words and that’s beautiful.

Melod
37:22
Nice. So when do you expect the oracle deck to be finished?

Karla
37:29
Oh, boy, well.

Melody
37:32
Or is that…

Karla
37:34
I’m doing my best. I am showing up and doing my work. I’m about, I don’t know, a third of the way through maybe with the cards at this point. Maybe a little bit more than that. But there’s so much. Then there’s the editing and there’s other pieces other than writing about each oracle, but I’m just staying on it. So hopefully, maybe next year.

Melody
38:08
Yeah, I learned when I was writing Soul of the Seasons, I would always be hopelessly optimistic. Oh, yes. Three months, six months? Like, yeah, it’s gonna be another year. Oh, yeah. It was like it was done when it got done with me basically.

Karla
38:33
That’s yeah, that’s right.

Melody
38:38
Wow. Well, we are going to put all your information up on our web page. I have so enjoyed this conversation with you, Karla, and thank you for the little mini reading. It was so insightful and helpful to me. Thank you for coming and sharing your process. We look forward to maybe doing another interview when you finish your next deck. 

Karla
I would love that. 

Melody
Because I’d love to hear about it. Would you? You know, let me back up. My brain cells aren’t firing on all cylinders today. But tell me what, for our listeners that may not be familiar with what an ancestral oracle deck might be. Can you? Can you put that into words?

Karla
39:33
Well, I do kind of a work that’s called ancestral medicine, which is helping folks connect with their wise and well ancestors and bring healing to the rest of the line with the understanding that most lines do have some trauma and some need for some healing and so it’s a process that’s driven intuitively, but it’s also embodied and there’s a guided component where I’m kind of holding space while the person is connecting with their wise and well ancestors, and they become powerful allies and support in their lives and also lead the healing process. There’s a lot to say about that. But I leave it at that. 

So there’s a lot of wisdom shared through the ancestors. So the images came from those, like, Oh, these ancestors look like this. And this is where they lived. And these were some of the ways that they brought their medicine to the world, so to speak. And so there’s also animal spirits in this deck. There’s also some gods and goddesses type of deities and things like that. But it’s very driven by the elemental spirits, by the earth spirits. They’re all joining their voices in here. So the working title is “The Oracular Chamber of the Ancestral Heart.” That may change, but that’s me trying to pare it down to some kind of description.

Karla
41:48
description.

Melody
41:50
Well, again, so relevant today. I don’t know anybody who’s not dealing with ancestral trauma, and trying to heal the past in a way that enlivens and improves the way that we interact with each other and in the world. So thank you for doing all your hard work. Thank you for coming today and having this wonderful talk. And thank you, listeners, for sharing your time with us. We invite you to go to AroundTheWritersTable.com where you’ll see links to Karla’s work and her products and to my book Soul of the Seasons. This is Melody, A Scout, signing off. Thanks for showing up.

Karla
42:46
Thank you so much, Melody, everyone.

Gina’s Pop
42:52
Thanks for joining us around the writer’s table. Please feel free to suggest a topic or a guest by emailing info@aroundthewriterstable.com. Music provided with gracious permission by Langtry. A link to their music is on our homepage at AroundTheWritersTable.com. Everyone here around the writer’s table wishes you joy in your writing and everyday grace in your living. Take care, until next time.

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