38. Animist Healing with Angela Benck
Mar 19, 2025
ON THIS EPISODE
“Hello, and welcome to another episode of the High Vibe Heather podcast. I'm your host, Heather, and today I'm here with my dear friend, Angela Benck. And she wears a lot of different hats.
So I'm gonna let her go ahead and introduce herself and her work so that it's really clear and understandable what it is that she does. So Angela, go ahead.
Oh, thanks for having me, Heather, and welcome, High Vibe fam. I love it. It's so good to be here.
A little bit about what I am currently offering and doing, we'll talk a little bit about today because it's kind of how we got connected. So I'm a certified astrologer. What does that mean in the world of astrology?
I took a two-year program under my teacher and got a certification. Woohoo. I feel like in a lot of ways in the world of paper, it means a lot to a lot of people.
“For me personally, it doesn't mean as much. It can show your dedication to studying something. So I started studying astrology when I was in my 20s more informally, just really getting to know the energy of the planets and how they show up inside me.
I love all things when it comes to an animistic viewpoint. And so people that aren't familiar with that word, it's just when things have an archetype or an energy, really everything your relationship does. And so having that viewpoint really supports, I would say, all the other work I do, because I do a lot of really deep healing work with medicine.
I do shamanic work with people. I didn't classically study shamanism or work with a teacher. I would say it's just something that I've had innate in this life that I was, since I was a child, communicating.
“And the rivers and the trees and the animals and the spirits of people around me would teach me. And so if I was within a more shamanic context, as far as a family that really understood, because I believe with the ancestral work that I've done, that a lot of this has passed down our lines. You know, we have many shamanic people in our lineage.
And so these gifts aren't just like, all of a sudden I have them. I've cultivated them through many lifetimes and through my ancestral roots. And, and then like any gift, like learning how to wield it takes practice.
So just because you innately are born with a gift doesn't mean you're all of a sudden really great at it. It takes discipline, practice, harnessing it, discovering it, cultivating it. And so it's just like learning an instrument.
You practice. Even if you came in already being good at something, you still need that refinement. And so to me, that's like embodied wisdom, which is really what we need in these times in this day and age.
“And it doesn't mean just because an elder is older than you that they have embodied wisdom, because our culture and capitalism, patriarchy is kind of like taking that from a lot of us. And so like really, to me, like the work that I really do is to bring that restoration back to ourselves, back to connecting to our souls, longings, collecting the pieces that have been fragmented through our journey and connecting back to our roots and the planet and the Earth. And I do that through a lot of different mediums, and astrology being a really powerful way to understand your own personal journey and your own psyche.
Yeah. And because I know you as a friend, I know that you were born in Alaska. And I would imagine growing up in that setting, in that location, informed a lot of this shamanic work that you do, the animistic approach that you have.
Do you want to speak to what that was like growing up in Alaska and how that informed your work?
“I think maybe just like if I tune in, and if I'm honest, I feel like being close to nature is important for all of us. It doesn't necessarily matter where you're from or where you live from. And so it's like, yeah, that is impactful and meaningful.
And I don't think it's, the more that I understand myself, I don't necessarily feel like that's everything. And maybe that comes back to like the environment of like nurture versus nature. You receive what you need to receive to cultivate who you are.
But it didn't make me who I am, right? Being in Alaska or learning from that, it gave me opportunities and gifts as has other travels I've done extensively. Yeah.
So it's not, I feel like as big of a deal as maybe I previously would have thought. So I don't necessarily spend too much time speaking on it.
“Yeah. And I know you are such a traveler and really live this nomadic life where you are only in places for certain periods of time before you feel called to move in another direction. And it's been really fun to hear your story and watch things unfold for you and just see how much you live like surrendered to guidance, like spiritual guidance.
And I know you spent some time in Europe as well and lived all over the US. What kind of like prompts you when it's time to move on to a new place or how, what does that process look like? You just like get this knowing that it's time to move on or a lot of us are, we live in one place and that's it.
So seeing somebody have this nomadic life is just really interesting to watch.
Yeah.
“I do feel like it's really important to my wellness actually to travel and move a lot. Again, more about studying astrology, the more that I've looked at my design, because people that are normally big travelers or big adventurers will often have strong, sagittarius placements, and I do. It's a part of my moon.
So following my heart, it's like just tuning in and listening to my dreams are really big messengers for me. When I visit places, it's a feeling. It's like a felt sense or a knowing or like Portland.
This is where I live now. It called me many years ago, and I came to visit to discover like, oh, I felt called to come here or live here or move. And when I came, I was just like, oh yeah, I don't want to live here because this pre-pandemic, and I could feel what I could feel and see and sense a lot of the stuff before it was coming.
“And I just, that's again, a part of just my design as far as I can sense things that are tragic in a lot of ways before they come or see them. And it flashes and insights and track it out. And I still sometimes don't understand what is the purpose of that knowing because it's not like I'm going to change anything that's going to happen.
I just have an awareness of it. And sometimes it's like, oh, having the awareness of being able to just hold myself or the people around me with care because I do believe these times that we live in need a lot of care, one, to turn towards ourselves and those inner parts, but also just each other, you know, just being like, hey, we're all doing the best that we can. And a lot of people, I wouldn't say orientate that way.
But we're all unconscious of parts of ourselves. Every single one of us, it's a part of being human. And the more that we become conscious, the more we actually move out of the way.
“So this beautiful divine energy moves and flows through us. And I think it's just being really gentle with the parts of us that are unconscious because they are, those pieces and parts are how I see they're projecting onto our world so that we can integrate more of ourselves. And so collectively, we're really unconscious.
There's, you know, small pockets of us that I feel like more and more with this work, with people understanding their design with human design or with astrology or with shamanism or animism is to just have a more conscious, present relationship with all parts of themselves. And so we don't make the other wrong, which happens a lot in our world, you know, in many, many different ways.
Yeah. So you had said you started getting into astrology in your 20s. What was it that really drew you into that originally?
“Yeah, I had a powerful moment with what, to me, I would call her a witch. And I say that like with reverence and love, because I look at myself like that. Like, I feel very much a part of like the witchy, crone, wise person.
And so she was, I think, like this older Jewish woman in South Florida that I was in this bookstore called, I believe it was Changing Times. It was very new agey. And we just met in one of the book sections and started talking.
And she was like, you know, like, I would love to read your chart for you. And I'm like, OK. It was just kind of like divine moments.
Like, I don't know that I've ever met someone in a public place that I didn't know, struck up a conversation and be like, I'd love to read your chart for me or for you. Right. Which is normally for me anyways, like looking at people's charts, because you learn more about just so many things through other people's energy and their aspects.
“And you're just like, wow. So she got my information and read my chart. And then we did a call.
And she was talking about Saturn in my fourth house, which is a very, very challenging placement for Saturn to be. So typically Saturn in the fourth house can lend itself to having a really restrictive or abusive home as a child. And so she was like, well, did you have an abusive childhood?
Because this aspect kind of lends itself to you like having an abusive childhood. And I was like, abusive childhood, like what? Me?
No, like there was nothing. I did not have it. What are you talking about?
I don't even remember if I was 21, 20. So I was in South Florida working as a massage therapist. So I believe I was like 21.
“I knew enough about consciousness at that age, that if there was something in front of me, there was truth there. And so, and especially for me to have like, if there's any level of defensiveness, that's ego, right? And so I'm like, once we got done with the call, I just looked at it as a question of like, what if some of this is true?
What if was there? And so just creating the space of curiosity and openness, it's like a key that unlocks a locked door. And then boom, I have this huge healing dream that happened as a result of that, where in my dream, there's a dead bear because my dad was a hunter, and he's squatting down next to the dead bear.
And he has a knife, and he's cutting the bear open, you know, all the way, like slicing the belly, so it comes open. And then what spills out is this, like, demon child that was like five or six running around just rabid. And then I, like, grabbed the knife in the dream and was like, kill the child, kill it.
“Because this is what I feel like people do with their inner children. And then these flashes of, like, puppies and kittens start happening. And then it's like somehow my psyche and my consciousness are telling me, no, like, this needs to be like loved, like love.
This is innocent, like love. And I was like, oh, my God. So I dropped the knife.
I turned and, like, I hugged the child. And then I just, like, bolt up in bed. And I'm sobbing.
And all of this energy just, like, lifts off of my body.
Holy shit.
And then I started having visions of being molested by my dad's friend when I was little. Oh, my God. In a, I believe, in his hunting, in a hunting cabin.
So, so that was the beginning of, like, how astrology, how, like, inner child work, and how trauma, like, started to weave together for me.
“So you weren't even looking for this. This woman approached you. She offered you this reading.
On the back of this reading, you have this dream that basically awakens you to some trauma in your past that you had forgotten, repressed, and now you begin this healing journey. Holy shit. Talk about, like, synchronicity.
Yeah, I feel like that's how it happens, right? Like, people and things come in our path that we're, like, we're not necessarily seeking it. It's just kind of the universe, like, being like, OK, it's time to remember.
And then it's just like, holy shit, that was, like, a huge chunk. I had no idea. And then it was just like, well, what else did I forget?
Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Then over time did more, like, skeletons come out of the closet for you to then work through and integrate.
Yeah. I would say that's been like my journey because I'm in my mid-40s now, and that's been my journey pretty much since then. I mean, I already had a significant amount of, um, like, presence and consciousness.
“I didn't really, like, forget God, so to speak. Like, a lot of people will have a spiritual awakening that's like them remembering God. That's not what mine was remembering my trauma, and remembering how the pieces of me that I had built up these walls to protect myself from how I had been harmed really are just me withholding myself and my own love and my own greatness from, like, receiving more of me.
And also, like, bringing that, you know, expression into the world.
Wow. Okay.
Yeah. So I've often seen, like, my spiritual awakening is very different. We all have, like, different forms of awakening.
And I believe that there's some people and kids now that they're not going to forget. There's a lot of people, I feel like maybe even more on the planet than I know or realize that their forgetting is just different. You know, they didn't need to forget a lot of things, but aspects, some aspects we do.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's huge.
“Like, what a story. And from that point, like, I would imagine you were early 20s at that point, that maybe it took a while for you to start to piece things together and move towards, like, what you've now created with what you share with the world through your work. And it was, I'm guessing, a lot of just little by little, trying out different things and learning.
And what did that journey look like for you?
Yeah, yeah. So, like, when you had done my human design chart, I'm an investigator, and some part of me would be annoyed by that. I'm like, oh, I gotta try all the things and see if they work out.
And it's just like, sometimes, like, there's some points where I'm just like, I am tired of trying all the things. But I was a body worker for a long time, so it really helped me with the level of stress and the lack of embodiment that I had. So it was a big part of my journey.
“I knew it was a big part of my path. It was like, to me, like, I knew it was a stepping stone on my journey, but it was a stepping stone I was on for a really long time, longer than I thought I would be. Like, why am I still doing this?
Like, a decade later, you know? Like, can't I be like doing something else? I want to move on.
So much of me likes to talk. I love speaking. I love telling stories.
I love teaching. And so when I was massaging people, I was just very, like, not utilizing, I feel like, a lot of my gifts. And so I was just like, oh, what's...
What is this? How can this be done different? And I came to a point where I had just been doing it for so long.
“I knew that there was something that was next because there was parts of me that didn't feel like alive, really like alive. And that's kind of when I turned to walking away from, I guess, traditional life and moving to Europe, and I walked to the El Camino. So I still feel like I had a lot of pain and suffering that I was living from, that I was disconnected from, and not really understanding where it was coming from.
Because there was only parts of different abuse that I experienced as a child that I was privy to. Because I feel like the psyche and the body work, and you have to build a significant amount of safety within and in your environments out here, before it's like that stuff will open. Because if you open stuff too soon, then it's as abusive as the original abuse that people endured.
“And if you're human, if you're in the human experience, most people have experienced some form of really abusive trauma. And also, I just want to preface, the word trauma isn't because I couldn't be with that. It's normally like you can't be with the feelings that is connected to the actual event.
And so then that gets stored for later. Not for you to re-traumatize, but it's for you to feel the feelings that weren't originally able to be processed and held in a safe and loving way when an original event occurred. And so then it gets tucked away, locked away, and hidden.
And so, yeah, moving towards the call, so to speak, like when I'm called to a new environment or a new place, it feels like just, again, like my healing journey of wholeness that's what it looks like. Me turning towards those parts. You know, meeting people, going to a particular part of a land that activates something within me, that awakens something within me, that supports my healing.
“And then I believe that we are here in our wholeness all the time, and then having the healing journey of what that looks like for us. And then being of service to give that gift. You know, as I'm healing, as I'm in my wholeness, which I believe we are healed and hold.
And then we have the human experience of the journey of what that is. And the more that we turn towards and give ourselves what we weren't able to receive with the things that happen, then we can often give it to others as like a healing balm or an elixir or a reminder that each person has in them what they need when we have the proper environment. Now, that nurtures them now.
Yeah.
You know, just like you can grow and root through anything. But like we're not trees. We're not stuck in one place.
We can go anywhere and we can heal from anything. Like what a blessing that we can speak and move our bodies. It's so powerful
“Yeah. That makes me think of a little bit about astrocartography. Is that something that you've worked with at all as you've been moving around the world and like healing different parts?
Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually learning more.
I'm taking another certification because I feel like I love learning more and more and more. So I've studied a little bit on astrocartography. I wouldn't say like I'm an expert by no means.
I wouldn't read or pay to do astrocartography stuff yet until I have a lot more. But like I've, you know, a lot of people will talk about Jupiter lines and Venus' lines, and I've lived on a lot of my Venus' lines. And so I can, that feels good for me.
Like if you don't have hard aspects to Venus, a Venus line will probably feel really warm and fuzzy. So when I've lived on my Venus lines, they felt great. I've also lived on a Saturn line when I did some of my deep, really deep healing work was the Saturn line, right?
“So if my wounding was a lot in my Saturn, and then as an adult, I went back and lived on that line, it brought a lot of those wounds to the surface to be present, for me to be present with. So it's very healing. It's not a line I would want to stay and live on though, because it doesn't feel super supportive.
It's a hard aspect. Some people's Saturns have aspects that are amazing. To me, my Saturn aspect now, as I mature, is pretty awesome because it's conjunct Mercury.
So for those of you that don't know, Mercury is the planet of communication. It's often the way that we think, and I'm very Mercurial ruled. That's the ruler of my chart.
It's dominant with all my placements. So Saturn's conjunct it. So when I speak, I speak, it's like law.
It's like I'm laying the law. This is like God's commanding the ten commandments when I speak.
So I like- Very authoritative presence.
Right? And that's Saturn. So my astrology teacher said at one point, oh, well, eventually as you mature or evolve, because we all are evolving, people won't hear you're Saturn.
“And I was like, yeah, that'll be cool when that happens. I feel like people hear it. It's pretty strong.
Yeah.
It might take another 20 years for that to soften.
I remember when you did my reading, you even warned me about that ahead of time, where you were like, okay, now, the way I say things will come across as being like, this is how it is, but I want you to remember to take what resonates and leave what doesn't. It's your chart. And I was like, okay, okay.
But that reading that you did for me was so profound and really powerful. And I feel like you're just such a catalyst. You are somebody who provokes healing in certain aspects.
And for me, it was a lot around my Pluto placement and ancestral healing, which was something that my radar was not on whatsoever. And I was like, okay, I don't know. And it's definitely a topic that has kept coming up between us.
“And I've, because I'm so unfamiliar with it, I've been like, okay, like, is it really that important? But the more that you're introducing me to it, the more I'm seeing like, oh, wow, okay. So ancestral healing can really like shift everything.
Will you talk about that?
Yeah, I love that you're bringing that up. Yeah. One, I want to backtrack first before we kind of dive into that.
It's like, I love Pluto, like love Pluto, like love Pluto. I feel like a big part of my mythos or my journey, it was kind of like being the archetype of Persephone, and being raped and dragged to the underworld, and then becoming like the queen of the underworld. So like-
A powerful picture.
Right? So Pluto a lot of times, or the Hades, you know, in the mythos of like Greek mythology is the bad guy.
Yeah.
And I was talking with a client earlier today. I'm like, oh, isn't it amazing? Like you have a bad guy in your story.
“And so what bad guys have in our stories is they often have a lot of power. So when you come from a place of, oh, if I zoom out in consciousness and I'm looking at this as like this is an aspect of myself, and I know that can be hard for a lot of people, I would never do that. That's not myself.
This conversation might not be for you. But for those that are open to being like, oh, I'm playing a story. And in my story, like a heroine's journey or hero's journey, you're going to have bad guys, allies, god, you know, sage, all these people.
Because in the world of duality, it's just a part of that package. So I love Pluto because the more that you start to own, that you have put your power and given it to someone who plays the role of the bad guy, it helps you reorientate your relationship to power. And that's what Pluto is.
Pluto is power. So it's where we hide our power. It's where we give away our power.
“It's where we secretly have an extraordinary amount of power that we maybe haven't tapped into or unleashed. And through the evolution of how Pluto wants to evolve through like your chart, right? Pluto first house, it's evolving to the house of partnership.
You're moving to have a lot of power in your partnerships, but maybe you didn't feel like that through most of your life.
Ting, ting, ting.
And so the more that we're in relationship with our own sense of self and our own sense of power, and then how that wants to show up in we're playing that in our lives, like I'm only it's feels like it's only starting to register for me because my Pluto is in my fifth house, which is creativity. And I feel like, oh my God, I have so much creative power. And yet I feel like I'm not tapping into it.
I'm not using it. And I am. So it's just like sometimes it's perspective.
“Sometimes it's like, oh, how am I evolving with, with this energy as it goes through each house, as I'm reclaiming my power, right? The evolution is, oh, it goes from the first house of self-identity. You're reclaiming yourself identity as you're growing into who you are.
It's going through the second house, reclaiming your sense of self-value, your sense of self-worth, your sense of connection and material world. The third house, the way that you think, the way that you communicate. So it's a reclamation.
It's a transformation of dying to the way that you thought you were and really being who you're here to be. And then you rebirth through that, and that's that reclamation of power. And that's why I'm like, I have a love affair with Pluto, which is powerful just in this realm that we have Pluto conjunct, the new moon in Aquarius.
“Pluto just moved into Aquarius. Like, it's big transformational energy for all of us for the next 20 years, to be in this air sign, to be with this new moon that just happened yesterday. I don't know when this will air, but it's like setting the stage, and it was, there was this magic, there was all this, I mean, it was connected with Persephone, Medusa, Hecate, and Vesta.
So it's connect, it's stacked with all these goddesses, a lot of dark goddesses. So it's like, to me, that's like the power that we demonize, the power that we don't want to look to. And so the more that we face the things that are hidden within us, face the things that are a part of the underworld, that the underworld is like a whole earth within itself, it's rich.
It's not necessarily where things go to die. It's not like a graveyard. It can be a garden, right?
“It's like mining for the gold. Like you really find the pieces of yourself that are more true to who you are in those places than we ever do in like any other way. So yeah, I just I love Pluto.
I wanted to give kudos to Pluto.
I love that. Yeah, in everyone's chart.
Like your Pluto takes 240 years to complete in a cycle. And obviously we don't live to be 240 years. So you look at the opposite that it would go through, which would be about like 80 or 90 years.
So being, if you have Pluto in the first, it's gonna transit to the seventh house through your life cycle, right? If it's in my fifth, it's gonna transit to the 11th. So then we look at the balance of the opposition as what we're evolving to.
If we live to be 240, we'd get the full gamut. That would be another story, different topic.
“Yeah. Yeah. Ever since Noah and that ark, man.
We've been cursed to live shorter lives.
So I just want to give kudos to Pluto before I went into the ancestral work. So the ancestral work is our roots. You can look at it like having legs on a table or a chair that you sit on.
Like it is the roots of your tree. You, there was thousands of people that needed to meet and connect and have baby for you to be here right today. I mean, and that's, that's miraculous in and of itself.
Yeah. It's really wild when you just sit back and think like, what a miracle to be alive, right?
Just like how many people needed to meet at just the right time that they met, conceive, and so on and so forth for me to be me and be here, and be in this iteration. Yeah, it's very powerful. And so we have many, many, many gifts in the ancestral line that often we are a part of bringing forward within ourselves.
“And a lot of times that gets hidden because there's also a lot of healing that needs to be done in the lines as well. And so some people, you know, I believe if you're called to do ancestral work it's because it's a part of your path, or if it's coming to your path, or this picture interest, it's something worth investigating. I really discovered this work through Daniel 4.
So he has about 20 years of experience with ancestral medicine work, and I really love his work and his programs around it. I'm sure I've been like connected with my ancestors longer and maybe just didn't know how important the work was. And I wasn't ready for it.
You're ready for whatever part of your healing path you're ready for. There's no, this should have been done sooner. I can't believe that.
It is a big piece of the pie of healing the lines, clearing the energy. To me, it's just deepening our relationship with wholeness, with the earth. Because these are actual humans that lived on the earth.
“Most of the time when we're connecting with healed well ancestors, they can be like a thousand to a couple thousand years old. They're not normally your immediate grandparents, great-grandparents, or so forth. And what I mean by healed is like, you can look at it as a radar of like, a hungry ghost is like people that try and attach to people, and like they'll try and have sex and smoke and drink through that person because they're still addicted to the human.
And they're healed, so they're not attached to the human world in the same way. So they really can guide us and support us, and help us on our journey. And yeah, the ancestral work has been, to me, how I can see, because I'm working with my mother's line right now, and I healed my mother's father's line, and there's two women in that line that I'm still doing healing work with that had some shame energy that stuck.
“So when things don't, when the energy isn't clear, it doesn't move forward, we hold it, mostly unconsciously. And that impacts us and our children and the future generations. And so to, there's a lot of talk about ancestors and healing ancestors and the ancestral line, because there's a lot of gifts there that I feel like really aren't being brought forward when we haven't tended to the things that need to be tended to.
I mean, we're in a culture that's phobic of age, that's phobic of death and dying, that like doesn't want to look at it. You know, women get berated if they have wrinkles. I mean, like it's like crucifixion because people are not afraid of facing themselves.
Really, it's just facing themselves. You would never criticize someone outside of you because you're normally then living with that cesspool of criticism or judgment. So it's like tenfold whatever people are spewing.
So it's like instead of like getting angry back, it's like, oof, that's a lot to be with. Coming back to that level of tenderness. So yeah, I'm celebrating the aging process.
“I feel like it's such an initiation to be a woman during these times in the West where people are phobic to aging and phobic to how women age. And it's really disheartening. So it's like turning towards the ancestor work and celebrating.
Oh, my ancestors call me a kitchen witch. I'm like, that's pretty cool. Like, I can brew up magic in the kitchen.
It's super exciting. And I did before this call, like, brewed up, like, bananas, eggs, some baking powder and cacao and made banana brownies.
What?
Yeah. Yeah.
I love that you call yourself a kitchen witch, knowing that your environment in human design is kitchens.
I can make magic in the kitchen. I have a housemate that's always like, oh my God, everything you make is so amazing. Teach me your ways.
Like, I'm an intuitive kind of witch, so I can't really teach you.
I don't measure anything. I'm just like, a little this, little this, a lot of that. More.
It's more. Okay. It's just right.
Oh, it's still missing something.
You just got to feel your way through it.
“Yeah, you're just, yeah, you're developing your own gnosis. I'm not here to give anyone what they know. I'm here to reveal it.
Like, oh, you have a great amount of knowing. Okay. Let's use it.
Yeah. Yeah. So with your ancestral work, do you ever combine it with astrology?
Well, obviously, you pointed it out to me that I needed to do it through my astrology reading. Is that kind of how you work into it with people, or how do you use that work?
So the more that I learned about like stelliums, because I have a stellium, again, in like my roots or my house of home. So it's like I knew for me that I was meant to do ancestral work. I just didn't know like what that meant or what that looked like, you know?
“And so more I look at people that have stellium or packed houses, I'm like, oh, okay, this is cool or certain alignments. Like you're really here to break patterns in your line. And we don't even realize it because we're not in relationship with a lot of our family at a deep level to know what are the patterns we're still carrying forward that are asking to be rooted out.
Like a pattern I've seen with a lot of women is like living from almost like the fear of disappointment, but instead they live a life that's like less than who they're here to live. So they live that disappointment anyways.
Oh my God, the irony.
Yeah. So it's like I need to be willing to risk being disappointed versus living in unconscious disappointment. And that's to me a pattern I see with a lot of women.
And I know that that's been a part of my mother's line. So it's been a big energy that I've really been unpacking and tending to because I don't feel like my mom's being who she is here to be. I don't feel like she's living her chart.
“There's a lot of people that aren't living. They're so in their conditioning. They're not actually living who they're here to be.
They're living a conditioned version. And it takes an incredible amount of courage to live who you're here to be because it often isn't go along with the way society is holding us.
No, it doesn't, which makes it so challenging to like step out of that box and make that first move.
Yeah, and I imagine we live in a really different world if we all were living and coming alive to our design, really like the way that we're created. Like people I feel like often will use human design and astrology as like, oh, that's my design. It's like, no, that's like an aspect.
You're here to evolve because everything has unconsciousness. Every sign, every placement, you know, that's your design is such a cop out to like you really coming into who you're here to be. And yeah, the more, I mean, I have a lot of mutable energy.
“So my level of change, like you said, being a catalyst for myself and people is very much a part of who I'm here to be. And settling into that and slowing down enough to really like digest that change has been an important part of my process as well, where I'm not moving too fast or not going too quick to like, oh, how long am I going to be in Portland for? Okay, cool.
And I still wanted to rush the process. I was like, no, I'm ready to get out now.
I'm ready.
I mean, like, okay, let's dial it back. Let's bring it back. We still have stuff to do here.
Just that's interesting because there's a part of you that wants to move on, but then really tuning in to, okay, what's the bigger picture? What? Where am I being guided?
If I let go of my human desires to be in a different place. Yeah. It can be so hard because we have these particular ideas for ourselves, of like, this is how I want my life to go.
“This is what I want it to look like. How do you then reconcile that with like, oh, I'm being shown a completely different direction and that art of like really surrendering to giving up what it is? And then do you feel like in the end, after you do surrender, you ultimately get something even better than what you could have pictured for yourself?
Is that like the jackpot? Or how do you see that?
Yeah. I always check in as far as when I'm surrendering, getting curious what's here, what's here for me now, if this is what's alive, or if there's this desire and it's not being made manifest. Sometimes it's just a changing of perspective.
Like, how does this want to unfold through me rather than me trying to make it happen or force it, like where a lot of people are coming from this? To me, that's like creates burnout and exhaustion. Like, I want to work with the creative life force and that it moves through me, and I don't have to make it happen.
“And so if this is going to move through me, oh, okay, what do I need to do to shift? And sometimes it is just being more patient with ourselves, that it wants to look different. It wants to unfold differently than we imagine.
And if we just do what is our part, we allow for the unfolding to create more magic and more mystery, which to me, that's the goodness of life. Because we would be bored if we knew what the next page or the next chapter was. Even though the part was like, I want to know, I want to know.
We get little foreshadows all the time. If you're paying attention, if you're tuning in, right? There's foreshadows, you're getting breadcrumbs.
What's the next step? Okay, cool. I can do that.
I can tend to that. I can be there with that.
No, for her, I have a line 6 in my profile for human design. I believe you do as well. I know you, I might be a 5-1.
I'm a 1-3.
A 1-3. Okay. Okay.
“Well, with line 6s, they say, don't get attached to any idea of how your life should look. Life is meant to be lived through you. So that's been such a challenge for me of letting go of how I want my life to look, and that attachment that I have to how I think things should be, that creates so much frustration and resistance in my life.
If I could just remember that and come to peace with that, I feel like I would not be so frustrated, and I feel like I'm spinning my wheels all the time. Are there certain markers like that in astrology that help you see those kinds of things about your life, where it's like, okay, you remember, this is a part of who you are, and this is something you just need to be at peace with? Yeah.
So I don't know that I would look at astrology for that. To me, that's more of inner child work. Retending to the inner child, those feelings don't come.
“When you have the feelings of like, it should look a different way, or it should be a different person, or I should be in a different house, or a different car, or a different job. That is, to me, wound work. So I would often look at like archyrons, if I'm looking at an astrology, but I would also look at the placements of your moon, which is normally the inner child as well, the unconscious, the parts of you that are needing to be mothered.
Because when that happens within your own psyche, and this is from personal experience, you stop having those thoughts and feelings, because you're tuning towards yourself, and then that part of you is being integrated. So I feel like the outward expression is, I should be, I should be, is a protective mechanism of wound we're normally not conscious of. And so the more conscious and integrated we are, the more rested and anchored in who we are, we don't have those thoughts and feelings arrived in the first place.
“And so the indication that those thoughts and feelings are arriving is, one, we're not giving ourselves credit for who we are and where we're at and what we're doing and being. And there's, there's like the incessant need for it to be anything other than what it is normally means there's a part of us that is separate from self. So I look at it more from like a wounded place then.
And some of the wounding and charts can look come up through Chiron, but it's not all of it. A lot of it depends on how the moon is aspecting or Pluto is in there, Chiron, like, and that's something I love looking at. Like if I know someone just a little bit, and then I look at their map and I'm like, oh, how does their wounds show up in their design or their path?
Right? Some of it can come across through a lot of asteroids being conjunct. The way that they think and communicate, it can be with their moon.
“So it's not always like, oh, Chiron's the wounded healer teacher. That's like where all the wounding is at. It's like, that's a piece, but it's not where all the wounding can show up.
It can actually show up a lot through the moon because the moon is the inner child, and it's connected with mother. And that's to me, like, our core wound in humanity has a lot to do with the mother because it's separation consciousness. So core wounds have to do with separation of the wholeness, coming back to creator and God.
So it's always going to come back because that's your first orientation of, like, leaving the womb and leaving and coming into your own being and body. You're separate from other, like, boom, like that creates an original wound of separation. I'm separate from wholeness.
“Okay. That's what starts the human journey. And so then everyone has their own special flavor of how that wound shows to teach you who you're here to be, to give yourself the medicine you need to treat the wound, and then have the gift or the gold or the light that shines through the wound as the expression or example of the divine through the human experience of you.
That's why I wouldn't orientate through that.
Drop bombs. Mine's. I know.
I know.
That's why I'm in the process of like, attempting to write some of this down to unpack, like, how to heal your inner child and the wounds and the stories. And yeah, it'd be a series and workshops and a program. And I love this.
This is, I mean, obviously speaking about this is fun for me. And it's also been a very, very challenging journey to navigate my own wounds.
“Yeah. Yeah.
You know, to speak about it from a place of care and compassion and embodiment means like there's been a lot. I personally had to alchemize within myself as a result of human experience.
To have that level of vulnerability means that you've had to create that safety within yourself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. It's no small task.
It definitely shows. So, oh my God, this has been amazing talking with you. And thank you so much for sharing your story and your work in the world.
If people want to work with you, how can they find you?
So I'm on a lot of the social media outlets. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram with my name, Angela Benck, B-E-N-C-K. I can always, I don't know if you put links and show notes or any of that.
I can send the links. And my email, you can do Angela at angelabenck.com. I have a website with my name as well.
“You can Google. It's just spelling the last name, benck.com. I would say a lot of the way that I work or the way that I offer isn't always as simple as the 3D world wants us to be like, I do this and my session work looks like this.
When you work with a lot of spirits and shamanic stuff, it is very unknown and it's very ethereal. So I become a container. I hold the space.
But what moves through isn't always planned or what's expected. And that's very, very much like life too. But I believe in creating safe containers, containers out of integrity and being able to work with men and women.
I've been coaching for about almost a decade now, I think like eight or nine years. And I've been holding medicine ceremonies for almost as long as well, and working with medicine. And yeah, in the process of doing more in-person work in Portland, which is really exciting, I taught an ancestral class with you, or a partner, which was really, really sweet, and I'm excited.
It's such a cool experience.
“Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going slow with bringing bigger teachings and offerings.
Like I've done the online sphere for a long time, and it feels very sweet to start doing stuff in person again.
Yeah. You're talking about that year. Yeah.
It's there. It's in our backyard.
You got it already?
Well, here. It's here. Okay.
Okay. Okay.
We're in the process of soft pitching. Yeah. So if there's anyone that you know or that watches the podcast, I believe it will be up by March.
I mean, we're coming.
Oh, exciting. Okay.
So I think it's going to move rapidly.
Things with you tend to do that.
If you want your life launched into another stratosphere of consciousness.
Contact Angela.
Come on in. Come on in. Let's talk.
“Yeah. I feel like you pushed me off a cliff. I didn't even know I needed to fall from, and here we are.
It's been awesome. Thanks for inviting me on. It's been fun.
From High Vibe Heather: 38. Animist Healing with Angela Benck, Mar 19, 2025
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/high-vibe-heather/id1733938562?i=1000699927434&r=3170
This material may be protected by copyright.
KEY POINTS COVERED
- What is animist healing
- How your astrology points to where you have wounding
- The importance of integration work
CONNECT WITH Angela
- Follow her on Instagram
- Visit her website: angelabenck.com
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
If you have questions or feedback, I'd love to hear from you. You can DM me on Instagram @high.vibe.heather.
