Moonstruck
The man lives of Flash Silvermoon: Wiccan priestess, psychic, tarot card reader, singer, song writer, animal activist
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Down a long country road there is an Appaloosa mare who roams the yard in front of a purple house. On this humid autumn day the horse is looking in the window.
A woman exits the lavender French doors; her long grayish-brown hair is set against a t-shirt adorned with wolves running through the snow and black spandex pants. She stretches out her arm, a silver and stone bracelet attached to her thick wrist, and pats the horse’s left shoulder.
“Chinamoon is actually the reincarnation of Moonshadow, my old German shepherd,” she says.
The woman hears the horse say that she wants her aura rubbed. She holds her arms out about a foot from the horse and begins rubbing the air.
“See, she is almost dreamy now,” she says. “Chinamooooon, Chinamooooon,” she chants.
The woman snaps her fingers at the horse and brings her back into the physical world. Chinamoon likes to be rubbed physically, “but she loves it when I rub her aura,” she says.
“The more you reach out to their [animals] spirits, the more likely they are to communicate.”
The woman, Flash Silvermoon, extends her animal telepathy and healing hands beyond her own horse. She is an animal communicator, psychic, past life regressionist, musician, astrologer, author, teacher, shaman, Wiccan priestess and activist.
The Animal Communicator
Flash enters her house and opens the window so Chinamoon can stick her head inside. Nuzzling her face with Chinamoon’s, Flash scoops up Star, her beige, blue-eyed cat and cradles her like a baby.
Flash closes the window and the horse stands a few inches from the French doors. “She does not understand why she is the only dog not allowed to come inside.” Five cats, a dog named Apple and Chinamoon reside at Flash’s home in Melrose, Florida. The pets act like family “because they are.”
“It is much easier to communicate with other people’s animals because there are not the emotional barriers that can come with family,” says Flash.
Guy Webster, owner of Earth Pets Natural Pet Market in Gainesville, has witnessed Flash’s ability to communicate with animals for years.
“I have been a believer for a long time,” he says. “She’s got stuff going on.”
During event days at the store Flash gives animals mini readings which last about 10 minutes. “People feel comfortable asking her anything about their pets, even if their family and friends think they are crazy,” Guy says.
Flash walks through her office, moving past dozens of stones, sarongs, and photos from her youth, to the dining room table. She shows pictures of Ricky the monkey in which he is painting and doing Stevie Wonder impressions. Flash works with a non-profit monkey sanctuary called Jungle Friends.
Kari Bagnall, an employee of Jungle Friends, recalls the time Flash helped save Lulu, a monkey who arrived comatose from being given a sedative after escaping from an animal sanctuary. Kari consulted Flash and she told her to sing a song with the monkey’s name in it. Then Kari sang “Little Lulu, Little Lulu, a boo boo on your head, always in and out of trouble, she was very nearly dead.”
Lulu sat up and started screaming. Kari continued to sing the song with the Lulu’s name in it and it soothed her. Lulu is now in the habitat with the other healthy monkeys.
Flash helps with the Big Cat Sanctuary in Citra, Fla. She places photos of Duke, “one of the biggest and most splendid tigers you will ever see”, on the table tells of a time when he was comatose and near death due to an unknown illness. The pictures show Flash in the cage with the sleeping tiger, treating him with flower essences, healing touch and speaking to him. “Within 10 minutes the tiger was standing straight, bright-eyed and alert, “she says.
At dinnertime Flash unloads cans of cat food on the counter and talks to the animals, calling each pet in a different tone of voice. She walks past the water dishes which have a couple fist size stones placed in them for energy, and jokes that she is at the bottom of the food chain. She is diabetic and ready for pizza, but must tend to her beloved animals.
“I feel so incredibly lucky to have a life with so much creativity,” she says. “To be able to talk to monkeys, tigers, newborn fillies, it’s wonderful.”
The Musician
Flash stands at the keyboard in her living room, a room filled with hundreds of stones and crystals and furniture with sarongs draped over the tattered material, adjusts the microphone, and begins singing “N’Awlins on my Mind,” a song that “demanded to be written” after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Flash squints her eyes and turns her head, her long hair hanging in front of her freckled face.
“Children starving in the streets with not enough to eat,” she sings. “No roof over their heads, too many needlessly dead.”
Flash’s rich bluesy voice fills the house and the dark paneled walls vibrate.
Two posters of Janis Joplin hang next to her music corner. Janis “started to come to me spiritually after she died. It was sort of like having a roommate for a while.”
Originally from New Jersey, Flash played music all over the Greenwich Village in New York as a teenager, sometimes playing with Bruce Springsteen.
Tara Allen, Flash’s one time romantic partner and friend of 15 years, says Flash can play anything by ear. “She is intelligent, particularly in regards to music. Flash has a deep understanding of rhythm,” she says. “She takes her little chubby fingers and makes music out of them.”
Flash has two albums, “Phases of the Silvermoon” and “Debut,” and is working on a third.
“An artist’s job is to find a way to elevate and inspire people and lift them out of their pain. This is what all great music is there for.”
The Psychic
Flash sits in the room, the only sound the faint clanking of a wind chime hanging from the ceiling fan. Flash, who first felt her psychic abilities as a child, uses this room for her psychic readings.
Flash has completed a 25-year project to create a new, global and matriarchal tarot deck. Flash is now world-renowned for the new tarot deck, which features pictures of people from all nationalities and races.
All people have some psychic abilities but most people ignore their intuition. “There is usually a physical reason behind intuitive feelings.”
Flash, who believes most people have had at least 100 lives, does past-life regression, which she believes is a way to move through problems that a person cannot resolve in this life because issues bleed through from one life to another.
Flash says in one of her past lives she was a child prodigy who was beaten to death by her family. However, in most of her past lives she was a healer, such as her life as an aboriginal Shaman in Australia. Flash published a book, “The Temple of Isis,” about her life as a priestess in Isis.
Flash has also been an astrologer for 35 years. “If someone is going through a deep depression it will show up in their charts. People have told me they have better results in 30 minutes than with six months of therapy,” she says.
The Speaker
A couple times a year Flash speaks to professor Judy Ann Turner’s class about ancient rituals and witchcraft. On this muggy day Flash has a classroom of about 20 students. She lays a cloth on the desk, spreads a variety of things such as stones, her tarot cards and crystals.
Flash lifts a shell filled with sage and cedar and tries to light it. She burns her finger.
“Ouch, burning witches has already been done,” she says. “It would be a good idea for me not to do it to myself.”
Once the sage is lit she waves an eagle feather over the shell to spread the smoke. The door is open in order to let the negative ions leave.
Flash tells the class that she is a “Dianic Wiccan” but explains that she is not traditional. She incorporates Native American and African roots and now considers herself to be more like a shaman because she does healing in every aspect of her life. Sometimes people are weary of her psychic abilities and beliefs, she says.
“If people knew me, they would know I am the most moral person”
At the end of the class Flash offers to give a few mini readings. A 19-year-old student raises his hand. Flash asks for his first name and date of birth. She shuffles through the tarot cards for a few seconds and then says “Aren’t you waiting for something now?” She looks at him and says “It has been very confusing for you.” His face is the color of a strawberry. He laughs and puts his face on the desk.
“It has been in this gray area for a longtime and will stay there. This person doesn’t know what they’re doing,” she says. “Does that make sense? “she asks.
“Sure does,” he says.
Dr. Turner first discovered Flash by word of mouth. She is a “fixture in local lore,” she says. She found Flash’s number in the yellow pages under “psychic.” Dr. Turner, who considers herself to be objective and skeptical, first went for a reading before asking Flash to be a guest speaker. “When Flash first began lecturing six years ago it seemed like she had about 80 percent accuracy with the readings, but now it seems more like 100 percent,” Dr. Turner says.
“I believe she is sincere about everything she does.”
Stones, Flowers and Activism
Flash went to college during the Vietnam War and was a key player in the anti-war and feminist movement, she says. She helped with protests and worked with well known feminists such as Kate Millet. “In the 60s we thought the revolution was right around the corner, and it was.” During college, right-wing conservatives were putting death threats on her door due to her involvement in the feminist and anti-war movement. Being a feminist means being pro women, she says.
“Things are a lot easier because of things me and other women did,” she says.
Flash, who is an activist for civil rights, animal rights, women’s rights and gay rights, says people must not lose hope. People must be open and not shut down and fear and hopelessness, she says. Flash holds benefit concerts for causes she believes in such as Gay Pride Week and hurricane relief.
Flash has written several books, including The Woman’s Tarot and Flash Silvermoon’s Planetary Playbook.
“Sometimes the best medicine is being creative,” she says.
Another medicine Flash uses is flower essences. They “grease the wheel for change,” she says. Each flower has its own vibration which can be used to open the heart or banish fear.
“It’s amazing to see how it works for animals,” she says.
Flash, who has had an interest in stones since childhood, uses stones to heal. She uses stones to balance different chakras of the body. She holds a pink stone to my heart and asks how it feels. Feeling nothing, I shrug my shoulders. “Some people are more sensitive to stones than others,” says. Then she holds one of her healing tools, several stones attached to a flat stone, and waves it from my head to my toes.
“Do you feel it wiping you clean?” she asks. “This one’s for flow.”
Flash uses crystals to focus energy and she has stones placed strategically around the house to keep it energized, she says.
Flash at the End of the Day
The plants in Flash’s yard are large, with elephant ears as big as trees and philodendrons as large as humans. “Everything grows big here. It’s because of the energy work I do. It’s not that I sit out here and say grow, grow, but the vibrational energy effects everything.” Flash calls to Jasmine, a black cat she refers to as her “outside diva”, and calls for Apple who is rolling in the grass nearby. As night fall sets in Flash plucks yellow angel trumpets from a bush and scans the yard. Most of the world does not understand that what she does spiritually, multiculturally and physically is “a gift.” Tonight, settled in her home with her herd, she may write lyrics, or have a phone call asking for a psychic reading, or stay up until 3 a.m. singing. “It has never been scary for me to do the work I do. When it needs to be done, I do it.”