Missing Witches - 2023 Solstice Special and Yuletide Party!

00:00:00.000 Oh, we will die, oh, solstice, oh, the longest night of the year.

00:00:16.320 We gather together to share our hope and our fear, cause we are riches in the night.

00:00:34.260 We are wishes we bring our own light to the solstice at yuletide on the longest night of a year.

00:00:51.260 Please bring us together to share our hope and our cheer, because we are witches of the night.

00:01:09.180 We are witches, we make our own night on the solstice, at Yuletide, on the longest night of the year.

00:01:26.140 Please bring us together to share our warmth and our cheer

00:01:35.360 As we are witches of the night

00:01:44.140 We are witches, we make our own light

00:01:52.460 Peace on earth, happy souls, in the northern hemisphere

00:01:55.580 The winter solstice marks the date at which the sunlit hours are shortest and the darkened hours are longest.

00:02:02.900 This, due to the tilt of the Earth's axis, is an astronomical fact.

00:02:09.120 Happy solstice.

00:02:11.240 We are witches.

00:02:15.520 We are witches.

00:02:20.180 Science is magic.

00:02:23.920 Merry you all.

00:02:24.840 That's it, we love you.

00:02:25.980 We love you.

00:02:27.140 I love you guys.

00:02:28.320 It's all just that you'll die on the longest night of the year.

00:02:36.820 Please bring us together to share our warmth and our cheer.

00:02:45.740 Because we are witches of the night.

00:02:53.500 We dance in the darkest dark of the night, and we return, we call the return of the light.

00:03:19.460 Yay!

00:03:21.660 Good for you all, guys.

00:03:23.500 happy solstice party happy solstice party happy december new moon i wanted to thank you so much

00:03:34.720 for being here in these strange strange days it's just really so beautiful to see your faces i've

00:03:45.560 been so I don't know you know lost and sunken and it's just um let's just be together and see what

00:03:56.860 what we can weave you know just just be in the darkest of days and be that little little holler

00:04:04.660 of a yule song um I'm so excited to see what people brought um I'm Risa from the Missy Witches

00:04:11.380 podcast i'm a 43 year old white lady in a new pink hat hot pink hat um and uh a my mother-in-law's

00:04:22.540 leopard print capelet um and uh i want to invite us at first to light a candle

00:04:32.280 let's just take a breath if you have one or take a sip of something

00:04:39.780 or just rub your hands together i brought a pine candle to conjure the

00:04:53.180 the scent of either being in the forest or if you live in the city sometimes there are big lots

00:05:02.920 of Christmas tree cellars and everything smells like the city until you get to that one block

00:05:11.180 and the whole of the air is just filled with the scent of pine

00:05:15.680 so I'm lighting this pine candle to conjure that for all of us use your sense memory

00:05:22.680 if you can to conjure the scent of pine

00:05:25.140 i'm lighting a candle that was given to us at a bookstore that is a cauldron candle that says

00:05:34.600 it smells like toil and trouble so i'm throwing a little bit of toil and trouble on our altar today

00:05:40.640 i'm going to start with this reading it's from our book new moon magic in the dark of the

00:05:49.140 Sagittarian new moon, I invite you to become your most fully realized kitchen witch. Light a single

00:05:56.000 candle before each meal. Stir maple syrup into coffee clockwise while you call forward what you

00:06:01.460 need. Map your desires onto every water glass and gulp it down. Plan the coming days and weeks like

00:06:07.640 a recipe. How will you nourish yourself and your community? What will you invite into your system?

00:06:14.440 over the years i've moved deeper into this woods life and evolved out of my former shapes i've

00:06:21.400 been slowing down i feel older and sometimes calmer i feel my identity shifting into something

00:06:26.980 participatory an ingredient in the lake system that moves through me and my family i have become

00:06:33.100 an ingredient in something larger than my potions and i have become a potion maker

00:06:37.240 and so on the sagittarian new moon i invite you to join me

00:06:41.340 let's use food and drink to cast spells of gathering of love and hope of family weaving

00:06:48.320 of transubstantiation and renewal let's make potions that speak to our skins our shells our

00:06:55.140 flora the nerve fibers that hum from taste buds sense receptors emotions the electrical linings

00:07:01.720 of our digestive systems potions for our outsides whispering in and our insides singing out let's

00:07:09.180 make a magic that is material, commingling with our sweat, our stomach acids, our blood, our biome.

00:07:17.160 Our crafting in this dark moon draws us closer, into the leaky spiraling circle of becoming with,

00:07:23.480 to the juicy apple of the knowledge of good and evil, and to stories that include the human,

00:07:28.680 the hunter, but aren't about him, to a pouch, a net, a soup pot that holds both light and dark,

00:07:35.160 theft and inspiration, crone and mother, seed and stone, nourishment and poison, patient and poet.

00:07:43.220 If we are to dedicate ourselves to resisting the total consumption and destruction of all

00:07:48.720 biodiversity and to re-enchanting the world with seeds, storying and worlding that becomes with

00:07:55.000 the more than human world, then we do well to take up the cauldron of possibilities

00:07:59.600 that we call kitchen magic.

00:08:03.580 The experience of crafting food

00:08:05.500 is a time-traveling, shape-shifting potion

00:08:07.720 that allows us to step into another dimension.

00:08:11.620 We cross time, we taste for a little while another culture.

00:08:15.400 We travel into the home of the recipe writer.

00:08:18.380 There are always memories with us when we cook.

00:08:20.840 Who ground the flour?

00:08:22.380 Who knew to heat the pan before you crack the egg?

00:08:25.180 Who taught you?

00:08:26.420 Who is here?

00:08:29.600 and so I add this to our introductions today I invite you to use the reactions thing on zoom

00:08:40.240 to put your hand up if at any point today in our call you are willing to put yourself on the altar

00:08:49.140 of the call what is it do you have a did you bring a talent to share is there a song is it a reading

00:08:56.140 you want to just tell us something we're so excited and I invite you when you introduce

00:09:02.240 yourself to tell us who is with you who is here um so I I just want to um circle back to Risa and

00:09:14.880 your your kitchen party um this time of year is it's all about how we gravitate to the kitchen

00:09:22.700 And I think for us witches, we can think of the cauldron and what we add to the cauldron in this circle being our cauldron.

00:09:31.000 At the beginning of the episode, you heard our Missing Witches Yule Carol as performed by the Missing Witches Choir.

00:09:38.600 And last year, we started another tradition of inviting our coven to share in the telling and retelling of the story of our lives, because this is a time that we come together.

00:09:53.920 Maybe Aaron will talk about this more, but if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, and I will say most of our listeners do, also Ukraine, Russia, Israel, Palestine, these are all places in the Northern Hemisphere.

00:10:08.460 and on December 21st, we all experienced the longest night of the year. We are all in this

00:10:17.940 together, and if nothing else, we can take this astronomical phenomenon as a reminder that we all

00:10:26.940 have a voice in the choir, that in this space and in this world, we all have a voice in this choir,

00:10:35.240 And today we are sharing an experience. Half the world is sharing this experience. We share experiences of mourning and of joy. And when we come together at this kitchen party with this cauldron in the middle on these in these dark, dark, dark nights, we can join this wire.

00:11:00.440 I see we have a very very very special guest today it looks like the one and only Baba Yaga

00:11:08.560 has joined us from I guess we'll find out what realm thank you what an honor to have you in

00:11:18.260 circle with us tonight, Baba Yaga. How are you? I am very, very, very happy to be here

00:11:27.040 with you. I am Baba Yaga. If you don't know me already, one thing you can know is I am

00:11:43.940 older than time. I am the mother tree. I'm so deep in the forest that you don't see.

00:11:58.160 I live where the heart of the world beats, in the crosshairs of the understory, mycelial

00:12:09.900 networks

00:12:10.960 among the

00:12:13.460 gnarled tree roots

00:12:15.240 that some

00:12:17.540 people think are my

00:12:19.080 house's chicken feet

00:12:21.500 and some

00:12:25.220 people think that

00:12:27.300 the round trunk

00:12:29.180 of my world tree

00:12:30.740 is a circling house

00:12:33.320 and there

00:12:35.300 are stories about that

00:12:37.380 and

00:12:39.900 In this world tree, I am busy, I am birthing the worlds, one after the other.

00:12:54.980 some people want to come find me

00:13:02.360 you might not

00:13:06.800 but you may take the underworld journey

00:13:10.860 and along the way

00:13:14.660 you will get caught

00:13:16.420 in the tangled web of my mushroom tendrils 0.98

00:13:20.760 in here you can become deceased

00:13:26.420 you can destruct your body 0.99

00:13:30.580 and be composted into the birth of my next world 0.89

00:13:35.840 you can also

00:13:40.340 deconstruct your mind

00:13:42.360 untie the tangles

00:13:46.020 of patriarchy

00:13:48.100 Dismantle and destroy exploitation and hierarchy.

00:13:59.160 Confront your own fears and find your own powers

00:14:04.020 to complete the impossible, impossible tasks

00:14:09.300 like stopping war, stopping the genocide,

00:14:14.240 stopping the pipelines,

00:14:18.100 the extractions, the psychopathic leaders in the child's slavery.

00:14:26.700 Then, then I will show you where you can retrieve the red-jeweled seeds of life

00:14:34.440 from your own flesh, and these will be your gifts that you will bring to the light

00:14:42.140 to share with the world,

00:14:45.360 the new world that I am birthing right now.

00:14:50.780 It is not better to do one thing or another.

00:14:56.940 That is patriarchal thinking.

00:15:00.180 But it is your choice,

00:15:02.400 and you must choose a journey.

00:15:06.880 And that is a fact, a fact.

00:15:12.140 And on your journey, I want you to remember in the deep, deep forest, multiplicity is

00:15:22.740 how we stay balanced and diversity is how we thrive.

00:15:30.940 Baba Yaga loves you all on the longest night of the year.

00:15:42.140 love you baba yaga i love your grin too underneath your cloak

00:15:48.140 little wicked witch oh man thanks so much dem hope you're gonna go you're gonna go from there 0.92

00:15:59.140 into into the next where i don't have anything as close to baba yaga 0.77

00:16:05.220 nothing will ever be the same it's fine they're all we're all in the roots

00:16:10.040 no um well like my life has been like crazy this is like my this is literally my favorite time of

00:16:18.760 the year um it always starts from halloween so in on and then you hit january and that's the 0.78

00:16:26.360 fucking monday of the year i'm sorry if anybody has a birthday in january i forgive you because 0.91

00:16:31.660 that is the worst i'm not that's the wrong word i've been drinking can you tell i'm in party mode 0.97

00:16:36.580 Okay, let me restart. If your birthday is in January, I'm really sorry that you have to deal with that month because I think that month is so sad. Anyway, okay, December. I have been in, you know, my whole gift creation month.

00:16:58.640 this is my magical time of the year. I make so many different things, everybody in my heart,

00:17:05.920 in my mind. As many of you know, I make things anyways, just because I love you. And I send it

00:17:11.360 to you just because I love you. But this year is like this time of the year is like different too.

00:17:17.140 So like I made this lovely shirt for tonight. And I did it just before the shirt that we started.

00:17:25.900 so i'm a little bit um and you can tell my my blessed you all y'all this is my room this is

00:17:33.880 like my craziness this is berserk mode um i've got things going all over the country studio

00:17:40.380 it's your artist studio it is my studio and it's it's it's a mess and if you came in here i think 0.99

00:17:46.960 anybody would be like but it's my mess and i know exactly where everything is so don't fucking touch 0.92

00:17:51.980 it um and I'm just I don't last year I read a reading and I I didn't get ready for that this 0.84

00:18:00.100 year I'm sorry everyone it's been tough um I'm hearing all of you that have been sick we've had

00:18:06.340 a lot of illness in the household and I'm doing everything I can to stay away from that so I don't

00:18:11.300 get sick because that can take me down for like a month um and I'm really like I'm sending out all 0.96

00:18:20.200 my energy and linda told me she's been sick amy my god covid what the fuck um can that can this 1.00

00:18:27.600 not be over can we not be done with this shit um i'm just so pissed um my daughter's been fighting 1.00

00:18:35.480 it's not covid but there's this new thing called white lung is what she read about it um 0.99

00:18:42.340 and it just for a month she's had this bronchitis that won't go away she's gone through four

00:18:47.960 different rounds of antibiotics in a month and a half like what um so my heart goes out to all of

00:18:56.080 you um I a lot of the stuff that I've done for this year has been 100% you all related and it's

00:19:04.740 in my heart in my mind giving out as gifts to people that would not understand that um typically

00:19:11.500 that is my gig um even the teas that i make they're always based upon my form of magic

00:19:20.340 healing magic um people don't know and that's cool i'm good with that i know and the universe

00:19:27.820 knows spirit knows that's what matters to me um i'm not going to keep this long because there's

00:19:33.440 so many people out there they're going to be able to do some like amazing things and freaking bob

00:19:36.720 yoga i'm sorry i'm gonna that is going to be my my thing for the night so love you um happy yule

00:19:46.220 to everybody happy holidays um i really need the universe to get there you know help us we have

00:19:55.000 so many people

00:19:56.360 suffering and in pain right now um you know we keep forgetting about 0.96

00:20:03.940 um the ukraine and uh you know all the shit that's been happening but my god ukraine um so

00:20:14.100 we really need to send our our magic and our energy um for those that are suffering

00:20:20.660 in all of the countries tonight that's all i have to say happy you love you we love you too hope and

00:20:30.240 for the listening audience can you describe your sweatshirt that you made please

00:20:36.640 yes um so it just says blessed yule and um it's it's a stag so it's kind of represents

00:20:46.400 scotland for me um yeah amy you and i need to get together like it's too hard to try to

00:20:53.560 talk about it on circle um but i would really love to hear what your experience in scotland was

00:21:01.360 um i still can't yeah i think about it literally every day of my life now i work scotland into

00:21:09.520 every part of my life um i've always been connected to that entire part of the world

00:21:15.320 actually touching this. I went with my husband to this outdoor museum up in Carragorn and

00:21:25.040 it was the Highland Museum. And one of the ladies that I talked to, she mentioned, you know, I said

00:21:34.300 to her, you know, I feel like as soon as I landed and my feet touched the ground that I was home

00:21:41.140 and I I felt like I came home and um there's a term a Gaelic a Gaelic

00:21:50.340 term for that and I she said it so fast that I couldn't couldn't remember it have you ever heard

00:21:57.440 Amy are you do you ever get into the whole Gaelic side of things by any chance

00:22:02.080 no okay i i am i'm on the search for the there's like an entire like saying

00:22:11.120 for that it's truly spiritual um how our spirit knows where it's meant to be and

00:22:19.440 i found scotland's really my place so anyway this is my shirt it's and i'm making another one um

00:22:27.620 about um the the holly and the ivy um so as soon as i make that and i have it done i will post a

00:22:37.480 picture of it on circle for everybody to see that's it that's it i had to stop because i had

00:22:51.840 to look up is the word hireth h-i-r-e-a-t-h it's like a longing and a homesickness for a place

00:23:01.020 you've never been yeah i'll send it to you my my brother-in-law is was so moved by that word and

00:23:09.480 that feeling he writes and thinks about it often so yeah i'll send it to you that homesick for a

00:23:16.340 place we've never been I certainly know that for this idea of a peaceful world I feel like I know

00:23:23.500 it I feel like I know what it's like I miss it Erin who are you today who is with you what have

00:23:32.500 you brought them oh my goodness my oh I'm the other Erin I just put my hand up and I was like

00:23:39.160 don't go right to me go to the other folks you put your hand up and someone said your name so

00:23:44.740 that's Aaron I get it other Aaron I was literally about to ask me Aaron or a different Aaron

00:23:53.040 there's always many errands there are always many errands you know it's funny I didn't know a ton

00:24:02.420 of other people with my name until I got older and then in my professional life I keep running

00:24:10.060 into other errands um and then also in my witchy life I keep running into other errands so the

00:24:19.560 sociologist in me wants to go back and like interview people's parents to try to understand

00:24:25.400 why they picked that name um but that's yeah no I gotta I gotta focus on my dissertation

00:24:34.740 um I am trying really hard to like um I'm trying to really bring like a spirit of calm into the

00:24:42.480 space because I I realized yesterday that we only had like two more work weeks before the

00:24:51.340 end of the year and we had like three more weeks worth of work to do um and yeah there's just a

00:25:00.500 lot going on but I'm here I'm with my dog Watson who has a lot of feelings about the fact that we

00:25:07.500 didn't get to go for a walk today so I apologize if you hear from him um I really feel everyone's

00:25:16.660 like just that ongoing soul cry of how awful the world is right now um I've been like trying to

00:25:26.960 stay out of twitter fights the last 24 hours because I work in abortion access and abortion

00:25:33.460 research and um I you know with the the case out of Texas with Kate Cox there's a lot of like

00:25:43.200 scaremongering and misinformation and then like you know the orgs that I volunteer with are like

00:25:50.120 you know let's try to redirect people like let's get on twitter and try to try to calm people down

00:25:55.980 and give them ways to act and I was driving today and thinking about Mr. Rogers and the the idea

00:26:03.700 that like when bad things happen you should look for the helpers and I think I would add to that

00:26:09.600 like you should look for the helpers and join them like don't just look for the helpers to feel

00:26:15.580 better about the fact that people are helping but like find a way to be a helper and yeah I think

00:26:24.680 my practice this year for Yule is going to be to try to find like what is the light that I am

00:26:32.880 birthing in the midst of the darkness and so for Yule night I'm going to sit down and write some

00:26:38.920 letters to my representatives for maybe about abortion access maybe about the Israel-Palestine

00:26:48.700 conflict. We'll see what the spirit moves me to do. But what I actually wanted to share this evening

00:26:54.660 was a poem that I wrote years ago that I was reminded of at our last circle, our last new

00:27:03.580 moon circle, that I wrote about my relationship with my mother. And I felt like it would be

00:27:09.580 really appropriate for the Yule season because a lot of us see family around this time of year

00:27:15.000 and maybe have complicated feelings about that um and I'm sure that most of us have heard the song

00:27:23.320 um I am my mother's savage daughter so someone rewrote that to be I am not I'm not my mother's

00:27:31.940 savage daughter and on the one hand I love it because like I am not the daughter my mother

00:27:38.060 planned for but there's also a part of me that's like no I am my mother's savage daughter like she

00:27:44.220 doesn't understand how I came out of her, but I see her in my wildness. So that is what this

00:27:53.040 poem is about. It's called Matriarchy. My grandmother was a poet. She grew up in Arkansas, 1.00

00:28:04.180 poor white trash, and studied by candlelight after everyone else was asleep, praying that her mother 0.99

00:28:10.340 wouldn't find her because gracious heavens, Lena Grace, who's going to want to marry a girl with an 1.00

00:28:15.300 education? So she put herself through a year of university after she finished high school

00:28:20.640 and filled notebook after notebook with her poems. She married a younger man and raised three

00:28:27.960 daughters alone while he worked on the railroad, coming home every few days to sleep. She cleaned

00:28:33.920 the houses of rich women across town to make ends meet and taught fancy manners to her girls, 1.00

00:28:39.700 hoping they were meant for something better than blue-collar husbands and ketchup sandwiches. 1.00

00:28:46.260 My mother, arguably, is the best of her sisters. Certainly, she is the steadiest. 1.00

00:28:52.900 When it came time for her to start college, her mother sat her down and said,

00:28:57.580 education is all well and good, but promise me that when you finish, you'll be able to

00:29:02.220 do something, Rebecca, because what feeds your soul won't necessarily buy you groceries.

00:29:07.460 so she put away her dreams of studying piano and studied accounting instead finding an unexpected

00:29:14.080 gift in the patient predictability of numbers she dated my father for four years and when her

00:29:20.920 parents despaired of it going anywhere she asked him to buy her a promise ring refusing to be rushed

00:29:26.920 to the altar she wore classic tastefully cut suits on sunday mornings and lived within the

00:29:33.160 carefully painted lines of an appropriately submissive pastor's wife. And so I find myself

00:29:40.940 the dead end of a long line of women determined not to be like their mothers, of girls who spend 0.85

00:29:48.260 so much time pushing back that they struggle to find the border between me and not you. 0.94

00:29:54.620 But no matter how much red lipstick I wear, no matter how much cleavage I show, or how much

00:29:59.720 loud music I listen to, I will always be my mother's daughter. Because bullheadedness is in

00:30:06.740 my genes, just like it was in hers. And because I am a poet and a musician, and I love learning

00:30:14.200 so much more than I love the safety and security of a spouse. And someday, if I do marry, it will

00:30:21.700 be someone entirely unlike my father, who will love that I paint outside the lines. And we will

00:30:27.620 raise our girls to be just as brilliantly stupidly stubborn as all cook women are 1.00

00:30:33.520 thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to share friends happy yule 1.00

00:30:39.420 i also saw jasmine having a full body full body fist bump to your to your poem so maybe let's

00:30:51.380 pass the mic to jasmine thank you again aaron thank you aaron i felt that one 0.95

00:30:56.440 erin how dare you call out the oil and water mothers and daughters

00:31:04.940 that was awesome i'm gonna try not to cry to that amazing um

00:31:13.180 hi everybody my name is jasmine and my pronouns are she they i am a uh white uh long dark-haired

00:31:24.580 fat individual who's sitting down and is wearing black clothes and showing off some tattooage

00:31:32.400 because that's how we're feeling tonight. I am coming bringing my voice because I have not used

00:31:41.940 it for two weeks. I had my tonsils taken out thanks to long COVID and wouldn't wish that

00:31:50.380 procedure on my worst enemy. Um, so now I can speak and my voice sounds slightly different to

00:31:59.960 me, which as a neurodivergent person, this is taking some adjustment, but, uh, we're getting

00:32:09.100 there. I just went back to work today and the students were so excited and, uh, there's eight

00:32:17.000 days left of school so it's holiday holiday holiday every day um the vibes in the building

00:32:25.720 even though we are exhausted are still immaculate and so um i recently listened to the most recent

00:32:35.000 um missing witches podcast and amy you were talking about my favorite song of all time in

00:32:41.100 the whole world when you said get it while you can girl i was yelling at the phone listening

00:32:51.700 to the podcast going like like air fist bumps the whole time um it's so topical for today

00:33:00.560 what's going on in the world and what has been the one thing covid and i guess everything i'm

00:33:09.740 an elder millennial, so we've experienced a lot. It just doesn't stop. Like Jana said,

00:33:19.560 you do have to get it while you can. And as a fat woman, that has not always been the case 1.00

00:33:29.180 because we are so scared to exist in spaces and take up spaces

00:33:36.200 um but many of you know i'm recently back on the dating market

00:33:41.940 and let me tell you uh occupying space is lovely

00:33:50.000 and individuals take note and it's quite nice i don't need outward validation but it's

00:33:58.840 nice so i wrote this poem today it's bit of a found poem of things that i have heard over the

00:34:07.500 past week from the missing witches podcast from movies and shows that i've watched um from

00:34:15.940 individuals who have heartily attempted to win me over some have and and i think

00:34:25.520 for my mental health as much as i want to be proactive and be a helper i also need to step

00:34:35.800 back and enjoy and enjoy the pleasure that life can absolutely be and the holidays as someone who

00:34:46.320 has central and eastern european roots german roots where really christmas kind of exploded

00:34:52.040 this is a very joyful pleasurable time I've already eaten my weight in Lindor chocolate

00:34:59.760 balls and you know the the we're just going to keep going with it so this is a bit of a found

00:35:06.360 poem I guess it's more of an incantation so just like I did with the access needs

00:35:12.200 presentation I want to sort of give this out as more of like a spell

00:35:19.260 an affirmation so here we go tonight i bring pleasure and delicious darkness

00:35:28.740 a life of get it while you can because we won't get out alive auntie mame told us that life is 0.58

00:35:37.640 a banquet and most poor suckers choose to starve to death so live deliciously because you are 0.99

00:35:46.060 beautiful, sexy, sensual in your neuroqueer, disabled, chronically ill mad life, in your 0.99

00:35:54.680 burn it all down and build it back up community building life. And when they say, I cannot stop 0.99

00:36:02.220 thinking about you, or your witchcraft turns me on, or the things I want to do to you, or even

00:36:11.660 i want to make love to you on the ashes of capitalism take all that power in let none of 0.98

00:36:23.340 it out save it for your darkness your cold your dead and your dying and turn it into magic 0.99

00:36:32.940 let none of it go to waste turn it inwards and lick it like honey off your lips 0.99

00:36:40.260 and savor its sweetness and so it is within you and me so welcome yule and blessed fucking be 0.97

00:36:50.600 thanks everybody i love you all very much

00:36:55.560 that was um thank you for that incantation may we all live jasmine's poem and i do want to say

00:37:06.700 before we get off the topic of you know our favorite sad girl that um when jenna shoplin 0.96

00:37:12.920 went away to school her classmates voted her ugliest man on campus can you fucking believe 0.95

00:37:19.840 that um and that probably would have destroyed me but she was like oh this face we're gonna put 0.98

00:37:28.000 this face on the cover of the rolling stone so take that and i try to remember that you know

00:37:35.720 like your classmates or whoever take the metaphor wherever you want to take it they can say what you

00:37:41.000 want but you're going to be on the cover of the rolling stone cheers to that heather

00:37:48.360 happy solstice happy solstice i'm heather darby de marco um middle age-ish white lady with very

00:37:58.680 big gray hair i think the older i get the bigger it gets it just has like its own little life

00:38:04.240 that it lives with or without my permission um usually i'm the flame tender but i think 0.95

00:38:11.100 jasmine's the flame tender tonight hi fucking hot okay tonight i'm the bell ringer and you 0.82

00:38:19.100 might not be able to hear the bell so let's see 0.93

00:38:21.400 this bell is an actual school bell that I purchased from a very haunted

00:38:44.200 um antique shop and it sounds like a school bell it's big and loud and this little bell

00:38:51.720 sounds tinkly and sweet like kind of like a sleigh bell but um a little higher like it

00:38:59.400 might actually have come from the heavens at one point

00:39:02.280 um the reason I'm the bell ringer tonight is because I dreamt bells this week

00:39:17.600 um I think when you are awakened by bells it has very specific meanings to me but mostly it is an

00:39:27.460 alarm or an alert but it's also a wake-up call like spirit is going wake up right now whatever

00:39:34.500 you're doing that you need to banish whatever is bothering you it is time to ring those bells and

00:39:40.740 get that out of the way and I thought this and then I picked up my seasons of the witch yule

00:39:48.300 oracle by Juliet Diaz and um Lorraine Anderson and I pulled a card and I got ringing of the

00:39:57.180 bells so i'm like okay spirit we hear you i know you can't see um the card is a big deer with a

00:40:06.380 stag with antlers and um a little bells around their neck um and it's by a snow flocked um

00:40:15.660 pine tree of some sort and the card says ring thy bell to cast them out ring thy bell and dance

00:40:24.480 about swirl the sounds amidst the winds nowhere to hide for all will ring

00:40:31.840 um you have pulled ringing the bells because something distressing is in your life and you

00:40:41.180 are being called to banish it so the invitation my dear coven mates is on the longest night

00:40:50.380 as we move to through the darkening days. So every day is a little darker and then we'll get

00:40:57.040 to the longest night. We always have a choice on that solstice moment. Do we call back in the light

00:41:05.660 or do we revel in the darkness? And I think I've done both depending on the year and how I'm

00:41:13.100 feeling and how many teeth I have and how many sores and what feels the best. But I like the

00:41:20.920 idea of banishing something and really allowing it to go out loudly. So you're calling back in

00:41:30.520 the light, but right before you do, you have to let the dark go. You have to push the dark out

00:41:36.960 with this sound or this growl or this bell it's something that clangs and rings in your dreams

00:41:44.100 so that is the invitation you know what can you really just spit out for solstice before you call

00:41:53.760 the light back what is really really longing to be swept away or chased away with bells and fire

00:42:02.940 love

00:42:06.380 and lightning for sure

00:42:10.720 we do an annual um caroling party around the lake hollering and dragging kids

00:42:23.060 what's on yule this year i'll make sure there's bells this year chase them out loudly 0.99

00:42:30.180 out into the fucking night 0.98

00:42:34.200 I think too a lot about how this is 1.00

00:42:40.640 Mother's Night is so core to you all

00:42:42.600 we're right on that edge and we're birthing and it's 0.98

00:42:46.580 ridiculous, ridiculously violent 0.96

00:42:50.360 and dangerous and scary and miraculous 0.99

00:42:53.960 Michelle Lovejoy

00:42:58.100 welcome how are you who are you today and Michelle Lovejoy I live on the land of the

00:43:10.040 Tuscarora in Raleigh North Carolina and this is probably my third new moon I've joined you guys

00:43:19.120 for. So I feel a little nervous, but this is a safe space. I know that. I'm a 46, 47-year-old

00:43:30.960 white female of Irish and German descent, and I work in the world of climate adaptation.

00:43:41.380 so what I want to share with you all is a very short set of notes that was a poem that I turned

00:43:50.360 into a longer essay the poem part was written on October 27th and then I expanded it into the essay

00:43:59.620 on the 29th so right around the full moon then and it started on a walk and two of the inspirations

00:44:07.400 were Missing Wishes podcast number 200 and 211, as well as a Michael Mead podcast, 54.

00:44:16.860 I think a lot about time and how it expands and shrinks. And so I thought this was appropriate

00:44:22.980 because, you know, the winter solstice is where time stops, some people feel. And I also had a

00:44:29.340 friend ask me about a year before this, when I was going to write my book. I was like, my book,

00:44:36.620 Who would want to hear my story? And so this was kind of ramblings of how you could potentially

00:44:41.480 start a story. I may never write the book, but here goes. Trees dancing in the sun, reciprocity

00:44:49.900 and planet to planet. Timeless time, stretching time. I am born in my grandmother.

00:44:58.440 stories told in circles how far back to go Vietnam 1955 the ocean below casting seeds into the void

00:45:09.680 of the future can you catch them my future self the things we lost along the way are blooming in

00:45:16.040 the future time so walking with monkey in the daylight I notice all the leaves that are changing

00:45:23.260 and the constants of change the sun shining through the limbs providing the beat as the

00:45:29.720 leaves spin down covering the ground mother nature's winter blanket being in relationship

00:45:36.380 with all things is the eternal gift of reciprocity i touch you and i am changed and you are changed

00:45:44.340 i carry a small molecule of every being space and place that has touched me on this life's journey

00:45:54.540 fueling my inner light in the time of times with the veil thinning i remember timelessness time

00:46:01.640 that we lost along the way the breadth of breathlessness in the space where time stretches

00:46:08.080 and pauses. We sit in this timeless time, you that offer reciprocity to me and I to you. I think of

00:46:15.940 telling my story as a way to cast seeds into the future for the mystery that unfolds at its own

00:46:22.300 time. What are those seeds that need to take root in the ground in the future in the timeless space?

00:46:30.260 As we step through this threshold, I look back and wonder where to start. Which part of the

00:46:36.420 filing circle is the right mother seed. In time, it was 6.32 p.m. on April 28, 1977,

00:46:44.140 and the sun, a Taurus, and the Virgo moon, and Libra rising, grounded in earth, turning high

00:46:50.920 the emotional depth, learning to understand the balance. But going further back puts the time

00:46:57.100 at august 1976 a volatile time in the south like it's been since 1492 but i go too far from this

00:47:08.480 point in the story so i go back to where my mother's story took root in september 1955 or

00:47:15.220 maybe even january of 55 when my mother's eggs formed from a series of spells cell splitting

00:47:21.620 an emotional fingerprint forming in another threshold space trying to move past

00:47:27.400 the hatred wishing not to see my great-grandfather in his white hooded cape

00:47:33.560 wondering how many matches he lit knowing that a through line spins back to then and further back 0.60

00:47:39.860 to 1492 when whiteness pushed itself forth to bind us all to capitalism i continue to step

00:47:47.740 back further down the spiral to past pains when we chose extraction and not reciprocity further

00:47:54.020 back to that first one that realized habitat space outside of the ocean creeping into the

00:47:59.840 sunlight above the waves so that from that point on the time we would all be born into the eternal

00:48:06.440 ocean in our mother's womb a tiny space of Gaia Gaia that hurls through space through the sun

00:48:13.840 that spins the Milky Way, that spins forever to the center.

00:48:17.820 The path of Gaia reforms in a double helix of our wombs.

00:48:21.780 When the womb turns to a tomb, turning to a womb again.

00:48:26.400 Timeless time, that is what I yearn for and what I offer you

00:48:30.500 when we sit by the kitchen sink and you pour a cup of tea. 0.64

00:48:35.160 The micro to the macro, wonder how to heal the wombs,

00:48:39.580 knowing all I can do is offer you this timeless time.

00:48:43.840 the truest reciprocity and we are both changed for it these things we lost along the way

00:48:50.300 our future selves see the seeds pick them up and plant them that is what we carry through

00:48:56.100 this current threshold to carry the seeds you can and leave the rot behind especially the war

00:49:03.520 machine dismantling it with all the structure that does not serve the walking wounded of the pain

00:49:11.440 looking in my eyes and I'm reflected back in the healing of the wars that I know Vietnam to the

00:49:20.080 capitalist police actions to Iraq to Afghanistan to now again in the cradle of civilization

00:49:26.480 reflecting back the eternal wounds of that we lost along the way my father's end like so many others

00:49:34.020 so we dance and sing across the dark days of the pandemic a world on fire adding methane as the

00:49:40.140 temperatures rise. I carry wounds we can't heal in this space this time because so much extraction

00:49:46.940 and not enough gifting. So again, I offer you timeless time. Greater that love is the space

00:49:54.880 between the breath reaching out and almost touching, but fractal measures away. This is

00:50:01.160 what the veil hides. I lift it and I see you there waiting in the timeless time.

00:50:06.080 thanks for letting me share

00:50:10.460 thanks so much michelle

00:50:15.140 thanks for being here and for being brave enough and wise enough to have written that

00:50:22.020 and to share it with us it's really nice

00:50:26.500 I feel like I'm really lucky to be in this group

00:50:35.560 Thank you all. Sandra, how are you?

00:50:45.560 Hi, I'm let me start by I just put it in the chat. Would you, Michelle, would you be gracious and maybe a half step more courageous than you've already been?

00:51:02.560 And I know that there's a space on the website for poetry and stories and offerings of that type.

00:51:10.920 That would be wonderful.

00:51:12.300 I'd love to read all that again.

00:51:14.720 That was really well said.

00:51:17.680 Thank you so much for that, Sandra.

00:51:20.540 You took the words right out of my brain.

00:51:23.000 Yeah, that was intense.

00:51:25.380 That was wonderfully intense.

00:51:29.920 So my name is Sandra.

00:51:31.880 I am a, God, I just turned 50 in October. Hooray! I joined my first Missing Witches New Moon Circle right before my milestone birthday.

00:51:46.280 And I discovered the community and I've been so I'm so fortunate. I've been in a season of it's for me. It's been a year of harvesting things that I planted long ago.

00:52:16.280 like earlier this year and last year and the year before and back in my childhood when I

00:52:23.220 owned the skills of discipline and you know when I would just hear all the other kids at school 0.68

00:52:33.940 give me absolute shit for reading and writing and creating like I did and making endless notes upon 0.53

00:52:41.660 notes and i just you know take take the bruises and uh you know metaphorically and literally and 0.99

00:52:50.780 just keep being me as best i could um and this year especially the last couple months especially

00:53:00.140 um have been a very sweet harvest for me personally which is difficult to reconcile

00:53:07.500 because the world being what it is i've got just a little bit of survivor's guilt going on because 0.90

00:53:13.820 the world is such a shit storm and yet i had the most amazing day on sunday i just can't 0.61

00:53:23.740 possibly begin to describe it um so it's it's a very stark contrast and it reminds me that 0.97

00:53:30.540 um you know my spiritual practice was i think um rooted in witchcraft and paganism before i knew

00:53:41.020 before i was cognizant if any of that i've always watched the moon with the fascination i never

00:53:46.220 understood at the time um but in the last 10 years uh it's um it's dipped a toe into zen buddhist

00:53:58.380 practice and uh the the women ancestors and those lineages too so much wisdom to share

00:54:05.180 um and there's a saying that you know coming and going is just like this

00:54:11.500 um and that's very much the the spirit of um what the winter solstice is like

00:54:19.340 it's it's it's the going within and the the blossoming again um

00:54:28.380 and i wanted to share i'm i'm a huge word nerd um i haven't written anything

00:54:37.980 to share but i write i think on paper and what i wanted to share is uh some of my notebooks

00:54:45.100 actually i only have the one at hand i moved recently thank you i moved recently and i still

00:54:52.540 can't find many of my notebooks but i have the most recent one of course i use it daily

00:54:57.420 This is how they start, and I will describe as best I can for those who are listening on the audio.

00:55:04.700 This is a 5.5 x 8.5 notebook with a plain black cover. It has a large metal spiral binding along

00:55:14.860 one side. It's just a plain notebook. I get these at a large crafting store. I think

00:55:26.540 this one probably came from joann's when they have buy one get one sales i stock up on them

00:55:31.500 they're unlined they're good for pasting things into printing things and pasting them into they're

00:55:40.300 good for drawing they're good for you know i have a little valentine's card that my

00:55:47.580 kid gave me that particular year or that particular time i was working on this notebook

00:55:53.420 So those have since morphed into gradually, you know, morphed into something more of a bespoke personal creation because it's all nice and well to put something inside the book, but I like decorating the cover.

00:56:11.300 This that I'm showing to a group is the same style of notebook, five by eight, large spiral binding along the side.

00:56:23.320 But on the cover, I have a, I can't quite put my brain on the name for this type of pattern.

00:56:37.880 is someone who has the word would help me out. Baroque, there you go, Baroque filigree kind of

00:56:47.620 black printing on brown craft paper across the bottom and the very top in a diagonal pattern

00:56:56.680 and running across the swath of the middle is an orange blossom, orange and flowers and leaves

00:57:06.580 and little blue flowers against a white background and um this came from wrapping paper from a book

00:57:15.940 that i purchased from the pema children foundation on loving kindness and i thought well how wonderful

00:57:21.940 i not only purchased the book but i purchased material for a new notebook too um and thinking

00:57:31.220 in words like i do i have a quote a little snippet that i put across the top here it says

00:57:37.300 living in my life not just living life but living in my life which really

00:57:46.180 um hit home with me anyways um so that kind of

00:57:52.420 of taking little things and making them into something meaningful and significant, something

00:58:04.700 that's a marker of, this is what this time was like, and speaks to me in a way that just

00:58:12.480 words can't.

00:58:13.480 Yeah.

00:58:14.480 Thank you.

00:58:15.480 I very much appreciate the space to share.

00:58:22.040 Yeah.

00:58:22.980 Thank you for that, Sandra.

00:58:24.800 And hope too, like, thanks for the reminder about,

00:58:28.960 I really struggle with this.

00:58:30.880 Like taking the time in my life

00:58:34.980 to make a small thing I interact with beautiful.

00:58:40.200 I really struggle to allow myself that pleasure.

00:58:43.560 and it is totally like shame fueled about my my being allowed to have pleasure when the world

00:58:50.560 is a catastrophe do you know it really is the little things are the big things yes yeah i want

00:58:57.920 to like wrap it in my heart my arms because i understand it's hard there's that guilt and

00:59:03.740 you don't we are humans and that kind of guilt i don't know i don't know where you all are with

00:59:11.580 religion and spirituality but i grew up with like guilt guilt guilt guilt there's this like 0.98

00:59:17.100 heavy weight that just want to squish you down like a fucking panini and i have to like 0.97

00:59:23.480 i have to lift that that that thing up and say no i don't want to be eaten right now i want to 0.99

00:59:30.740 enjoy this we have to enjoy these things and we we have to honor those that are fucking some 0.95

00:59:36.460 sorry they're suffering yeah we can't not think about them we can't not honor them we can't not 0.93

00:59:47.720 do everything in our spiritual power to try to make things change

00:59:52.660 but we can't let what they're going through if or not does that make sense yeah and also you

01:00:02.880 make me think of Aaron earlier saying you know find the helpers and also help them it's like

01:00:08.580 find you know like that's us too find myself as helper and help me find helpers in my community

01:00:15.600 and feed them make something more delicious more joyful more beautiful for them you know like that

01:00:21.440 is a way that that weaves in both instead of making me stand in this violent opposition to

01:00:28.120 myself somehow you know and and that that's exactly why risa you and i write about resistance

01:00:35.380 and re-enchantment and we have to yeah we have to have both i refuse i mean i'm i i said to a 0.94

01:00:45.620 friend of mine the other day like i don't think anybody who has a conscience is feeling fucking

01:00:49.840 great these days you know nobody but i also refuse to be robbed of my joy you know what 0.65

01:00:59.360 little what what i what i can get while i can this the joy scratching so i'm not going to be robbed

01:01:05.440 of those so it's like hope said you know what let's make it matter let's just make everything

01:01:14.160 matter like whether we're laughing or crying let's make it matter no usually amy i would

01:01:21.440 i feel like you do and this time for some reason i'm having a also having a harder time with 0.97

01:01:29.240 being joyous like it's yeah it's been harder this yeah fuck yeah yeah that's why i'm like 0.95

01:01:40.100 saying like any little scrap that i can fucking find i'm gonna hang on to it because it is so 0.98

01:01:47.680 much harder it is so much harder right now it's so much harder right now so i mean i want to fight 0.87

01:01:57.560 harder to hang on to the you know to hang on to the moment where the chickadees are lighting

01:02:04.480 lightly on my bird feeder and and I know that I'm gonna get sucked back into the real world

01:02:11.460 any fucking second now I know it so it almost drives me harder to like focus as hard as I can

01:02:20.980 on that one chickadee even one tweet of one chickadee that's so beautiful I mean I don't 0.84

01:02:29.640 know it's just what it's just what i'm trying it's just what i'm trying i bet i know i know

01:02:37.200 aaron b brought some science you know let's let's drop some science on all of this and our feelings

01:02:45.960 goodness how do we feel about science yes i could talk about it all day um hi everybody my name is

01:02:54.160 Erin B. Adding that final initial is how I got through many years of school, never being the

01:02:59.920 only Erin with all genders accounted for in the room. So shout out to the other Erin present 0.99

01:03:04.780 tonight. I am a white human person with short brown hair, wearing a black band tee and a green

01:03:11.120 button down. And I wrote myself a note too. I've just put on a crocheted pointy black witch hat.

01:03:20.080 thank you um yes age-wise i'm experiencing my first saturn return uh that's all i'll say about

01:03:30.560 that um i'm an anglo-settler descendant of western european lineages living on the land

01:03:37.120 of the pottawatomie ojibwe and odawa people in the great lakes region of the northern hemisphere

01:03:41.680 um to call back to reese's earlier question joining me for this circle tonight is

01:03:48.080 juno the hound dog uh she's a small brown dog curled up like cinnamon roll behind me here 0.99

01:03:54.300 uh she's kind of a loud dreamer if she starts whimpering and you know screaming yelling she's

01:04:01.600 chasing chipmunks uh in the other you know in the other sphere um also with me is uh

01:04:10.560 the memories of some beloved so the memory of my beloved feline familiar goose i have a photo of

01:04:16.540 him on this little altar i've got going on got a lovely little altar space here um

01:04:23.840 hanging out with me um and i've also got uh the memories of uh some folks who are part of my

01:04:33.440 ancestor altar that's lit up over in the corner so um and a tiny persephone also my queen of the

01:04:41.100 underworld um yes so uh science we love it it was one of the the profession of uh being a science

01:04:52.460 and awe-loving coven is one of the things that that drew me from being only a member of the

01:04:58.260 uh coven we make in the space between our ears the podcast uh which i think about all the time

01:05:05.240 to actually being part of like you know the zoom room as it were um i uh as i mentioned i live in

01:05:13.760 the great lakes region of the northern hemisphere so uh seasonal depression has been with me since

01:05:18.860 i was a child um the and you know even before i had any type of earth honoring or even earth

01:05:27.620 noticing inclinations like just the idea that like okay if i can make it to december 21st that's the

01:05:33.800 shortest day and the longest night and it only gets brighter from here um i would like say that

01:05:39.400 like a chant even as a kid um and so uh in my ad lib for our beautiful yuletide carol uh which

01:05:51.180 we heard at the top of the episode um i mentioned that the you know the solstice is a an observable

01:06:01.860 astronomical facts i'm gonna put an asterisk after that because western science is uh you know

01:06:08.520 objective quote-unquote objective in so much as anything can be objective when reality is

01:06:14.060 subjective but let's not get too far into it maybe um but uh yeah i mean this is a known phenomenon

01:06:22.780 that happens because the earth is as far away from the sun as it's going to get with you know

01:06:27.420 tilt on its 23 and a half degree axis like this is something that's observable it happens it's real

01:06:32.520 um meanwhile you know i was raised in the catholic tradition um i really strongly subscribe to

01:06:40.560 the vision of jesus uh that is kind of proclaimed by the writer sophie strand um they refer to him

01:06:48.620 as uh yeshua the magician of nazareth uh and uh i love that depiction of yeshua as you know

01:06:57.020 a magician uh rooted in place doing acts of magic loving on his people loving mary magdalene

01:07:04.300 an extremely powerful person um and uh no one knows when he was born

01:07:10.340 um some scholars think that it was september some scholars think that it was like march or april

01:07:18.220 um you know uh i think it will not be the first time that many folks in this circle are hearing

01:07:25.780 right that uh the you know christian church as a uh you know as a motivator of empire and a

01:07:35.320 motivator of of conquering and taking over as many peoples and lands as possible uh over the

01:07:42.220 earlier centuries of human existence like you know we're very keen on uh adopting the traditions of

01:07:49.880 the people that lived in those regions and and syncretizing them you know merging them with uh

01:07:55.500 the merging the pagan beliefs and the earth honoring and indigenous beliefs

01:08:00.700 with the beliefs of the church as a political institution in order to

01:08:04.740 to gain power and to conquer uh and that's why we celebrate the birth of

01:08:09.120 six pound eight ounce sweet baby jesus here uh on the solstice it has nothing

01:08:13.980 to do with the birth of yeshua the magician um

01:08:17.820 the solstice to me is all about uh making it through that long dark night

01:08:23.860 of the soul powering down entering torpor like really just loving on each other and being together

01:08:32.500 generating warmth inside and out like as much as we can it's the only way that we get through it

01:08:38.120 so uh that's where i'm coming from on this solstice um i'll also say that uh as you know

01:08:47.300 astrology is like a main modality of mine uh i want to say happy birthday to all the sagittarian

01:08:52.320 witches and all of the Capricorn witches out there um I'm very much like a first half of the

01:08:57.940 year girly a lot of my placements are like Taurus, Cancer, Gemini, Virgo and this side of the year 0.98

01:09:04.940 just vexes me I y'all in the underworld are on some completely other shit that I like I'm not

01:09:10.940 understanding at all and I need as much Sagittarian and as much positive Capricornian influence as I

01:09:16.360 can get in my life no shade but sometimes it's a little too much you guys um yes reed has asked

01:09:24.220 can i say the jesus magician phrase again so sophie strand the writer uh refers to jesus as

01:09:29.800 yeshua the magician of nazareth um kind of uh situating him a little bit more in his time

01:09:36.980 uh in his own culture um and uh with the abilities that he was revered for yeah so

01:09:47.080 yeah yeah yeah um i brought up a poem to share with you all uh this is a poem that i workshopped

01:09:56.940 with the coven shout out to em for kind of organizing and stewarding herding cats into

01:10:02.640 like a writing circle that you know about monthly a group of us will get together and uh share

01:10:08.580 different things poems spells uh sometimes satire which was very cool julian shared some satire

01:10:14.920 which was rad um and uh i'm gonna read today a poem that i workshopped with the group a couple

01:10:20.980 months ago and uh that is in its second draft due to the influence of the folks that are here in the

01:10:28.980 circle so um this is a poem about my cat and also about god

01:10:34.900 jacob is wrestling with the angel in the windowsill its papery wings no match for his

01:10:43.920 nimble swatting limbs some unassuming messenger an insect or maybe god etc is torn coxa from

01:10:51.380 thorax and left to lie and rest until the pieces are swept into a cotton fiber shroud on cleaning

01:10:58.160 day its message will be unheard unheeded while jacob licks his hands clean barbed tongue on 1.00

01:11:05.240 sheathed claws and turns to wash his brother's feet thank you let's fucking be 0.99

01:11:12.360 carly hi come find your mute button hi 0.94

01:11:25.200 i didn't expect to be next okay hi hi how's everybody i hope you're all doing well um yeah

01:11:35.240 I am I struggling this year but honestly compared to where I was last year I'm like

01:11:42.840 happier to be here I'm also in my first Saturn return so I can't remember who said that I'm

01:11:50.180 really sorry but hey same place as you I get it um I'm joined by my cat in the background oh

01:11:57.620 right here this is lunasa we call her luna for short she's really cuddly and cute

01:12:05.520 hi luna um i've also joined in that photo there this is where this one my dad who passed two

01:12:16.160 years ago he likes to sit in there and my cat likes to play with the photo while he sits in

01:12:21.260 there so I have him here today as well um yeah so I'm going to share a song with you guys um I'm

01:12:32.880 gonna just because I I know I don't want to waste everyone's time and keep talking because I could

01:12:36.940 do that and I you're never a waste of time and also we all know that you know people are tired

01:12:45.180 people have to go to work and stuff in the morning so I'll just get right to it um I'm very happy to

01:12:50.580 be here by the way i missed last time because i fell asleep because of work so really happy that

01:12:57.880 i didn't fall asleep this time um but i'm gonna share a song um it's not christmasy but it's just

01:13:05.480 very witch powerful thank you ho um it's just like a very powerful witchy song i'm not gonna

01:13:13.100 sing the whole thing just because um honestly the song is just i think you guys really need to just

01:13:18.580 listen to it on your own but the first part gets me my cat's playing with my charging cord so I'm

01:13:25.340 just gonna hold the phone amazing but the song is called Jericho and I don't think I'm gonna say

01:13:34.660 this correctly but I believe the artist's name is Iniko if you guys want me to put it in the chat I

01:13:40.000 will I'm also gonna go to the lyrics because I don't want to mess up the song but the first part

01:13:45.240 the song is just really like powerful and vibey for me and i'm also just going to do it acapella

01:13:49.260 because i don't have the background songs so just give me one second okay all right i'm going to

01:13:58.540 start after i drink water one second i'm high i'm from outer space i got milky way for blood

01:14:09.180 evolution in my veins i'm gone and i've been far away i'm a lumineer now making moves starting

01:14:16.420 waves i've been dreaming about flying for a long time i had a vision from the grace they want to

01:14:22.080 co-sign artificially intelligent new ai i'm your future passing present on the fine line yeah i'm

01:14:29.820 a missing link of this illusion i am not really here i'm an intrusion i don't swim a sink i just

01:14:38.060 explode i don't need gravity i just need growth oh when i move it's an earthquake rumble

01:14:46.020 i will never ever fall never stumble and i don't need to be humble break down walls like jericho

01:14:54.600 crumble that's all I'm gonna do so yeah it's a really great song um it gets very like uh I can't

01:15:08.580 even describe the amazing this artist's talent but I will put the name in there and you guys

01:15:13.940 look at her all her other songs I'm always just vibing with her oh my god Dex yes yeah I love

01:15:23.580 her stuff thank you so much carly that was so brave and badass and i'm so excited to go listen

01:15:29.620 to everything yes all right well thanks for letting me share emily happy souls amazing

01:15:40.240 thank you everyone for all of your beautiful talents this has been such a fun such a fun

01:15:46.540 circle i'm glad to have made it um my name is m or emily my pronouns are she they um i'm a white 0.97

01:15:53.460 bitch. I am wearing a scarf as like a balaclava. It's very cozy and a sensory joy. I'm in a 0.98

01:16:03.700 dimly lit room, got some candles burning on the altar. And I'm really grateful to be here with

01:16:12.140 everyone um I have a couple of poems that I would like to share uh these are two that I

01:16:22.620 just were brought to mind as I was listening to uh Risa doing the reading from the new moon book

01:16:31.360 that I have yet to get my hands on but I feel like I I must now I already felt like you know

01:16:37.440 it was on the list i got so many books i gotta read i can't i can't be spending so much money

01:16:42.400 on everything that i'm already not using the stuff that i have of it um but yes this one is called

01:16:49.680 oatmeal in her bath she holds herself tight and thick warmed and expanded into herself

01:16:57.520 an echo of mycelial oneness she knew when she and her sisters were growing in the field

01:17:04.000 She will stick to your ribs, too, staying with you through and after noon.

01:17:09.020 Her Holy Spirit is spooned to the lips of children and the elderly. 0.60

01:17:13.380 She rejoices with raisins, blanched almonds, cinnamon, and butter.

01:17:18.580 Bread may be the body of God, but Christ in a bathtub is something more cosmic.

01:17:23.740 When hot water is poured over me, I too relax into myself.

01:17:27.780 the water infuses into me and I her and we push the boundaries of my skin into folds on my fingers

01:17:33.960 and when we have had our fill of each other and our temperatures align I scrub my saturated body

01:17:39.920 with sugar and cinnamon and season my skin with oil I am the spell cooked in the cauldron I am

01:17:46.000 the body of Christ dried on the edges of the bowl ever present in the cycle of spoon and soak and scrub

01:17:57.780 uh i have one more if that's cool with everybody this one uh jasmine this one goes out to you

01:18:07.440 um thank you for sharing i it's get it while you can it's get it while you can season all day

01:18:16.280 every day this is called the veil is always thin the veil is always thin the long nights just let

01:18:24.940 us see. Secret realms don't reveal themselves. They're always there, waiting like stars. Our

01:18:31.560 eyes simply adjust to the dark. We wait all year for the quiet so we might hear spirits. We wait

01:18:38.460 for the darkness so we can see the ones we loved again. But my loves, there is no need to wait.

01:18:44.300 They're all around us always, urging us to take a bite of this life while we can.

01:18:49.400 So for their sake and mine, and while there are teeth in my head, I will eat. I will eat.

01:18:54.940 thank y'all bless the fucking bee 0.98

01:19:03.880 thank you so much so much this is again like the whole idea of what we do at Yuletide is this 0.95

01:19:15.940 polyvocality this many voices like who is the missing witches coven you know Risa and I talk

01:19:23.440 a big game about de-hierarchizing and and this is how we do it by passing the microphone to all of

01:19:30.920 you whether you're singing in the choir or reading your poetry or bringing our attention to a song

01:19:36.760 that somebody else wrote that just really you know makes you feel the fire within um it's so exciting

01:19:44.080 and this is you know ching ching ching with my jingle bells the most wonderful time of the year

01:19:48.920 for this reason because we come together at our kitchen party and throw all of our ingredients

01:19:54.680 into this cauldron and stir and stir and stir amy stella hi everybody happy solstice happy solstice

01:20:05.600 to you uh i'm uh my name is amy stella i have long brown hair i'm wearing my knitted creation

01:20:11.900 today is an alpaca bee honeycomb pattern, apis torceda, if you're on Ravelry. And I wanted to

01:20:22.040 talk about, it's funny that Hope talked about Scotland because I also have Scottish roots and

01:20:26.560 I love Scotland. I've never been. I've never been to Ireland either, but that's been all through my

01:20:32.020 brain lately because, I mean, first we lost Sinead O'Connor earlier this year and then Shane

01:20:37.920 McGowan just passed not too long ago and I interestingly enough his funeral was on Sinead's

01:20:42.860 birthday December 8th so um in addition to all that Irish stuff like my grandmother was the person

01:20:48.660 who was most loving to me growing up uh her she died right before St. Patrick's Day which is right

01:20:54.440 near my birthday all this is connected because I wanted to sing I would have sang Fairytale of New

01:21:00.000 York I've been thinking of that song non-stop through my head but it's sort of a duet and

01:21:03.760 that'd be kind of hard to do um so oh come on I mean we could but I thought I would sing some

01:21:12.200 Sinead and not Troy Troy is my favorite song by Sinead but I'm just gonna do nothing compares to

01:21:17.580 you even though Prince wrote it I know but I'm gonna sing it because it's it's something I think

01:21:25.020 that could honor her so I hope you indulge me in that one I'm so thank you Carly for singing I love

01:21:31.660 I'm not going to sound that good

01:21:33.600 because I have a sore throat

01:21:34.460 but here goes

01:21:37.880 it's been

01:21:41.920 seven hours

01:21:43.520 and fifteen days

01:21:46.100 since you took your love

01:21:49.840 away

01:21:50.580 I go out

01:21:56.020 every night and

01:21:57.720 sleep all day

01:21:59.800 Since you took your love away

01:22:04.500 Since you've been gone I can do whatever I want

01:22:13.740 I can see whomever I choose

01:22:22.520 I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant

01:22:26.860 But nothing, I said nothing can take away these blooms, cause nothing compares, nothing

01:22:41.420 compares to you.

01:22:48.840 It's been so lonely without you here, like a bird without a song.

01:23:03.120 Nothing can stop these lonely tears from falling.

01:23:08.880 Tell me, baby, where did I go wrong?

01:23:17.080 I could put my arms around every boy I see and only remind me of you.

01:23:31.440 I went to the doctor and guess what he told me?

01:23:35.820 Guess what he told me?

01:23:37.480 He said, girl, you better try to have fun no matter what you do. 1.00

01:23:42.840 But he's a fool 1.00

01:23:44.840 Cause nothing compares 1.00

01:23:48.040 Nothing compares to you

01:23:53.420 And then there's like the long glidey part of the video

01:23:57.980 With the, you know, she's walking really sad

01:24:00.720 You guys may know the story that the single tear she brings forth

01:24:03.740 Is she was thinking about her mom

01:24:04.960 And how much she wanted a mother that loved her and didn't

01:24:08.500 All the flowers that you planted, Mama, in the backyard all died when you went away.

01:24:23.500 I know that living with you, baby, was sometimes hard, but I'm willing to give it another try.

01:24:37.300 because nothing compares, nothing compares to you, nothing compares, nothing compares to you.

01:24:58.040 And then she kind of walks off by the statues in some lovely green Irish plates.

01:25:02.420 and fan end of scene thank you for letting me sing

01:25:08.220 that was amazing thank you I died 17 times

01:25:16.680 and um you know we have so much to learn from Sinead O'Connor and um

01:25:29.980 it was uh a tragically unsurprising kind of you know like very shocking but tragically

01:25:40.960 unsurprising to have lost her this year and so i hope that you'll come back for every

01:25:47.120 solstice special and sing that song so that we never forget how fucking brave she was

01:25:52.620 and may we all be as brave as sinead o'connor may we all speak the truth no matter what the 0.85

01:25:59.440 consequence or whoever might have something to say about it whoever might throw tomatoes

01:26:05.100 or on stage and may we also be the chris christophersons who go and put our arms around 1.00

01:26:11.480 the shinead o'connors at those concerts since they don't listen to those motherfuckers 1.00

01:26:15.940 i just wanted to say like sorry i actually saw her in concert right after um it wasn't after 1.00

01:26:22.380 the tearing up the pope it was after she refused to let the national anthem be sung

01:26:26.660 and she was playing at SPAC which is Saratoga um shout out to my upstate New York person there

01:26:32.700 um and she actually wore a wig before the concert and walked around to listen to see what people

01:26:38.360 would say and then she got up on stage and said that she you know this is what I just did FYI I 0.61

01:26:43.880 was walking among you and then she sang get up stand up and then she was just like get up stand 0.99

01:26:49.020 up like fuck everyone it was amazing so may she rest in power rest in peace 0.99

01:26:54.340 so lika what truths did you bring us for our solstice so i've been feeling very insular 0.99

01:27:07.800 lately so i don't know everyone can see my room is very dim

01:27:14.160 but I have a bowl and in it is some roasted chicken and potatoes in bone broth because

01:27:26.140 I've been sick and I know there's a lot of people who've been sick so

01:27:29.320 warm nurturance I guess is what I'm bringing this this time because

01:27:37.760 it's needed and

01:27:44.080 I don't know I've just the world is like so into like this hard

01:27:54.460 power and there is a time and place for that

01:27:59.600 But I think right now, while it's cold and while people are needing more softness, more actual nurturance, not just the placating hopes and prayers type BS we hear all the time,

01:28:23.820 but actual substance with the nurturance and I feel like that's where our not only our world

01:28:37.700 but like even like for me personally the um I feel like I'm I'm getting the chance to

01:28:48.800 really take care of myself in a substantial way for the first time because I'm not worried about

01:28:58.260 taking care of other people and taking care of this thing at work or taking care of that

01:29:05.200 other trivial thing over there and feeling like stripping all of that away to what's really

01:29:12.680 valuable and including myself in that and really feeling the inclusion of that for myself for the

01:29:27.380 first time and that's something that I think everyone needs so here's to that

01:29:35.240 Thank you for the big warm bowl of soup.

01:29:45.740 Let's all take a minute and feel ourselves ingesting a sip of Kalika's big warm bowl of soup. 0.96

01:29:57.240 Hannes, I know you brought some motherfucking joy up in this house. 0.96

01:30:03.580 I know you did. 0.84

01:30:05.240 i know you did so lovely um actually everybody here's so lovely amy that singing i i wish i

01:30:12.760 could sing i cannot but so beautiful but everybody's beautiful like let's let's be real here

01:30:19.300 um but i just want to share my little um my little doggies with me he's i don't know if

01:30:27.240 you can make him out in the millions of blankets he kind of blends in but he is this guy right here

01:30:33.420 right here and that's what we should all be

01:30:36.920 you know this time around in life we should be surrounded with blankets all soft and warm and

01:30:49.620 cozy because why not right I've had such a good year and as many of us have said you know it's

01:31:00.300 hard to kind of wrap your head around it because you see what's going on in the world and you want

01:31:08.340 you want that happiness to to be for them too um and actually starting in the summertime every new

01:31:20.880 moon me and my family we try to do something to give back so today we took a whole bunch of new

01:31:27.480 toys that my children had been given they're like mommy I'm not gonna play with this we should just

01:31:32.420 not open it and we donated a box full of brand new toys um to one of the two toy drives in our area

01:31:42.020 so um we we try to give back we've been so fortunate this year and I'm so you know lucky

01:31:50.140 to say how fortunate I've been I've just been given a promotion at work and I thought you know

01:31:54.900 what's the best time to give back I've become a manager and you know I'm not going to be one of

01:32:00.900 those managers I want to manage and people like you know have my team and manage them with love

01:32:06.320 and I know that seems really weird working in a corporate environment but you know what

01:32:10.760 everybody everywhere I think you can bring love and kindness to it and it'll show it'll show

01:32:19.060 um I had you know five strong women directors VPs pulling for me for this role and you know

01:32:29.380 just shows the goddesses all around us she's all there for us um and just something in our cabin

01:32:36.860 we've been doing um I'm gonna share my little lady that I've created but we're making we're

01:32:43.640 doing poppet magic so i want to um show my little poppet that i've made i've never really made

01:32:49.720 anything before um so i just kind of tried it on my own so she is somebody i've made in my coven

01:32:56.660 um so we made her little dress she's got the white cords and i've made her a little cape as

01:33:04.220 well to go you know because it's cold can you can you describe the materials you use it's all yarn

01:33:10.520 it's all yarn and felt um the dress is made out of felt and then like if you look it's all just

01:33:18.400 made out of yarn tied together I've braided the arms and then her hair because the the cover mate

01:33:24.680 that I'm I've made this for she's got all gray hair so I've made all her hair gray as well

01:33:30.980 because you know want to make it in her likeness so I don't have a story or a poem or a song

01:33:37.280 But I do have my little puppet that I've made, full of love, for the rest of the year for everybody.

01:33:47.080 And I'm just, you know, hoping that we can have some more brightness in the world, because that's what we really do need.

01:33:54.800 She is wonderful.

01:33:56.540 Thank you so much.

01:33:57.520 Thank you so much, guys.

01:33:59.600 Thank you.

01:34:01.140 Linda, you had a pretty heavy, visceral reaction to Amy singing Sinead.

01:34:06.580 I don't know if you feel comfortable getting into it before you say what you wanted to say, but if so, please share your viscera.

01:34:19.120 Oh, yeah, I just, her singing was so beautiful.

01:34:29.240 And that song just breaks my heart open, I would say.

01:34:35.880 It's just a heart-opening, heartbreaking, beautiful song in the best way.

01:34:44.200 And I don't know, just that kind of love that you feel for someone when nothing compares to them.

01:34:53.680 And I can definitely relate to, you know, that feeling.

01:35:02.920 Hi.

01:35:04.560 Happy Swasters.

01:35:05.880 happy solstice perfect segue um i'm linda i'm a 48 year old curly haired cancerian

01:35:20.720 human spirit being

01:35:25.460 i um i live in philadelphia i lenae lenape land and

01:35:36.400 i've been thinking

01:35:44.180 about the solstice and i guess becoming aware lately of how much

01:35:55.460 how much magic I don't let in.

01:36:01.860 And so I'm thinking of

01:36:03.620 really allowing myself to receive the full magic

01:36:10.300 and not be afraid of that.

01:36:19.520 With the intention that

01:36:21.780 I can be a microcosm and that we can all

01:36:27.900 up level in our ability to

01:36:32.420 to not just do the magic but to like allow all of the results to come to their ultimate fruit

01:36:43.840 um I thought I'm gonna read an Orphic hymn

01:36:52.240 I thought um

01:36:56.760 this one's to the stars and I thought we could all use some miracles and magic at this time and

01:37:07.800 there's kind of nothing more magical than the stars. So I'm gonna see if I can bring some of

01:37:14.720 that. Oh, I forgot to say, I'm also bringing a little bit of Dolly Parton with me and my little

01:37:24.360 Dolly Parton candle and a tiny cauldron. And I'm gonna pinch a tiny bit of incense before I read

01:37:42.040 this so that the stars can receive our offering to the stars with holy voice I call the stars on

01:38:08.200 high. Pure sacred lights and geni of the sky. Celestial stars, the progeny of night.

01:38:22.920 In whirling circles beaming far your light.

01:38:28.120 Refulgent rays round the heavens ye throw

01:38:35.020 Eternal fires, the source of all below

01:38:41.240 With flames significant of fate ye shine

01:38:48.160 And aptly rule for a path divine

01:38:54.940 in seven bright zones ye run with wandering flames

01:39:02.460 and heaven and earth compose your lucid frames

01:39:08.560 with coarse unwearied pure and fiery bright forever shining through the veil of night

01:39:20.580 hail twinkling joyful ever wakeful fires propitious shine on all my just desires

01:39:31.300 these sacred rites regard with conscious rays and end our works devoted to your praise

01:39:40.720 blessed be

01:39:45.760 yes living for the reading too the dramatic reading thank you so much

01:39:58.280 um i'm sorry i'm a bit giddy you really got me fired up there

01:40:06.900 julian hi everyone happy solstice happy solstice um i am julie or julian i use she her were they

01:40:23.840 them pronouns i'm a white person with wavy brown hair that comes to my shoulders and i'm wearing

01:40:31.520 clad shirt and a black vest um I'm feeling a little scatterbrained but we'll see how this goes

01:40:38.920 um I didn't think I was gonna share anything and then while you all were talking I was prompted to

01:40:45.640 write a blessing for the coven uh which I've never done before I've never written a blessing before

01:40:51.180 but um I felt prompted too so I'm gonna read this blessing I wrote

01:40:56.480 okay may we spend time together in loving ways may we embrace both joy and sadness as we gather

01:41:08.760 throughout throughout the year may we celebrate when we have things to celebrate may we hold each

01:41:15.480 other when we break apart may we encourage each other as we birth new ideas into the world

01:41:21.520 may we learn and grow together may we ask questions and share wisdom may we wonder

01:41:30.340 about the unknown may we sit in the discomfort of being wrong

01:41:35.800 may we tickle each other with glee but only if we first ask for consent

01:41:43.360 may we respect each other's boundaries around tickling and other boundaries

01:41:49.580 May we acknowledge our privilege in having access to this community, and that many cannot

01:41:57.500 access it, even though they may be the ones who need it the most.

01:42:02.200 May we do the difficult work of challenging the inaccessibility and ableism that shows

01:42:08.460 up in this space, and the white supremacy in this space, and the colonialism in this

01:42:14.500 space, and all the, quote, isms in this space.

01:42:19.580 May we listen to those most impacted by these isms.

01:42:24.340 May we have hard conversations.

01:42:27.280 May we be accountable to each other.

01:42:31.560 May we be activists together

01:42:33.280 as we resist oppression in the world.

01:42:36.120 May we include slowing down in our activism.

01:42:39.840 May we soothe and fuel each other

01:42:42.380 so that we are equipped to do social justice work.

01:42:45.900 may we offer care to each other in tangible ways may we normalize asking each other what

01:42:53.540 our needs are may we organize to collectively meet our needs may we play together may we cry 0.99

01:43:01.960 together may we love each other blessed fucking be the end 0.97

01:43:07.760 why's it fucking b so moat it b i love a may we i love a may we thank you so much julie 0.99

01:43:20.440 i love a may we i love maybe killian tell me good deal um so killian here uh they them pronouns um 0.98

01:43:33.860 scared off my cat who was cuddling with me just a moment before. And thank you everybody for

01:43:44.160 everything that you've shared today. I just wanted to share a simple little solstice craft spell

01:43:56.740 thing that I did last year and I loved so much. So I wanted to share if you take oranges and you

01:44:06.440 cut them into slices so that they look like wheels, you know, when you cut them long ways

01:44:13.120 into slices and you dry them out, then you can string them up and hang them in the window

01:44:20.160 to help call in the sunshine as the days are starting to get longer this is what it looked

01:44:27.760 like in my window last year and it just brought me joy every single time I looked at it or came

01:44:35.420 home and it was gray and sad outside and I knew that the days were getting longer and the sunshine

01:44:41.380 was coming back and then I think I took it down at the equinox at the spring equinox so anyways

01:44:47.600 that's that's all I wanted to share. William will you send us that photo so we can share it?

01:44:58.600 Sure thing. Thank you so much. I have one more thing um Linda doesn't have much of a voice

01:45:05.960 tonight so she asked me to share her poem for the winter solstice breathless so I'm going to do that

01:45:13.000 now. Dead branch fingers reach in supplication, adoration framing her round fullness in the

01:45:23.280 silver-pale sky. The clouds try to cover her, fly before her, but reflected radiance chases

01:45:34.900 them away until they sweep round her, circling the orb with crystalline prisms of shattered

01:45:44.800 rainbow light.

01:45:48.740 This night is hushed.

01:45:52.920 Thin blanket of snow sprinkles silence with each unduplicated flake.

01:46:00.960 Winter's kiss falls softly

01:46:05.420 The percussion of bare limbs makes muted rhythm behind the melody of wind

01:46:12.000 The world waits under this silver perfection

01:46:17.860 Paused in one eternal instant

01:46:21.900 Open and awake within the quiet winter somnolence

01:46:28.760 she knows. Hibernation is not sleeping, meditation is not dreaming, and the stillness

01:46:37.940 is the center of every dance. Tonight, the dancing meets the pause. A holy pas de deux.

01:46:50.460 Whirling snow rising upon the soft, cold winter wind

01:46:56.800 Hanging for that illuminated second

01:47:01.240 Weightless in the crisping air

01:47:05.900 Until she breathes once more

01:47:08.980 The stillness cracks

01:47:11.500 And we dance again

01:47:15.220 Around the axis of the world

01:47:20.460 Thank you, Linda, for that solstice poem.

01:47:24.460 And Risa, happy solstice.

01:47:30.120 Happy solstice, Amy.

01:47:32.100 Happy solstice, Coven.

01:47:33.920 Coven, happy yuletide.

01:47:35.640 Happy solstice.

01:47:38.280 Happy talking together.

01:47:40.860 Happy cauldroning.

01:47:42.200 Happy kitchen witching in cauldrons, in covens.

01:47:47.080 and 1.00

01:47:49.340 blessed fucking be 0.99

01:47:51.280 blessed fucking be 1.00

01:47:52.600 blessed fucking be 1.00

01:47:54.680 blessed fucking be 1.00

01:47:56.400 blessed fucking be 1.00

01:48:00.140 blessed fucking be 0.99

01:48:02.060 if you want to support the Missing Witches project 0.99

01:48:05.480 join our coven

01:48:07.740 find out how

01:48:09.320 at missingwitches.com

01:48:17.080 Oh, we will die, oh, solstice, oh, the longest night of the year.

01:48:29.300 We gather together to share our hope and our fear

01:48:38.580 Cause we are witches in the night

01:48:47.260 We are witches, we bring our own light

01:48:55.520 Through the solstice at yuletide, on the longest night of the year,

01:49:05.100 please bring us together to share our hope and our cheer,

01:49:13.460 Because we are witches of the night

01:49:22.200 We are witches, we make our own night

01:49:30.500 On the solstice and yuletide

01:49:35.460 On the longest night of the year

01:49:39.140 Please bring us together to share our warmth and our cheer

01:49:48.360 Because we are witches of the night

01:49:57.140 We are witches, we make our own light

01:50:05.480 Peace on earth, happy solstice

01:50:07.380 In the Northern Hemisphere, the winter solstice marks the date at which the sunlit hours are shortest and the darkened hours are longest.

01:50:15.880 This, due to the tilt of the Earth's axis, is an astronomical fact.

01:50:22.160 Happy solstice!

01:50:24.260 We are witches.

01:50:28.520 We are witches.

01:50:33.140 Science is magic. 0.99

01:50:36.300 Just marry you all. 0.97

01:50:37.980 That's it.

01:50:38.340 We love you.

01:50:38.960 We love you.

01:50:40.140 I love you guys.

01:50:41.320 Solstice and Yuletide on the longest night of the year.

01:50:49.820 Please bring us together to share our warmth and our cheer.

01:50:58.200 Because we are witches of the night

01:51:06.740 We are witches, we make our own life

01:51:15.200 We dance in the darkest dark of the night

01:51:23.960 and we return

01:51:25.520 and call the return

01:51:27.500 of the light.

Missing Witches - December 21, 2023

2023 Solstice Special and Yuletide Party!

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