Missing Witches - Beltane 2020! Mayday May Day with Amy and Risa + more LISTENER POETRY

00:00:00.000 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:03.240 Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! You must be a witch! 1.00

00:00:08.640 It's Beltane! Mayday! It's buds bursting open into blooms! It's revolution! 0.99

00:00:16.680 In this episode, you'll hear Risa and I having a Beltane chat, plus more listener poetry.

00:00:21.680 Thank you so much, Witch Poets, for sending that in.

00:00:25.220 If you have poetry, missingwitches at gmail.com. We're always so excited.

00:00:30.000 to hear it and to share it. But first, I want to remind you that Beltane is a fire festival.

00:00:38.180 Put that fire under your ass and light up a better tomorrow. Organize. Donate. Pay reparations. Hold 1.00

00:00:46.200 space. If you're lonely, help someone else. If you're bored, educate yourself. We say all the

00:00:54.120 time that magic has a rippling effect. A single, carelessly discarded cigarette butt can burn down

00:00:59.820 a forest. Conversely, right now, your tiny donation to local organizers might provide

00:01:06.660 someone in need with something that saves their life. And on that note, I had told Michelle

00:01:13.240 and Marisa and Jason and Phoenix and all of you that Missing Witches would be forwarding

00:01:18.260 our patronage for the month of May onto the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal, so I'm

00:01:23.100 gonna do that transaction today and I'll post a receipt. All that said, sometimes a fire just

00:01:30.460 gives a little warmth to the hearth. If you are struggling, your existence is the only act of

00:01:37.500 defiance you need to do. Keep breathing. So I guess what Auntie Amy is saying is if you have

00:01:46.700 no energy just take a deep breath and exhale blow on your embers keep your

00:01:55.280 little fire going if you have energy to spare figure out a way to burn the 0.98

00:02:01.460 callous heteronormative white supremacist colonial patriarchal

00:02:05.780 capitalist system down but first I want you to take three minutes pause the pod 0.64

00:02:13.760 and do this now if you can or plan for it later, but take three minutes. Put on a song that really

00:02:19.680 gets you going and dance your ass off. It's healing. It's celebrating Beltane. It's connecting

00:02:27.060 with your spirit, with your body, with the earth, and with the divine. Let's go crazy. Let's get

00:02:34.700 radical. And to quote the dearly beloved and dearly departed prince, if the elevator tries to bring

00:02:41.100 you down go crazy punch a higher floor happy belting yeah happy mayday happy belting how are 0.99

00:02:52.140 you yeah i was gonna say how the fuck are you um yeah i don't know i'm stressed this is hard 1.00

00:03:01.760 it's crazy what's been hard about it for you um my work is is you know my day job I everybody's 0.99

00:03:12.380 day jobs I think their life work was turned upside down and inside out um we're just it's

00:03:20.140 just so much work I but all I want to do is just cuddle my kid and wrap my head around what's

00:03:28.260 happening in the world and the sort of enormity of the sorrow we had a lot of loss in our family

00:03:33.400 over you know a week and a half it was just something every day um some of it COVID-19

00:03:41.220 related and then some of it sort of extenuating um but just we had a loss every day for like 10

00:03:48.820 days and I was just blown over um not to get so heavy so fast I mean I'm also thinking about May

00:03:56.320 a lot it's my daughter's name is may she's partially named after mayday i i fucking love

00:04:03.180 the struggle i love unions and i love the sort of strange history and overlap between workers rights

00:04:10.280 and and magic and the occult so i'm reading some of that so that's kind of like a fun place to be

00:04:16.240 mentally right now that's my quickie on how i'm doing how are you doing i'm definitely on on the

00:04:24.780 roller coaster. I mean, if we had spoken yesterday, I think I would have had a completely

00:04:29.820 different answer for that question. But today I'm feeling super hopeful. I've just been like

00:04:34.980 having a real banger of a day. Those of our listeners who follow us on Instagram might have

00:04:40.500 seen this this morning that Risa, you know, Andrew, my spouse, and you know what he does

00:04:46.380 for a living. He's a contractor. So he has been deemed quote unquote essential. Okay, fine. You

00:04:52.600 know people need a place to live I get it he's got a very small crew and it's very much under

00:04:57.660 his control so I'm not super anxious about all that all this to say he's working on a project

00:05:04.240 right now and he pulled out some floorboards and found a tarot card and it was the sun

00:05:09.560 right and I was like oh I needed to hear that he's putting it back in the wall for the next

00:05:16.820 renovator to find but then it's like a sunny day today and it's warm and i checked and it's not

00:05:23.240 supposed to go below zero so i grabbed my rake and i went to the risa you know the the murder pit

00:05:29.440 as we called it turned into a garden that was apparently a swimming pool but we always called

00:05:36.340 it now it's the garden um so i went and you know like i say i checked the temperature and made sure

00:05:42.400 And I went and raked up all the sort of last bits of last year's leaves that it would press down under the snow.

00:05:49.740 All the snow has melted in this part of the lawn.

00:05:52.800 We still have a couple icebergs.

00:05:54.920 So I raked up these dead leaves and I saw these little, you know, those little clutched blooms, like before they open up.

00:06:03.440 Is there a special word for that?

00:06:05.000 Like the little buds.

00:06:07.300 And I mean, they were dandelions and that's fine.

00:06:09.960 I was still happy to see them.

00:06:12.400 Oh, look at the buds that were asleep under the, and then I went back maybe an hour later after

00:06:18.520 having sort of taken off their blanket and they had spread their little yellow heads. Like I just

00:06:25.820 like magically like awakened a whole system by like removing this blanket. So yeah, it's been a,

00:06:34.080 it's been a sunny day. It's been a really, really hopeful day for me just seeing their little heads,

00:06:39.980 like just stretching their little arms toward the sun it was felt very

00:06:44.980 it's finally spring i love that yeah we're seeing little we saw our first crocuses like

00:06:54.560 may saw her first flowers that grew you know in our area yesterday and she's like we've taken her

00:07:01.960 snow pants off for the first time it's still so cold here guys but little baby running well like 0.93

00:07:07.980 it's like she had training wheels on her legs you know and now they're off and she's just flat out

00:07:14.760 running like the glee of using your body you know yeah I didn't really think of that that she would

00:07:21.220 have been like impaired by her snow pants for the past several months but it definitely makes sense

00:07:27.480 they're they're restrictive for sure they are giant and puffy and I mean they've protected her

00:07:33.900 too you know but but she's free and running up and down hills and waving and she's like

00:07:40.660 like running with her head down and her arms out behind her and saying bird bird bird

00:07:46.220 oh I mean if that's not like a human incarnation of hope in spring then I don't know

00:07:54.020 yeah yeah bless her heart so do you are you doing a bonfire do you have big belting plants

00:08:03.900 Yeah, we'll do a bonfire for sure. 0.98

00:08:06.160 We've had a couple little ones.

00:08:07.880 And I think Friday will just be a day of maybe some baking and some gardening and play outside and run around.

00:08:21.940 And I don't know what we can, some sort of craft or something, something we can do.

00:08:27.860 And then, yeah, make a nice big fire. 0.96

00:08:30.540 She's really good at making fires. 0.95

00:08:32.000 she has lots of practice that's terrifying a little one and a half year old she's good at 1.00

00:08:38.320 like handing you the right size bits and she likes to she likes to break up birch bark 1.00

00:08:43.820 into tiny bits and say bit bit bit oh good job 0.98

00:08:50.220 she's she's full of that like spring magic and that like belting wisdom right now you know she's

00:08:59.440 just like she's just like bright and alive just echoing every word you say and like she she does

00:09:06.440 look at you like a sharp little bird you know she's just and she she she if you're reading her

00:09:11.560 books she's jumping in to say the last word of every rhyme and yeah she just being with her I

00:09:20.160 was just reading that there's a bunch of research um on you know the psychology and attitudes of

00:09:27.300 people who've spent a long period of time in isolation and people are kind of surfacing that

00:09:31.640 research now to give us some some insights for what we're all in for collectively which is crazy

00:09:38.540 um but the one of the interesting pieces was that men came out of prolonged periods of isolation so

00:09:45.480 you're talking like astronauts um researchers in the arctic like people who are doing like

00:09:50.300 you know 90 days alone or with a small so this is sort of more like by choice isolation as opposed

00:09:56.280 to like uh solitary confinement in prison for example yes yes i don't know if they were that

00:10:03.780 solitary because i imagine the psychology of having a choice or not or being in that position

00:10:09.560 by choice or not would have an effect but i digress carry on yeah different and you know

00:10:14.880 we're probably somewhere in between right like we can go outside and we're all sort of choosing to

00:10:19.660 obey the rule all well I mean those of us who are doing it yeah you're right but yeah

00:10:28.980 but we're doing it from a place of like fearful for our lives so it's not totally voluntary

00:10:34.100 anyway the results were that you know people are anticipating that people come out of this

00:10:41.300 isolation with a lot more spirituality but actually they come out with a more like profound

00:10:47.200 respect and need for their social ties particularly men are much stronger after

00:10:55.960 periods of isolation at reaching out and asking for help and women after periods of isolation

00:11:01.700 come out with a much stronger sense of their own strength very interesting now we we generally shy

00:11:11.160 away from gender essentialism around these parts but how do you i mean this seems like something

00:11:16.140 that has been socialized into us where um women are women are taught to deny their own power and

00:11:22.720 men are taught to deny their need for help and community sure and i think um extreme situations

00:11:31.320 help us um burn through a little bit of that gendered um acculturation you know like an

00:11:41.720 extreme situation can let you see that you're not helpless and on the flip side that you need help 0.99

00:11:48.880 you know like that those those two sides of how we put people into their corners and separate them

00:11:54.400 can kind of dissolve I don't know it's a little bit of optimism or a little bit of intrigue I like

00:11:59.580 yeah and um again it's like the the choice to be or not to be has a

00:12:11.480 has a lot to do with it and i think this is something that came up in a conversation before

00:12:16.720 but this idea of um restricting yourself to save yourself and i think that uh and again

00:12:29.300 in the show notes i'll link to this particular tweet that like started this conversation but

00:12:33.660 But the person was saying that for someone who doesn't understand the need to protect themselves, this seems like oppression.

00:12:47.000 And then my addition to that conversation is that, you know, people of color, queer people, women by and large, we are so used to having to restrict ourselves in order to protect ourselves.

00:13:00.940 This is something that we do every day.

00:13:03.660 avoiding situations avoiding certain people avoiding certain places you know for for women

00:13:09.480 like avoiding the night time you know these these are things that we've been doing our entire lives

00:13:16.100 so um when we see these people like protesting because they they want to get their hair cut I

00:13:23.940 mean it's like flabbergasting for us but they've never even experienced like this idea of restricting

00:13:30.960 yourself for self-preservation you know yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a big one right because it's all

00:13:45.420 it's all it's all tied together yeah and you know this i think again we never want to like

00:13:54.420 diminish or dismiss or erase or negate anyone who's going through a very real loss and very

00:14:02.120 real pain right now but um we are seeing these ideas changing like you said you know some some

00:14:10.320 men are coming out of their isolation with more a more respect for community um some people are

00:14:15.480 coming out of their isolation with a greater sense of their own personal power um yeah i spoke to

00:14:22.080 that cousin of mine that I've talked about on the podcast before who's a trauma therapist

00:14:27.580 yesterday and she was saying you know her work right now is entirely focused on people women

00:14:35.260 who are in domestic violence situations and can't leave so it's entirely about you know

00:14:44.880 um things like de-escalation and just trying to stay safe within the house and and trying to

00:14:53.940 control a very volatile situation and I was blown over you know thinking about the sort of terror of

00:15:01.440 that and my cousin said you know the the biggest takeaway for her is how incredibly skillful and

00:15:08.940 resilient people are um that just seeing all of the ways that people are finding to find some

00:15:18.380 control to find some safety to manage a situation is like incredibly awe-inspiring the strength of

00:15:26.140 of their resilience you know it's always I mean you know there are people who who say like you

00:15:35.280 know your your trauma makes you stronger i don't buy that i think you and i have even talked about

00:15:39.880 this on the podcast in the past or i don't buy that your trauma makes you stronger what i do buy

00:15:45.500 uh in bulk um is that these difficult situations demonstrate or give you an opportunity to

00:15:53.800 demonstrate to yourself how strong you are how strong you already were i mean if you if you you

00:16:00.740 know if you float through life and and everything is easy then you you may have an amazing inner

00:16:05.400 strength but you never need to manifest it you never need to demonstrate it so um you know i

00:16:11.420 give my gratitude to the struggle but i don't think that it's it's made me who i am i just

00:16:17.460 think that it's allowed me to like shed my own personal light on what i can get through what i

00:16:23.560 can accomplish um and i mean for people who are in bad situations right now you know there

00:16:32.360 there's so many that i can think of that um you know addicts i don't know what addicts are doing

00:16:38.580 right now i know that a friend of mine every car on his street got broken into last week i think

00:16:43.400 people are getting desperate um so that's i mean my heart goes out to these people you know sex

00:16:51.780 workers i think in france sex workers are petitioning for you know serb basically whatever

00:16:57.800 the french equivalent of our canadian serb is and you know obviously i am very pro healthy sex work

00:17:05.080 um yeah there's a massive rent strikes plan in the united states

00:17:10.620 which you know i love to see an organized strike yeah it's it's we're always tempering this like

00:17:19.160 yeah people are getting together and striking because of the horrible conditions you know

00:17:25.040 every uplifting news has been like begotten by some horrible thing it's in the context of like

00:17:34.560 an unbelievable nightmare yeah yeah mr rogers said look for the helpers yeah like that it's

00:17:42.160 always it's always a boost to see what people are doing to help each other yeah and I think

00:17:49.460 hopefully I mean you know Beltane has always been this like great awakening you know it's like we're

00:17:56.340 dancing around a bonfire it's very full-on you know so um but it's it's interesting because

00:18:04.820 normally you know this would be the time that we're we're out and about we're we're glad

00:18:08.780 handing we're hugging and kissing and yeah so it's gonna be like um i can't even imagine what

00:18:17.720 a subdued beltane is going to be like for all of us i guess for those of you listening it's a couple

00:18:24.860 days before beltane when we're recording this but when you're listening to this this is your

00:18:28.380 beltane what are you doing how are you celebrating yeah how are you finding that and what what piece

00:18:35.780 of it is connecting with you right now you know um because there are these many sort of branches

00:18:41.180 and histories of like a mayday festival you know from different different countries so often it's

00:18:48.980 you know the roman version is like you kind of notoriously sexy um and then there's like the

00:18:56.280 maypole and the dancing and flowers in the hair and the bunnies let loose and and the fire and

00:19:04.560 jumping over the fire for luck and having your cows jump over the fire so their milk is blessed

00:19:10.340 and safe. You know, there's all of this. But yeah, then there's also, there is this history

00:19:17.980 of resistance that's tied to the day and that, you know, this book that I'm reading kind of

00:19:23.740 unpacks how closely it was tied to these revolutionary ideas about resisting the

00:19:33.800 conspiracy of kings resisting resisting you know a dominant power that was really focused on keeping

00:19:40.400 people poor um and so there is this this anarchic and organized resistance history to the day so

00:19:52.520 maybe there's something there to dig into if you're alone uh to try to find that that source of

00:19:58.960 of fire and joy and delight in understanding our history of resistance and and also the like

00:20:06.140 beautiful growth after uh yeah just to try to find some resources for our own selves right now

00:20:16.280 yeah and again i mean this is this is the thing about soil right soil is rot soil is death but

00:20:24.760 it's also like life like capital l life you know the most beautiful flower comes has to you know

00:20:32.940 come up out of this rot and death and i mean that's the dream right is that the flowers grow

00:20:39.460 from this this rot that this moment is a is a shift i was talking to someone who was telling

00:20:46.360 me that because of the way isolation had played out for them they were back in the house and the

00:20:53.820 context and the space that they had been when they were in a deep depression and finding that

00:21:01.680 really hard I sometimes feel like I'm back in time with some of the way things are folding and

00:21:06.940 happening around me right now that I'm back in a much darker place because it's that feeling of

00:21:12.540 being stuck you know that oh yeah that feeling of being out of control and being stuck is always part

00:21:18.180 of depression so we are we are in that place but I don't know this this person I was talking to

00:21:26.000 is also we were noticing talking together that while it all feels the same it's also very obvious

00:21:34.880 how she is not the same you know she is she is this confident and resilient person so in a way

00:21:44.140 it's like she's time traveling back and giving some of that strength to the depressed person

00:21:50.880 those people exist overlapped in time so she's both taking taking some some wisdom from that

00:21:58.460 person she was before and giving some wisdom back I think I think we can spread ourselves

00:22:05.360 out in time a little bit right now yeah and I mean you know I I have like anxiety ever since

00:22:12.360 I can remember I've been having like a panic attacks and that kind of thing but you know

00:22:16.660 through like therapizing and educating myself and just you know working as best I can I got

00:22:22.500 myself down to like a base level four anxiety but now I'm just like I'm back up yeah I'm back

00:22:30.020 up to base level six like I'm just like you know things happen and I might go up to a nine but like

00:22:35.140 everybody's everybody who understands anxiety or experiences anxiety I think has like there

00:22:41.280 our base levels our base levels of depression like if I'm you know I started as a four depressed

00:22:47.720 and it was like a little hard to get out of bed and it was a little hard to motivate myself but

00:22:51.640 like some days I'm a nine I ain't doing nothing yeah there's nothing I can do and it really is

00:22:57.360 just because this like again I bring my own luggage to the table I bring my own brain chemicals to the

00:23:03.520 table but a lot of it is just like you wake up you check the news you want to make sure you don't

00:23:08.640 miss like some major happening um yeah and then that kind of sets your day you just end up on the

00:23:16.940 infinite scroll um so yeah again i think that's happening for a lot of people it's just a wet

00:23:24.080 blanket that's been put over like literally everything even if you are and and you know

00:23:29.240 obviously we're not trying to steal anybody's happiness like if you're having a happy moment

00:23:33.440 oh my goodness you are entitled to that happy moment that moment of joy like snatch them wherever

00:23:38.240 you can but um even in those there's like there's an echo there's a shadow of like

00:23:44.760 this is very real and very scary and I'm gonna have my bonfire and I'm gonna do my little flower

00:23:51.960 dance but how will it be different I'm not sure I mean I'll get there in a couple days and I'll

00:23:58.280 let everybody know yeah I think you know um compartmentalization is a really important

00:24:05.760 coping tool when you're in a moment of trauma you know we we do it naturally we we save things

00:24:14.920 for later that we'll deal with when we're safe and so if and in magic we talk a lot about

00:24:23.760 the power of a container you know of container magic and it has sort of a version in all kinds

00:24:30.980 of different forms and traditions and we can think about that as a thing yeah yeah you know

00:24:38.040 making making bottles making bags um so i mean i think that that can be in a really awesome therapy

00:24:47.160 tool and um and might be something for my may day on friday you know what are some things that i want

00:24:54.960 to to put into the container to you know protect my house and my space and some symbols of those

00:25:01.260 things and sing a song over those things and bury it somewhere if I can get into the frozen ground

00:25:07.840 around here and what are some things to go into a container to burn that I'm hoping

00:25:12.320 I can release and come to the end of you know yeah I mean I think for witches a part of

00:25:20.180 part of my delight in you know um being quote-unquote being a witch is that everything

00:25:26.860 is sort of metaphorical and uh material like sort of everything we do it's like i'm sweeping the

00:25:34.480 floor obviously i'm like i'm sweeping the floor to like tidy up my house but i'm also putting

00:25:39.840 those intentions those magical intentions of like sweeping out my atmosphere sweeping out my

00:25:45.160 consciousness sweeping out the bad vibes whatever and so my in leading up to my mayday something

00:25:51.560 that i i have been doing since i lived in a place where i'm allowed to burn things in the yard

00:25:56.620 is that i very specifically and intentionally go around and again this is like quote-unquote

00:26:03.080 yard work but for me it's like a very magical practice uh and i pick up the sticks that the

00:26:08.440 winter knocked down and i pick up those sticks and i sort of you know thank the wind in the winter for

00:26:14.180 for providing me with these sticks and then i go to the future which is spring which is beltane

00:26:20.900 which is my my mayday bonfire and i take that past and i burn it but i mean all of this is just i'm

00:26:28.620 gonna collect the sticks from my yard and burn them you know like any any old like farmer or

00:26:34.100 granny or whatever is doing the same thing but it's just the again the witchcraft comes in the

00:26:39.620 intentions um that we yeah i mean the great great gift of this is that you can we can find a way to

00:26:49.500 a more healthy and sustainable society by treating every moment and every interaction

00:26:59.240 as somehow sacred or choose a different word if you like magical but there is there is information

00:27:08.120 there about how we can treat each other and how we can treat the world you know there is this uh

00:27:13.540 if you want a little bit more of a secular take on it and whether you like dave chapelle or not

00:27:18.100 is sort of beside the point but someone was talking about him and saying that their favorite

00:27:23.880 thing about this comedian dave chapelle is that he treated every moment as if it had or were the

00:27:31.460 potential to be a great memory you know and i was like that's what i want to be

00:27:40.820 treat every moment as if it had the potential to be a memory that you'll carry with you for

00:27:47.660 the rest of your life yeah i think that's my my my wish and my blessing for all of us for

00:27:55.340 for May Day for Beltane yeah yeah even in these again and we don't want to like put that heaviness

00:28:03.020 of like the capitalist lie of productivity determining our self-worth um so don't

00:28:11.820 don't uh don't don't put the pressure on yourself like it it's it's an invitation oh right right

00:28:19.000 yeah the opposite yeah yeah an invitation to joy as opposed to like a heavy pressure that you gotta

00:28:24.900 do this or do that I mean that's been my main symptom I guess for lack of a better word my

00:28:31.260 main symptom of this and and you know recalling your friend that you were talking about too is

00:28:37.660 like I'm having these like mental blockages that I haven't had since I was like in school

00:28:42.340 you know like I just can't bring myself to like do this one thing and there's no reason for me

00:28:48.800 not to be able to do it it's just like and again this happened to me too in school where like I

00:28:53.860 I did great in school and I loved school and I love being a student.

00:28:57.080 I'm still a student, you know, in this,

00:28:58.860 in this podcast form and that kind of thing in general life.

00:29:02.260 But these just like weird psychological blockages are just like happening to

00:29:10.220 me.

00:29:10.660 And it's easier to navigate because I feel like everybody's like going

00:29:16.360 through something right now.

00:29:17.520 It's not just me.

00:29:18.520 And when we have these like mental health issues,

00:29:20.380 we tend to feel like i'm the only one struggling or you know so it's been tempered by the fact

00:29:26.700 that like i feel like everybody has this too but yeah i mean don't don't feel the pressure of making

00:29:32.140 memories every day but like feel the joy of potential i love you i love you happy belting

00:29:38.560 happy belting everybody bye be safe out there friends we love you bye bye hi witches my name

00:29:48.340 is jemica rosenberg and if you want to stay in touch and follow my work you can find me at

00:29:57.940 jemica.rosenberg on instagram that's g-e-m like gemstone i-c-a dot rosenberg or you can email me

00:30:13.320 at jem at jemrosenberg.com. I have a poem I'd like to share with you today, and it's meant to be sung.

00:30:25.220 Bound who speak the opening lines

00:30:35.580 I ask the gods some rest by cool tears

00:30:43.000 Measured by the years I lie awake

00:30:49.220 Stars upon their wane with night

00:30:55.740 Kind dreams for company

00:30:59.200 Daylight

00:31:04.220 Fear in sleep's place

00:31:10.980 Stand up my head

00:31:16.700 I sing medicine, she may rise to bend.

00:31:28.520 There is, there must be, torchlight messengers, my lady.

00:31:39.600 Some strange woman to hugeness

00:31:50.760 The God's lady, the very moon for shining 1.00

00:32:00.740 And sweep of the wings stroke

00:32:08.300 The high thin whale of these sky guests

00:32:13.980 Twins stand, stock turn 0.98

00:32:18.540 With the cross 0.77

00:32:20.840 Wings in our bones

00:32:26.980 Still there drips in the sea

00:32:32.260 This pleasure is not unworthy of the grief that gave it.

00:32:43.060 With time's length delay crumbled the flower

00:32:52.060 Against the bitter wind

00:32:58.660 Another medicine

00:33:02.840 My house

00:33:07.440 Necessities yoke 0.99

00:33:12.840 For subbed and speech

00:33:19.280 There is, there must be 0.83

00:33:25.760 Torchlight messengers, my lady

00:33:30.760 Some strange woman 0.99

00:33:36.100 To you's nest 0.70

00:33:41.200 The God's lady

00:33:44.060 The very moon for shining

00:33:50.420 Hello, my dear Missing Witch's Coven.

00:33:56.840 This is Angela from Portland, Oregon.

00:34:00.140 I wanted to share a poem that I wrote that was inspired by a dream

00:34:04.820 and also inspired by my time training to become a death doula.

00:34:10.660 I just finished my training in April and I have been training since January.

00:34:17.260 And one of the ways that I have been processing that work and my own death, I guess, is through

00:34:24.640 poetry, which was very surprising to me because that is not something I considered myself yet.

00:34:31.360 Here we are.

00:34:33.080 Okay, this is called Death Poem Number Three.

00:34:36.500 i was minding my own business washing the dishes at our sink when death ran across the field last

00:34:45.060 night as fast as they could cutting down the wheat shouting this is way easier than wood

00:34:51.820 their bony arms in the moonlight shone as they raced up and down the field i said to my husband

00:34:59.700 is this for real the water dripped from my hands as i took a moment to blink

00:35:06.520 when something outside the window truly began to stink their face pressed up to the glass

00:35:13.640 they smirked and said you better wash fast and drew a heart on the window pane where their breath

00:35:20.080 had passed i scrubbed scrub scrubbed and washed washed washed i got all the burnt oatmeal off of

00:35:28.680 the pot. Death was coming closer with every swipe of their scythe. I knew this would soon be the

00:35:35.900 end of my life. Finally, they stopped running and turned to face me again. Wheat was stuck in their

00:35:44.800 cloak. I still hoped this was a joke. And with a sigh, I pulled the plug from the drain and looked

00:35:54.620 out the window again. No longer an image of a skeleton appeared, yet all my friends and loved

00:36:03.500 ones that I have held so dear. My dog Ginger, from when I was five. My horse Amy, oh how I cried.

00:36:13.480 Aunt Teresa, Uncle Tom, Grandmom Ruth, Pop Pop Krex. So much love I felt from the right to the left.

00:36:21.620 the smell of lilacs came over me i felt something grab my hand warm and steady

00:36:29.240 i looked and saw a black cloak yet under it was pure shiny gold death smiled and said

00:36:39.560 may i walk you home my heart full from what awaits me i kept my hand in theirs and said

00:36:48.440 I am ready. Hello my name is Emily Goodall. I'm a witch in Pasadena, California and I'm going to

00:36:57.340 be reading two poems for you that I wrote 13 years ago. Medusa. I dig my fingers in my hissing hair

00:37:08.800 for pins and fiery November clouds. I pick ticks from the fat folds of my infant.

00:37:15.960 I pepper the sky with birds. The sound of my voice makes apples drop into the grass like dead

00:37:23.160 hatchlings. I was born of Vikings. I wash in the North Sea, thick with algae and stones.

00:37:32.380 I am the bony cousin of September and spiders.

00:37:38.700 Medusa 2 1.00

00:37:39.900 all her furious femininity sparking from her neck she has crumpled her foot at her elbow 1.00

00:37:49.040 arms thrown breasts bared and uncared about the boy who killed her hardly frowns as he displays 0.99

00:37:56.100 her harmless head draining its malice he had always wanted to tangle his fingers in that hair

00:38:03.700 and now her face does what he tells it. I'm Alexis Quinlan and this poem is called Delphi.

00:38:13.560 Greetings from the beginning of the nuns, not as line one of a joke. True temple princesses are

00:38:21.000 swans clad in flax of varying weights, disparate degrees of pale and afloat. After dusk they scent

00:38:29.800 each other's hair with lavender oil, burn myrrh, gorge on lamb. Tidy up again. Between mysteries,

00:38:38.580 their jokes seep like red on feathers, bawdy riffs off the lewd news dumped there daily,

00:38:44.760 and the hapless petitioners who haul it in. As if. Oh, they're ruthless. The youngest novice,

00:38:53.600 bastard daughter of some Caesar, is a dead-on mimic. Plus, she scoops the eunuchs on the 1.00

00:38:59.860 village honchos. Losers. The earnest girls who came to dodge poverty and hook noses lurk in her 1.00

00:39:08.860 wake, scared of what she'll say behind their backs. So she names them to their faces. Dogs. 0.93

00:39:15.860 Frigid. The rest have signed on for the sex. It's free. Or freeing? Virgo doesn't mean 0.99

00:39:23.340 virgin. It means possessed by no man. Despite old Apollo strutting cocksure, etching every

00:39:32.300 stone in sight, know thyself as if. You must be a witch. 0.99

Missing Witches - May 01, 2020

Beltane 2020! Mayday May Day with Amy and Risa + more LISTENER POETRY

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