00:01:23.640um but yeah we're just here to hang to say hi ask you how you are how are you coven0.99
00:01:30.740hi strangers hi lovers hi witches hi friends how the fuck are you i will offer my own scoop and0.89
00:01:41.700update um because i think the last time if you are a podcast listener you heard from me was in0.97
00:01:48.340the scripted cancer episodes and I still am in the cancer
00:01:54.780um but I'm okay um I'm super bald you can't see me but Amy can um I shaved my head and then
00:02:07.260it started to grow back a teeny bit and then it all fell out and then the eyebrows went
00:02:13.700and the eyelashes went and that messed me up you know it's strange how these small lines that make
00:02:21.060up your face are these sort of gestures that you can relate to your sense of self in such a profound
00:02:28.560way I was okay with losing the hair but the eyelashes really threw me small things um I am
00:02:37.820I'm more than halfway through a six months of chemo or whatever it'll be in the end and then
00:02:46.98025 rounds of radiation and then one more surgery and maybe that's it I'm in the land of probabilities
00:02:55.560they cut the cancer out I have clean margins but there is probable cancer throughout future
00:03:02.800probable cancer that we're attacking with aggressive chemicals now it's a strange
00:03:10.500I have a strange relationship an altered relationship with science and magic in this
00:03:16.860new chemo headspace that I've just been trying to wrap my head around and also there's you know
00:03:24.300beautiful fluffy snow falling and it's a black and white world outside my window
00:03:29.520and that's sort of the summary of how i am and who i am these days
00:03:34.540i had um an episode where i found that a prescription medication that i had been given
00:03:43.180for my various ailments like it really was not doing what it should have been doing and quite
00:03:51.820the opposite actually in recent i had a long conversation about like how our medicines are
00:03:57.740poisoning us and and how do you negotiate that and it feels like it feels like the world right now
00:04:07.760that everything that we might find joy in has another side of its coin um and so we have to
00:04:16.580look even harder to find the joy i did think of a little bit of potential joy for risa but1.00
00:04:21.300But Risa does not like to put shit on her face.1.00
00:04:27.220She's not like a big makeup wearer or, you know, even at Halloween, which is something that she and I do not have in common.0.99
00:04:35.560I will glue a thousand rhinestones to my face and not think about it.
00:04:39.100But I was thinking about like your loss of eyebrows and how that was really like something that like when you looked in your face, it made you feel very differently about your face.0.80
00:04:51.300and I was thinking about how so many drag artists will intentionally remove their eyebrows so that0.79
00:04:58.940they don't have to block them out yeah and so if you wanted to you know paint your face like divine0.99
00:05:05.540from pink flamingos this would be the perfect time to do it if you wanted to you know really
00:05:11.420get into heavy camp drag now would be the perfect time for you to get into that totally this is the
00:05:20.520time I mean I definitely like I've had to play with dress up a little bit to sort of shake myself
00:05:29.520I don't know like back into different ideas of who I can be like access that part
00:05:36.500different parts of myself you know like I really went through a valley of sweatsuits
00:05:44.260dark dark valley of sweatsuits when I really couldn't I couldn't access narratives about
00:05:54.660myself and I told Amy you know I couldn't watch narratives either I couldn't really process when
00:06:00.340I was in the sort of dose dense chemo I couldn't really process narratives but I couldn't really
00:06:06.280access narratives about myself either and I said in a coven call that I was experiencing
00:06:14.520gender dysmorphia or a sense of body dysmorphia just feeling so confused about my body um
00:06:22.920because I have you know expanders in and my breasts just don't look normal they look really
00:06:28.860to me very um cyborg and they feel so strange because all the nerve endings are cut so they're
00:06:36.260isn't this sort of sense of like living sexuality or whatever um yeah i just i know when i look in0.78
00:06:43.360the mirror like bald and weird cyborg tits that point straight up or mine used to point straight0.76
00:06:49.380down after many years of breastfeeding not many okay two years of breastfeeding no judgment for0.94
00:06:55.700anybody who goes a long time um many many many years of breastfeeding 12 years no um yeah
00:07:06.020and then I had a coven mate reach out um who was going through transition who was like I heard you
00:07:12.120use that word and just wanted to send you love from the land of dysmorphia like I'm I'm really
00:07:18.120with you in that and I think that you have more in common with that experience even than you
00:07:22.840realize you know and um they were so kind to include me in that experience and in that discourse
00:07:29.320and offer me rather than to gatekeep the experience yeah yeah yeah exactly which if
00:07:37.640you feel like i shouldn't have access to that i could understand that too there maybe there should
00:07:41.740be a different word but there is a feeling of like really being so disoriented by your body
00:07:49.000by it being wrong um and i knew you know really that i wanted breasts even if they were going to
00:07:57.000be fake and that really helped me understand in my body what it is to know that you needed
00:08:02.160to transition in a minor way you know like I don't have that full experience or anywhere near
00:08:07.600but I certainly like I'm I'm put myself in allegiance with people who have that experience
00:08:13.540um but yeah playing dress up helps sometimes um and I can see how maybe a little like
00:08:22.460sparkle eyebrow could help because you have a blank canvas right I sure do yeah I have um
00:08:31.980I have like the the the white fuzz of a post chemo bald head this is like a known thing to
00:08:41.280chemo patients but probably nobody else but like you get this like you before your hair goes back
00:08:46.300you get this like white baby fuzz so i have that now it's so weird it's cute i can see it
00:08:53.800just a little like halo of light yeah i can see a halo
00:08:58.920what are you looking forward to for 2025
00:09:03.920what am i looking forward to for 2025 i mean one thing that is sort of daily joyful
00:09:15.140for me is that we do have people finding us from the gooks you know that people really are looking
00:09:26.480for an online coven that's trans-inclusive that loves science and hugging trees that people are
00:09:35.460finding that and seeing themselves in it um and making common cause with us that's so joyful
00:09:44.440really it is because to i feel like on our website we really have been just and in the podcast just
00:09:52.760like so honest about who we are like i feel like this is really a very accurate reflection of who
00:09:59.900we are and what we think we're not setting ourselves up to teach wicca or anything that
00:10:05.140we don't know you know we're just sort of exploring what this word means to us and why
00:10:09.840it means something to us this word which yeah yeah that word um so yeah i look forward to that
00:10:21.360it's to see the community grow and to see people in our community inside the coven space that's
00:10:29.680that's only accessible to to supporting members take on like sort of step into their roles as
00:10:37.520co-creators um and to be creating more and more in that space is something I really look forward
00:10:44.500that was sort of the dream and I especially this week after a weaver's call I really felt like
00:10:50.460that dream like sort of got lift you know um in a totally new way also I would just like to have
00:10:58.720a year without constant crisis but I don't think that's in the cards it's it's not looking like
00:11:05.6002025 is gonna be that year we already we already lost that battle in like the first two weeks of
00:11:12.260January you know we have a lot of friends and loved ones and relations who are living in
00:11:18.580California and are just being reduced to tears as always um we have to shout out Amanda Yates
00:11:25.600Garcia who is you know um not like the love and light everything's great like she called the mayor0.99
00:11:33.520a cunt in her last newsletter. And I was like, that's so real. That's so real. But, um, I would0.98
00:11:41.420follow, um, and subscribe to the newsletter definitely of Amanda Yates Garcia, who is sort
00:11:47.460of talking us through, um, obviously the fires in LA, but also how she has seen her community
00:11:57.400come together and I think that that's that's the biggest goal for me for so many of us is just to
00:12:07.080build and develop communities of care like real communities of real care where we can go into a
00:12:17.140place when we're um not feeling like putting on the mask of everything's great and don't worry
00:12:25.500about me and I'll be fine and I think we've all reached that point you know those of us with any
00:12:33.160kind of global consciousness um are at that point where it's just like this is not okay and I am not
00:12:41.280okay in this you know if you are thinking about joining the Missing Witches Coven you know
00:12:48.360normally when a podcast has like a Patreon or you know something to that effect it'll be like
00:12:56.080bonus episodes or you know content that wasn't included but for us it really is about building
00:13:03.220community about building relationships about having a place to go when the world seems so scary that
00:13:11.880we almost have forgotten beauty and laughter and to to grab that stuff and cling it back and
00:13:21.300hold it close to ourselves we need that you know risa and i we talk all the time about and that's
00:13:27.860why our book new moon magic the the subtitle is like resistance and re-enchantment and we come
00:13:34.240back to this again and again and again what are we fighting against we know something that has been
00:13:40.180kind of very interesting you know luigi really helped to bring this idea to the forefront
00:13:47.200whatever you think about that situation is sort of neither here nor there the point for me is that
00:13:52.880people are talking about class and how so much of racism homophobia transphobia comes back down to0.99
00:14:04.320capitalism and how the ruling class can profiteer from us feeling fucking shit about ourselves0.97
00:14:13.740and so that to me is such an important point to make that this awakening this like people who0.98
00:14:21.180never thought about class consciousness before you know I have a friend who I would probably
00:14:25.740call like apolitical and I I envy her that skill to be able to just like go through life
00:14:33.400unconcerned about global politics or local politics or politics of any kind but even she0.76
00:14:41.500is at this point where you know she's driving past the the um the tent tent cities that are
00:14:50.620popping up in montreal and again this is montreal like we're talking minus 20 degrees celsius like
00:14:56.620it's it's not safe it's not fair it's not right and so i i said to she she was asking me like
00:15:04.880what do i do with these feelings and i was like welcome to your radicalization you know today is
00:15:12.160the day circle it on the calendar today was the day that we got radicalized and of course we know
00:15:18.400that like the cure for that, for that feeling of helplessness is, is action. And what I said to
00:15:30.800her was like, pick one thing, pick one thing to care about and one thing to work toward. There
00:15:36.460are too many. If you try to save everyone, you're, you're not only going to not be able to save
00:15:42.860anyone, but you're also going to lose yourself. It's impossible. It's an impossible task.
00:15:46.760and when we are in communities then we can kind of divide and conquer you know what's your skill
00:15:54.640set what are you passionate about okay then let's let's facilitate that and let's foster that and
00:16:01.220then i'm gonna go work over here again i feel like every time we're in a room together i bring up the
00:16:08.000Doreen Valienti story of like her being invited to this event like a witchcraft event and they
00:16:16.660were like expecting her to be the keynote speaker and she showed up and they were like you know what
00:16:21.500do you want to do how do you want to be involved and she said well I could wash the dishes
00:16:28.000and that like I think about it all the time how we and again maybe that's part of capitalism where
00:16:37.100Everything's got to be big and grand and massive, but life is actually made up of just these tiny little, maybe we could wash the dishes, maybe I could wash the dishes for you, and what a rippling effect that has across people's lives.
00:16:53.960So, again, 2025, I think, is going to be a big year of class consciousness, a big year of community building.
00:17:03.700When we had our flood last summer that caused the landslide that took out a chunk of my yard, I remember, you know, the mayor of our little town was like, rely on your neighbors, rely on your friends, which is very true and very beautiful and very good.
00:17:21.940But also is another way of saying like, we're not, we're not coming to help you. You know, when the government says rely on your neighbors, what they're actually saying is like, you're on your own. And we can't be on our own. We cannot be on our own. And so it becomes so, so much more important to like resist that, the individualism of capitalism, the lie of self-reliance, where if you just have enough money,
00:17:51.940then you don't need fucking anybody, you know?0.91