Missing Witches - Exercising Our Faith Muscle w Amy And Risa

00:00:00.000 Just a reminder that the Missing Witches podcast is entirely listener funded. If you love the

00:00:06.960 project and want to support us and join in on conversations like this one live, find us on

00:00:12.940 Patreon at patreon.com slash missingwitches. You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must 1.00

00:00:19.580 be a witch. You must be a witch. Welcome to the Missing Witches podcast. 1.00

00:00:30.980 Hi, everybody.

00:00:33.020 In brokenhearted, exhausted times.

00:00:38.320 Yeah.

00:00:39.740 In gathering together times.

00:00:42.700 There's a lot going on.

00:00:44.780 And we haven't done one of these just recent Amy chats in so long.

00:00:50.900 We thought it might be a good opportunity to catch everybody up and catch up with each other.

00:00:57.480 Yeah. 0.91

00:00:57.860 see each other's faces it's the summer man whatever the fuck else is going on it's the

00:01:06.020 summer and we'd have so much fun playing with um a two episode a week format and we will go back

00:01:14.680 to that because we really love writing those meditations and we really love hearing from you

00:01:20.780 about them those have been such like a joy for us um but we're in like full research and writing

00:01:27.640 mode we're finishing the second book and we're preparing for the next season which will have 0.97

00:01:34.340 like scripted stories again about true histories of missing and occulted knowledge badass fucking 1.00

00:01:43.820 witches women and gender expansive people who have shit to teach us and also go babe 0.99

00:01:50.720 I just wanted to repeat this little story that someone once asked Risa if we weren't afraid we were going to run out of historical witches at some point. 0.99

00:02:01.960 And we can tell you, no, we're not afraid of that.

00:02:06.400 Every time we discover one witch, there are four witches that come out in the research.

00:02:12.840 So no worries.

00:02:14.000 We will never run out of witches that we've been missing.

00:02:17.480 Never.

00:02:17.700 No, no.

00:02:19.360 And we have so many more ways now of learning from them. I feel like we learn so much from the people that we get to meet and interview about how to do research, about how to just imagine what we think, about how to interview people, connect with families, connect with archives.

00:02:39.900 like we we learn more about how to tell those stories and how to kind of slip into the margins 0.87

00:02:46.020 as we do this so yeah um yeah we got we got a lot of fucking stories to tell we're really excited 0.97

00:02:52.720 I do admit that sometimes I feel like a bit of that like Joe Rogan just like a meathead who got 0.93

00:03:01.660 lucky and gets to talk to really exciting and interesting people sometimes I feel like I'm like

00:03:08.040 what whoa you know and i i feel like maybe um i'm i'm getting outsmarted at every turn but i love

00:03:16.760 that i never wanted to be the smartest person in the room i want to learn from the smartest people 0.76

00:03:21.800 in the room yeah i just want to get to be in the fucking room yeah i just want to be i'm just happy 0.67

00:03:27.040 to be here i will build that room if it means i get to be in it but for those of you who are 0.91

00:03:34.280 listening like definitely let us know if you have encountered an amazing witch either like in your

00:03:39.640 personal contemporary life or in a book or in your research about your own genealogy definitely let

00:03:47.980 us know send us an email at missingwitches at gmail.com we're never going to run out of witches

00:03:52.000 but we're always happy to hear about the ones that y'all are finding too yeah you are the reason we

00:03:57.840 never run out I think um yeah so that sort of is why we're taking a step back this is going to be

00:04:07.160 a summer of like hangs like Risa and Amy are going to touch base a little bit more I my life is

00:04:13.520 fucking upside down to be totally honest like I don't even know where I live now we went home for

00:04:18.720 one day we've been on the road for like a month my my partner's mom was rushed to the hospital 0.98

00:04:25.080 and then out of the kind of blue received like a very life-ending cancer diagnosis we've had a bit

00:04:34.900 of a reprieve now where she's like awake and and making plans and and chatty and planning to come

00:04:44.380 home and so we've all moved in to mark's parents house like his brothers may mark and i like we're

00:04:53.280 just circling up the wagons here to surround her with love and to help support their family and all

00:05:00.440 the caregiving that's going to be needed and we'll just be here until the end I guess and probably

00:05:06.440 after we went home for one day and I know in the coven in the patreon coven I missed a conversation

00:05:13.840 about magical places and I was doing all these moves and then got home for one day to my magical

00:05:20.460 place you know like we were just there the wind was in the trees the light was on the lake and

00:05:26.900 we were like okay okay I managed to get my plants into out of their little buckets and into great

00:05:33.760 big pots and like give some love to the beings I'd been tending and then we left again so

00:05:39.580 that's my that's my update that's my deep sighs that's my like we're we're we're in an encounter

00:05:47.520 with death right now and with all the ways it suddenly moves like a wave through lives so

00:05:54.120 we're gonna be trying to be gentle with ourselves this summer yeah we definitely have had like the

00:06:01.920 spring of mortality confrontation and the summer is not looking any less mortal than the spring was

00:06:13.160 yeah it doesn't stop it doesn't stop no one of my uh girlfriends one of our coven mates

00:06:22.820 texted me that she got laid off from her job and I mean what do you say like we can't

00:06:31.120 financially you know support everyone um barely ourselves barely ourselves but I you know the

00:06:38.520 first thing I texted back to her was like we just want to like frolic in the woods and like

00:06:44.420 pick berries and like wash our faces in the creek like why do we have to deal with getting laid off

00:06:52.720 and having to pay our way through life it's yeah I'm really interested I've been reading

00:07:02.000 more about mutual aid societies and the history of that practice comes from directly from Black

00:07:09.820 Panther activism and ideologies. But, you know, mutual aid society is really interesting because

00:07:17.420 it's not about a handout. It's about a mutual hand holding, right? It's about like stepping

00:07:24.240 outside of capitalism to be like, what do I have that I can offer you? How can I support you? So

00:07:29.960 how can I implement that on small scales like within a tenants rights organization within like

00:07:35.760 a apartment Facebook group with you know in our lake association like what are small ways that I

00:07:43.240 can introduce anarchy and communism without using those words to scare my old neighbors

00:07:53.100 I mean you brought up the Black Panthers and you know they were they started out as like a free

00:07:59.500 breakfast group and then ultimately became like labeled as a terrorist organization and somebody

00:08:05.660 like Fred Hampton who was assassinated by police was someone that I would consider to be a role

00:08:13.780 model for all of us and exactly this kind of mutual aid that you're talking about um you know

00:08:19.620 we sort of I read this book maybe it's beside me no it's not um it's called Modern Utopia

00:08:28.560 and it's it talks about these communes that started in the 60s and there's this notion that

00:08:36.960 we got in the 80s you know when we were growing up that like you know the hippies grew up and they 0.96

00:08:41.880 joined the establishment because they realized that like it was stupid to you know insert

00:08:48.700 anti-capitalist action idea here um but based on my research what more often happened was that 0.96

00:08:57.080 these communes were bulldozed. The government would change the zoning of an area so that they

00:09:06.920 basically were illegalizing these communes. So again, I mean, it's a fight. It's not going to be

00:09:16.000 easy to fight capitalism. Even if you get it all together and you've got your patch of land and

00:09:23.080 you've got your like-minded people you're still going to have to fight against either those people

00:09:29.240 in your life who don't believe in what you're doing those people in your life who are mocking

00:09:33.600 you for even having these ideals and claiming that they're childish when we know that they're

00:09:38.060 more adult than anything this is going to be a fight and you have to fight we all do we all have

00:09:51.280 to fight and it's exhausting we're exhausted but the fight will continue there will be the one

00:09:59.180 percent who are always going around in their back doors and with their secret occulted knowledge

00:10:03.840 to make sure that we are under this pressure and i don't have any advice except for you know just

00:10:13.220 like keep recognize that it's not going to be easy that it's not going to be a question of like

00:10:18.460 we've decided that we're going to be a mutual benefit to each other and then that's it I mean

00:10:25.960 I think holding on to the like the total joy of the vision like the total brilliant restful joy

00:10:39.740 of the vision you know like we were recently like on a back porch in the night and there's

00:10:47.820 fireflies all around us and the trees were all blowing all summery and my friend Brad this

00:10:54.260 wonderful painter was saying I dream every day of how of the revolution like I dream of how fun it

00:11:01.820 will be like I can just see how fun it will be like he's like when we were were protesting here

00:11:08.420 in Quebec to protect affordable education like free education here fighting for free education

00:11:15.560 here and every day we took to the streets and we had pots and pans and we made food and we rode

00:11:21.640 our bikes and we took back the city it was like this taste and he's like we do everything cool

00:11:27.620 the left does everything cool it's like when do the organizers of pop montreal and oceaga decide

00:11:34.760 that they're building the revolution in the middle of say catherine street like when do the when do 0.98

00:11:39.800 the cool fucking bands and the cool fucking artists and the cool fucking architects like 0.97

00:11:44.320 When are we dislodged enough that we build the new world in the middle of all of this, you know, that we overthrow capitalism? It was like his vision of it was so joyful. And then I was just reading, I just put this quote in to the 13th chapter, the end of our book. 0.99

00:12:08.660 um we can edit out my um um ums here where is she

00:12:15.660 we're not we're not we can be human

00:12:20.980 so emma goldman uh you know in uh anarchist activist feminist radical hero she's often

00:12:33.180 quoted as having said like if i can't dance in your revolution i don't want a part of it

00:12:37.760 but the the full quote is oh wait I want to pull up I actually just have a little piece of it here

00:12:46.340 but I want to pull up the longer thing for us here the full quote is from her 1931 autobiography

00:12:54.840 she wrote at the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest one evening a cousin of

00:13:03.380 Sasha's. A young boy took me aside, and with a grave face, as if he were about to announce the

00:13:09.320 death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance.

00:13:14.280 Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to

00:13:19.100 become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the cause.

00:13:24.820 I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I

00:13:31.000 was tired of having the cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a cause

00:13:36.440 which stood for a beautiful ideal for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and

00:13:42.380 prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our cause could not expect

00:13:48.800 me to become a nun, and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that,

00:13:54.440 I did not want it. I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful,

00:14:00.000 radiant things anarchism meant that to me and I would live it in spite of the whole world

00:14:06.080 prisons persecution everything yes in spite of the condemnation of my own comrades I would live

00:14:12.100 my beautiful ideal yeah yeah I just I want to hold that like I want to hold the work of people

00:14:23.760 at the like at the nap ministry I just want to like I don't know I don't I want to refuse to be

00:14:31.860 burnt out you know I just want I want to take naps and believe in beautiful joyful things for

00:14:37.360 everyone yeah we I mean D.H. Lawrence said if you make a revolution make it for fun

00:14:45.600 right um and uh I mean this is very serious business there are lives at stake you know

00:14:53.460 what happened with Rosie Wade in the states um one um statistician um sort of concluded that

00:15:03.200 you know um maternal birth uh death in birth people dying in childbirth um will increase by

00:15:14.940 one third this is life and death for real this is actual life and death stuff but at the same time

00:15:22.400 we have to be fighting for something we can't just be fighting against we have to be fighting

00:15:28.460 for and that means like you know radical acts of joy um this is what we're fighting for to

00:15:37.500 for what Reese is saying to not feel burnt out by daily life and instead to be

00:15:43.740 allowed joy. Joy doesn't cost us anything. Joy that doesn't, you know, make us confront our

00:15:52.400 own mortality. Joy that we can't be arrested for. The joy of freedom and choice. I mean,

00:15:59.540 ultimately i think it was marigold santos who said that um witchcraft is choice magic is choice

00:16:12.380 it all comes down to the ability to make choices and it doesn't always feel like we can choose to

00:16:23.060 be joyful it doesn't always feel like that but there is always space for that there's always

00:16:30.340 especially in my family I mean I don't know if I would recommend this to our listeners but humor

00:16:35.760 is how we deal with things humor is how we've always dealt with everything I've never been to

00:16:42.920 a funeral and not made a joke I've never been to a funeral and not had a joke made to me um

00:16:49.520 and you see Jinx Wonsoon does this all the time you know uh Jinx will say something traumatic

00:16:58.340 and then go ha ha ha ha I think I know I do that um one of my friends called me out for it she was

00:17:08.580 like you don't have to put ha ha ha after everything you say and I think it's because

00:17:13.080 you know you get you get scared the heaviness is scary and you don't want to put it on anybody else

00:17:18.760 and you don't maybe you don't want somebody to feel sorry for you like you're asking for pity

00:17:23.220 and so you add a little ha ha ha at the end of there to lighten things up again it's probably

00:17:29.100 a trauma response on my part but at the same time like there's there's always going to be a little

00:17:34.500 room for ha ha ha like steel magnolias cry laughter through tears is one of my favorite

00:17:40.400 emotions I think it was Sally Field who said right but also like if you're going to be that person 0.72

00:17:46.520 at the church group or the stitching bitch or the collective kitchen or whatever that's like 0.99

00:17:55.240 telling the fucking truth you know that's like bringing up the dark shit or that's like 1.00

00:18:02.260 inviting people to care for each other in ways that resist capitalism then put a little ha ha 1.00

00:18:10.340 at the end makes it a little bit disarming you know throw in a joke throw in a joke when you 0.98

00:18:17.080 drop that witch knowledge you use them into it it's a fucking spell yeah laughing is my favorite 0.98

00:18:23.660 you know I like laughing I like singing I like that moment that moment when you crawl into bed 0.99

00:18:29.720 and you're so tired and you get home and you crawl into your bed that's like one of my favorite

00:18:34.440 things in the world so again i mean it's it's it's easier to be anti-capitalist and live a sort

00:18:43.640 of financially modest life when you're when your great joys are truly like laughter crawling into

00:18:49.960 bed after a long day these aren't expensive hobbies

00:18:54.720 no no and we can find those we can find community and that will help a lot you know like

00:19:07.160 people have been working for decades to protect the right to body autonomy and our right to choose

00:19:17.340 whether as people with uteruses we're gonna bring humans into the world um those organizations

00:19:26.280 exist they've existed for a really long time they have a lot of expertise they're very very very good

00:19:34.100 at what they do so you don't have to reinvent the wheel you know you don't have to feel like

00:19:39.020 totally desperate and alone like there are organizations you can learn from you can

00:19:43.980 volunteer with and you can turn to for help and there's there's you know i i really think that

00:19:51.160 like church groups basement groups like the old ladies in basements are what got canada

00:19:57.520 health care you know they are the activists that got canada health care so like be the seeds that

00:20:03.700 invade and sporulate all of these different these different community spaces and tell them the truth

00:20:10.960 you know listen to them I love the the the women's auxiliary it was called growing up and

00:20:18.140 this notion of um that um that Lolly said that we quote all the time which is like

00:20:28.420 just about finding your own place in the revolution and for some people this is like

00:20:36.300 knitting you know trivets that they were gonna or you know one of my friends has a collection of

00:20:43.920 like hand knitted slippers that only come from she only gets them some church bazaars it's the 0.91

00:20:49.380 best place she's like I only buy these slippers from church bazaars because it's like an old lady 0.97

00:20:55.140 who made them and they really know what the fuck they're doing and this is the thousandth pair that 0.99

00:20:59.120 she's made and so you know she knows what she's doing but my point here is to say like not everyone's

00:21:05.460 place in the revolution is going to be the same some some of us are going to be knitting for

00:21:09.980 revolution you know the women's auxiliary at saint luke's presbyterian church shout out

00:21:14.980 like making bookmarks and slippers and you know coasters that is a huge part a huge part you know

00:21:28.020 But I also often tell the story that, like, during the Hungarian Revolution, my father took up arms and, you know, tried to free political prisoners and ended up walking from Hungary to Austria to go and stay at a refugee camp.

00:21:44.340 not everyone's revolution is going to look like that and i i want to remind you that it doesn't

00:21:51.720 have to you don't have to be at the front line with a machine gun in order to be valuable it

00:22:00.100 doesn't have to be splashy it doesn't have to be violent um you don't have to put yourself in

00:22:07.260 harm's way i mean at some point it will probably come to it where we will all have to make that

00:22:13.280 sacrifice of our own personal safety and comfort but not every act of revolution is is you know

00:22:22.100 the kind that they teach us about in history books it's a lot of women's auxiliaries knitting 0.70

00:22:27.440 furiously to raise money for whatever they're doing yeah write your angry letters you know 0.63

00:22:33.720 do that too do that too but also tell us your stories of your your heroic ancestors

00:22:42.000 I think we're going to need them you know tell us your stories because for so long we were like

00:22:50.160 gosh what would it be like for me you know to live in a time where there was violent fascists

00:22:57.340 at the door how would I find the courage what would I do you know and our grandparents know

00:23:03.280 in some cases our parents know in many parts of the world people are living this right now you know

00:23:08.700 so let's share stories of heroism too of witchcraft and heroism i'll tell you my grandmother

00:23:15.840 as a young teenager all the kids they were in denmark when the nazis invaded

00:23:24.200 they were the allies would drop gun parts into their schoolyard when they flew over and the

00:23:33.300 kids would gather the gun parts and hide them at the bottom of their steel skin bags and then bike 0.90

00:23:38.740 them past the german soldiers on the bridge my grandmother was like she had to pee she was 0.99

00:23:45.900 fucking terrified and then her bike broke she had gun parts and she was right in front of the soldier 0.99

00:23:51.420 and like it would stand out if a danish kid didn't stop to fix their bike like all the kids 0.98

00:23:57.680 fixed their own bikes if she just kept going it would draw attention to herself so she had to like

00:24:02.920 stand in front of this German soldier with committing an offense that would have had

00:24:08.880 her in prison, you know, where many of her friends, older brothers and sisters were in

00:24:14.220 prison already. And she stood and fixed the fucking bike in front of the officer and then 0.99

00:24:22.320 got back on and biked around the corner and peed herself and puked and delivered the fucking gun 1.00

00:24:27.660 parts you know and that was like the first of many stories of being like a young kid 0.99

00:24:34.080 but you know the funny one the one I always remember and this is like not the heartbreaking

00:24:38.560 ones but the funny one I remember was that she said everybody in Denmark was resisting

00:24:44.120 like whether they were doing it quietly or they were smuggling guns like almost everybody was

00:24:50.180 resisting and the one she remembered that gave them all so much was that in this vegetable

00:24:56.760 cellar's window he found he like lined up potatoes that all looked exactly the same

00:25:04.940 and lined them up like a bunch of like soldiers and the danes thought it was hilarious because

00:25:12.040 they were all just like copies of each other you know it was like it was like a joke about 0.99

00:25:16.120 the germans just being fucking copycats fascists just like following the rules of violence or 0.98

00:25:22.840 whatever and so they would all walk by and laugh hysterically but like the germans didn't see the 0.99

00:25:28.140 joke in it and it was like i don't know you can be the potato seller with the joke too you know

00:25:34.540 and the gun smuggler sneaky sneaky sneaky right like we're witches we are used to doing our

00:25:41.040 workings you know behind the scenes and in the dark um in in working our mysterious ways this

00:25:48.080 is not new to us this is not new to us there's so many times like think about you know

00:25:52.720 maybe you have like your some sort of pendant necklace and a hundred people would look at the

00:25:59.880 necklace and see nothing but one one witch sees it and it's like oh are you uh you know insert

00:26:05.800 whatever your pendant symbol is and it's the same with the potatoes right like you can let people

00:26:13.720 know that you are in this together you can give them secret knowledge without saying a word just

00:26:20.600 by lining up potatoes in your own artistic method I'm definitely gonna keep that you know like I

00:26:29.780 replace everything in my life with metaphors you know like so now it'll be like lining up the

00:26:35.260 potatoes just gonna go line up some potatoes you know we're gonna make resistance art today 0.97

00:26:42.460 we're gonna line up some potatoes yeah she was fiery as fuck i i definitely she's on my altar 0.97

00:26:53.620 all the time she was so fucking fierce and traumatized by it i mean you don't escape 0.99

00:27:01.040 unscathed these times but no let's not forget like the urinating and vomiting part of the story 0.96

00:27:07.900 you know like the the fixing the bike story is cool and the gun part story is cool but

00:27:13.360 usually there's going to be a urinating and vomiting part of any given story whether literally

00:27:20.080 or figuratively yeah the other part of the story I love and I'll leave out the sort of

00:27:25.140 dark complicated middle but she uh she was part of she was in a she was caught and she was in a

00:27:34.780 prison um and they were going to be maybe transferred to a concentration camp she was

00:27:39.340 in a prison where like much higher up leaders of Danish resistance were being held she was really

00:27:45.740 just you know a kid helping run errands or whatever she was helping out um but she was

00:27:51.400 caught and she was in there and then the resistance like did a raid and got them out and you know in

00:27:59.160 in versions of the story she had to shoot someone on her way out she was pretty traumatized by it

00:28:03.060 But then she hid in plain sight. Her parents got her a job with a German family, like as like a maid and a nanny.

00:28:11.900 And she stayed there, you know, for like and worked for them for the last like weeks of the war, just so she could be safe, so she could hide.

00:28:21.740 And then when news came on the radio that the war was over, the Germans had been defeated. 0.99

00:28:28.460 she ran to the house knocking over all their fucking flags 0.99

00:28:32.020 German flags everywhere she knocked them all down she was a teenager you know 1.00

00:28:37.540 she like hitchhiked all the way home because we we live in symbolism right like knocking over a

00:28:45.220 pole with a piece of material on it is of no consequence here there but the symbolic nature

00:28:51.160 of the act is obviously huge yeah and we witches understand that that there is a link between this

00:28:57.940 is what our spells are it's a link between our symbolic actions and you know our material lives

00:29:03.820 yeah I think that's why those stories of the witches you know drawing down the cone of power

00:29:12.040 to help bring about the end of the war like um that I think that story holds so much fascination

00:29:20.460 and sort of like Aleister Crowley teaching Winston Churchill like to flash the v for victory sign

00:29:26.880 because the Nazis were obsessed with symbolism and they saw it as a symbolic shape that could

00:29:34.920 resist the power of the swastika or something. There is an undercurrent language of symbols

00:29:42.040 that is part of this, I don't know, material language of violence. There is a part of what

00:29:50.560 happens in the material world that is completely determined by our language, our ideas about each

00:29:55.940 other ideas about what matters yeah and i mean stay tuned for our upcoming book i think it's

00:30:02.060 gonna come out at the beginning of next spring but we dive into this into this a lot that you

00:30:09.420 know fascists and totalitarians will use ritual and ceremony and occult symbology 0.92

00:30:17.020 to their favor to their power and then use that same system to excuse me to uh burn witches

00:30:26.900 to or they will mock us you know they will equate what we're doing with i don't know and

00:30:35.040 like a essential oil mlm you know and and multi-level marketing in witchcraft are not

00:30:44.000 the same thing important side note in case you were wondering please please please pyramids are

00:30:52.200 cool pyramid schemes not so much cool but this is what i mean to say like you know fascists will

00:30:58.920 use these tools and then mock us for using those tools and to me that means that they

00:31:05.800 they and we should know that they have power that magic has power and you say that in the

00:31:15.120 street outside of you know the this coven that we've created and you will be mocked relentlessly

00:31:23.240 um and it's interesting to me to think about that what society wants to mock and why

00:31:30.500 you know i think for me it always comes back to young women young women are across the universe 0.95

00:31:41.400 you know the most degraded type of human that we have and why is that to me it's because they're 0.98

00:31:51.340 so fucking powerful that they're scary that young women are so fucking powerful that they are scary 1.00

00:32:02.400 and we have to take that power away from them we have to remove their power otherwise who knows 1.00

00:32:09.000 who knows we might end capitalism we might end war if we were actually allowed to let young women 0.85

00:32:16.580 have a voice that's not demeaned that's not thrown away like chewed bubble gum you know pink 0.92

00:32:22.060 and sweet and soft like chewed bubble gum right and used like like used like a resource like a

00:32:32.380 mind resource like you look at britney spears and that whole history and then you tie it back to 0.60

00:32:38.840 like fucking leonore carrington and like these artists where they got tangled up in or or like 0.96

00:32:47.360 escaped their lives by jumping into these artistic movements that believed that like young pubescent 1.00

00:32:54.320 women had the secrets of the universe that were outside of control and so we should probably have 1.00

00:33:01.540 sex with them as 50 year old men and not you know like oh you were so close there like fuck you 1.00

00:33:10.120 yeah yeah and this is why we find like so many of these like great men of magic 1.00

00:33:18.760 had that piece of their we'll call it a practice yeah that involved like the sexual exploitation 0.99

00:33:26.260 of whoever they could get their hands on basically however the fuck they could get their hands on and 0.99

00:33:31.540 often men you know they're they they were sexually exploiting young men too 0.99

00:33:35.860 and queer people and gender expansive people so i mean i really fuck everything sorry 0.99

00:33:42.220 just ah why is everybody the worst i mean it's as always like to me it's the hypocrisy you know 0.98

00:33:50.340 there's this movement to like ban drag shows for children drag shows that are that are created for

00:33:59.560 children like you know um reading in libraries like stuff like that and obviously there there's

00:34:06.080 an aspect of drag that is underground and very adult you know and there's no reason for children

00:34:13.240 to be involved but then we have queens like for example nina west who is like a disney princess

00:34:18.980 who you know is again going and reading to children in libraries and not reading like

00:34:28.120 porn to the children in libraries but reading like Clifford the Big Red Dog just to sort of 0.98

00:34:33.740 normalize difference which is great which is what children need but then we have this Christian

00:34:40.000 right who is so worried about drag queens and their children but have nothing to say with

00:34:47.840 clergy and their children and I saw someone tweet recently they were like I would rather leave my

00:34:54.080 child with a drag queen than with a priest yeah statistically statistically 0.89

00:35:00.560 just going on the numbers and then all of the all of this like right wing

00:35:10.500 conversation around protecting children even going back to this you know uh bodily autonomy

00:35:18.220 argument it's about protecting children it's about protecting children and then they're

00:35:21.800 they're voting against a bill that would you know um help aid with the the formula crisis

00:35:27.880 that we just had where there was like a formula shortage and all these people who are so heaved

00:35:33.760 up about protecting children in the bathroom are voting against these bills it's the hypocrisy for 0.98

00:35:42.260 me it's the hypocrisy yeah if you're protecting children then fucking guarantee a right to health 1.00

00:35:48.900 care or go fuck yourself it's all bullshit unless you guarantee health care I don't believe you go 1.00

00:35:57.240 fuck off yeah um I mean a shout out to my suburban mom's hometown library that was all over the news 1.00

00:36:07.700 in Canada for having a drag story time and then you know they got a bunch of complaints and they 1.00

00:36:13.460 were on the news for getting complaints and they just fucking doubled down they were like yeah 0.99

00:36:17.280 we're booking more yeah they're a huge success go fuck yourself everybody loves dress up 0.99

00:36:23.400 yeah and I mean I'll say the same thing about uh Z Budapest you know as as problematic as she is 0.99

00:36:32.240 and we acknowledge the problematic nature of her some of her politics but again in our other hand

00:36:40.240 we hold you know the amazing things the brave things that Z did do and one of them was she

00:36:46.760 she was just going to do a reading at a library it was not a big deal it was like something that

00:36:52.160 would have just happened and nothing would have happened and life would have gone on um but

00:36:58.980 someone from the 700 club found out that there was a witch who was going to be doing an event

00:37:03.680 at a library and so they bust in proto the 700 club is like a church tv show basically for those

00:37:12.640 of you who haven't heard of it. So this church group bused people in from all over California

00:37:17.100 to picket what essentially was like a little old lady who was going to do a reading at a library 0.99

00:37:23.620 for children during the month of October. Bust people in from all over the state. Like, is this 0.90

00:37:30.800 a good use of your time? Is this a good use of your political clout?

00:37:37.080 uh no i'm gonna go out on a limb here and just answer my rhetorical question with a big fat no

00:37:44.780 no uh no how is this even a good use of time

00:37:49.120 no health care for all housing for all guaranteed livable income for all and then i will listen to 0.82

00:37:57.720 you talk bullshit about tarot if you care about people take care of their lives then fine talk 0.99

00:38:04.280 to me that you don't like it when we look at cards I don't give a shit I don't want to hear about your 0.99

00:38:08.260 book I don't believe in your bible I don't hear about it take care of people yeah and and to me 0.98

00:38:17.800 you know like I'm a bit of a bible apologist these days you know I've come back around but

00:38:24.560 it's like anything it's literally like anything you can take any issue any sentence any word

00:38:30.920 and you can say this means this because this is once again the symbolic nature of the world that

00:38:39.160 we live in where we can both be looking at the exact same sentence the exact same piece of art

00:38:44.640 the exact same drag queen story hour and come away with a completely different version of what that

00:38:51.200 means yeah and this is why like I I I hesitate to even like talk too much about witchcraft and why 0.75

00:39:02.680 I care about it you know like I enjoy it I like writing about it I think it's like the perfect

00:39:07.900 meeting place for me for my politics and spirituality and artistic practice but I don't

00:39:14.600 care about the word i don't really care about these fights about words you know like i i just

00:39:21.340 want everybody to be safe and get to do radiant joyful things like i don't want to get distracted

00:39:28.420 anymore i will work with weird church group or your satan group or whatever as long as we're

00:39:36.020 working for guaranteed livable income and health care for all like what are we doing right you know

00:39:42.300 And I've said this about so romantic relationships specifically, like, about dating. And, you know, I've had like a series of what I would call successful relationships. Like, I'm, I'm pretty.

00:39:59.980 That's just the universe agreeing with what I'm saying.

00:40:03.260 Is that your successful relationship?

00:40:04.720 that's that's my alarm that tells me hey you know you're protected you're safe you're loved

00:40:14.500 I forgot to turn it off but it happens every day and the the harps come and surround me with um

00:40:22.320 angelic symbolism

00:40:24.840 but my point is this I don't remember a series of good relationships the reason

00:40:34.380 being that i don't know my point is this i don't remember yeah this is where we've come to that's

00:40:45.860 where our brains are at sometimes when the harp angels

00:40:50.540 oh i remember um it's because

00:40:56.320 values are important to me and this again just because we got lost and then we're found

00:41:06.640 um why I believe that I have had successful romantic relationships because to me

00:41:12.740 I mean I've had conversations with friends of mine you know people who are close to me

00:41:17.760 where I'm like first date I want to know if you expressly identify as feminist

00:41:24.820 and one of my girlfriends was like oh well that's a bit oh yeah what if the guy is like

00:41:33.400 you know he doesn't expressly identify as feminist because he just doesn't know with 0.96

00:41:37.120 the word and I'm not teaching you that shit no second date I'm sorry I'll lend you some books 0.95

00:41:45.680 but we're not dating no I'm you know what at this point in my life it's not my job it's not my job 0.98

00:41:51.840 somebody asked me once like why do you not like Jordan Peterson he's got some good 0.68

00:41:59.360 whatever and and fair enough I say this all the time listen Hitler loved animals Hitler was so

00:42:07.680 good to his dogs by modern standards this makes me feel like I should hate dogs because the very

00:42:16.620 very bad man liked dogs therefore in this like either or binary system of values you know we

00:42:25.800 like the cult of personality where I can say like I'm sure Jordan Peterson makes some great

00:42:31.960 points there probably said something correct once but even a stop clock tells the right time twice

00:42:40.820 a day right yeah and they were asking me like why do you and I was like honestly he just seems like

00:42:48.640 a dick all politics aside I don't want to be around someone who I feel like is always like

00:42:55.680 trying to get me or like my mother remarried imagine if my mother went and they were like 0.99

00:43:01.580 oh hello Mrs. Tork and she was like oh it's actually Mrs. Stanley now and they were like no 0.98

00:43:05.680 you just seem like a dick and I don't want to sit and spend an hour listening to someone be a 0.99

00:43:19.240 dick on the radio no that guy hates women and children that guy's no that guy's no good watch 1.00

00:43:27.080 out for that guy and I mean I'm sure someone could frankenbite a clip together based on the

00:43:32.180 last five minutes of Amy saying like Jordan Peterson not so bad and that's not what I'm

00:43:37.580 saying you know that's not what she's saying you know but what I am saying is that if you share

00:43:43.300 values with someone this you need to find out on day one and I'm sorry like you can educate people

00:43:52.260 and you can be compassionate and meet them where they are I hear that all the time meet them where

00:43:56.760 they are and that's fine and I get that and we all have families people that like they're they're

00:44:03.520 going to be attached to us whether we are cool with that or not and we you know even those of us

00:44:08.500 who are estranged from our families we had DNA our bodies keep track our bodies hold memories that

00:44:16.320 our brains can't even deal with right now all of that stuff but in terms of the relationships that

00:44:21.920 we are choosing yes ask on the first date do you expressly identify as feminist where do you stand

00:44:31.100 on bodily autonomy ask because I'm sorry you want to be in a relationship with someone for three

00:44:38.940 years and then find out that they have no respect for you fundamentally not me so again lost and

00:44:46.740 found my point is like find out if the people that you're giving your time and energy to share

00:44:53.260 your values and whether that's in romantic relationships or in your political relationships

00:44:58.740 in your coven find out yeah I think you can work with people of different values as long as they're

00:45:05.720 not dicks to try to make incremental change regulatory change for sure but absolutely for

00:45:11.600 the people that you let close to your body there's no you know the people that live in your home 0.62

00:45:17.980 the person you're gonna build a life with I think prioritize your safety you know you're not safe

00:45:25.460 with someone who doesn't believe you have a right to body autonomy who thinks if you got raped you 1.00

00:45:30.240 have to keep a child who you know who doesn't believe that feminism is the right way forward

00:45:35.540 for equality between beings you know who doesn't believe in trans rights and queer rights like 0.99

00:45:40.820 don't let somebody make love to you who doesn't believe that other people are people fuck that 0.99

00:45:46.560 yeah take take that off the table yeah yeah just take it right off the table 0.99

00:45:51.960 because I agree with you completely we don't have to be completely unified in all of our thinking

00:45:58.740 in order to work together to make change we don't have to we can be different and agree on this one 0.98

00:46:06.060 thing and worked toward that one thing but with with the Roe v Wade overturn I saw so many women

00:46:13.880 on social media saying like well my boyfriend of this many years just said that did it really

00:46:20.980 never come up yeah and and I guess maybe this is the thing about finding our place in the revolution

00:46:27.760 if you are looking at your life and it has never come up let's bring it up you know I'm a big

00:46:33.240 advocate of ruining Christmas dinner I've done it many many times I've ruined a Christmas dinner 1.00

00:46:38.700 I'm sorry like don't don't I will fuck up your birthday if your boyfriend is a shithead 0.99

00:46:46.440 because if if this person is looking at me and willing to make me uncomfortable then why should 0.99

00:46:53.280 I not be willing to make them equally uncomfortable with my stance they know that they're upsetting

00:46:58.400 you with their stance and our only reason to not fight back is because you don't want to make waves

00:47:03.140 you don't want to make people feel uncomfortable well I feel uncomfortable and the only thing

00:47:07.120 that's going to make me feel more comfortable in this situation is if I know that I can speak my

00:47:11.300 mind so guess what Uncle Larry I'm going to speak my mind and I will ruin a Christmas I will ruin

00:47:18.100 a Christmas and if you are in a relationship and you just found out that the person you're in a

00:47:26.060 relationship with doesn't adhere to your fundamental values or legitimately like doesn't believe you

00:47:32.220 have the same rights as them doesn't believe you have the same rights to protect and own your body 0.96

00:47:38.120 get the fuck out like you it'll be it'll be scary and hard but you will find a more beautiful world 0.97

00:47:44.960 on the other side of asserting that basic boundary for yourself I promise I promise yeah I mean this 0.99

00:47:53.620 this we didn't set out to make this like a relationship advice column but

00:47:58.480 and the thing about the episodes where recently we just talked is we have no idea what will happen

00:48:05.140 we will yell at each other advice about random things yeah that's what we can promise you for

00:48:11.480 this summer i mean this is something that comes up on our patreon coven meetings all the time

00:48:16.560 where we come up with these wonderful themes and then abandon them within 30 seconds you know our

00:48:23.100 our coven comes to their meeting with what they want to talk about and i love that too you know

00:48:28.080 it's all about that like de-hierarchizing the whole system you know and just because this is

00:48:35.620 the theme that we thought of well the muses have something else to say the muses have decided that 0.99

00:48:40.460 the theme is this yeah don't fuck somebody who doesn't think that you have bodily rights yeah 0.98

00:48:47.240 you know and again i mean this is something that you you brought up universal basic income 0.99

00:48:52.280 which is something that martin luther king talked about before he was assassinated

00:48:56.760 hey and something that i realized when the years ago when the conversation was really sort of 1.00

00:49:03.580 starting to pick up heat is how many women are stuck in abusive relationships

00:49:09.840 strictly for financial reasons because they can't afford to leave so to me if this was the only 1.00

00:49:18.060 argument for universal basic income this would be enough yeah yeah because again we live in

00:49:25.900 a capitalist hellscape you know i mean

00:49:28.960 hellscape because like while our lives are very very comfortable a lot of us they there's no

00:49:39.280 agency again there there's no choice we have iphones and most of us have roofs over our heads

00:49:47.840 but there's no way out yeah there's no way out and so that means it's not a choice

00:49:54.940 and that's why I call it a hellscape because I'm all about that choice you know yeah but the thing

00:50:01.720 is like again if people are staying in abusive relationships because they can't afford to leave

00:50:06.460 then that to me is the capitalist hellscape that I'm talking about you know yeah that's it so I was

00:50:12.340 digging back into things I'd written before because I was working on the conclusion of the

00:50:16.500 book today and I was looking for this Leonard Cohen poem and I found this piece I had written

00:50:22.920 for um a basic income event i organized and uh yeah it has in it you know um

00:50:35.800 that according to the transition home survey on a single day in canada

00:50:41.840 4,645 women were residing in shelters across canada 71 of them were escaping abuse

00:50:49.360 and we know that up to 40 percent of youth experiencing homelessness identify as lesbian

00:50:55.220 gay bi trans queer questioning or two-spirited where it was only seven percent of the general

00:51:00.660 youth population identify identifies as lgbtq2 in other words young people face poverty for being

00:51:08.440 who they are men account for three quarters of suicides in canada going back to the great

00:51:13.780 depression scholars see spikes in suicides immediately after a market crash canadian men

00:51:18.640 between the ages of 50 and 69 had the highest suicide rate across both genders and all age

00:51:23.180 groups in 20 2012 job and money concerns their identities as providers are the most common cause 0.91

00:51:30.320 of their stress patriarchy and poverty fuck with us all and then the poem the poem at the end this 0.98

00:51:39.240 is the leonard cohen poem that i went looking for because i always come back to this fucking love 0.99

00:51:46.640 that guy, another problematic ancestor. He wrote this, any system you can try without us will be 0.60

00:51:55.760 brought down. We warned you before and nothing that you built has stood. Hear it as you lean

00:52:02.640 over your blueprint. Hear it as you roll up your sleeve. Hear it once again. Any system you can

00:52:09.080 try without us will be brought down. You have your drugs, you have your guns, you have your pyramids,

00:52:15.120 your pentagons with all your grass and bullets you cannot hunt us anymore all that we disclose

00:52:21.600 of ourselves forever is this warning nothing that you built has stood any system you contrive

00:52:28.040 without us will be brought down just gonna sit in that for a second that is our threat and our

00:52:39.420 promise and we are um for llamas um we had already planned this before the roe v wade situation um

00:52:50.080 that we are going to do our llama special centered around bodily autonomy abortion rights shouting

00:52:57.800 abortions um we have been in touch with an abortion doula which i before i i you know

00:53:06.920 he met her I had never heard this turn of phrase it makes perfect sense um you know a doula is

00:53:13.920 someone who guides someone from one state to another I shall we say um you know we have birth

00:53:23.140 doulas obviously that that's where I first encountered the term like midwives and then I

00:53:28.560 learned about death doulas who are you know holding our hands as we metaphorically or literally um as

00:53:35.860 we pass from this life on to the next and an abortion doula is the same time it's same thing

00:53:41.880 it's just someone who's going to hold your hand while you go through this life-changing event

00:53:47.580 um so again there there are many places in the revolution um some of it is hand-holding

00:53:56.720 you know some of it is brick throwing um but some of it is hand-holding and i don't want any of you

00:54:05.600 hand holders out there to think that you're not as important as a brick thrower i have

00:54:11.720 i have my notions about the utopia you know um but

00:54:19.160 i i always come back to stokely carmichael you know who was like pacifism

00:54:29.680 requires that your opponent have a conscience for pacifism to work i'm not directly exactly

00:54:38.140 quoting it but that's the idea you know in order for pacifism to work you have to assume that your

00:54:44.060 opponent has a conscience and stokely went further to say the united states of america has none

00:54:50.340 united states of america has no conscience um i think we are the conscience i think we are the

00:54:57.860 conscience of our nations of our global world um I know that I want to throw bricks but I have to

00:55:08.660 go back to Bex Mui who was like you know maybe we're better off building building with those

00:55:14.240 bricks instead of throwing them I'm working on it I'm working on it people I

00:55:19.960 i want to believe that a revolution of love and joy is enough i want to believe that

00:55:31.840 i want to believe that with all my heart so i'm going to keep working on that faith

00:55:37.820 faith is work for me as like a born cynic with an anxiety disorder like faith is what i'm always

00:55:45.860 trying to work toward you know I often say that faith is the opposite of anxiety anxiety is like

00:55:52.060 you think something bad is going to happen but you're not sure what and you're not sure why

00:55:56.640 and sometimes you do know exactly what the bad things are going to happen and faith is the

00:56:01.600 opposite like anxiety is like having this sense that things are going to go wrong

00:56:06.140 and faith is having this sense that things are going to go right having this sense that things

00:56:13.320 are going to be okay. And I actually, I recently took a trip to Brooklyn. There was a Briar P.

00:56:21.280 Orange exhibit that I wanted to see. So I took the opportunity to go and see Judy Chicago's

00:56:25.980 Dinner Party, which my mother had seen when it originally came out and went on tour and she

00:56:31.660 brought the book home. And I was a kid, I was maybe seven, six or seven. And I remember just

00:56:36.980 flipping through the book and flipping through and flipping through it. And it wasn't until a

00:56:40.300 couple years ago that I found out that it was permanently housed in the Brooklyn Museum. But

00:56:45.480 by then it was COVID. So I just kind of had to sit and wait. But it was so interesting to me

00:56:52.800 because I ended up meeting up with a couple of our coven mates who live there who really helped

00:56:58.240 me out and really made my trip a lot easier and more enjoyable and less work. And I also saw the

00:57:05.720 dinner party which is just like the whole work is about working together and lifting each other up

00:57:11.980 and and the strength and power of community because again Judy Chicago if what the work 0.98

00:57:17.960 is about is that but in practice Judy Chicago didn't make it by herself there was a team of

00:57:23.820 dozens and dozens and dozens of people who who worked together to make this piece and then I

00:57:31.000 got to sort of I saw the artwork and then I went and acted it out in the city working together to

00:57:39.200 make each other's lives easier so again I was like struck with this like the the witchcraft of the

00:57:45.320 symbolic and the you know the material and how these things are always working in tandem together

00:57:51.620 the symbolic and the material the symbolic and the material and that's what I took away from the trip

00:57:56.740 is that I can have faith in a community that I am a part of.

00:58:03.140 I can have faith that there are Judy Chicagos out there

00:58:06.920 making feminist art that is going to be housed in museums 1.00

00:58:10.480 for hopefully hundreds of years 0.94

00:58:12.300 that will inspire people looking at it decades later

00:58:17.900 and hopefully again hundreds of years to come.

00:58:21.040 It's an exercise in faith.

00:58:22.740 I have to exercise my faith, I guess is my point,

00:58:25.260 like a muscle and sometimes you get validation it's like when you're working toward a goal

00:58:32.840 some goals are a little more quantifiable than others you know and some goals are not

00:58:38.660 quantifiable at all but you get these like messages like yes you know big yes and I took

00:58:45.500 a trip that was a big yes and it helped me to have faith that we can make a revolution with love

00:58:50.620 i'm not sure but i believe and that that's gonna have to be good enough for me right now

00:59:01.700 i think that's the definition of faith right you don't know but you're gonna choose to believe

00:59:07.540 and you know i mean my i think that's that's the message for the end of this episode right

00:59:16.260 exercise your faith choose to believe just to believe that you have a right to own your body 0.97

00:59:22.680 first of all don't fuck people who don't think that if you need help getting away from those 0.99

00:59:28.380 people find your networks find your mutual aid societies reach out to our coven reach out to 1.00

00:59:33.400 those organizations women's shelters women's networks planned parenthood that have been

00:59:38.400 working on this work for decades there is a massive infrastructure of support and at the

00:59:44.520 risk of self-promotion if you feel like you don't have a community um you can join our patreon for

00:59:50.580 as little as a dollar u.s per month and we have had so many of our coven mates tell us about the

01:00:02.440 relationships that they've created independently you know with other coven mates without Risa and

01:00:07.380 i you know we just made the space and then we sort of you know you can't see me right sometimes i

01:00:15.040 forget i held my arms yeah irisa can see me but you can't so she got what i was doing but maybe

01:00:24.080 you didn't so yeah i held my arms out in a like come hug me sort of um jesus christ pose um

01:00:30.720 come hug me jesus christ come hug me jesus christ again i'm a bible apologist i'll take it

01:00:36.180 but come join us on patreon we have so many really validating things going on there at all times

01:00:45.140 and you'll get access to our discord server which means that you don't need risa and i at all at

01:00:50.100 that point you can just completely build your own just hang yeah because i think i mean again

01:00:55.400 community is something that is harder than it should be harder to find than it should be it

01:01:02.740 should be so fucking easy and you know maybe maybe we can make it a little bit easier you know we

01:01:11.100 have done our best um we are human but we have done our best to make a safe and brave space

01:01:18.520 um and we invite you to join us there yeah yeah um we love you yeah 0.99

01:01:30.280 and exercise your faith like a muscle exercise your faith like a muscle don't fuck people who 0.99

01:01:36.860 don't believe you have a right to bodily autonomy where these are key takeaways i think yeah i mean 0.99

01:01:41.440 again these are questions these are icebreakers as far as i'm concerned like you know what how

01:01:47.200 do you feel about the word feminist that's an icebreaker that's like weather talk warm it up 0.96

01:01:52.560 ruin christmas ruin birthdays come join the coven because the thing is other people's discomfort

01:01:59.880 isn't the only discomfort that matters your discomfort also matters right so if someone

01:02:05.340 is willing to make you uncomfortable then you know do unto others as they would choose to do

01:02:12.480 but I think you know we just can't be quiet Audre Lorde said your silence will not protect you

01:02:21.660 we know this for sure not just because Audre Lorde said it and so we can have faith that it's right

01:02:27.560 but uh to avoid the cult of personality and the traps of that um let's just look at the sentence

01:02:34.600 like your silence will not protect you it doesn't they come for us all yeah that's what comes for

01:02:41.420 us all it wants to it's a death cult that just wants to use every body that it can every piece

01:02:47.040 of life force that it can it's not individuals it's like uh it's like what amanda gates garcia

01:02:53.560 talks about is an egregore. It's an emergent property of a complex system. It's consumption

01:02:59.640 out of control. It's consumption that has become an identity. It's consumption that's become forward

01:03:04.900 momentum. It's consumption is an out-of-control spell. It eats minds and countries and people.

01:03:12.660 So we resist it by exercising our faith and doing our magic and taking care of each other.

01:03:18.180 I think. Mutual aid is a

01:03:20.120 counterspell to that. Absolutely.

01:03:22.380 Absolutely.

01:03:24.040 Boom. Bless the fucking bee. 1.00

01:03:25.960 Bless the fucking bee. 1.00

01:03:29.820 You must be a witch. 1.00

01:03:36.200 Just a reminder that the Missing Witches 0.90

01:03:38.320 podcast is entirely

01:03:39.820 listener funded. If you love

01:03:42.080 the project and want to support us

01:03:44.180 and join in on conversations like

01:03:46.000 this one live, find us

01:03:48.020 on Patreon at patreon.com slash missingwitches.

Missing Witches - July 07, 2022

Exercising Our Faith Muscle w Amy And Risa

Episode Stats

Transcript