00:00:29.360Neither Sanyu nor Maria could make it to our in-bulk panel,
00:00:32.640so the three of us decided to do a little bonus episode.
00:00:35.620And since both Sanyu and Maria are tarot enthusiasts who have written or are writing books about tarot,
00:00:43.240and both contributed essays to the book A Confluence of Witches, edited by Casey Zabala,
00:00:50.060we knew there'd be a lot for us to talk about.
00:00:53.400i wish i knew how it would feel to be free i wish i could break all the oh what a room what a room
00:01:06.780what a room i'm so excited to be here with sanio estelle and maria minnes we were talking a little
00:01:14.440bit about how much overlap there is in both of your work and so who knows maria you are the
00:01:20.940author of tarot for the hard work and san you has a deadline breathing down her neck for her book
00:01:30.120which working title the cultural roots of tarot correct right so okay before we get into all of
00:01:38.900this um i want to start with this usually i end with this but this month we're starting with it
00:01:45.160So let's start with Sanyu. Who are you? How are you? What are you working on? What are you not working on? And most importantly, how can our listeners support your work? Feel free. PayPal, Cash App.
00:01:58.520oh how lovely okay yes let's start with the business uh i am sanyu sanyu estelle depending
00:02:06.240on the a of your cultural preference or uh social conditioning and or we should call it
00:02:14.500socialization i guess social conditioning is typically associated with like the bad aspects
00:02:18.980of humanity, where socialization is like our culture itself. I am a soon to be published
00:02:29.960author of my own book in fall 2026 off Red Wheel Weiser, because I am writing this book,
00:02:36.500The Cultural Roots of Tarot. The question of what I'm not doing is definitely a funner way,
00:02:42.400more fun way to answer because I'm not writing my speculative fiction stories, even though I have
00:02:48.820ideas there. I'm not rolling out my methodology workshops that I plan to be rolling out later
00:02:57.260this year. I'm not purchasing my return tickets from Europe where I'm going in May because I'm
00:03:04.260also going to Tunisia to see Carthage just because I want to see it. And I'm not planning
00:03:14.660what i'm doing for my birthday which is march 5th because my deadline's march 1st so until
00:03:19.980march 1st there's the there's no birthday um but i imagine march 5th will be a really good party
00:03:28.100if when you hit that deadline and then you're past it assuming i get it done for myself and
00:03:35.000me that i am on the 28th of february gets the shit done between me and and her our tag team
00:03:43.600process then yes march 5th will be a great celebration uh the past two years i've gone
00:03:49.080to six flags magic mountain which is apparently closing which is tragic because like theme parks
00:03:55.760are the one place where you can like literally yell your head off and no one tries to commit you
00:04:01.040i think it's a very special place um i think it's very healthy and cathartic to just scream at the
00:04:06.760top of your lungs occasionally yeah let me let me inject a little pop culture reference here because
00:04:12.700i think it was kimmy schmidt and she meets her mom and her mom is like addicted to roller coasters0.81
00:04:18.260and she says the same thing like this is where i come to scream and scream and scream and scream
00:04:25.400yes and to feel a thrill that you intend to feel that has a like a marked ending right
00:04:34.380because humanity is like the thrill that never ends you know so every day is like a
00:04:39.880you know jump scares um there's a few places you can find me at philosophical research society
00:04:46.200this saturday from 3 to 7 p.m i'll be reading cards in the prs library well bookstore library
00:04:54.340thing and i will be at prs with lace on valentine's day doing speed readings also edgar
00:05:04.120Fabian Frias will be there um is it Frias or Diaz I hope it's Frias thank you okay Frias okay
00:05:12.420yeah and we will be doing speed readings for all the sweethearts or the lovers or the non-lovers
00:05:21.480just come get read um so that'll be fun um is that part of the tarot-a-thon that golden
00:05:27.240the golden dome excuse me that golden dome school is doing or is this a separate event
00:05:32.320think so it's lace does this annual um what is it los angeles something contemporary arts
00:05:42.380so something about contemporary i'm doing i'm failing here sorry lace i love you guys um but
00:05:46.900acronyms and but they do it a valentine's ball with prs every valentine's day recently since
00:05:55.160post quarantine you know every um and i've been the resident reader there and they have like
00:06:01.340a ball and a masquerade and people dress up and there's all kinds of like performances
00:06:06.100and readings and like performance art um and uh yeah and then buy my book when it's out thanks
00:06:16.040that's my whole spiel um I need for you to mention your album before we pass the mic to Maria yes
00:06:26.080that's so funny you actually and kate and kristin were asking me about music and today is the or
00:06:34.200maybe it was yesterday it was like the fifth year anniversary of the release of my first album
00:06:37.620which feels funny because i made my album in tribute to my father who passed in january 2020
00:06:43.420he always wanted me to be an artist which is not something well he wanted me to be a musician which
00:06:47.380is not something i ever wanted to do professionally um but when he passed i had a lot of grief uh to
00:06:53.460express and we were in quarantine so i i wrote an album called good grief and um and so it's the
00:07:00.920fifth year as of yesterday anniversary of that album which you can find on all the streaming
00:07:04.980platforms including youtube and soundcloud um if you want to listen to it for free 99
00:07:11.280and I also released a second album in 2024 called Shipwrecked and that was my attempt to put all of
00:07:25.200my romantic songs on one album so like I don't have to do anymore that was my idea at the time
00:07:33.940my Venus is an Aquarius in case you were wondering so I released Shipwrecked and that's like a bunch
00:07:40.340of love songs about different times in my life and that's also out on streaming and those may
00:07:47.000be the only albums i ever make so stream them for the rest of our lives thank you i i love this like
00:07:53.260interdisciplinary thing where i mean i've been thinking a lot about this lately how
00:07:59.480many people say i'm going to write a poem or i'm going to do a painting but i think for
00:08:09.760witches it's like a vision and then we kind of decide what medium that vision is going to take
00:08:19.200is it going to be a song is it going to be a painting is it going to be a poem is it going
00:08:23.300to be a book and that to me is like the difference between I don't know secular art for like
00:08:30.700mainstream art whatever and which art is that we go like vision creation whereas a lot of people
00:08:39.420I think are looking from the product backwards you know what I mean anyway hi Maria
00:08:46.660what are you envisioning what's your vision for these days who are you how are you what
00:08:53.680are you doing what are you not doing how can people pay you yeah oh wow uh so I will start
00:09:01.960with uh the fact that I'm not doing a ton in terms of like witchy work um Sonia I am so excited for
00:09:11.780your no return ticket trip out to Europe I actually just came back from a no return ticket uh trip I
00:09:21.600spent like almost about two months in Europe and like I travel a lot and I just never have a return
00:09:29.780ticket and I recognize the privilege and luxury of being able to do that but yeah it was pretty
00:09:36.640magical and so I came back home and I'm in the process of packing up an entire house and not
00:09:46.480having any idea about where me and my fiance are going to be living and so I'm just like really
00:09:55.580just like moving forward and just following what feels right even though I don't know what that
00:10:02.560right feeling is going to result in and so let me just get this clear because I'm having a panic
00:10:10.360attack you are packing up your house putting all your stuff in storage going away for question
00:10:18.360mark and then coming back and deciding what you're gonna that's so brave yeah I and so
00:10:25.560just like probably both of you all are um i am just like very energetically sensitive
00:10:34.160and my fiance and i just like realized this house just isn't like there's there's some sort of
00:10:43.140there's some sort of vibe here that isn't conducive to our like productivity um and just
00:10:53.180overall, I feel like home should be a sanctuary. In terms of my chart, I'm a Leo and my Leo is in
00:11:02.600the fourth house. And so my house is my domain. I like to be queen of the castle. And so I tend to
00:11:10.700just go for things and accept that I don't always know the finished result. And so that's taking up
00:11:20.520a lot of my energy but I do still do a few witchy things uh I have my holographic space
00:11:27.480index newsletter which is um it's TMI quite often I just explore tarot through the lens of like
00:11:38.700real life in my real life um I'm an oversharer and it um I think sometimes people overshare
00:11:48.800because there's like the attention aspect of it but for me it's really like writing is processing
00:11:55.540for me I process my feelings and experiences through writing and I find such validation
00:12:01.700in connecting with people from that and so I don't do that on a prescribed basis I just
00:12:09.380whenever I have the feeling I just put out a newsletter um I also in in terms of other
00:12:17.740projects that I don't have a regular schedule, I produce my Kinky Tarot podcast, which explores
00:12:25.920the world of kink and tarot. And that sort of aligns with what is taking up a lot of my focus
00:12:34.740lately, which is I'm currently studying to be a sex intimacy and relationship coach.
00:12:42.900and my focus will be on kink and neurodivergence as well as friendship and so that takes up a lot
00:12:51.720of my energy and so lots of moving pieces I'm not doing I'm accepting collaboration requests but I'm
00:13:00.400not doing the regular workshops and tarot readings and such and it's been really freeing and I feel
00:13:09.000like um I'm really excited for my work to evolve after I'm done with the sort of high
00:13:18.400high unpredictability phase of my life tell me about this word holographic and what it means to
00:13:27.560you and your magic your life your work yeah um several years ago I started using the word
00:13:35.500holographic a lot in my work. And I know that there's often a negative connotation with the
00:13:43.980word complicated. But I think that so much of life's beauty is rooted in the fact that there
00:13:53.440are so many layers to everything. And I think that there's real value in perceiving a thing,
00:14:01.880But also taking into consideration the types of light, angles of light, areas of light in that thing, as well as the shadows and looking at things more than face value, which I think is a lot of what witches do.
00:14:25.100And so I really appreciate just approaching life in a complicated way and adding texture to everyday things, whether that's conversations, tarot readings, relating to a blade of grass.
00:14:42.100There is so much to explore in in a lot of the mundane aspects of life, which is a lot of where my public work is rooted in is everyday magic and magic in the mundane.
00:14:57.040And I feel like the most magic is what we do beyond the altar.
00:15:02.160And so holographic to me is just like.
00:15:05.960exploring the magic in the everyday and a lot of that requires us to take different perspectives
00:15:14.900on things that we might take for granted or take for face value and deriving meaning from it and
00:15:23.580understanding that um just like the tarot like yes there's value in um there's value in understanding
00:15:33.140the collective meaning and language around the tarot because there's a real energy to that
00:15:39.080but also having this personal relationship and personal meanings to everything and like that's
00:15:45.640why I feel like my life is magical is because I approach things um in in sort of a multi-dimensional
00:15:56.300way. And it's in my nature to kind of make everyday things sacred. And I find that exciting.
00:16:04.540And I love my life. And I think that's because I, you know, not always, but I strive to
00:16:14.540take into consideration that most things are, most things that I encounter in my personal life
00:16:22.740are often not what they seem at first you use the word you use the word multi-dimensional and i feel
00:16:31.240like sanyu um jump in with quantum witchcraft and the multi-dimensionality of your life
00:16:41.000yes i mean if we're talking about it let's say from the quantum perspective or if you
00:16:52.500prefer the Bashar perspective like all time exists at once right so as a as a raven flies up
00:17:01.080from the ground onto a tree that's my it's one of my animal guides one of my companions that I love
00:17:06.400very much but um all time exists at once and so the difference between I've been saying this
00:17:14.980recently actually to clients like one I know it has Gwyneth Paltrow in it but the moving sliding
00:17:21.280the movie sliding doors is very useful as an analogy for multidimensionality, because in the
00:17:27.220movie, her character makes one choice that changes the course of her life. And the movie splits into
00:17:33.020two timelines. And at the end of the movie, she has to decide which version of herself that she
00:17:37.260is. Right. So I think of that as multidimensionality. And the way I use give that example
00:17:42.460practically to my clients is there's a version of me 15 years ago who heard tarot deck. That's
00:17:49.120one dimension there's the version of me 15 years ago who heard tarot deck and bought a tarot deck
00:17:53.740it's the second dimension there's a version of me who heard tarot deck bought a tarot deck used it
00:17:59.060that's a third dimension and then there's this fourth dimension which is I heard it I bought it
00:18:04.480I used it for 15 years and now it's my profession and likely the version of me in the parallel
00:18:11.140timeline called 15 years ago is hearing me be like girl I think a tarot deck would be cool like I
00:18:18.680don't know 15 years from now we're doing like cool shit with it so maybe you want to buy a tarot deck
00:18:23.360and for her it is it's not comprehended why she would hear that but for me with the lived experience0.61
00:18:32.160with the field work with the knowledge I know why so I'm the one like calling over to her
00:18:38.700in non-linear time so that's how I think about it I am nerding out so much like one thing I
00:18:47.800don't often talk about um is like my interest in theoretical physics and quantum physics and
00:18:59.080like my understanding and exploration of those topics is absolutely why I am like so
00:19:10.220so into my spirituality and like the concept of many things being true at once many things
00:19:19.120occupying the same thing same space at once like that is magic to me so like when you were just
00:19:26.140talking about these different timelines I'm just like like my my heart is just like glowing right
00:19:32.780now and I love learning that about you yes likewise I also tell people um what were you
00:19:40.020just saying many things are true at once oh right that I'm a soothsayer I'm a truth teller by trade
00:19:45.180right but people are when when people read that it's always very interesting because they project
00:19:52.160their idea of the truth onto me right which is often fear people are like oh I don't want to
00:20:00.100hear anything bad i'm like why would the truth be bad you know like the truth the truth isn't
00:20:05.480your inner critic uh that's not the truth um but i do tell people a part of being a soothsayer is
00:20:13.120recognizing all truths are true from a different perspective right like for the flat earther that
00:20:18.460is true for the scientist who sees the earth as a globe that is true and existence is making space
00:20:25.360for both, right? The KKK member and us are true. They have their beliefs, and we still exist.
00:20:33.200And by the way, you can't have a belief about something unless it exists, so they're welcome.
00:20:38.300But all these aspects of reality being multidimensional truths, being held at the same
00:20:45.940time, even though humanity really doesn't think it's possible, even though it's already happening,
00:20:49.400humanity's like we can't coexist and existence is like but you are you know you already are
00:20:56.300or else how would you be aware of the fact that you're coexisting multi-dimensionality
00:21:01.800let's give our listeners a little bit of context in in case you didn't know coven um sanyu and
00:21:10.920maria both contributed an essay each um to the book a confluence of witches a modern witches
00:21:18.600anthology which was compiled and edited by Casey Zabala and it's fantastic
00:21:26.360listeners if you don't have this these essays again I'm sitting with two of the
00:21:31.360essay writers right now to give you a little sense of the amazing this send you
00:21:37.800your essay is called loving what is colon quantum witchcraft and again Maria I
00:21:43.880thought of you saying like I love my life you know the world isn't perfect
00:21:47.280Nothing is perfect, but I love my life and loving what is as opposed to grieving a fantasy, you know, missing out on your life because you're grieving a fantasy of something or the opposite, like grieving your life because you think that your inner critic is the soothsayer, is the truth teller.
00:22:09.340and Maria your essay is called all moons are for all lifetimes and you talk about like you know
00:22:17.580the earth and time and geography but I think we could apply that to quantum witchcraft too right
00:22:22.940all moons are for all lifetimes let me just read something really really quick this from your essay
00:22:28.500Maria. The moon reflects the cyclicity. Did I say that? Cyclicity of being human. Water makes us
00:22:40.720human. Creativity makes us human. The food of the earth makes us human. The moon is a thread that
00:22:47.300connects us to our inherent interconnectedness with everyone who has ever existed and does that
00:22:58.180apply to other versions of ourself too maria i i think so i think so i think about the moon and
00:23:10.720it's like most basic relationship to humans which from my perspective is its uh impact on
00:23:20.480our water which all people have to have a relationship with in order to survive and
00:23:31.900And I think about how, how do I say this? So if I am interconnected with all people across,
00:23:45.100you know, history, then somewhere in that I have a relationship, whether I am conscious of it or
00:23:56.540not and most of it of which I am not conscious I have a relationship to the truths that everybody
00:24:04.100holds and that is that's exciting it offers me a sense of responsibility in terms of how I show
00:24:15.100up in the world but I can also see it as something um a little bit scary it could be a little bit
00:24:23.980scary? You know, like, I live on a planet where I have a relationship to people who hold truths
00:24:37.000that are vastly different from my truths, truths that are inherently harmful, inherently
00:24:45.100oppressive and what do i do with that um i i don't have the answer i can just pay attention to how
00:24:55.520i show up but it does make me think about like okay if i'm connected to all people
00:25:04.180so i'm jewish and recently we just celebrated to the shabbat i can never pronounce it but
00:25:15.080it's the new year of the trees and oftentimes we consider humanity as like part of this tree of life
00:25:24.340and i am responsible for my branch but my branch is always impacted by
00:25:36.280the other branches on the tree that are acting uh that are growing
00:25:42.420from from those perspectives independently and so how do i how do i consider myself as
00:25:53.040an independent being while understanding that i'm part of this giant tree and how
00:26:03.400do i live my life in a way that that uh that offers myself self-preservation
00:26:11.280and at the same time I have to just as much value collective care and taking care of this whole
00:26:22.580big web of things that I am not consciously aware of and that's a big question I don't have the
00:26:30.500answers to it but there are so many ways to be human and that gives me permission to be human
00:26:38.720in my own way and when I say my own way that isn't to say that I am not the product of I am I am not
00:26:49.160I am not independent of what brought me here the tiny minute choices that brought my ancestors
00:26:59.420together like I'm sure one of my ancestors took a wrong turn and met the love of their lives and
00:27:05.260without that, I would not be here. And so it's like, I'm, I'm often wondering how my tiny
00:27:11.980interactions within myself ripple out into the world, because I think that everything we do
00:27:19.980ripples out infinitely. And we just like, I don't know, what's the end of my moving journey,
00:27:28.100I'll never know the end result of my actions, but I can act as though the end result of my
00:27:34.960actions um can lead to a um a more equitable equitable future for all but I also I balance
00:27:46.540that with understanding that like I can't carry the weight of the world and that my ability to
00:27:53.480access things like joy in a world that is uh often not joyful is is it's self-preservation
00:28:02.100and my joy can ripple out into micro interactions that impact the whole tree of life and so again
00:28:12.340it's that many things are present at once many things can be true at once and it's this
00:28:18.900complication that I think makes life uh for me worth worth living yeah it's it's I mean I think
00:28:30.860all the time about like the butterfly effect and we talk about it in terms of time travel if you
00:28:35.420went back to the dinosaurs and you stepped on a butterfly you'd come back to a completely
00:28:39.120different world but we don't talk as much about today you don't have to go back in time to be
00:28:46.000doing a butterfly effect we have to be conscious of our actions and be thinking a thousand a hundred
00:28:51.540thousand years forward how is this minute decision that i'm making right now going to play out a
00:28:58.860thousand years from now and i also i want to turn this question to sanyu because i think i mean this
00:29:05.540is not new by any stretch of the human imagination but i think 2026 came bucking out the gate and
00:29:14.480people are being confronted with this idea of self-preservation versus community care as if
00:29:23.060these two things are sort of like set up as you have to choose one or the other what what's going
00:29:28.940on with you in 2026 like we know monsters are real we have we have the papers we know well you just
00:29:36.780you just read history to know monsters are real I mean I a big part of the cultural roots of tarot
00:29:41.960which I I I align with this um I don't know what the proper like English term for this but like
00:29:52.300that the book writes itself um and so I had you know I pitched my idea I had my my outline or
00:30:01.080whatever and like as I'm doing the reading and the research the book is is telling me what it
00:30:05.800it will be and so a lot of my research for my book which there's a great deal of like honestly
00:30:13.160like 40 plus sources of things um because i'm looking at a big swath of time primarily like
00:30:22.420900 ce to like 1500 ce but that has to also include depending on the topic and the country
00:30:32.460we're talking about um anywhere before like before the crucifixion of jesus which whether
00:30:40.080we're calling it bce and ce or bc and ad it's still based around this this murder okay so um
00:30:47.300this murder by the roman empire okay and so reading history okay let me give you an example
00:30:53.440the some decks i thought i'd never buy because i didn't learn tarot through a school or through
00:31:01.580a tradition i i came to it and i learned it intuitively but now i have the solubusca tarot
00:31:06.060right and i have the visconti sforza i have two of the oldest tarot decks in the world and just
00:31:12.660reading in the books and then reading some uh michael dumay i was like oh this dude married his
00:31:20.520family member this dude married his half his bastard daughter um and they did that so they
00:31:31.420could keep the name in the family right after certain people died and this guy also had the0.90
00:31:37.820woman the wife before he married his own daughter killed so you know this is epigenetic you know
00:31:46.720it's not monsters are not new no we've been making up stories about them for millennia and here's the
00:31:53.700thing for me too um as a soothsayer because i know all truths are true from a different perspective
00:31:59.900And because I know that existence co-signs me and co-signs the KKK member, and we are both free to choose what we believe, you know, you're not free if you're not free to make poor choices, right?
00:32:13.000Like if you're not, if you don't have the liberty to be dead ass wrong, you're not free.
00:32:19.700So having the choice is a sign of, for me, from existence, that's a sign of faith, you know, that's a sign of trust.
00:32:28.240uh or at least it's a sign of confidence like if existence isn't worried on a level I'm like0.95
00:32:34.260I guess I don't really need to fucking worry on a on a level like I didn't make all this shit I
00:32:38.780didn't put everybody here so it there's a greater orchestration here happening than me but like I0.96
00:32:45.960I I hesitate I don't even hesitate I I don't disclude the worst aspects of humanity from0.98
00:32:55.120humanity you know it they're not monsters they're just people doing fuck shit um and you know not0.85
00:33:03.080everyone's gonna come through epigenetic trauma and end up like harriet tedman a lot of people0.98
00:33:08.920just don't have the skill set to do that or the the trust the existential trust now that's a
00:33:16.380benefit for sure of being like a witch or a pagan or someone who truly believes that like
00:33:20.860all the things here are conspiring together to be in community um which is a fundamental belief i
00:33:29.120have but there's also this quality of well what i studied criminology right i was like in the
00:33:36.860netherlands doing my master's in criminology when i found the herbal tarot and then everybody
00:33:41.040started asking me for tarot readings and then i stopped doing my master's and now this is my
00:33:44.800fucking job now so a lot of the reason i studied criminology in the netherlands is because i needed0.72
00:33:50.600to go somewhere, in my opinion, my bachelor's was in sociology and political science. So when I0.99
00:33:55.880decided I wanted to do my master's in criminology, I wanted to be I wanted to study in a country where
00:34:01.200crime wasn't a business. Right. Because in the States, criminology is forensic science, social
00:34:08.100work and law. There is no one working with the incarcerated while they're incarcerated unless you
00:34:13.860are part of the penology system. And so when I went to the Netherlands to study criminology and
00:34:18.820I wanted to go there because prostitution is legal and taxed. Pimping is illegal. You have to sell yourself there. You have to pay dues. There's a fucking prostitutes union. Drugs are decriminalized. You can not be arrested for taking drugs or for possessing drugs. You can only be charged with a crime if you have enough of a quality that they believe you have the intent to sell. You can only be criminalized for selling drugs. Right.
00:34:43.640And then the Netherlands in general has a very low religious population, probably larger than it was when I was there because everyone has skewed more conservative. But like there it was like 15 percent of the population was religious. Right. So based on upbringing in the Puritan Protestant United States or United States of America, Vespucci, as I like to call the country, then you're thinking, oh, this is fucking Sodom and Gomorrah, bitch.
00:35:10.140like this is they say that if these things were all true at once, like we'd be going to hell in0.99
00:35:14.880a handbasket. So I had to go to the Netherlands and see for myself. Great quality of life.
00:35:19.960Shit is functioning over there just fine, by the way. But they were also at a point in Dutch culture0.99
00:35:25.280in 2013 where they had had such a low recidivism rate, such a low rate of recriminalization from
00:35:32.680their native population that they were renting out their prisons to other countries whose prison
00:35:38.900populations were growing and how does that happen it happens because there are certain countries who
00:35:45.140criminalize more things and there's countries that criminalize less things and so when we're
00:35:49.640saying monster instead of human we're criminalizing an aspect of human humanity that has been going on
00:35:55.820for millennia right like like crucifixions the romans crucified like a crazy number of people1.00
00:36:02.820It was like 10, 40,000 motherfuckers.0.99
00:36:05.180They were nailing them to crosses.0.99
00:36:08.760OK, these people were alive at the time.
00:36:12.160The pope, the pope started because Peter, the apostle.1.00
00:36:15.820And I got to read about the apostles because I those bitches were messy.1.00
00:36:18.640But like Peter, the apostle went to Rome.1.00
00:36:21.860He tried and Jesus was I know when he had his conversation with Jesus, Jesus said something
00:36:26.260like, you're going to get your comeuppance.
00:36:29.880And so Peter was like in Rome and then he ran away from Rome because obviously the Roman Empire was like not down for Christianity.
00:36:36.780And then he had a dream about Jesus going back to Rome to be crucified again.0.54
00:36:41.640And he was like, yeah, you're right. I'm being a little punk bitch. Let me go back to Rome.0.99
00:36:44.680And then he got crucified upside down and buried under the Basilica of St. Peter.
00:36:52.360And that is where the first papacy happened.
00:36:55.720he was considered the first pope in 64 ce and then whoever he had his number two that became
00:37:03.780the pope and the tradition of pope so like when you're looking back at history it's full of some
00:37:10.380of the most abhorrent behavior on behalf of the human species and yet if we if we other that to
00:37:17.340the point that we say it's not a part of who we are then we're we're denying a huge amount number
00:37:23.780of the population. And the reason I bring up that these guys were dealing with not only,
00:37:28.100you know, pedophilia, but incest is because epigenetically, I think a lot of people actually
00:37:36.120deal with these issues. And for me, I don't advertise that I work with people of any particular
00:37:41.520kind, but I have attracted a great number of clients who have dealt with either incest or
00:37:46.380pedophilia or things like this. It's not a personal experience that I've had. I've obviously studied
00:37:51.620things that allow me to have a comprehension of it. But it is way more common than any. It's not
00:37:59.120just this fucking Epstein's. OK, these are just people, your neighbors. OK, these are people in1.00
00:38:03.160your family. OK, and people know this because now that they're getting DNA tests, there's a lot of
00:38:09.100people who are realizing that they're like the result of cousins or or molestation or they're0.98
00:38:15.220related to their own bloodline in a way that doesn't make sense unless there was shit going0.88
00:38:19.340down in the family line and this is something about humanity that has to be exposed Bashar0.96
00:38:26.240calls 2026 the year of disclosure right that everything it's not just aliens are out there0.99
00:38:33.080we're not alone in the universe live long and prosper it's also like there's a lot of shit
00:38:38.360going on that y'all are in denial of and it's gonna be to a level of exposure like you cannot0.90
00:38:44.860if you want to be in the cult of deniability or what I call bad jedis where they're like
00:38:49.340It does not exist. Don't ask, don't tell. They're already here. Like, you know, so that I would say, yes, there's a very abhorrent versions of humanity that are monstrous.
00:39:01.800I would call it monstrous. But I think reading about history just shows you how prevalent this kind of behavior is.
00:39:09.620And if we can't address it as human behavior, we can't decriminalize it and figure out how to like actually deconstruct and resolve the predilection that causes people to do this seedy ass behavior, which is also a funny word for a derogatory thing.
00:39:27.240Seeds are great, but you know what I mean.
00:39:30.680We love seeds. Yeah, we need to take back seedy.
00:39:33.760But I mean, you're absolutely right. A friend of mine is a survivor.
00:39:39.620of childhood sexual abuse and it is her life's mission now to she works a lot with survivors
00:39:47.120and and it's like you were saying son you like to lift the veil to use a witchy term you know
00:39:54.260to remove that veil where we think that like oh this isn't something that happens a lot like
00:40:04.820so many of us have been affected by it one way or the other whether a personal experience or you
00:40:11.540know watching your friend suffer or knowing that that is in your dna you know maria you talk about
00:40:17.560the choices that your ancestors made and how they affect us right like we know that our bodies are
00:40:23.160carrying our our ancestors trauma um but certainly not new you know my sister studied classics and
00:40:30.820so we're like okay Nero okay Caligula like is this what we're doing now we're doing the Caligula
00:40:36.460thing right Medusa Persephone like all of these rape victims yeah yeah yeah it's wild out there
00:40:44.360um all right hard left because I know I'm not gonna fix that listeners
00:40:51.720but I think it's very useful that you remind me um that these are human beings that there
00:41:00.700not a different species, that they are monstrous, but they are human beings. Also, as we move
00:41:10.100toward my final question and the theme of this month, let me just read something from
00:41:18.120your essay, your quantum witchcraft essay, which to me speaks to a level of freedom that
00:41:23.880I'm going to ask you about in one second. Not even the invention of humanity, no matter
00:41:29.980how much it fights to do so, can keep me from experiencing, witnessing, and learning from
00:41:37.080all that existence is to me, for me, with me, and of me. I am the only one who is within myself,
00:41:48.900so I am the only one who can decide for me, from within myself, what is outside myself.
00:41:58.120and that seems to me like an answer to the question that I'm about to pose so Maria I'll
00:42:03.660ask you first this comes from of course Nina Simone um she sang a song called I wish I knew
00:42:11.680how it would feel to be free she sang I wish I knew how it would feel to be free I wish I could
00:42:20.080break all the chains holding me I wish I could say all the things that I should say say them loud
00:42:26.340say I'm clear for the whole round world to hear. So Maria Minnis, author of Tarot for the Hard
00:42:34.000Work, adventurer. What would it mean to be free? How would it feel to be free? Or with your present
00:42:43.640circumstance how does it feel to be free um that's that's a lot um i i can speak to sort of
00:42:58.560um well for me it's kind of like a big big uh big thing but like it in terms of like speaking of
00:43:08.980humanity. It's not, um, personal experience. I, um, spent almost nine years in a physically,
00:43:18.920um, financially and emotionally abusive relationship. Um, and plenty of reasons I stayed,
00:43:28.920uh, feeling, you know, guilt for not wanting to, for, for imagining that I was abandoning somebody
00:43:37.500for leaving to um to insecurity um and one thing one thread that I remember having through all of
00:43:51.200this and and I can only say this I think because I feel the you know in a strange juxtaposition to
00:44:00.400the times we're living in I feel the freest that I've ever had and I think the threat that like
00:44:08.420stayed with me in that almost decade was thinking and believing and telling myself
00:44:15.540that I did not have options and I think my answer is for sake of time pretty simple but for me
00:44:26.020Feeling free is feeling like I have options. And when I think about the work that I have done
00:44:38.320in terms of collective care, I often say, you know, I'm not necessarily, I hate the term like
00:44:50.840fighting for but I'm not working toward a world where everyone everyone thrives um but I'm working
00:45:01.460toward a world where everyone can choose to thrive um and for me feeling free feels like I have
00:45:11.340options. Um, and yeah, that's, that's at the root of it because right now I feel like, um, like
00:45:21.880the, the reason I adventure in and make choices without understanding the end result is because
00:45:29.260I feel like I have many options at my disposal. And again, I recognize the like privilege and
00:45:36.300being able to live a life where I do feel like I have options. Um, and at the same time, um,
00:45:45.780when I am, and I notice, you know, when I'm feeling down, those are the times when I feel
00:45:51.780stuck and closed in. And what reminds me of my freedom is understanding that is remembering that
00:46:01.580I do have options. And yeah, I have the option to choose to do what I want to do in order to
00:46:13.020achieve my personal and ever-changing idea of what it is to thrive. And that's what I want
00:46:21.420for everyone, including people who don't, have never felt like they've had that,
00:46:28.160that been able to have that mindset. And what would you say to someone who feels like they're
00:46:36.200stuck? I feel like we, we all sort of have options, but like executing those options can be
00:46:42.500terrifying. Um, what would you say to somebody who said to you, I'm stuck and I feel like I
00:46:50.220don't have any options the first thing that comes to mind is is recommending that they do the
00:47:00.660tiniest thing possible or that they perceive as possible um in terms of remembering or accessing
00:47:11.560a sense of autonomy. Um, and that can really be as simple as changing, you know, changing the,
00:47:23.380you know, time of day that you have, um, your morning coffee. Um, and even little things like
00:47:33.220that helped me get free is understanding that there are ways in which I can shake up my life
00:47:41.240And from there, I feel like I'm growing this little sense of being able to access what it feels like to have options.
00:47:54.060From there, I, you know, everyone's circumstances are different. But I, and because I don't understand what it's like to be in anybody else's shoes, but myself, I understand I can't, you know, prescribe what it is to do. But like, what is the smallest thing you can do to feel like you can choose?
00:48:19.980i want to underscore something that you said that is so important um that it's not just
00:48:28.920about what is possible but what we perceive as possible that's the major distinction i think
00:48:37.100between how people are living or not living their lives sanyu yes would it or how does it
00:48:47.200feel to be free what do you perceive as possible well first i agree with everything maria says
00:48:56.760um said and probably says as well um but i definitely think like what maria is saying
00:49:07.860about the perception of the choice is the same thing i was talking about with all truths are
00:49:14.120true from a different perspective right like there's a version of you who doesn't think they
00:49:19.700have an option and there's a version of you who's going to choose something and they're gonna find
00:49:26.440an option to choose and once you find you know once one thing happens one time it's that much
00:49:31.020more likely to happen again kind of stuff but for me I have a particular connection to that song
00:49:36.920because that's the song that we rolled my dad out to on the gurney um that Nina Simone is his patron
00:49:43.440insane so it's like a favorite artist musician of all time however i had no idea i was oh i know
00:49:49.920and i thought i was like yes well my dad passed on um january 23rd which i always think too of
00:49:56.440as easy as one two three right um and so that song my dad had many favorite nina simone songs
00:50:06.480and over the course of his life various songs would take more like prevalence than others and
00:50:12.020towards the end of his life that was a song that he was particularly focused on um and so
00:50:18.820that was why we rolled him out on the gurney to it like he had other favorites along the way but
00:50:24.280that was the one that he was free right like he wasn't in pain anymore but also knowing the
00:50:30.320etymology of free like the root of the word free means to love literally to love not love itself
00:50:35.940but the action of doing so. Whereas the etymology of love means to desire, right? So I always tell
00:50:44.940people etymology of free will means to love to choose, right? It's not to love every choice
00:50:50.440you've ever made. It's not to love all the choices and presented to you. It's to love the fact that
00:50:55.000you even have the consciousness awareness to know that there is a choice. Because there are people
00:51:02.300who don't have that as maria has said right there are versions of ourselves anyone who has left a
00:51:08.040cult will tell you there was a version of themselves who didn't think they had the the will
00:51:13.580the the ability to choose that it wasn't for them that it wasn't in their hands um that they couldn't
00:51:20.440be trusted with the choice that they didn't trust themselves they didn't trust existence to support
00:51:25.940the choices that they wanted to make or the people around them and and so freedom means you know
00:51:31.660to love to choose that's what it means to me uh that song means you know the freedom to know
00:51:41.340more fully which does not always come at the time of the ask i suppose right um like there's
00:51:50.940questions we all had in our 20s that our 30s and 40s and 50 year old selves are like yeah well0.99
00:51:56.140the bitch. Like, that's why. But that's not, you know, I like to say we're the past lives of our1.00
00:52:04.360future selves, right? Like when we're in elementary school and we cut out the person and it's a line
00:52:08.500of people, that's an identity. And at any given time, you're another person on that line of
00:52:13.860identity and you're passing the baton every moment. So ideally, the ability to love
00:52:20.880helps you navigate towards a life that is
00:52:25.400fulfilled with that or in the pursuit of that, right? The verb of love, not the desire,
00:52:31.540not love with a little L, but unconditional love. And the way I talk about unconditional love with
00:52:37.380people is it's not about how much affection you have. It's not about how much time you spent
00:52:43.880caring. It's about the conditions. And if the love can't survive the conditions,
00:52:49.660it's not unconditional and that's not a crime but it's valuable information0.99
00:52:54.240like it's good to know that like you ain't got the spoons for that shit like0.91
00:52:59.540it can't be me it must be let me release you to somebody who really can deal with this0.98
00:53:04.720or who believes that they have to right so i think there's a lot of discomfort right now because
00:53:13.420people don't trust the species, not for no reason. People don't trust themselves,
00:53:21.020understandably, because when you're a part of a species that doesn't trust itself,
00:53:26.100you're socially conditioned not to trust yourself. We're also, oh, this is totally random,
00:53:33.400but it feels relevant because Maria was talking in the beginning about how she
00:53:37.280TMI's in her newsletters. And I think I am the same way too. My newsletters come very sporadically.
00:53:43.420but like, I will share whatever. Something I've been sharing with people recently,
00:53:48.420even though at one point it didn't seem super relevant is that I went to high school with
00:53:52.540Stephen Miller. Like I was an associate student body with him. He was like that in high school.
00:53:59.500I went to a huge high school, 3,600 people. He wasn't in my class. He's two years older than me,
00:54:05.400but like we were in student body together. And so like there were a thousand people who were
00:54:12.660in my class and 860 people who graduated. This is a huge school. It is not a Hollywood school
00:54:18.180where people are being put in trash cans. This is a big enough campus that you could just beef
00:54:21.980with your own crew like you didn't have to you didn't have to seek out on anybody else. You
00:54:25.840could just fight your own people. But why I say this is, you know, he there's this speech Jimmy
00:54:32.040Kimmel shows of him and in our quad in high school that I remember where he's talking about
00:54:38.360why do I have to pick up my trash when we have janitors? And and we had no idea where the speech
00:54:45.740was going. But by the time when he said janitors and then he over spoke his time and so they walked
00:54:51.200him off the stage and then someone comes up to speak who I personally know very well, who was
00:54:55.680the next person to speak. And Stephen Miller runs back onto the stage and like tries to talk over
00:54:59.820her. But all this is to say what's really interesting about that speech to me, all the is
00:55:07.060earth is your house like why are you why would you throw trash on the ground in your house1.00
00:55:13.340you fucking live here you idiot like why would you create work to have why are you creating1.00
00:55:18.500problems to have okay the trash can's right there it would be one thing if it didn't exist1.00
00:55:24.860if someone had not invented the concept of a trash can okay but we know they're there and we
00:55:30.760know what they're for so like why wouldn't we use what like why would we reinvent the wheel
00:55:35.080You know what I'm saying? So I bring that in just because a lot of people's beliefs about what their options are, are very limited by their understanding of what existence is all about.
00:55:50.760and the focus on what we don't prefer about existence and the fixation on arguing with
00:55:59.200existence about the fact that the things we don't like exist and then attempting to eradicate from
00:56:05.820reality what something infinite has put into reality okay this is psychotic behavior okay
00:56:14.940So I think that, you know, freedom to me is recognizing, just like Maria says, yeah, love in the time of cholera and love in the time of colonization and love in the time of the Holocaust and love in the time of enslavement and love regardless, right?
00:56:31.900Like, there's not been a time in history, I promise you, from depending on where you were in the world, where there was not something problematic taking place. And so the idea that life has to be right for you to be good, don't hold your breath.
00:56:49.900because that's a dying wish you know um but to show up anyway to love regardless of the fact
00:56:58.860that there are things here that you don't prefer to choose freedom regardless of how many examples
00:57:07.180there are to the contrary I think that for me is embodying what Nina Simone sings because
00:57:13.160obviously my dad didn't feel that way in his lifetime and neither did she and many of us don't
00:57:18.680either but we aspire to a humanity that does and i suppose that means that each of us has to do our
00:57:28.620little part in our own life to like write our own life and to live from a place of like
00:57:35.940appreciation where we're not throwing trash on the ground in our house just because we can't
00:57:43.380And if you believe in reincarnation in any way, even death is not an escape from the mess you made before you left this place. You have to return to that mess at a certain point. Maria, do you have any reaction to what Sanyu said or parting words?
00:58:01.740um I just spent the I was just present the entire time I wasn't processing anything other than just
00:58:10.760like pure appreciation and resonance with all of that and yeah like I I am of so many feelings and
00:58:22.620I know we're at the end of our time but yes like don't throw trash in your own house because we're
00:58:30.280all connected and um we we do oftentimes have choices that we don't realize that we have
00:58:38.640and a lot of that just starts from looking around and realizing that this is your house too
00:58:44.820yeah um what you perceive as possible is possibly more important than what is possible
00:58:56.920and if we're looking for definitions of freedom let's go to the etymology and come down to love
00:59:05.920isn't it refreshing that that is what it would mean right like as as soon as we hang up i'm
00:59:16.540rabbit holing immediately into i know you're an etymology my job is done here so you've you've
00:59:23.080done your good work um again i know that you are both very busy witches and globe trotting and
00:59:29.600gallivanting and building fantastical futures but i do hope that this face-to-face introduction
00:59:35.920that happened today may someday no pressure no stress no timeline and maybe not even in this
00:59:43.580lifetime but will fruit a collaboration i would love to see what would happen if the two of you