Missing Witches - IMBOLC： Future Histories Of Black Magic 2026

00:00:00.080 If you want to support the Missing Witches project, find everything you need to know at missingwitches.com. 1.00

00:00:06.080 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:09.240 Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! Be a witch! 1.00

00:00:12.760 You must be a witch. 0.98

00:00:15.060 Hi Coven! We've reached that halfway point between winter solstice and spring equinox we call Imbolc.

00:00:22.800 We light candles as a symbol of the vow we make to our own enlightenment.

00:00:29.000 to learn. February 1st also kicks off Black History Month, and these two dates combined

00:00:36.540 provide the perfect opportunity to celebrate where we're going and vow to learn from where

00:00:42.080 we've been. Each year we gather for Imbolc with inspiring black witches who are creating black 1.00

00:00:48.600 history with their work. This year I'm joined by poet, psychic, podcaster, pop culture punk rocker 1.00

00:00:55.840 Zoe Flowers. Professor Oloomi Amaloku, better known as Pro Witch and Guiding Light, got to be

00:01:02.760 Oshun. Mindful Passions co-creator, helping people learn to rest, play, and remember who they are.

00:01:10.280 A person who embodies their name, Caress. Caress Fitch. Author, filmmaker, multi-talented

00:01:18.120 renaissance witch of the world, Lilith Dorsey. Burlesque dancer and head witch in charge at

00:01:24.660 Dark Lake Tarot, Lindsay Braynon, powerful alchemist, revolutionary astrologer at Mystic

00:01:31.100 Moon Medicine, Lolly Moon, and psychologist, theologian, author, currently launching the

00:01:38.360 Black Madonna Freedom School, Christina Cleveland. Black Madonna, who reminds Christina that the 0.86

00:01:45.640 cheer of abundance is always louder than the clamor of fear. The prompt this year comes from

00:01:52.140 Nina Simone who sang I wish I knew how it would feel to be free so I asked our guests how would

00:02:01.700 it feel to be free I wish I knew how it would feel to be free

00:02:11.900 I wish I could break all the chains holding me

00:02:19.720 Thank you so much to my guests tonight for joining me.

00:02:22.980 I have in my hand this, like, stack of books,

00:02:27.960 and each one of them was either written by or contributed to by the witches that I'm in this room with right now.

00:02:38.380 And that makes me the luckiest girl in the world.

00:02:43.120 I'm so grateful that I have this room and that all of you have joined me in this room.

00:02:50.700 Happy in bulk.

00:02:52.840 Happy in bulk.

00:02:53.820 Thank you.

00:02:56.240 Normally, when I do these panels at the very end, I'll say, you know, how can our listeners support you and that?

00:03:04.600 But we're moving that.

00:03:05.400 We're putting that right at the front and center this time. 0.91

00:03:08.420 I want to start with some unabashed, shameless self-promotion. 0.95

00:03:15.640 Feel free to include your Cash App, your PayPal, anything that anyone who's listening out there can use to support you, support your work, support Black Witches. 0.81

00:03:29.460 So let's start with my girl, Zoe Flowers.

00:03:34.800 you're in my top corner on the zoom rooms here we go so my questions are who are you how are you

00:03:43.480 what are you doing what are you working on how can the people book you pay you support you

00:03:48.760 yes thank you you know my capricorn rising loves that like how can

00:03:53.120 just support my work um i'm i'm really good um you know i i traveled from montreal to the states

00:04:06.280 last wednesday so i'm with family and i brought a century storm with me kind of like when i moved

00:04:13.480 to montreal last year and i we got that hundred year storm and so the storms are following me

00:04:19.860 Um, but yeah, it's despite everything. I'm, I'm feeling really, really good, much better than the last time we had this conversation last year. Um, what am I working on? The thing that's most present that's most on my heart right now is obviously my new podcast come to the brink with Zoe flowers.

00:04:38.800 which was born out of me unraveling the caretaking and then the eventual passing of my mother

00:04:47.180 in 2024. And so all last year, I got to talk with other caretakers about what it's like

00:04:55.060 to carry a bunch of people. And season two is different. I took a year to hide in the snow

00:05:02.880 in Montreal and this season is about the disruptors so I'm like coming back into the

00:05:09.000 work so I'm talking to like domestic violence advocates like myself and trans activists so

00:05:14.860 I'm really really excited about season two and um yeah I'm just feeling more grounded

00:05:22.720 um yeah I'm feeling good I had a good reading yesterday my mother came through so I'm I'm

00:05:28.660 actually feeling quite good despite yeah and what about if people want to book you for readings

00:05:35.820 zoe flowers yeah so i am zoe flowers on everything so just i am zoe flowers that's my website that's

00:05:45.200 my youtube that's my instagram and you can book tarot services through my website i teach ritual

00:05:51.800 classes you can book all of that through my website and i think you might have several

00:05:56.900 potential guests here for your podcast in the room maybe we'll see i think we've all been to

00:06:04.580 the brink at one time or another olomi i know you've been there and come back and been there

00:06:09.220 and come back and been there and come back it's so good to see you how are you what are you doing

00:06:15.420 how can people pay you it's good to see you too and good to see everyone in the room

00:06:22.080 what am i doing i am currently very actively healing from burnout but in the midst of that

00:06:31.200 i'm still an english professor and i'm still um a professional witch you know for lack of a better

00:06:39.940 term well you know i guess we don't even need a better term that's the best term so i still um do

00:06:46.000 readings with the Marin DeLogun oracle out of the Inago tradition or the Yoruba tradition.

00:06:53.120 I teach classes. The class that I'm teaching right now is called Dimension Hopping. And it

00:06:58.620 is a class that talks about time travel, dimension hopping, the many ways that we move through

00:07:04.940 dimension as black women and femmes. And the way that you can get in touch with me is on my website,

00:07:12.600 gottobiochun.org, G-O-T, the number two, the letter B, O-S-H-U-N.org. And I'm also gottobiochun

00:07:21.220 on everything on YouTube and everywhere else. But I'm generally at this point in time,

00:07:27.860 just on YouTube. Every other social media has just been really draining me. So I'm mostly just

00:07:35.400 doing videos now. From time to time, I may post something else, but that is how you can find me.

00:07:40.140 I'm also got to be on June on Cash App, Zelle, and all of those things if you would like to send

00:07:46.000 any sort of donation. I'm very much leaning into the work of making sure that I keep my life as

00:07:55.220 bliss-centered as possible. I think that bliss is the fuel of life, right? We were all created

00:08:02.420 from bliss. And so it's the actual fuel that keeps everything running. So trying to not give

00:08:10.020 anything else a lot of space in my head and just give mostly bliss and pleasure the most space in 1.00

00:08:17.480 my head and trying to hold space for other black women and femmes and help them to do the same. So 1.00

00:08:23.760 that's the work that I'm doing right now. In addition to, you know, teaching students,

00:08:29.520 working on the phd um please send good energy towards that the university where i am um getting

00:08:37.780 my phd where i'm still working on my dissertation has recently um suspended some professors who

00:08:45.100 have views that are similar to mine so if you can send good energy that would be helpful as well

00:08:51.320 yes good uncensored energy and i mean all of you literally each and every one of you has

00:09:00.660 changed some way that i go out into the world because of something you said because of something

00:09:05.800 you wrote and olomi i probably once a week think about that little it was like an impromptu

00:09:15.380 sermon um where you talked about you know why were you put on this earth why are you here

00:09:21.220 and your answer was to eat a fresh papaya and feel the juice running down my chin and have 0.95

00:09:27.700 spectacular orgasms and i was like this person just broke my capitalist brainwashing in half 0.82

00:09:36.560 and you also made me want to introduce you once again to caress caress on your website before you

00:09:44.020 jump in tell me who what where when how why there's something on your website that again i was 0.84

00:09:50.040 like oh why is she in my diary how did she does she have cameras in my house you who wrote clients

00:09:57.160 come to me when they're too burned out to keep up the performance but too self-aware to check out

00:10:04.920 completely listeners who is feeling that too burned out to keep up the performance but too

00:10:14.920 self-aware and i would say even globally aware to check out completely right caress please expand

00:10:21.680 who what when how are you doing oh are you burnt out are you just like you take the energy from

00:10:29.820 other people who are burned out and use it to fuel yourself no no it's even simpler than that

00:10:36.780 yes i am burnt out i have been burnt out for a real long time because it's part of

00:10:43.500 being disabled and living in a world that is not set up for you. So what I've been working on, 1.00

00:10:50.720 other than recovering from threes for trees in the last 18 months, is teaching people how to rest and

00:10:56.820 play and getting them away from this idea that in order to matter in this world, you have to be

00:11:04.060 producing something. Say it again. You don't have to produce anything in order to matter in this

00:11:12.260 world you matter and are important just because you exist we all are we all are and that's the

00:11:20.180 position that i have always held and it's the position i'm going to keep holding and you can

00:11:25.340 find me at mindfulpassions.co where i am minding my passions and helping other people find and mind

00:11:33.160 theirs that's dot co right absolutely absolutely dot co yeah because like our passions are important

00:11:42.400 but our passions are important and your work deals with both of those things right

00:11:46.860 absolutely the absolutely the letting the papaya juice run but also the spectacular orgasm

00:11:53.500 yes absolutely thanks lilith dorsey like lilith is so prolific that i almost hope you're gonna

00:12:05.020 tell me you're not working on anything right now but i know that that can't possibly be true

00:12:09.840 what am i doing i'm trying to work my thumbs that's what i'm doing um yeah no spoons no thumbs

00:12:18.160 uh yeah i'm lilith alafia everybody it is so good to be here in this space i i'm what am i doing

00:12:28.940 i'm trying to do things that i think are important to me and uh i know that's not always

00:12:35.640 what other people think but but that means less and less to me uh the older i get um

00:12:42.640 The younger my mind expands. So I have been doing more of what I want. You know, I feel like so much of me for so long was about taking care of others and not even knowing what my needs were.

00:13:00.800 So I'm trying to rediscover that. I'm trying to rediscover community. I'm rediscovering the plants and animals in my space. And they bring me joy. They really do. So I'm happy about that. And I'm Lilith Dorsey everywhere. I'm LilithDorsey.com. I had somebody send me $16.28 for reparations. So I appreciate that in all forms.

00:13:28.760 oh yeah every little bit right yeah why not it's a good number sure why not um but yeah like i said

00:13:38.000 i'm just so happy to be here and i'm so happy to have words and breath and moments here this

00:13:44.320 evening with everybody oh thank you so much for being here and thank you so much for all of your

00:13:50.200 great work um of course your latest book is tarot every which way which is my segue into lindsey

00:13:56.600 lindsey was on the podcast years ago wrote a beautiful essay for me to read at a live event

00:14:03.720 that we did and is currently in the process of relaunching dark lake tarot so lindsey who what

00:14:12.100 when where how and hi everyone um hi so there's lots of people in this space that i don't know

00:14:20.440 um but i do remember caress from our time together all those years ago so good to see you caress

00:14:25.100 I am a Bahamian-born witch currently living in the unceded territory of the Musqueam,

00:14:32.820 Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, colonially known as Vancouver, Canada. 0.96

00:14:37.900 I also have a lineage in Suriname and Barbados, so I'm a born-bred, good-dead Caribbean gal.

00:14:45.260 And I have, at least initially, been reading tarot professionally under the name Dark Lake

00:14:52.120 tarot since 2016 and shortly after that is how i found amy and the with missing witches podcast

00:14:58.840 and it was such a delight to be able to connect with people there and talk about the many ways

00:15:05.780 that i have been discovering magic intercepting in my life and how i was using it um aside from

00:15:11.780 my tarot reading adventures i'm also a burlesque performer under the stage name androsha wild

00:15:16.840 um and that has been what most of my attention has been uh taken up by uh over the last couple

00:15:24.120 of years especially with um the pandemic and everything that's kind of been happening over

00:15:29.660 the last five or six years since i found myself in uh new positions of management or mentorship

00:15:35.640 and leadership uh i'm actually the artistic director of the vancouver international burlesque

00:15:41.300 festival which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year making it the oldest one in

00:15:46.740 canada which is actually really fucking cool um but pertinent to dark like tarot um i realized

00:15:54.180 that i had hit a point of burnout as many of you all have already kind of established where i could

00:16:00.380 not continue focusing my services on other people when i couldn't even work up the energy to read

00:16:06.240 for myself so eventually it kind of stopped uh in the way that i was kind of working in what i

00:16:13.160 wouldn't I consider in like the pre-COVID era when everything felt normal or at least whatever

00:16:18.100 definition of normal we were working with before and then it shifted to more uh prioritizing

00:16:23.140 community care in 2020 in the wake of the renewed Black Lives Matter protests and the connections

00:16:30.040 of being one of the few Black individuals in our local burlesque scene it's shrunk even further

00:16:36.780 and further to, I just need to take care of myself. But over the last couple of weeks in

00:16:45.220 particular, I've been feeling this call to come back, but to come back not attached to anything

00:16:51.040 that I had built before, any connections that I had established in a society or in a way that

00:16:58.700 no longer really aligned to the stuff that I really wanted to do, which was I just wanted

00:17:02.940 to be able to help people rediscover the divine in their own terms which was the motto that i kind

00:17:09.240 of worked for myself but i needed to prioritize rediscovering the divine in my terms first and

00:17:15.120 foremost so i pulled everything that i did i like archived everything i pulled my website i pulled

00:17:22.300 my booking platform i pulled out the journals i pulled out uh anything that was just like this

00:17:29.460 is a great archive but it's going on the lock and key i need to start over from scratch

00:17:34.620 and which is why i was so surprised that amy took notice of my starting over from scratch

00:17:39.300 and she's like come back to the pod um so i don't know what darkling tarot is actually going to look

00:17:45.740 like for me um my work in burlesque still takes up a majority of my time and that will still be

00:17:51.140 something that i promote and we match it to in my own way so if you're interested in seeing me as a

00:17:56.780 semi-naked showgirl you could follow me at androsia wild on all platforms uh that's a-n-d-r-o-s-i-a

00:18:04.180 wild with an e at the end um but if you would like to see what dark lake tarot turns into 0.98

00:18:10.360 in i guess it's 2.0 um then it's just dark lake tarot on instagram while i figure that shit out

00:18:17.060 well we're all figuring that shit out and once we get around the circle i want to come back and 0.76

00:18:23.800 talk about like how dance is and can be a revolutionary act as well and an act of freedom 0.94

00:18:31.060 but first lolly moon speaking of revolutionary acts my revolutionary astrologer lolly moon

00:18:40.340 who are you today what are you doing what are you working on or maybe what are you not working on

00:18:46.060 Oh, my gosh. Good question. Who am I today? I am a powerful alchemist. I am so close to my Saturn return being finished. So the next time everyone hears from me, I won't be talking about my Saturn return anymore. But yeah, I'm feeling very powerful, very much an alchemist.

00:19:06.140 um started my eighth house perfection year in the year of the snake so my very sharp

00:19:13.140 scorpio stellium is very on edge and very excited um what else am i doing i am slowly shifting out

00:19:22.400 of the metaverse slowly shifting offline and talking about all the things and doing the things

00:19:27.700 i talked about many years ago and really putting that into action now and leading by example because

00:19:31.940 everyone's afraid to jump but i'm like okay i guess i'll go first here's the path so that's

00:19:38.380 what i'm doing um and it's really hard because my libra sun wants to show up and still you know 0.91

00:19:43.840 very self-aware hyper self-aware right but the aquarius moon is so resistant to the bullshit

00:19:53.440 and doesn't want to feed and train the ai and whatever else is going on and be surveillance 0.98

00:19:59.320 24 7 it's like well my goodness you know um i am very authentic still very much zero fucks given 0.98

00:20:08.920 very much this whole shit can burn down and i will light the match very much um being censored 0.89

00:20:17.000 online and so i feel like i'm not being seen as much as i want to and so that wound of not being 0.97

00:20:22.640 seeing what I want to be is interesting in this climate. And while doing all that, still

00:20:30.420 working a nine to five in the justice system, working with marginalized communities and doing

00:20:37.320 that work, which is not easy. So yeah, that's what I'm doing. How to connect with me in this

00:20:46.040 crazy space, I would say is Patreon. I'm still on Instagram. I'm still posting. I'm still,

00:20:52.360 you know reminding people of their anchors and the antidote of being a modern mystic but i do

00:20:59.000 not want to engage so much with the meta world and perform anymore so i'm really not trying to

00:21:04.380 spend a lot of time there and i'm really spending most of my time in the patreon space or the

00:21:09.260 substack space and slowly trying to migrate the mystics over there and out of the metaverse um

00:21:17.120 fyi everyone listening to this please download signal if you don't listen to anything else i say

00:21:22.060 download signal okay it's like whatsapp but it's not owned by meta it's very encrypted

00:21:27.100 very cyber security friendly in the best way possible and it's a step in the right direction

00:21:33.340 yeah a lot of a lot of my um terrified politically terrified um friends are on signal and i'm using

00:21:45.060 it too um i mean these things that we use to connect to each other if nobody's getting on

00:21:51.600 them then they're not super useful to connect with each other right so lolly as always you know

00:21:56.700 the prestidigitator of our futures also um i'm glad you said substack because i'm holding this

00:22:03.480 pile of books and there is no lolly moon book in my hand which is a travesty and completely

00:22:10.220 like i'm i hope that um it's coming it's coming yes good good good good and if you need any tips

00:22:18.880 on book writing while christina cleveland has written one of my favorite books

00:22:24.440 that i go back to again and again and again you know your your papaya juice moment for me christina

00:22:32.280 is um that the black madonna welcomes our sacred mess and honestly like i've been considering it

00:22:41.480 as a tattoo because i never thought of my mess as sacred until you said those two words together

00:22:48.680 and it's like yeah you know if you want to do anything in this world sometimes things are

00:22:54.900 going to be messy and that's that's the sacred mess of our lives how are you doing are you

00:23:00.500 currently in minneapolis yeah i live in minneapolis speak on it yeah it's been

00:23:08.140 well i will say i'm really i've never been more grateful for my fiery and profound initiation into

00:23:16.900 the Black Madonna than now. I feel like she's been tracking me and preparing me for today.

00:23:26.760 I have more hope than anybody around. And so I've been spreading it

00:23:31.880 just because I am connected to the Black Madonna of all Belgium, who while breastfeeding her child

00:23:43.900 was up on the ramparts of her village walls, catching cannonballs to save her city at the

00:23:50.120 same time. So she is a nourisher and she is a fierce queen. And so she's been guiding me.

00:23:57.060 It's been really challenging, obviously. I mean, it's just bananas here, but it's been a day by

00:24:02.300 day and it's really nourishing to be with you all. So I'm glad to just meet the newbies or the

00:24:10.300 newbies this time. You're not like, um, and to see, um, familiar faces and people I've been

00:24:17.400 following for a while. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm okay. I'm good. I'm, I woke up this morning.

00:24:24.460 I'm thinking about Howard Thurman. My soul has grown deep like rivers. Um, so during my goddess

00:24:30.100 Chi Zhang class today, I was working with Oshun and connecting with my Kundalini, my Kundalini

00:24:36.440 energy in her, with her, by her, from her, um, and just kind of taking this, um, experience as a

00:24:45.420 chance to, to expand my cosmology of the divine, um, and see the divine showing up in spaces that

00:24:52.260 I didn't even know they were doing things there. So yeah, good to be here. I have, um, this is a

00:25:01.040 fun year for me. We are launching a black Madonna freedom school. Um, I'm not sure when this will

00:25:07.280 air, but for in bulk, like the first or I don't know. Yeah. It's a quick tone turnover. It's

00:25:13.020 going to come. Okay. Wow. Quick. Okay. You all. Um, so yeah, so we actually, yes, it's an anti-racist

00:25:21.860 trans-inclusive initiation into the black Madonna and all things black Madonna. So it's a really 0.79

00:25:28.160 fun. I'm so excited. We have a wonderful first cohort already joining us and people can join

00:25:36.260 until February 5th. So there's plenty of time. It's blackmadonnaschool.com. Super fun. Just,

00:25:43.140 yeah, it brings together my background as an academic, but also my mystical side. And we

00:25:48.360 have a wonderful wisdom council guiding us and amazing. It's just, it feels like a capstone.

00:25:56.120 So I'm doing that, Black Madonna Freedom School.

00:25:59.240 And then also I have a book coming out this year.

00:26:01.820 I just finished it a few months ago.

00:26:04.520 It comes out July 7th.

00:26:06.280 So just right before I was coming to this gathering,

00:26:10.740 I was sending out endorsement requests to the peoples.

00:26:14.300 So really excited about that.

00:26:16.560 It's called The Black Madonna.

00:26:18.180 and the subtitle is um icon of resistance and nourisher of souls which are um two titles

00:26:31.360 that bell hooks gave the black madonna so it's really a book about resistance and embodying

00:26:41.260 our holy audacity and our, I'm too sacred for this. And it's also a book about like,

00:26:47.900 just rolling up to the black Madonna's teat and getting that milk in a non-mammy way. 0.96

00:26:58.120 So, and it highlights almost exclusively black voices on the black Madonna. So it's a very 0.97

00:27:03.020 different black Madonna book. There's no, no mammy God in this book. So I'm really just excited. 0.98

00:27:11.260 so excited so did you say july is the pub date july 7th yeah yeah shall we book it now for you

00:27:19.480 to come back on the pod and she'll oh i'd love to of course that would be so fun yeah wonderful

00:27:25.100 thank you and and just i'm gonna stay with you christina for a minute because um as you all know

00:27:30.560 and the listeners know because i mentioned it in the introduction um the theme this year

00:27:36.760 um comes from nina simone and the question that she asked in song um or the statement that she

00:27:45.420 made i wish i knew how it would feel to be free so i know that you've just written an entire book

00:27:51.160 about this but boil it down to a couple bumper stickers for me like what does the black madonna

00:27:56.340 teach us about freedom why if black madonna freedom school well something i didn't know

00:28:05.080 was true until I met Black Madonna is that the cheer of abundance is always louder than the

00:28:14.080 clamor of fear. And she helps me no matter how loud the fear is, no matter what it's saying,

00:28:25.620 how many people are embodying it, how much the theology is preaching it.

00:28:33.360 I can, if the fear is loud, I can always connect with a louder, more transformative

00:28:40.060 abundance. And so I actually start the book talking about my mythical ancestors who decided

00:28:48.540 to leave the plantation, even though what was unknown was far greater than what was known.

00:28:56.660 They had zero, you know, transferable skills. They didn't know the landscape. They didn't know

00:29:03.180 the geography. They didn't know who were the good white people, who were the bad white people, 0.74

00:29:07.500 who to trust. They didn't know who was going to betray them. They didn't even know where they 0.51

00:29:12.120 were going. They didn't know if they had a language. They didn't know anything. And yet

00:29:17.140 one day they were able to overcome the unknown because they were connected to as harry tubman

00:29:25.520 would say the north star that's all i need i just need to know that there's a north star guiding my

00:29:32.680 next step and that that north star is never going to let me go so i just that's what freedom is to

00:29:39.620 me is not not not not getting rid of the fear but just being connected to a source that says

00:29:47.980 i'm with you and i'm not gonna let anything happen to you and so that's that felt that

00:29:56.780 feels like a new black madonna wisdom bit oh i cannot wait for this book

00:30:02.740 although me since christina um invoked oshun tell me about um what oshun has to teach us

00:30:14.320 about freedom yes oh yeah yeah oh oh well last year i actually taught a class on um

00:30:27.000 Oshun Pashanga and Oshun Pashanga is um often ridiculed and not even spoken of within the lore

00:30:35.920 of Oshun because um her name means Oshun the prostitute um in a diasporic translation

00:30:44.280 and um Inago translation it actually meant Oshun the adulterer and Inago culture was not a monogamous

00:30:52.280 culture. So it just meant a woman who had more than one partner, actually, in its original

00:30:57.700 meaning. But once we were trafficked here, Oshun Pashanga became the Oshun. You didn't talk about

00:31:03.820 her because Oshun ain't no ho, you know, so you didn't get to speak on her. And she kept 1.00

00:31:10.600 beseeching me to teach a class on her. And I was like, okay. And I knew that my elders

00:31:18.580 would disagree right my elders in the in the religious tradition would disagree

00:31:24.580 but you know if you know me then you know i didn't give a damn i had to go on and do it

00:31:30.220 so i taught the class and as i was teaching the class and i talked about um black women

00:31:36.620 men's battle with our sexuality due to the fact that our bodies have not belonged to us and we

00:31:44.520 haven't had sexual autonomy or reproductive freedom since this horrible trafficking has

00:31:50.600 occurred. And so we kind of have created this, this version of ourself, which is mostly asexual,

00:31:57.060 honestly, unless someone else is sexualizing us. You know, if someone else is sexualizing us,

00:32:03.020 we're cool with it. If we're sexualizing ourselves, we pretend not to have those types

00:32:07.700 of appetites. And that's how we're raised. You know, you don't show anybody that you have this

00:32:11.840 appetite so that's what i was basing the class on you know i'm teaching the class i'm going through

00:32:16.060 the historical things and this is this book and this is that book and i got to a class um how does

00:32:23.440 pasanga liberate us how does osun pasanga liberate us and she liberates us because when you embrace

00:32:31.000 the totality of yourself be that your sexual self be that the the wideness of your mind be that the

00:32:40.840 amount of space that you take up in the world your actual physical body the amount of space

00:32:46.360 that that body takes up be that the loudness of your voice when you embrace your actual self 0.82

00:32:52.300 that is the ultimate act for a black woman or femme in in the global north in the western world 0.56

00:32:58.640 that's the ultimate act of liberation so oshun pashanga in being way back in western central

00:33:07.140 Africa the great mother who had many partners many sexual partners that was an act of liberation

00:33:13.760 and then bringing that over here and being able to use that magical skill in the work of sex work

00:33:22.060 which is work with no shame attached to it but also use it as a protector for those of us who 1.00

00:33:30.460 were pushed into that work she she just stayed doing the ultimate act of liberation she was like

00:33:36.320 okay I had many partners here I come over here to this place where people expect me to have one

00:33:41.900 partner where people expect me not to be compensated for the best work that I'm out here doing and

00:33:47.480 giving and I'm still going to be me right she is still her even in 2026 I went to a convention

00:33:57.720 after I maybe I was almost done with teaching the class honestly and the convention was supposed to

00:34:04.700 be about one thing y'all I thought they was just bringing me up there to speak about Oshun I was

00:34:08.980 happy I was excited had this same t-shirt on was going to Bali the next day to do some lectures so

00:34:15.200 y'all know I was in a good mood because I love me a good tropical climate so I'm getting there all

00:34:20.380 happy and all that the elders wanted to talk about was how I shouldn't be teaching that class

00:34:25.440 and how you ain't even supposed to speak the name of Oshun Pashanga that's not real

00:34:30.980 somebody made that up blah blah blah and I was like yeah it's time out for pretending that these 0.94

00:34:38.900 parts of ourselves don't exist right and it's time out for shaming other women and femmes 0.95

00:34:46.220 for what they are doing to feed themselves and their children it's time out for pretending 0.94

00:34:52.200 that our sexuality is not so magnificent that it should not be duly compensated why are we still

00:34:58.840 pretending that I hate that for everybody it's time out for acting like we don't have sex workers 0.75

00:35:05.840 in our family who is a black woman and femme in the western world who does not have sex workers 0.95

00:35:11.780 in their family because where them people at they don't exist so Oshun Pashanga was like yes time

00:35:17.640 out for all of that the ultimate freedom is to completely be yourself and at the end of that

00:35:23.100 all that rigmarole and you know people telling me what i wasn't gonna say which was hilarious to me

00:35:29.560 because you know my mother is an ancestor and even she couldn't tell me what i wasn't going to say

00:35:35.340 after all of that one of the um people who had created the conference came up to me and said

00:35:43.780 you know that that is the type of work my sister does and i said no i didn't know intellectually

00:35:51.560 But yes, I know, because how are we existing in the world without someone in our family

00:35:57.000 doing that?

00:35:57.680 So it was the ultimate full circle moment and the ultimate reminder of how Oshun liberates

00:36:05.380 and that liberation doesn't have to and is not going to include the master's tools, right?

00:36:13.640 Liberation is going to be us being our full selves unapologetically. 0.98

00:36:19.840 fuck what anybody thinks fuck what anybody has to say and always making sure that we are being 0.99

00:36:27.680 duly compensated that we are being cited and that it beginning for the beginning that we take each 1.00

00:36:34.940 other seriously that we give each other respect you know i always say that i'm not just talking to

00:36:43.160 the black women who have degrees and the black women who do this that and the third

00:36:47.240 We are all the same black woman. So I am talking to the hoes and the baby mamas and consider myself to be proudly all of that as well. Right. So that is that liberation piece that Orshun brings when she sings a song, she's coming to play because she does not know how to fight. So, yeah, definitely. 1.00

00:37:09.720 there's just so like revolutionary joy just oozes out of you i have a follow-up question

00:37:17.080 because i want to know i hear so much and and i've been doing this too my whole life just be

00:37:22.280 yourself but i feel like i meet so many people who don't know who they are and so don't know

00:37:31.500 how to go about that being themselves thing how maybe tell me a little bit about the freedom to

00:37:39.980 discover who you are before you go forth into the world i don't know yeah oh let me please

00:37:48.280 the first thing is you got to stop performing right you got to drop the performance have a

00:37:55.480 good time enjoy yourself you know i'm i'm an actress and a dancer and all of the things so

00:38:00.700 all the world really is a stage but we talking about performance from that perspective like

00:38:05.500 stop performing stop pretending to be something else once you are in a place in a space where you

00:38:12.020 can be you then try your damnedest to do that you know i teach at a university and i love seeing the

00:38:19.500 babies come on campus looking you know real put together real tied up and then by that second 0.94

00:38:26.600 SMS you like oh here go the real you look at you you know you got nine inch fingernails look at you

00:38:33.360 your hair is green you know I love that moment of them being like oh my mama really ain't around 0.93

00:38:39.180 let me get into some shit right so I think we have to start there stop performing and also stop 0.76

00:38:46.100 commodifying yourself stop commodifying yourself I think it was caress that was saying that you 0.97

00:38:52.720 you here be here have the experience so that would be my thing of where to start

00:38:58.200 crest jump in i see you having whole body reactions i am i am this is where my work

00:39:09.200 sits my magic is in helping people to rediscover 0.93

00:39:13.680 who the fuck they were before the world told them to be somebody else 0.92

00:39:19.360 there is a joy in watching the layers peel back and experiencing someone experiencing themselves 0.99

00:39:32.920 for the first time and that's where my work around play and rest comes in because the way

00:39:41.680 the world has got us all commodifying ourselves one of the first things we do in culture is cut

00:39:48.940 off our ability to play and our ability to receive pleasure so everything that i'm doing

00:39:55.700 is about helping people not just through burnout but through burnout by starting with play rest

00:40:05.380 and recovery because if you don't have space to be who you are the rest of the things don't matter

00:40:14.760 what about people who have forgotten how to play what's like what would be like

00:40:22.360 um i come to you and i say okay you tell me to play what what does that mean what does that look

00:40:28.500 like what do i do i start with reintroducing recess

00:40:33.740 imagine that you're in third grade again and you get a 15 minute chunk of time in the middle of

00:40:42.400 your day to do whatever you want to with and nobody can tell you that that time is not yours

00:40:48.720 what do you do and we start from there everything is is it's about letting the the person decide

00:40:59.300 who they are again and helping them to peel those layers off so that who you really are can shine

00:41:05.840 do it lilith you are a person who i get the sense um has been embattled but nonetheless has never

00:41:18.080 once allowed any person to tell you what to do who to be again i talked about you being prolific

00:41:23.900 but you're also a multimedia like you won't even be told a medium to stick to where does that

00:41:33.660 freedom come tell me about that freedom I mean I think it was born out of necessity right like I

00:41:41.640 think there's so much of magic and how I move in the world that was born of like trauma and if I

00:41:52.340 was talking to my priestess she would say well that's a good thing because you wouldn't be here

00:41:56.900 otherwise right like so it's really flipping the script about the things that have happened to you

00:42:03.180 right i mean speaking on recess there was always that kid that had to sit there for recess and not

00:42:09.160 do anything right like and we had this one kid in class and he just got up and he told the teacher 0.98

00:42:15.900 to fuck you and he ran out the door and they didn't lock the doors at that time he ran out 0.99

00:42:20.300 into the street and didn't come back all day and we were in kindergarten and i thought you can do 1.00

00:42:24.900 that? That's the thing, right? Oh, okay. Let's do that. Absolutely. I was that kid that walked

00:42:36.380 out of the classroom in second grade because the teacher was saying things that weren't true.

00:42:42.180 Yes. You've got to find, find your freedom where it is. And a lot of that freedom is recess.

00:42:48.560 It's a fundamental thing, but it gets us started again. I'll be quiet.

00:42:52.140 Oh, no, no, please go on. I think that's beautiful. And the other thing I was thinking about, like, is, you know, they even have this, you know, scientific quote unquote studies about how, you know, dance helps to heal PTSD and movement helps to heal PTSD.

00:43:10.760 so like if they gave us that 15 minute recess like what's the thing with the tomato the pomodoro

00:43:16.540 technique right if they gave us those 15 minutes out of every 40 minutes where we had to do

00:43:21.940 something else because you know sometimes you got to clean the toilet but like if they gave us those

00:43:27.120 minutes that would be so much better we'd be able to get through all of that so much easier so

00:43:32.760 i like this idea of having those moments and for me it's it's not dance like no one's watching it's

00:43:39.880 like dance likes everyone's watching and you're giving everyone permission to do that thing even

00:43:45.200 though it might look not like what they're used to but that doesn't mean we're not talking about

00:43:50.240 binaries we're talking about this is how i want to move through the space and owning that

00:43:55.420 absolutely a three-song dance party fills up 15 minutes almost completely hell yeah you know how

00:44:03.860 many times i'm putting on soko and i'm cleaning the dishes absolutely you gotta move speak more

00:44:12.520 on it lindsey please oh yeah so while my tarot projects and focus has always been a little bit

00:44:19.140 more insular nowadays where i think my magic really really comes through now is through uh

00:44:25.040 my burlesque life as i'm jerusalem wild and it's funny because when the prompt was given about like

00:44:31.560 how would you feel to be free I actually kind of caught myself because I don't think I've actually

00:44:36.140 really considered that I'm not gonna like call anyone's age here but I'm gonna go on a limb

00:44:43.500 and say that I might be one of the youngest individuals in this call um so I have had

00:44:48.580 the standard millennial realization over the last couple of years that this is not the world

00:44:55.660 that our parents promised us and coming to terms with that has been rattling me over the last

00:45:04.440 couple of years and it really isn't until i want to say the last couple of months that i've

00:45:11.260 come to peace with that because while it is not the world that we were promised it is the world 0.64

00:45:17.040 that we ended up inheriting nonetheless so what the fuck are we going to do about it right and

00:45:22.420 similarly to what some other persons have said trying to untangle the idea that we have to 0.74

00:45:27.940 always be in service to other individuals or other ideologies or other expectations

00:45:33.380 where I've had the most success in that has been in my burlesque because my tagline is I am the

00:45:40.740 Bahama Mama of burlesque because I love what burlesque has taught me what it has allowed me

00:45:46.840 to really realize about myself inherently um but i also refuse to create burlesque that other

00:45:54.780 persons expect of me and it has noticed two things number one it means that i don't get booked a lot

00:46:01.300 which is fine because usually the people who are out there being prolific on the international stage

00:46:06.420 are not people who i want to perform like or be around and when i do have the opportunity

00:46:14.140 um to showcase who i am it is almost always on the strength of the things that i create that

00:46:22.920 bring me the most joy and in my burlesque in particular it takes two categories number one

00:46:28.380 i'm a huge nerd i'm a pop culture girly so i love creating acts that explore the franchises that i

00:46:35.140 have adored growing up um this april and this may i'm going to nova scotia and montreal for the very

00:46:42.380 first time and i'm bringing my uh act that i have based off of storm from the x-men so that's very

00:46:48.780 exciting hold up hold up yeah i'm coming to your town amy i'm coming to your biz girl when is the

00:46:56.580 date uh so the one in montreal is the bagel burlesque expo at the end of april so holland

00:47:04.240 to girl well we could finally do a hangout um yeah i mean i've never been to bagel burlesque

00:47:10.040 but i'm intrigued it's it's it's a great time right hell yes uh it's a great time it's a full

00:47:18.540 of unconventional neo burlesque acts which things like nerd less can particular really thrive on

00:47:24.480 um so whenever i get to do something that is like speaking to something that i've loved growing up

00:47:28.480 then i seem to have a lot of success with that but the other acts that have been super successful

00:47:34.040 for me is when i get to lean into the fact that i am a black woman that i am a bohemian woman

00:47:39.840 And if I get to combine those truths about myself, not only am I able to reach avenues and stages that I've never expected or never necessarily aimed for, like I'm not out here trying to be a festival circuit showgirl.

00:47:56.860 It's now starting to become that.

00:47:59.700 I've been performing now for just under 12 years.

00:48:04.360 The only thing that has lasted longer than my burlesque career is my martial arts career and my marriage.

00:48:09.840 at this point right um but i managed to i had my first headlining gig in calgary in november and

00:48:19.480 it brought an act that not only combined calypso music from the bahamas in the 50s to a baja men

00:48:26.080 song that i grew up with in the 90s but it was one of the first times that my parents got to see me

00:48:32.120 perform that number several years ago and my mom was spotted by my dance peers dancing in the

00:48:40.300 audience which was so warming to me and y'all could probably imagine telling your parents that

00:48:47.440 you want to do burlesque or that oh you're taking off your clothes on stage it's already a choice

00:48:51.760 um but my parents have been super super supportive um and again it was like this actress like i'm

00:48:56.560 going to showcase who i am and i'm going to showcase who i'm from because that is always

00:49:00.180 so crucial to me the biggest stage i've ever been able to touch was the burlesque hall of fame in

00:49:05.700 las vegas which is basically like our equivalent of the super bowl and i got to do that with a

00:49:12.180 dear friend of mine uh her performer name is roxy reverie she's currently in connecticut but she got

00:49:16.800 her burlesque start in vancouver um she is my stage sister she is the platonic love of my life

00:49:22.420 um we did a number to uh black parade and uh power by Beyonce and that was just us recognizing

00:49:32.840 the similarities and the differences because of course she is an African-American woman based

00:49:39.700 originally from New Jersey and me coming with my Afro-Caribbean-ness but there's ways that we move

00:49:45.480 that are different and there are ways that we move that are similar and that number got to compete on

00:49:50.280 the burlesque hall of fame stage for best small group and even though we didn't win it was still

00:49:56.140 such a beautiful testament to just finding that freedom to exist amongst ourselves and in defiance

00:50:05.600 of what people would have expected i guess from a duet because normally there is this expectation 0.94

00:50:10.600 of okay you have two femmes dancing together in burlesque it's always going to be sapphic it's

00:50:16.140 always going to be super sexually charged and i'm actually ace i realized this throughout my 0.87

00:50:20.460 journey um so being able to instead showcase sisterhood um and have that be exalted in the

00:50:32.440 same capacity was extremely gratifying and extremely liberating so right now that message

00:50:39.420 of what it means to feel free being able to create something without apology without compromise

00:50:45.380 even though right now it's only existing in these small four minute pockets these five minute

00:50:51.040 pockets whenever i'm on stage whether it's a local stage or if i'm fortunate enough to travel

00:50:56.280 nowadays um it's figuring out how to stretch those moments longer i think is what will end up being

00:51:04.540 the true answer to that question for me so always a work in progress which i love always um but yeah

00:51:11.660 that's kind of where i land to dance is one hell of a engine pusher well i have i have a question

00:51:17.800 just so that i'm completely clear because this is a fantasy so you are out here doing burlesque

00:51:25.440 dance to soca hell yeah i teach it too this is a fantasy this is yeah i think that i literally

00:51:34.640 literally the very the last class that i taught in 2025 here in vancouver as part of the vancouver

00:51:41.020 burlesque company i have a class segment called island gal flow which i take caribbean based

00:51:45.860 music and i'm just like i'm gonna teach y'all to move the way that we move and i'm gonna

00:51:49.220 we're still gonna be burlesque um but the song that i had my students do was um bushead by

00:51:55.080 masha montano and buja galen and we had ourselves a time with that i taught them about the history

00:52:02.480 of column bay and true origins of carnival in the midst of that because obviously i'm not

00:52:07.580 Trinidadian but there's always some overlap so it was a point of education for myself as well as my

00:52:13.740 students and yeah we had a time uh but yeah dancing to Soka on stage dancing to Calypso

00:52:19.760 dancing to Junkanoo uh my storm number is using Anjali Kijo from Benin so got some Yoruba flowing

00:52:27.340 up in there too so wherever I can find the connection to shared ancestry is when I feel

00:52:35.440 the most alive and the most free i love this track that we're on of like distinguishing between

00:52:44.840 you know performing an identity versus getting on a stage i've i've spoken to so many people who

00:52:52.580 feel i'm using air quotes here but like the most themselves the most authentic when they are

00:52:59.380 on that stage and that's so interesting to me yeah because essentially we're in control of what

00:53:07.540 that narrative is that you're consuming on the stage for the most part right how i am as lindsay

00:53:12.260 and how i am as androsia it's not actually that much of a difference the only difference is

00:53:16.860 androsia has no problem flinging a bra in your direction lindsay don't wear bras 0.99

00:53:20.880 and will be in her pajamas and for the entirety of the day if she can get away with it um but 0.53

00:53:28.120 when I am Androsia, I get to decide you're going to see a love letter to Nichelle Nichols,

00:53:35.140 or you're going to see a love letter to Billy Dee Williams, or you're going to hear something that

00:53:41.040 I heard growing up that altered my brain chemistry, or I'm going to take something that you might love

00:53:47.480 and I'm going to remind you what its sources are. So I get to be in full curation of that

00:53:53.860 experience and even with burlesque in particular because sometimes i'm on a stage sometimes it's

00:53:58.340 a roving show i also get to control how i interact with you how you get to see me and when that show

00:54:03.840 is done and those lashes come off andrew is just packed away and lindsey slips away into the night

00:54:09.620 it's great there's also this like lilith this is the question that you posed but um you can do that

00:54:18.580 you know anytime anytime that you do anything there's going to be somebody out there who

00:54:25.900 is saying you can do that of course I mean I was the dancer and choreographer for Dr. John for years

00:54:34.420 and we when he brought me on stage for Bonnaroo and said I want you to do Marie Laveau's dances

00:54:40.800 I want you to do these ritual dances but again I could do them the way that I wanted to I could

00:54:46.100 do them in front of, I think there were 30,000 people in the audience at that point. So for me,

00:54:51.140 that wasn't about being a performance. It was about being myself, my authentic self and letting

00:54:57.620 people see that, letting people see the bones and the ritual and the magic and the spirit of what it

00:55:07.500 is that we do. But, but I have, I have a question since we're talking about this freedom for me,

00:55:13.600 and you brought up Benin, right?

00:55:14.980 Like I spent a lot of wonderful time in Benin.

00:55:17.400 I saw Anjali Kidjo.

00:55:18.460 We did the Vodou Festival.

00:55:20.520 And for me, it was this kind of transformation

00:55:25.000 of space and time.

00:55:26.860 And when we think about freedom,

00:55:28.380 there's a way in which our freedom today

00:55:31.460 is so similar and also yet so deeply different

00:55:37.140 than the freedom that Nina Simone had,

00:55:40.920 that the freedom that our enslaved ancestors had.

00:55:43.600 that the freedom that my daughter has,

00:55:45.600 that the freedom that her daughters will have.

00:55:47.820 Like, it's just so profound for me

00:55:49.980 how like that scene in Sinners

00:55:51.960 that everybody keeps talking about,

00:55:53.560 where they're all existing in some way

00:55:55.940 in the same space and time.

00:55:58.260 And that to me is what I think true freedom is,

00:56:00.920 that we can see the hope of our ancestors

00:56:03.160 and the promise of our granddaughters

00:56:05.260 all in this big, giant, wonderful mix

00:56:09.120 that we get to be a tiny piece of

00:56:11.400 swirling around in the universe.

00:56:13.600 I love that you've also seen Anjali Kijou live.

00:56:17.280 She came to Vancouver in 2012 and I got to dance on stage with her.

00:56:20.280 It was so great. So, so great.

00:56:23.540 I grew up dancing to her stuff and like dance classes in the Bahamas.

00:56:26.140 So like to be able to see her live is such a joy.

00:56:29.800 And all of you have, have taken your work public.

00:56:34.540 Otherwise I wouldn't have heard of you. I wouldn't, I wouldn't know who you are.

00:56:39.320 So maybe Lolly, I haven't heard from you in a minute.

00:56:42.320 tell me about that decision to be i know you just said you're sort of you're stepping away

00:56:47.920 from the meta but you you you have gone full force into that confrontational and i mean that

00:56:54.140 in a good way uh confrontational manner of saying things out loud saying saying the quiet part out

00:57:02.060 in a good way what what pushes you to not just shrink back into the shrubbery honestly before i

00:57:11.080 can answer that question i want to go back to the play and freedom because i'm a pisces rising who

00:57:17.580 has seven scorpio placements and that means i'm constantly living a new life um so i have been

00:57:25.700 on the stage from the age of three to 20 years old i have done the modeling i've done the skating i

00:57:30.120 have done the dance moms competitions the black swan on point i've done it all so when i'm in

00:57:36.580 the closet and going backwards it's because I've been front and center my entire life my entire

00:57:44.220 life I've been front and center expected to be front and center okay expected to be front and

00:57:49.780 center um expected to play the example the trophy the this and that so to me freedom is about saying

00:58:00.280 enough is enough and embracing who i want to be for myself and so when we're talking about

00:58:07.200 reverting to the self you were before the world told you who to be that was me at three years old

00:58:12.900 you know uh all up until that time i was a performer and and and doing for others so for

00:58:19.620 me now freedom to me is complete and boss and expansion through the devotion of embracing our

00:58:26.640 complete self which is the mud and the lotus to me doing the shadow work and looking forward to

00:58:32.360 the future that is revolutionary with sharp machetes that i'm always talking about now

00:58:37.140 you know um i'm not interested in performing for the for the reels i know i'm outstanding i know

00:58:43.980 how to stand out i am venus please you know like tell me something i don't know um i believe that

00:58:50.540 pleasure is the only offering now that's where i'm at pleasure is the only offering i'm interested

00:58:55.540 in i'm not interested in anything else besides pleasure um yeah so in terms of having the

00:59:03.920 bravery to like just get cut to the point we're running out of time i've been repeating myself

00:59:10.060 now for six years we are running out of time and so while yes i want to see everyone create

00:59:18.100 amazing crochet saying rest is revolutionary um respectfully there's also real work to get done

00:59:25.240 And so if you're going to go and whimsy max all 2026 the way that I am, whimsy max, but also embody the sacred rage because both are necessary, deeply, deeply necessary.

00:59:37.400 All I'm doing this year is whimsy maxing and embracing the sacred rage and making Nina Simone proud as the OB woman that I am.

00:59:47.300 Okay, that's it.

00:59:49.100 That's all.

00:59:50.740 I don't know if I even answered the question, but there was so much that we were talked about.

00:59:54.280 and i was like oh my gosh there's so many things coming in how do i get this all out i don't know

00:59:58.000 no you know me i'm always more interested in your answer than my question you know but that's the

01:00:05.940 thing you're so right like we need to make a distinction between like well i did nothing for

01:00:11.080 the cause and now i'm gonna go take a spa bath because rest is revolutionary like no the concept

01:00:17.220 rest is revolutionary is for people who are doing the work yes and have or had no choice but to do

01:00:25.500 the work because they are the choice their physical existence is the sacrifice to the revolution

01:00:31.160 yes absolutely okay like there's nothing wrong with like recognizing that this we're living in

01:00:37.620 a very strange age and i think molly with you kind of pointing your uh decision to pull away

01:00:43.240 from the metaverse in particular leads to that we were not made to consume news the way that we have

01:00:49.420 been in such rapid succession in such a short period of time like all of our neurons are 0.87

01:00:56.380 fucking fried and it is okay to state that yeah but it is what you do with it with that particular 0.63

01:01:03.680 energy afterwards that is actually kind of important like if you recognize that you are 0.99

01:01:07.820 consuming too much bad news uh truthful news and it's stopping your ability to actually go out and

01:01:14.300 find a small way to at least offset some of the damage being done then that is disrespectfully a

01:01:20.920 you problem absolutely we are the algorithm you know we are in control like we are the algorithm

01:01:27.460 so at the end of the day like we are the ones who decide what we are liking and subscribing to

01:01:33.840 we control the timelines we are creating we are the doom scrollers we are the chronically online

01:01:39.780 we can check out at any time you know um and i'm very good at that like i'm a public servant by day

01:01:46.300 so i have no choice but to separate my my my person to who i am at night like my name is not

01:01:52.120 lowly moon you know that's a persona um but it's the law first of all we're talking about

01:02:00.320 inauthenticity and becoming ourselves, Neptune officially went into Aries as of yesterday.

01:02:05.760 So I'm loving the timing of this conversation. Neptune went into Aries yesterday. Today,

01:02:10.060 it's Mars day. Mars and Pluto are having their exact conjunction in exactly two hours from right

01:02:14.680 now, Eastern Standard Time. So there's a lot of activation, but with Martian energies, also

01:02:21.660 eruption, okay, and things coming from underneath the surface. And when we're talking about Neptune

01:02:26.760 coming out of Pisces and going into Aries a lot of things are being demystified a lot of things

01:02:31.720 are coming out of the fog a lot of people are realizing that who they have been is not

01:02:36.560 at all who they were who they want to be right this is where we see the wave of witches and

01:02:43.340 workers healers etc who are going back into the church now and panicking and we're going to see

01:02:51.120 more of that in the next probably few months you know now that Neptune is especially in Aries

01:02:54.760 um so yeah i don't i don't know what else to say next honestly but um

01:03:02.580 the work is the work is still working and and the metaverse is not the beginning it's not the end

01:03:10.380 it's just a tool and at the end of the day we have to remember that we are magicians and we

01:03:14.940 are constantly changing our wands we're constantly shifting form we are constantly shifting tools

01:03:21.160 right so if we're not going to be connecting the metaverse it's going to be happening somewhere

01:03:25.800 else um the real work is happening on the ground the real work is happening at the front lines the

01:03:30.780 real work is is the sigil work it's it's using the left hand working the left hand sharpening

01:03:36.320 the left hand not being afraid to use it if you afraid to work your left hand beloved get back to

01:03:42.560 the drawing board i don't know what else to say okay we're really past love and light at this

01:03:47.060 point truly so we have a we have a thing in karate which is the traditional martial art that I spent

01:03:53.860 most of my time and it's like you don't train only one side of your body to work exactly if you are

01:03:59.240 spending all your time it's perfecting your perfect right punch or your perfect roundhouse 0.99

01:04:02.860 kick with your right side and someone catches you on your left you're going to hit the fucking dirt 0.97

01:04:06.680 so you got to train both sides at this particular point yeah absolutely Zoe Flowers can you talk for 0.99

01:04:14.880 minute about the freedom to completely change your life i feel like a lot of people feel stuck

01:04:22.820 and you are like this beacon of like i mean i'll i'll start you know you were the caregiver for

01:04:29.980 your mother she passed you were confronted with grief and also relief in a sense and your decision

01:04:38.960 was to pack up your car and go and join a punk band in montreal so like this is this is we are

01:04:45.180 allowed to change our lives can you talk about that freedom yeah i i talk about it all the time

01:04:52.880 and i i think that it's not it's not always cute i mean i think that um when you do that yes there's

01:05:00.520 a freedom in it there's also a cost in it um my experience has been there's no shortage of people

01:05:05.940 trying to discourage you from doing it. And so the thing for me, this freedom conversation is

01:05:13.400 like shining my light on myself because, and here comes my cat, hilarious, and being okay with that.

01:05:25.400 And I just have always had a very strong sense of self-preservation and not listening to people's good advice.

01:05:39.900 And there is a cost.

01:05:43.100 People don't like it, especially in a woman's body, especially in a Black woman's body, especially in a dark-skinned, dark-skinned woman's body. 0.92

01:05:52.180 They don't like it. 0.88

01:05:53.760 They don't like it.

01:05:55.220 They don't want to hear it. And so I think that when people feel stuck, I think it's fear.

01:06:04.800 People want to be liked. They want to belong, which is a human need. And yeah, I just think

01:06:14.160 it's scary. I started packing the night of the election, you know that, because I called you

01:06:20.000 the next day and i was like hey can i come to montreal um i was packing that night and i was

01:06:27.300 terrified but then i was like oh well my family my father's jamaican like he left jamaica at 18

01:06:35.160 he didn't know my grandparents left rural georgia during jim crow and i just found out that like my

01:06:44.560 his mother was having babies all the way from America's Georgia to Massachusetts to finally

01:06:50.580 Connecticut. So I was like, oh, this is, this is what people do. And it's what I've always done.

01:06:57.860 I've just never been afraid of change. Um, I have a pretty stacked ninth house,

01:07:04.560 Um, but I also have a stellium in the eighth. So I just think it's okay to change. It's okay to leave. It's okay to break agreements that, um, don't fit, never fit.

01:07:24.400 you know I got to a place where I was like wow I went I went into agreement you know as we talked

01:07:29.620 about this Amy I went into agreement with like all these people from high school or my family

01:07:37.140 I was like I've got to break these agreements this is not you know all these things they said I was

01:07:42.340 that's that's not who I am and it's okay to break those agreements and it's okay to leave

01:07:47.520 and you know I was very clear I was like listen I've been protesting like I've been doing that

01:07:53.460 I'm leaving. Y'all got it. I was riding bikes in Montreal last summer. I was like

01:08:00.220 slow walking and like looking at flowers for the first time. I lived in Brooklyn for 13 years. I

01:08:06.720 never rode a bike. And last spring and summer, I was just like riding my bike and I felt bad for

01:08:16.680 a minute but then I was like no you deserve to ride a bike and sit in a park and fall asleep

01:08:24.560 on a park bench and just be like still and quiet and um yeah it's like it's okay to live your life

01:08:38.160 it's okay to defend your life it's okay to be um to defend your joy and to be a sovereign person

01:08:44.880 and you know again lots of people ain't gonna like it so get away from them and get around

01:08:53.480 some people that's gonna like it period i remember that conversation like it was yesterday and i

01:09:02.440 remember saying like it's villain era time and you and i had a very long conversation about

01:09:07.420 how for women and femmes and specifically black women and femmes villain era looks like

01:09:15.340 i'm i'm not gonna look after you anymore you know the villain is not villainous at all but just

01:09:22.840 someone who is now looking after herself and not looking after you um i want to turn to christina

01:09:29.500 because i have a feeling that you know something about being told that you can't or shouldn't

01:09:35.640 and ignoring that and doing it anyway do you have do you have any thoughts on that kind of freedom

01:09:42.000 yeah i was definitely discipled into believing that faithfulness means being faithful to everyone

01:09:52.480 but yourself and so that was i i had to ask myself what am i afraid of

01:09:59.360 why am i afraid to not follow these instructions and honestly you know when i was first on my 0.62

01:10:09.300 liberation journey my my fear was i'm gonna go to hell that's real

01:10:13.840 um i'm going to be eternally damned um so i have a lot of um grace and compassion for people who

01:10:26.600 are who feel stuck because sometimes the fear can be really real um but then i i asked myself do i

01:10:34.120 even like the people who are telling me this

01:10:38.920 do i trust the people who are telling me this do i want to be like the people who are do they have

01:10:48.140 what i do they have what i want no um and so i do think i kind of go back to what caress was saying

01:10:58.660 earlier around play and connecting to the body um because when i connect with when i connect with

01:11:07.140 little christina she knows exactly what she likes she knows exactly what she doesn't like

01:11:16.840 she knows who's shady and who's not i mean there were so many people that when i was a little girl

01:11:22.740 i was like i don't like you and it came out that they were predators

01:11:25.960 but a little christina knew

01:11:29.260 no you you can't say no when the man wants to hug you you have to sit on no but i had i had

01:11:36.600 completely yeah i had turned to i mean it was just like go give your uncle a hug

01:11:41.360 you know it's like zero body sovereignty zero body but through play I've been able to connect

01:11:49.860 with my little inner child and she has body sovereignty that I'm still trying to reclaim now

01:11:57.800 and so it's been really powerful to um to do play I do playdates with my inner child I do

01:12:07.100 play dates with my inner teen one of my dear friends here in minneapolis we're both she we're

01:12:11.720 both in our 40s and we didn't know each other when we were teenagers um which we which is sad to us

01:12:17.480 so we we took our inner teens on a date to the mall of america and hung out and like rode the

01:12:23.900 rise and ate the food court and went to like bath and body bath and body works and you know all the

01:12:30.960 things that we would have done but because i'm like the younger versions of me still had that

01:12:36.480 because it's, it's, it's innate. It's, and so sometimes if I'm, if I'm trapped in my adult

01:12:44.580 shoulds, then playing helps me get out of that. Yeah.

01:12:52.960 Our time has just flown by. I just looked at the time and I can't believe it. It's almost recess,

01:12:59.360 but I do want to go around the room one more time. I'll give you a second to think about it,

01:13:05.300 But boil it down for me. Give me the essence, a few sentences, a paragraph. Again, we'll turn to Nina Sabone, who sang, saying, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. I wish I could break all the chains holding me. I wish I could say all the things that I should say. Say them loud. Say them clear for the whole world to hear.

01:13:28.580 let's start with zoe flowers say it loud for the whole world to hear how would it feel to be free

01:13:36.500 and you are a poet so i know you will deliver this answer poetically how would it feel to be

01:13:44.520 free i feeling free to me was just what i was saying riding that bike through the beautiful

01:13:51.960 streets of Montreal, sun shining, blue sky, beautiful flowers, slow walks. That felt like

01:14:02.540 freedom. Laying on a park bench, looking up at the trees, and saying, I deserve it.

01:14:11.540 I'm going to be quoting Lolly Moon. I know I'm outstanding. I know how to stand out.

01:14:17.400 that's you too that's all of you olomi how would it feel to be free

01:14:22.680 um i was listening to zoe's answer i had an answer but then i listened to zoe's answer

01:14:32.020 and zoe's answer made me realize that oh i've felt it before because i was like uh some beautiful

01:14:39.160 thing you know blah blah blah you're a wordsmith but then when you said yours i was like oh i

01:14:43.780 actually have felt it so freedom to me is being at the clothing optional resort in Bali walking

01:14:55.060 around naked which I've never been allowed to do even from the time I was a small child

01:15:00.120 and not feeling objectified just being a human being and people just asking you regular stuff

01:15:07.120 like oh did you drink your water oh do you want to come and do yoga but completely uncommodified

01:15:13.380 completely unobjectified. I was just me, you know, enjoying the sun, enjoying the food. So

01:15:21.100 that was freedom. Thank you, Zoe, for letting my, or re-know that I've actually

01:15:27.520 had this experience before.

01:15:32.040 Completely uncommodified, completely unobjectified.

01:15:36.700 it sounds like song lyrics to me lindsay maybe you're gonna dance to this song how would it

01:15:44.500 feel to be free and dancing to the uncommodified unobjectified song well like you already don't

01:15:50.940 know that i have obey a woman as an act buried in my collective stuff that i need to revisit but

01:15:57.720 to answer your question um i'm going to borrow from storm because whenever i have felt

01:16:10.620 bogged down by the weight of responsibility of the roles that i occupy the expectations placed

01:16:21.720 upon me as an individual, as a Black woman, as an immigrant to these lands, I find myself

01:16:32.120 relating to Storm even more ever and ever. And there is a quote in one of the more recent lines

01:16:40.400 in the comics that really speak to me. Storm's Wolverine have a myriad of colorations, no less

01:16:49.320 than people. So long as I remain true to myself, I see no reason to apologize for how I appear to

01:16:55.720 others. So I need to lean a little bit more into my Wind Rider goddess, my weather witch,

01:17:10.360 and remember that as long as I stay true to myself, I remember that North Star that hangs

01:17:17.460 in my personal side, there is no reason for me to apologize for who I am or how I appear to anyone

01:17:23.760 else. I added unapologetic to my list of freedom uns. Thank you, Lindsay. Lilith Dorsey, how would

01:17:35.100 it feel to be free? Or in Olomi's case, how does it feel to be free? I like that. I like that.

01:17:45.540 Well, you said I could bring something I wrote.

01:17:48.020 So I dug something that seemed very Nina Simone inspired.

01:17:52.180 This is just a tiny piece from my poem called When I Wake Up.

01:17:56.940 When I wake up, I'm hungry for trees that rain glittery blossoms and support delicate butterflies.

01:18:04.420 When you're young, blessings such as these are viewed as a welcome surprise.

01:18:09.500 When I wake up, I'm hungry for clean water and delightfully delicious food.

01:18:13.980 when you're young the simple necessities provide the greatest strength and fortitude

01:18:19.220 because for me i started thinking about you know i had a lot of early childhood abuse so like

01:18:24.720 this this concept of going back to when i was two is unfortunately not a trauma-free existence right

01:18:30.680 so for me there's this waking up to that moment when i was still myself despite everything and

01:18:38.700 And for me, that's going back to these simplicities.

01:18:41.660 What do I need, right?

01:18:42.880 And in that moment, what's been going through my head all tonight is Nina's song, Damballa,

01:18:48.760 right?

01:18:49.100 And when we look at Damballa, Damballa doesn't speak. 1.00

01:18:52.400 It's one of the deities that doesn't speak, just like Mama Brigitte, this ancient feminine 0.95

01:18:57.040 that works on intuition and doesn't need words.

01:19:01.300 So as much as I'm this writer that wants words, my freedom comes through that intuition of

01:19:06.360 knowing this person is safe.

01:19:08.700 I am safe.

01:19:10.160 And that to me is what real freedom is.

01:19:15.840 Faith, happy, and free.

01:19:20.660 Thank you for reading some poetry too.

01:19:24.920 Caress, how would it feel to be free?

01:19:29.280 I've been thinking of the unword to give you.

01:19:34.000 Undiluted.

01:19:34.560 To be free is to be undiluted, to be full strength caressed in my joy and in my anger, and to not have to temper it for anybody.

01:19:50.240 listeners i hope that this is sinking into your body into into your blood into the neurons that 0.98

01:20:04.120 are firing in your brain into your nervous system that needs a fucking recess christina 0.99

01:20:09.780 how does it feel to be free how would it feel no no i i think my concept of freedom is still 0.99

01:20:19.380 so dependent on my concept of captivity and so i that's not free to me so i guess i want to be so

01:20:29.760 free that my freedom is completely illegible to the plantation

01:20:36.060 it like our society can't even make sense of it doesn't even know what to do with it

01:20:42.820 You know, Lolly said something once that, again, I'm always quoting Lolly Moon.

01:20:49.740 Happens all the time.

01:20:52.060 It was something to the effect of you can only imagine what you can imagine.

01:20:58.520 And there's a whole universe of possibility that you can't even imagine, right?

01:21:04.580 And that's the kind of freedom that we're looking for.

01:21:06.920 A kind of freedom that we don't even have the language or the capacity to imagine in 2026. 0.93

01:21:14.100 That's the kind of freedom Christina Cleveland's looking for.

01:21:16.900 I can get behind that. 1.00

01:21:18.720 Lolly, invent us a new freedom.

01:21:21.740 How would it feel?

01:21:23.540 To me, freedom right now is the ability to be soft in this day and time because of the presence of my ancestors and the dark mothers that walk with me. 0.98

01:21:34.140 and as i say that i have to take up space for nina simone very quickly because she is currently

01:21:39.160 going through her nodal return her north note is at the ninth degree of pisces sorry the eighth

01:21:44.720 degree of pisces and the note is crow the ninth degree of pisces she has sat in her first house

01:21:49.820 she's an aquarius rising we are in a curious season and her embodiment of freedom to walk

01:21:55.840 with such authenticity and zero of fucks given is what the freedom i realize now i have the

01:22:02.920 privilege to say i have that my answers do not have and to say that and to end with that i will

01:22:07.340 just quote her quickly and say that i am the obi woman from the me beneath the sea to get to satan

01:22:12.480 baby you have to get past through me i know the angels name by name i can eat thunder and drink

01:22:17.900 the rain how you think i lasted this long all right all right i kiss the moon and hug the sun

01:22:22.440 and i am lily moon i have it in my notes too loli i can oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah

01:22:30.180 i can eat thunder and drink rain i kiss the moon and hug the sun happy in bulk happy black history

01:22:41.060 month celebrate both of those things by supporting black witches supporting what you believe and know 0.53

01:22:48.140 to be true support their work support their freedom to reject whatever it is that has been

01:23:00.260 put on all of us it's in bulk it's the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring

01:23:09.000 equinox this is our chance we look forward to the future but not without looking back and learning

01:23:16.560 from the past uh february is the shortest month of course we know they would put black history

01:23:24.340 month is the shortest month but this time of year is also it's like lolly was saying

01:23:30.060 you don't have as much time as you think this is the shortest month you don't have as much time

01:23:38.880 as you think to be free to imagine a freedom that is unimaginable from these chairs and not

01:23:47.080 because it's impossible but because we just can't even comprehend that kind of energy in the world

01:23:56.320 we're conjuring it we're conjuring it today we're conjuring it every day we're conjuring it with

01:24:01.880 dance we're conjuring it with the stars we're conjuring with our books and our poetry and our

01:24:07.260 films and our coaching and our teaching and our recess. So I'm going to ring the bell now.

01:24:16.460 Ollie Moon says the L in liberation. The L in liberation stands for limitless.

01:24:25.420 I'm going to play out the episode with some Nina Simone and say thank you so much to my guests.

01:24:33.820 thank you zoe thank you olomi thank you caress thank you lilith thank you lindsey thank you

01:24:41.100 loli thank you christina thank you as always for sharing space with me you know i love you all

01:24:46.900 deeply all of your information will be in the show notes support support support support 0.89

01:24:55.120 support we're all out here trying to buy our freedom and blessed fucking be i guess 0.78

01:25:01.460 please go play go have your recess i love you all so much thank you thank you thank you 0.91

01:25:08.560 thank you thank you everyone thank you thank you i wish i could say all the things

01:25:19.480 and i should say say i'm loud say i'm clear for the whole round world

01:25:28.400 if you want to support the missing witches project find everything you need to know 0.87

01:25:35.300 at missingwitches.com you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch 0.99

01:25:39.920 you must be a witch 0.99

Missing Witches - February 01, 2026

IMBOLC： Future Histories Of Black Magic 2026

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