Missing Witches - Juneteenth! with Caress Scarbrough, Lindsay Braynen and Monefa Walker

00:00:00.000 Happy Juneteenth! June 19th celebrates the day that the Emancipation Proclamation was read in

00:00:09.100 Galveston, Texas. Now, this happened on June 19th, 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation had been

00:00:17.520 delivered on January 1st, 1863, two years earlier, but it took two and a half years to make it to

00:00:26.840 that last reading in Galveston, Texas. Now, I'm going to read a tiny bit of the Emancipation

00:00:32.860 Proclamation, and maybe you can let me know if you think that we've lived up to this.

00:00:38.900 Or maybe let's put it another way. If you think that we have lived up to this,

00:00:43.340 I highly suggest watching Ava DuVernay's documentary, 13th. It's free on Netflix.

00:00:49.060 All persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of the state shall be thenceforward and forever free, and the executive government of the United States, including military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons,

00:01:11.820 and will do no act or acts to repress such persons or any of them

00:01:20.680 in any effort that they may make for their actual freedom.

00:01:27.200 So I wanted to celebrate Juneteenth this year by showcasing some black excellence,

00:01:33.940 some proud black witches whom you can pay to help you guide you through this thing called life. 0.83

00:01:42.140 I want you to welcome with me and give your heart and your ears to Caress Scarborough, 0.96

00:01:49.800 Lindsay Braynen, and Monifa Walker. Happy Juneteenth.

00:01:55.820 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:02:02.040 You must be a witch. 1.00

00:02:03.940 Hi, Chris. Thank you so much for being here with me today. Your smile is lighting up my 0.95

00:02:10.780 little office here. And I also want to say a thank you and a shout out to Chelsea Hamlet

00:02:17.740 for introducing us. Bless her. I know you're listening, Chelsea. Hello. We love you. 0.94

00:02:25.020 So how are you? How are you? I am wonderful, Amy. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

00:02:32.160 And Chelsea, thank you so much for connecting us because, yes, I know you're listening.

00:02:36.160 I know your platform is fledgling.

00:02:38.560 You just sort of changed lanes and we'll get into that.

00:02:41.340 So definitely listeners, we're going to mention Caress's Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and

00:02:48.880 you can immediately go and follow all of those to get those numbers rocking.

00:02:53.280 So as I said, I'm going to start by reading your coach bio because it's so perfect that

00:02:58.440 I mean, okay, so here we go.

00:03:00.860 caress scarborough has been coaching and consulting for 25 years with a focus on sexuality

00:03:08.160 and relationship coaching for the past five years she is a co-founder and principal coach of mindful

00:03:14.680 and as a sidebar that is your current main focus um as well as i do as well as a diversity

00:03:24.280 equity and inclusion consultant caress is a proud black queer disabled non-monogamous

00:03:32.220 leather woman who advocates for bi poc lgbtq plus poly kink and disabled communities in every aspect

00:03:42.280 of her life and business yes yeah that is me yeah i mean before i ask my follow-up question to that

00:03:52.320 Do you have anything you want to say about that bio?

00:03:56.120 I assume you wrote it yourself, so.

00:03:58.880 I did write it myself.

00:04:00.320 I did.

00:04:00.900 And the only thing it leaves out is that I'm also proud mama bear to six humans.

00:04:05.160 I'm lucky enough to have six humans who call me mom.

00:04:08.560 Yeah.

00:04:09.060 And you told me that you're sort of like happily and proudly entering your crone phase, which

00:04:14.380 really.

00:04:15.100 I am.

00:04:16.020 I am.

00:04:17.500 Man, this is a different change of energy for me.

00:04:20.720 and it's all about sharing the wisdom and growth

00:04:24.380 that I've accumulated over the years.

00:04:26.620 It feels almost like parenting the entire world

00:04:29.700 and all of the work that I'm doing right now

00:04:32.140 gives me that feel and fills me up in that same way.

00:04:36.320 So if one of our listeners booked a session with you,

00:04:39.500 I mean, I know you do lots of different things,

00:04:41.600 but what might that look like?

00:04:42.800 What might someone who hires you for a consultation

00:04:45.620 find with a session?

00:04:48.020 Well, the first thing we do is a discovery call.

00:04:50.720 And the discovery call is me gifting my time to help the potential client figure out where they need coaching.

00:04:59.960 And even if coaching is a good fit for them right now, because we've got a mental health crisis in the world right now.

00:05:06.880 So I ally with some very friendly, I mean, very inclusive counselors and therapists to work in conjunction with when I need to.

00:05:16.720 so after the discovery call we set up a plan we collaborate to determine what are your goals

00:05:24.620 what are we going to work toward and then we work on them hard we hit them hard i am fierce 0.62

00:05:31.040 compassionate and loving and i take no crap so

00:05:35.260 that's i mean i think fierce and compassionate need to be in sort of both both hands of of the

00:05:43.600 human they do they do um i've i've got a few clients now that are finding that uh yeah working

00:05:52.120 with me can be a challenge i stretch i demand growth but i'm also willing to flex i'm also

00:05:58.660 willing to flex like a willow tree bend but do not break exactly that's wonderful and so um in

00:06:09.600 your in your client history like do you what's your favorite example of a breakthrough that

00:06:14.520 you've helped to tease out of someone my favorite thing to do right now is working with people who

00:06:21.980 are brand new to non-monogamy and really opening their eyes to the fact that this is a lifestyle

00:06:29.100 that you build intentionally intentionally i would love to have the challenge of applying

00:06:36.640 some of those same concepts though to someone who's committed to monogamy because it's all

00:06:41.580 about intentionality and being honest and transparent with your partner no matter how 0.85

00:06:46.320 many partners you have yeah and tell what how does leather woman work into this

00:06:53.720 i am a kinky individual i am a kinky individual and i espouse the values of the leather community

00:07:02.900 which is also rooted in the queer community and you know this just happens to be june so we're

00:07:08.100 celebrating pride happy pride all my queer everybody and so more specifically today is

00:07:16.940 juneteenth and you are a texan so i am i am native of austin for 25 years

00:07:26.800 and so Juneteenth is something that started in Texas so what is what does Juneteenth look like

00:07:32.980 in in Texas do you celebrate is there it is celebrated but the celebrations have changed

00:07:39.280 over the years and this year the celebration is very likely going to be continued protests

00:07:45.940 sadly sadly we've not made enough moves in a positive direction towards equity race-wise in

00:07:53.840 the U.S., and that's just where we are. When I moved to Texas, though, and first heard about

00:08:00.560 Juneteenth, I thought, so we're celebrating receiving the news late that slaves are free.

00:08:09.360 And just as an aside, I did a little bit of an intro, so our listeners know what Juneteenth is

00:08:16.620 and how it started and where it came from, but I do want to point out that, yeah, two and a half

00:08:21.720 years i think passed between the original yes proclamation and the time that it got to texas

00:08:27.800 months and and i get it i get it you know we didn't have facebook we didn't have email then

00:08:33.880 i get it but it seemed odd to me that we would start a celebration based on receiving the news

00:08:39.640 late and it didn't take me long to learn and understand that it's not that we received the

00:08:44.600 news late. It's that we received the news. We received the news. That is what we are celebrating

00:08:53.500 on Juneteenth every single year. And I and my family are planning to celebrate in traditional

00:08:59.540 Texas style with some barbecue and some red soda. Typically, people will drink Big Red,

00:09:05.520 but I'm not a caffeine person. So I'm going to probably have some strawberry something.

00:09:09.980 Some kind of red soda.

00:09:12.020 I had no idea that that is that like a component, like a general component of Juneteenth.

00:09:17.780 It is.

00:09:18.400 It is.

00:09:18.820 It's traditionally part of the food served on Juneteenth.

00:09:22.860 And the history of having barbecue on Juneteenth goes back to the very first Juneteenth celebration.

00:09:29.420 Because the act of barbecuing, of cooking meat over a pit with open fire, is an African form of cooking as well.

00:09:38.180 so there you go back to our roots he has roots so speaking of roots you told me that you have

00:09:46.740 been on uh you called it the witchy path i think for 30 plus years can you tell me about that path

00:09:54.340 and how your ancestry was a part of that path oh my goodness yes yes my ancestry was actually not

00:10:01.840 a part of that path until very recently um even though you know because i grew up in the very

00:10:08.140 traditional african-american family where it's all about church and you go to church all day

00:10:12.720 every sunday christian church yes christian church yeah so as soon as i graduated from

00:10:19.600 high school and moved out and realized that i was free to explore the thoughts in my own head and

00:10:25.860 heart. That was when I started down my own witchy path. And it was all predicated on the fact that

00:10:33.060 the Christian faith did not feel very welcoming to me as a woman, that my voice did not have value.

00:10:39.800 And in fact, I had people telling me that if I spoke up, I would be expelled from the church.

00:10:46.680 Hmm, not really empowering, not really empowering. So my path has included some time in Dianic

00:10:54.740 covens, a brief toe dip into Asatru and decided, no, not quite me, not quite me, and settling

00:11:04.520 into a more eclectic family tradition that I've since handed over to my sibling from

00:11:12.000 another mother who is now running that group, and now my focus is on the magic of food.

00:11:18.260 that is where standing in the kitchen hearth and home that's my mama bear energy and feeding my

00:11:27.920 family preparing food to nourish their bodies and their souls is where my magic is from and I'm also

00:11:34.620 realizing that was my grandmother's magic so I have inadvertently come full circle and stepping

00:11:42.260 away from Eurocentric paths back into the element that feels most natural for me that

00:11:51.700 also resonates with my culture.

00:11:55.640 And I know that you also eventually became a coven leader.

00:12:00.740 Can you talk about that?

00:12:01.760 I did.

00:12:02.200 I did.

00:12:02.940 That was the family trad that I have since handed over because in that tradition, the

00:12:09.060 high priestess must be still in the mother stage. So as I got closer to Chrome, it was appropriate

00:12:15.580 for me to step aside. It was appropriate for me to step aside, but that is a tradition

00:12:20.100 that, oh my goodness. Oh, wow. My initiation in there was 25 years ago. No, 26 years ago. Wow.

00:12:29.120 And what did it entail? What kind of initiation did you go through?

00:12:34.300 Oh, you're taxing my memory here. Oh, 25 years later.

00:12:39.060 okay wait if it pops up in your head later on we can come back to it how does i mean you said

00:12:45.980 food magic and again that relates back to barbecue you know if we think we can easily

00:12:50.680 think of barbecue as food magic yes yes yes yes yeah and and are there any other practices that

00:12:59.500 you do like do you do spell work or do you find that like for me i've found that like the longer

00:13:05.240 I've been a witch, the less it is about like doing spells and more about just like a total

00:13:10.020 change integration into my general life. It's about the steps that I take into the world

00:13:16.620 every day. I don't think it's, I think, oh, wow. Wow. It has probably been over 15 years

00:13:25.020 since I actually cast a spell. And I mean, I can't even say that I deliberately cast circles

00:13:32.540 anymore but they seem to always be present with me so it's just about being in the world

00:13:39.400 and knowing that words are spells and actions are spells and yes that everything we do with

00:13:45.620 the correct intention intention intention so now I hand the microphone to you what if this were

00:13:53.580 your podcast what would we be talking about right now what's the most important message that you

00:13:57.960 think you need to deliver today? The most important message that I need to deliver today

00:14:05.220 is feel free to work your craft according to where you live and what your culture of origin is.

00:14:16.820 Please, all my witches of color out there, do not be afraid to be labeled a bruja

00:14:23.060 or a Vudan, these are valid and valuable paths.

00:14:29.720 Do not let them be lost to history

00:14:32.580 because history is written by the colonizers.

00:14:38.020 Yeah, and that's what my podcast partner,

00:14:40.680 Risa and I have been doing.

00:14:42.320 We spoke to Marisa de la Pena,

00:14:44.120 who told me specifically that decolonization

00:14:49.160 is a work that's done by people

00:14:51.160 who have been colonized historically.

00:14:53.060 unsettling is the work that settlers descendants of settlers have to do

00:14:57.640 because the work is not the same the work is different so this whole missing

00:15:01.360 witches project has been Risa and I unsettling our own we we encountered

00:15:06.700 magic in our own way and then sort of went looking and we're not particularly

00:15:10.420 happy with what we found in terms of weird micro white supremacy or a lot of

00:15:17.800 spiritual bypassing. And so I definitely think that the work needs to be done by everyone,

00:15:27.520 obviously, and the work is different. So how does it look? How is decolonizing your practice going?

00:15:34.480 It is a slow and affirming process. And it's slow because I'm recognizing and honoring

00:15:43.820 my need to release a lot of the things that i was taught as the one true way to do

00:15:50.980 and it's really so much about right now actually it is the struggle to find literature about

00:16:03.080 cultural practices magical practices from africa that are written without bias i can find lots of

00:16:12.140 things. But there are many, many pieces that contain information, but also contain significant

00:16:18.920 anti-Black bias. And that's not helpful. It's certainly not helpful, especially if you're

00:16:26.460 interested in magic. I feel like it's the antithesis of any kind of hierarchical thinking.

00:16:34.260 It is. It is. And my sister root workers are notably closed mouth about their work.

00:16:41.620 And I get it. There are lots of reasons to be closed mouth about it. So I guess I can put this out there. I'm looking for resources. If you have resources, hit me up. If you don't have resources, we can have a conversation and keep trying to find those resources. Because we need to get these things out into the world.

00:17:01.820 yeah in the shadows too long and and demonized demonized i mean look like when when i mean 0.72

00:17:10.120 recently again we've been having this amazing resurgence because black witches are writing

00:17:15.840 books that are getting published and are are no longer being ignored this is something we are

00:17:21.220 obviously continuing to work on you know but things we've been talking about for a very long

00:17:26.160 time right that the resources are out there that the resources are out there and they are starting

00:17:31.160 to take front and center um but it's especially important that um the white people read books by

00:17:40.220 black people and buy books by black people it is part of that unsettling work we all play a role

00:17:52.460 in unsettling, in developing truly intersectional allyship, and recognizing that it takes the entire 0.98

00:18:02.560 village to solve these kinds of problems. This is a problem belonging only to one part.

00:18:09.140 I just remembered. All of Western history, the message about voodoo that we have been getting

00:18:17.300 is that, like, horror movie message, you know, 0.97

00:18:20.840 and voodoo dolls and sticking pins and, you know, bloodlust

00:18:24.160 and, you know, and not irrelevantly, black magic. 0.88

00:18:31.740 Yes. 0.89

00:18:32.000 And the demonization of everything black, 0.95

00:18:34.620 but in particular, black magic. 0.95

00:18:37.300 Black magic in particular, yes. 0.95

00:18:39.400 And so we're working against all of these, 0.99

00:18:42.100 like every movie that we've seen since they invented movies,

00:18:45.620 We're working against all of this.

00:18:47.520 And so we have to push back.

00:18:50.180 And it has to be a hard push.

00:18:51.900 But please, everybody, take it at your pace.

00:18:54.760 Do not shock your nervous systems to the point that you become unable to absorb more information.

00:19:01.800 I would rather you take it slowly and take it all in than shock your system and stop after one book and don't go further.

00:19:11.740 It's not a speed read.

00:19:13.320 It's a close read.

00:19:14.840 It is a close read. This is a marathon and not a sprint. Even for me personally, this is a marathon. I have almost 50 years of unlearning to do. And I'm looking forward to learning and absorbing and embodying in my next 50, as well as putting out what I've learned and what I've experienced into the world so others can speed their process.

00:19:41.480 how do you react or or feel about the term black girl magic

00:19:47.580 it is well-intentioned in my opinion but it is also exceedingly harmful because it does place

00:19:59.660 black women in particular in a stereotypical position of having magical powers to absorb

00:20:07.520 and absolve all the ills that come their way and does not recognize our legitimate human needs 1.00

00:20:15.860 for rest, recovery, rejuvenation, respect, and love. And I think that that's

00:20:24.320 what I probably am working more on in terms of my own, you know, growth is fetishization over, 0.64

00:20:33.840 You know, and it's the same thing that we saw with the women's suffrage movement, where women were elevated, quote unquote, I'm using scare quotes. Oh, women are too good to be sullied with politics. And so elevation can be a dehumanization. 1.00

00:20:48.840 humanization yes and so form of objectification and if it's a consensual relationship and a

00:20:56.840 kinky thing and that's your your jam go for it go for it do not non-consensually objectify

00:21:03.300 anybody yeah obviously if we're if we're in a in a communicative and consenting environment

00:21:09.580 these these rules can be adjusted but

00:21:12.040 yeah and that's an that's an excellent perspective um because again like i say the

00:21:20.120 dehumanization has been very real uh and it's taken many many many forms for some people again

00:21:26.520 it's like the pushing gun these these people aren't people these are machines you know these

00:21:31.940 people aren't people they're they're magical sorceresses or whatever yeah and i and i hadn't

00:21:39.480 put that together thank you so much Chris you are very welcome it's it is such a well-known

00:21:46.300 phenomena that it's even a trope in media the magical negro apologies for the word that's the

00:21:54.820 term that is used in the literature the the one because we've seen it we've seen it hundreds

00:22:00.980 thousands all the times there's that one black character who just miraculously makes it to the

00:22:07.760 end of the movie the end of the slasher flick and they're not injured until the very last second

00:22:13.040 and or the or the custodian with the with the magical power who appears in the film for two

00:22:22.360 scenes and is the only black face in the entire movie just to cast that little spell or whatever

00:22:29.480 speak those words of wisdom that change the impact character's path

00:22:34.140 i know that you know this and i know that all of our listeners know this

00:22:41.460 black people are a whole people with a whole complex situation going on with feelings and

00:22:49.880 thoughts emotions we are beyond the tropes we are beyond the tropes yeah and that's part of the

00:22:58.520 reason that i wanted to include three different voices before if you include me but let's not

00:23:02.440 three different voices um uh vancouver canada austin texas yourself and london england because

00:23:10.060 i really want to illustrate that i mean just like there's no one definition of witch there's

00:23:14.280 certainly not one definition of blackness or or or one experience of encountering being a witch or

00:23:21.660 exactly exactly and again to all my witches of color do not let anyone tell you that you are too

00:23:31.100 dark to light to anything to work your craft the way it feels authentic and genuine to you

00:23:39.900 i mean what what more could there possibly be to say so let's get into i'm sure all of our

00:23:48.600 listeners right now have fallen in love with you the same way that i have so how can they get in

00:23:54.620 touch with you? How can they pay you? Awesome. My website is mindfulpassions.co, not .com, .co.

00:24:07.380 And you can find me on social media as at Caress Mindful on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

00:24:18.440 Do you have any parting words of encouragement? Maybe you seem like a very encouraging person.

00:24:24.620 words of encouragement for the witches out there or the people who are just looking around and

00:24:30.620 starting to feel exhausted and hopeless oh my goodness oh be well y'all rest is resistance

00:24:38.800 i'll say it again rest is resistance and you cannot fill anyone else's cup if your own

00:24:48.880 is empty. And I say this because I have been in that space of being tired. The DEI consultancy

00:24:58.040 does that, but it is important work that needs to be done. And we all need to lend our voices

00:25:03.760 to getting these messages out there to stop oppressing people on any basis, whether it's

00:25:10.540 the color of their skin or the way they walk in the world spiritually. Rest, rejuvenate,

00:25:17.180 and come out ready to advocate.

00:25:23.140 I mean, what more is there to say?

00:25:24.800 Beautiful.

00:25:25.520 Thank you so much.

00:25:27.020 Hit us with your links one more time for the back row.

00:25:31.360 Mindfulpassions.co is the website.

00:25:34.620 And on all, well, not all social media,

00:25:36.520 but the big three, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,

00:25:41.280 at Caress Mindful.

00:25:43.360 and you will find we will find all of this stuff in the show notes and also on all of our social

00:25:48.920 media when we post about this episode happy juneteenth caress please email me anytime you

00:25:56.080 have anything to say and you can cut any cart cart open it's just let me know this has been

00:26:03.400 a joy and a pleasure and i will have you back on this show any day of the week and i have some

00:26:10.160 friends that I can bring with me because, you know, there are other witches of color who practice

00:26:14.160 very differently than I do and have different perspectives here in Austin. So I am happy,

00:26:20.220 happy, happy to continue the engagement. Introduce me. This has already been so

00:26:25.400 beautiful and wonderful that I can't wait to meet your circle.

00:26:32.480 Thank you again. Happy Juneteenth. Thank you so much. Happy Juneteenth. Happy

00:26:36.820 emancipation day everybody yeah liberation freedom day right I just want to show you

00:26:45.540 something before I let you go thank you again you're okay for me to use it is it is great

00:26:53.520 I just wanted to get your permission for to use your likeness that was that picture was actually

00:27:00.020 from a photo shoot that I gave myself as a birthday gift last year what a wonderful thing

00:27:05.220 to do for yourself. It was. It was. I realized I didn't have any professional portraiture of me

00:27:10.580 and I worked with a queer photographer here in Austin. So Jen is amazing. Creatrix Photography

00:27:18.920 is the studio. And we did a long shoot that included headshots, portraiture, and boudoir.

00:27:30.260 Well, I won't put those ones in the show notes, but I imagine that was like a beautiful-ish

00:27:34.900 freeing experience. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. And you really trusted

00:27:40.040 your photographer, obviously. So if you, do you, you said creatrix, I'm just going to make a note

00:27:46.240 right now. It's photography. Creatrix. And actually, and they're, that's their wedding

00:27:53.060 business. That's their wedding business. Their other portraiture business is Avery Atelier,

00:28:00.420 A-T-I-E-L-I-E-R, I think.

00:28:03.220 I live in Quebec, so my French is pretty good. 0.89

00:28:05.740 I think I can spell it. 0.98

00:28:06.360 Much better than mine.

00:28:07.680 But I already forgot the first word you said.

00:28:10.280 What? 1.00

00:28:10.400 A-T-I-E-L-I-E-R. 0.98

00:28:12.400 A-T-I-E-L-I-E-R. 1.00

00:28:13.340 Did I say that correctly? 1.00

00:28:14.980 Am I saying A-T-I-E-L-I-E-R correctly? 1.00

00:28:16.760 You're perfect. 1.00

00:28:18.280 A-T-I-E-L-I-E-R. 1.00

00:28:20.160 Yeah, you got it. 0.90

00:28:21.220 I'm impressed because my polyglotism has been limited to Asian languages.

00:28:27.700 So I've never really learned much.

00:28:30.840 Well, I've lived in Texas for years and California for years.

00:28:33.600 So I have a smattering of Spanish, but at various times in my life,

00:28:37.900 I've been fluent in Japanese or Turkish.

00:28:41.400 So what a strange mix.

00:28:44.460 Yes.

00:28:46.900 How did that come up?

00:28:48.640 I mean, I apparently did not care much for language before we moved to Turkey

00:28:54.360 when I was three.

00:28:55.260 so yes I am from a military family okay okay that make that now it all makes sense yeah

00:29:05.820 so I was living in Turkey two years after they had a civil war 1974 I was living in Turkey

00:29:14.020 and we did not live on the base because my father didn't have enough rank for us to merit a house

00:29:19.540 on the base so we lived in an apartment in the local community so all of the kids that I played

00:29:24.640 with were Turkish. So of course I had to become fluent in Turkish in order to play and navigate

00:29:31.260 my world. You'll have to come back on the show because now I'm just like, I need another two

00:29:39.260 hours with this person. We haven't talked about the fact that I brought my kids up with enough

00:29:51.520 paganism that at eight years old my youngest son asked me he says mom he said yeah he said

00:29:58.160 do christians have any of their own holidays or do they just steal them from other religions

00:30:03.360 he said great question son with my response yeah yeah yeah you know the child shall lead them

00:30:14.220 yes they are amazing humans they are absolutely amazing humans this is also the same kiddo who

00:30:21.920 came to me and said you know because we're sci-fi fans as well so you know the force

00:30:29.480 is a religion with politics and i think i see why we don't allow that in the u.s

00:30:36.800 this guy perfect you must be so proud you said you're a proud mama bear and

00:30:46.940 obvious i am i love them all i love them all please wish all of your i think you said six

00:30:53.040 children yes a happy a happy juneteenth for me here in canada i will thank you so much amy it

00:30:59.980 has been a pleasure and i cannot wait to speak with you again even if we're not recording

00:31:04.420 just just for the sake of having conversation you are a wonderful human and i'm honored to

00:31:10.440 have met you thank you thank you and one more shout out to chelsea bless you for this introduction

00:31:15.260 everyone keep introducing people keep having conversations this is how we make the world

00:31:20.340 a better place it really is thank you again so much caress like again everyone caress like the

00:31:29.540 gentle touch gentle touch that's right bless you take care be safe and mighty bye-bye

00:31:36.660 oh my god 0.89

00:31:45.580 finally finally yes holy shit hi amy hi lindsey how are you i am okay today was a little 0.87

00:31:59.040 a little strange um I had woken up and I was checking in with news from home uh one of my 0.68

00:32:06.140 art teachers unfortunately had a really awful accident home for me is the Bahamas I've been

00:32:11.260 living in Canada since the end of 2009 like literally the tail end of 2009 and the gentleman

00:32:18.060 who I was talking about his name is Kim Smith he's actually originally from Canada as well

00:32:21.600 um but when I was a teenager he was teaching art classes and at a time when I really really wanted

00:32:29.780 to be an artist I mean I still do obviously um but I was running into a lot of headaches with

00:32:36.200 my formal education in art lots of teachers that were just giving me the runaround um he was the

00:32:41.920 first person that I actually took classes with that not only cared about growing my abilities

00:32:46.680 but also cared about me as a person and as I got older um my brother started taking classes with

00:32:53.220 him as well networking with my parents and becoming very good friends so he has always

00:32:58.040 been like a huge supporter of everything that I've done even when I stopped drawing and moved

00:33:02.140 more into dance and burlesque but um yeah so he's always like somebody who I would make sure to

00:33:08.020 check in on every once in a while uh he's a brilliant uh pencil artist uh coloring pencil

00:33:14.020 artist like it's stuff it's super hyper realistic it's so great um and then a couple of days ago he

00:33:20.560 was doing a walk around his property obviously with the pandemic going around just doing his

00:33:25.740 daily exercises then he tripped and he basically hit his chin on a table and from what i understand

00:33:32.100 it crushed certain parts in his uh in his vertebra and rendered him pretty much paralyzed

00:33:41.060 and uh yeah so this is the the kind of headspace that we're entering this conversation into yeah

00:33:49.680 wasn't that was not planned um uh so you'll you'll let me know and you'll let our listeners

00:33:56.680 know that if there's anything that we can do to support yeah there is a gofundme put up for him

00:34:01.340 um i'll gladly send that to you yeah i'm gonna send what i can as well absolutely we'll put that

00:34:07.080 in the show notes and we'll make a contribution for sure thank you so that said oh my god I love

00:34:13.700 your podcast so much I love hey magical girl so much I know you're only two episodes in but like

00:34:20.080 episode one was like a meditation and then episode two was like a hard-hitting essay

00:34:26.040 what um hey magical girl listeners go subscribe right now like pause missing witches

00:34:33.140 go find hey magical girl subscribe to that then come back to this episode or you know you're only

00:34:39.400 two episodes deep so hey listen to both those episodes then come back to this conversation

00:34:43.260 so what's episode three going to be about oh so i i'm actually at a bit of a crossroads i was

00:34:50.100 going to make a post on my patreon about it to ask my uh subscribers what they were thinking

00:34:54.460 my initial plan was i wanted to dive into um i wanted to dive into the uh avatar of the last

00:35:01.200 Airbender series, specifically The Legend of Korra, because I figured talking about what

00:35:08.440 power there can be in a fictional character when it comes to making your own spiritual

00:35:14.140 breakthroughs, I really, really resonated with the character of Avatar Korra in the series.

00:35:19.960 And I know that The Legend of Korra as a franchise has its ups and downs, knowing a lot about it

00:35:26.620 from the production standpoint

00:35:28.420 and just how fans reacted.

00:35:31.160 It was a sequel that we didn't necessarily ask for

00:35:33.920 and some parts were great, some parts were eh.

00:35:36.120 And oftentimes I saw people arguing

00:35:38.980 about whether or not Cora was a decent character

00:35:40.940 and I felt like a deep wound in my chest

00:35:43.220 whenever people were talking about her

00:35:44.460 because I felt that they were talking about me.

00:35:46.400 So I wanted to do that.

00:35:48.480 But then the Harry Potter fandom exploded 0.98

00:35:52.440 thanks to the author showing her whole turfy ass and uh one part of me doesn't want to give 0.88

00:36:01.740 like too much credence to it on the site but also you know i can't talk about magic in fandom and 0.89

00:36:08.460 not talk about harry potter so an episode will absolutely have to come but i just didn't want

00:36:14.540 to turn it into a oh well i'm gonna like strike while the iron's hot and talk about this because

00:36:18.420 it's an exhausting thing and so many of my friends who are um fall within the lgbtq spectrum

00:36:25.120 um have been grossly personally affected by this author's constant transgressions on twitter

00:36:31.240 and i would rather approach it with the severity and dignity that something like this deserves

00:36:36.720 as opposed to being like hey it's happening now let's talk about it i'm like no so it might still

00:36:42.620 be the quora episode but their harry potter one's being scripted too yeah and i mean the the battle

00:36:48.280 continues exactly like it's going to be solved in a month she's been doing this she's been doing

00:36:53.620 this stuff for a while now none of this is particularly new this is just the most egregious

00:36:57.980 that's been happening now so it'll happen at some point i guess yeah i actually one of the

00:37:03.320 best compliments that i got recently is that someone uh put on twitter in response to this

00:37:09.080 author um who had equated turf and witch in some way and uh-huh and they this this person on

00:37:19.900 twitter was like missing witches would eat you for playing the victim here and i was like yes i

00:37:26.140 i am a success as a person the project is like if that's yeah that nonsense yeah as backwash said 0.97

00:37:35.680 i will eat your face absolutely like i'm so i'm so enraged but it's nothing in comparison to 0.81

00:37:44.800 what my like queer and trans friends are going through when it comes to this type of stuff 0.98

00:37:48.800 so i want to do it with the respect that it deserves and ensure that i'm not bombarding

00:37:54.080 them with constant discourse coming from a cis person right and so for this episode

00:38:00.040 as you know I've been um sort of handing the mic over to uh proud black witches and um I spoke to 0.89

00:38:10.260 caress from Austin Texas and Monifa from London England and what I asked them was you know say 0.99

00:38:17.100 this was your podcast what what would you say in this moment you know um what is your message you

00:38:23.880 have a podcast so i have to kind of adjust the question a little bit but so for the purposes of

00:38:31.060 the missing witches listeners who hopefully again will subscribe to the hey magical girl podcast

00:38:35.300 in this exact moment what's your message to the listeners of missing witches today 1.00

00:38:40.640 june 10th june 19th yeah um we know that black lives matter this is should not be an element 0.98

00:38:50.280 for debate or surprise, but it's 2020 and here we fucking are. Know that when people are talking 0.93

00:38:56.960 about systemic oppression of Black voices, of Black stories, of Black lives, it is more than

00:39:02.960 just police brutality. It is the longer ingrained things that happen in everything that you consume.

00:39:09.900 We know that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism and your media is not

00:39:13.920 is not innocent of this either. Your stories are harmful most times to witches in general,

00:39:21.440 and they're even more harmful to witches of color and black witches in particular. 0.97

00:39:25.740 So you can stand your fictional black witches all you want, but understand that the systems 0.91

00:39:31.840 that have been put in place ensure that they're never actualized to the full power that they are 0.96

00:39:37.300 damn well deserving of. And maybe decolonize your media a little and actually look for black stories 0.98

00:39:43.560 told by black creators and give them a shot and you'll see the difference what are your some

00:39:50.200 what are some of your favorites so some of my favorites include adorned by chi um actually

00:39:56.560 amy can see me in the video i'm wearing one of their shirts um adorned by chi is a nigerian based

00:40:03.020 magical girl series so if you are a fan of karts half to sakura or sailor moon or any basic magical

00:40:08.120 girl series you owe it to yourself to take a look at adored by chi uh it started off as a clothing

00:40:13.760 brand kind of for pop culture uh fans with a little bit of a black or a person of color twist

00:40:19.800 but now she's fully going into her own intellectual property she's developed a manga that's available

00:40:25.680 for free on her website um and it's actually being turned into an animated series right now

00:40:30.900 which is so so cool um so i will stand adorned by chi until my very very last breath because i

00:40:39.020 love everything that they've been doing um i've recently checked out the first episode of juju

00:40:43.880 which is a web series i think it's on hulu um that's been super super fun um and so far just

00:40:50.580 been absorbing anything that i can see where a person of color is well more than just the person

00:40:58.200 of color beyond the superficial tokenism right exactly yeah so how you've existed as a black

00:41:07.060 woman in the bahamas and as a black woman i mean you've existed as a black woman everywhere you've

00:41:11.060 gone but you've lived you've lived as a black woman in vancouver canada and excuse me in the 0.81

00:41:18.500 bahamas so how do you how do you see the difference the difference is pardon the pun the difference is

00:41:25.640 black and white um the bahamas even though it's an archipelago of nations it is a majority black

00:41:31.980 country so i grew up from infancy to basically when i was 20 where my skin was the default it 0.55

00:41:40.720 doesn't necessarily mean that we're not dealing with um whiteness as an ideal we definitely still

00:41:46.120 are the bahamas depends on international visitors especially from the united states for basic

00:41:50.920 survival. Tourism is our number one industry. Um, but when it came to issues of race and identity,

00:41:57.280 it was very rarely colored as a black or white thing. Um, for example, even with things like

00:42:03.480 police brutality, if I ever ran into an issue with the police officers in the Bahamas, I would

00:42:08.100 never have to worry about, Oh, it's because I'm black. It's some other baggage that we will get

00:42:13.000 into here. Uh, but my race was never a part of it. When I moved here to Vancouver, I suddenly

00:42:17.500 became very hyper visible um as a minority that's i don't think that i'm actually a minority but

00:42:25.400 you know what i mean well air quotes air quotes minority very heavy air quotes on that um it was

00:42:31.420 a very stark contrast because all of a sudden i realized oh me and my boyfriend now husband also

00:42:36.740 from the bahamas we're like the only black people that we can see at like 60 paces at any given

00:42:42.260 point and for a while that didn't necessarily bug us too much but definitely as we started living

00:42:48.240 in the city more um interacting with people who are born and bred in canada interacting with

00:42:53.060 indigenous persons and learning their history and learning just how much was swept under the rug

00:42:57.200 with our own like cultural introduction to life in canada and then to find out about things like 0.60

00:43:04.520 hogan's alley the black community that was turned into a fucking aqueduct out here in vancouver and 0.95

00:43:10.300 completely eradicated the cultural touch point for a lot of black persons in metro vancouver 0.97

00:43:14.380 all that type of stuff is it sits in the skin in a very very wrong way um obviously there's

00:43:21.680 lots of steps and lots of protests that have been happening even like right now uh to reclaim that

00:43:28.020 history to center this conversation back to the fact that this whole way of life was essentially

00:43:34.160 eradicated and shuffled off to other cities which as someone who is not from here that's a little

00:43:40.300 like that's a little weird thing like I shouldn't have to travel two three cities over just to find

00:43:46.200 a large dearth of individuals who look like me but yet here I am corralled into a city three

00:43:55.120 towns over yeah exactly it's not to say that there are black people in Vancouver there definitely are

00:43:59.920 but I have to hunt for them like the few times where I actually like felt connected to that

00:44:05.400 community was like when i would go to a concert and it was very clearly a black uh artist and

00:44:11.860 then i would look around just like oh there you all are it's not just me not just two of us um

00:44:19.100 and that's been great but there needs to be more of it like you can claim all you want that

00:44:25.000 vancouver is culturally diverse and in a manner of speaking it is um but when i had to still kind

00:44:30.240 of grate through everything with a fine-tooth comb to find some semblance of blackness then 0.98

00:44:33.960 there is still a problem. And in your person, I mean, a part of Hey Magical Girl is like a media 0.72

00:44:41.500 dissection. So how do you see your Black Canadian Bahaman identity in relation to Black American

00:44:49.340 identity in this? It's very strange. So a lot of times I have to kind of enter conversations when

00:44:55.380 people like loop me into what's happening in the States. I have to remind them I'm not American

00:45:00.840 and i am not canadian um i'm only here as a permanent resident um so my identity is for

00:45:07.660 i guess the word i would use is afro-caribbean so any of my discourse that i have to contribute

00:45:12.600 is going to be very much colored for the fact that i didn't have this problem until i moved 0.98

00:45:17.120 there as an adult so as far as i'm concerned a lot of this is fucking stupid um but um i think 0.92

00:45:25.540 it is also important because whether or not I landed in the states for my education whether 0.98

00:45:31.580 or not I landed in Canada or even if I stayed um there are still some things about existing as a

00:45:36.500 black person in these spaces in these uh western colonized spaces that permeates regardless where

00:45:42.000 I grew up specifically um so no I can't comment to specifically the uh the displacement of the

00:45:50.060 Hogan's Alley uh neighborhood in place of this viaduct because I wasn't physically there and

00:45:55.060 that is not a part of my personal history but I can tell you as somebody who immigrated to the

00:45:59.080 space how that affects me things like that also you know it doesn't matter how well educated or

00:46:05.140 uh well spoken I am for a Bahamian standards as soon as I go to the United States if someone

00:46:09.960 decides that I'm a insert word there that's it so yeah your issues still affect me regardless of

00:46:18.900 any other type of like fancy way you want to put it or where I've been living or how I've been

00:46:24.640 speaking your girl's still black so we still gotta have these conversations and where does being a

00:46:30.980 witch come in um being a witch for me was a it was like a weird extension of all the different

00:46:39.540 ways i didn't fit into what i thought was like the stereotype of uh caribbean blackness or what

00:46:46.240 was expected of me um it all came out as very individualistic um of course now i'm a little 0.99

00:46:52.820 older so i can be like no there's no such thing as a stereotype here um we're witchy as fuck 0.95

00:46:58.460 it absolutely is um nowadays a lot of persons in my generation are kind of coming to terms with 0.95

00:47:04.940 the fact that the uh religion that the discourse that we were taught as children doesn't quite fly

00:47:10.800 there are holes in this dogma and it exerts it exists to be kind of poked around at and filled

00:47:16.540 with and oftentimes a lot of us end up turning to witchcraft or traditional african spirituality

00:47:21.660 depending on what collective ties you are able to either find within your ancestry or within your

00:47:28.720 own circles. Unfortunately, coming from the Bahamas, my traditional African spirituality of

00:47:34.080 obia is technically still criminalized. So I can't go to anybody to be like, hey, I want to learn

00:47:39.260 about obia outside of a more academic sense. Because if someone decided that they wanted to,

00:47:45.760 they could absolutely have that person fined or locked up for three months, basically. So knowing

00:47:51.120 that and being here in Canada where I don't have that same structure of a black unit around me 0.90

00:47:59.360 where I can learn and process, it all ends up being very individualistic for me. So I'm interested 0.99

00:48:04.560 in researching those ancestral ties because I don't have them. I often joke that the Bahamas

00:48:10.820 has been successfully colonized in that respect. And it means in my look at magic, my look at

00:48:16.520 witchcraft is definitely more Western, especially when you factor in that I'm a pop culture witch

00:48:22.760 more than anything else. So it makes me very much a niche witchy aspect, but that's fine. I like

00:48:29.780 working with niches. But it doesn't mean that I'm not like completely removed from my ancestry. It's 1.00

00:48:35.940 just a little bit harder to kind of figure out exactly where it is I belong and what information

00:48:41.220 I can find. It's been getting a little bit better. I've recently been able to network with people

00:48:45.820 who are back home who have also had these conversations and are kind of opening themselves

00:48:50.320 up to more esoteric study, which is really exciting. I've even been able to have honest

00:48:54.760 conversations with my mother, who is from Suriname in South America, and their indigenous practice of

00:49:01.000 Winti is actually legalized. So I've been having conversations with my mom about what she remembers

00:49:06.640 growing up and even made a friend recently who is someone who practices Winti, and I've been

00:49:11.880 learning from them so this is a new sorry this is a new word to me winti winti w-i-n-t-i so

00:49:20.260 so basically imagine winti in the same vein as uh hudu sansaria hudun all of these uh ancestral

00:49:30.800 practices that were brought over from our uh slave ancestors and kind of uh reworked for the

00:49:38.000 context that they were in with one very distinct difference there is absolutely no western or

00:49:43.780 christian traditions built into this like we see in santeria for example exactly that's not

00:49:49.460 that's not a knock on either of those practices i should definitely say um there's a lot of power

00:49:54.900 in the synchronization of those two mediums but i really love the fact that winty is about as

00:50:00.800 african as you can possibly get because those guys not only held on to what they knew but they

00:50:06.080 bolted the fuck out of those slave plantations hid themselves in the jungle and stayed there 0.97

00:50:10.660 and that's really fucking cool to me um so when I learned that a little while ago I was just like 0.98

00:50:18.880 whoa what is this I never heard it growing up I spoke to my mom she's like oh you know if you 0.66

00:50:23.720 were interested as a kid I would have told you and I'm like we're gonna have a conversation about

00:50:28.700 that but okay but she's been really open to just like telling me what she remembers um and I've

00:50:35.120 talking to other people about it so it's been really cool so I guess for me witchcraft is kind

00:50:39.940 of twofold where it is both establishing myself as a unique individual through my magic and also

00:50:45.700 remembering who I was through the magic of my ancestors the community aspect and the individual

00:50:53.060 aspect I think yeah witchcraft that's where that's where you find witchcraft is in the meaning of

00:50:59.100 those things often exactly so I reached out to you when we did that live episode because the theme

00:51:04.800 was dance so um some of our listeners will have heard that passage that you contributed again

00:51:10.800 thank you so much it was no chef kiss um but can you talk about how you've brought um your ancestry

00:51:18.320 into your contemporary art form so along with the many many many other hats that i wear i'm also a

00:51:24.300 burlesque dancer here in vancouver i go by androja wild the bahama mama of burlesque and in 2019 i

00:51:32.120 was invited to perform at the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival, which is

00:51:36.440 basically like our big burlesque party that happens in this portion of the world. For about a year

00:51:43.500 prior, I had been working on a project or a dance routine, which was 100% Bahamian. And most times

00:51:49.800 when I perform, it's usually like Canadian, American artists, like pretty Western slash

00:51:55.620 universal themes. But I really wanted to craft an experience that was very uniquely me. And

00:52:01.860 around this time I was also kind of struggling with the idea of people knowing me as a burlesque

00:52:06.720 dancer because as far as people back home are concerned that's just me being a stripper and

00:52:10.320 they're right but slightly different context um and then the additional baggage of being like I'm

00:52:16.860 not a Christian I haven't been for a while and as far as they're concerned anything that isn't is

00:52:21.860 just me worshiping the devil which they're actually wrong about I don't worship the devil

00:52:26.160 because I don't think that's a thing anyway um so when I was having these conversations with people

00:52:31.940 about connecting with ancestry and uh learning more and more again about Obea um what I wanted

00:52:40.060 to do was talk about that through the realm of dance and the artist that I ended up settling on

00:52:46.080 his name is Tony McKay he is a Bahamian a prolific Bahamian guitarist uh contemporaries

00:52:51.260 Nina Simone, for example. And he was known as Exuma, the Obeah man, which was both not only a

00:52:59.020 cultural nod to where we collectively came from, but also he was an Obeah practitioner for all

00:53:04.720 intents and purposes and his family was too. So the role of an Obeah man in the idyllic

00:53:11.200 scenario of the Bahamas would have been this community healer and root worker and all the

00:53:17.020 best of that. So I wanted to channel that experience, that knowledge through me and have

00:53:22.800 that work through my body. And as it turns out, I chose a very African way to do it, which is

00:53:28.260 through dance. So the whole piece is me in virginal white or Christian white, and eventually

00:53:36.940 calling down the spirit of Tony McKay, calling down the spirit of Obia, whatever collectively

00:53:42.360 Obia is and that piece very specifically with the exception of like one or two like timing beats

00:53:48.760 I don't choreograph that number I intended to be read very much as a possession as much as humanly

00:53:54.440 possible um so when I did that on that stage I remember getting into place I remember a few

00:54:02.380 bright lights and then I remember collapsing backstage and the wings crying out of exhaustion

00:54:06.660 and relief i don't remember anything about what i did um but this video of what i did obviously

00:54:12.860 and it seems to still resonate with people which is what i wanted i wanted people to see the

00:54:20.340 complexities of living in this skin in this body in these identities that i still sometimes don't

00:54:26.380 know what to do with um but be able to process it in a way that feels not only unique but is

00:54:33.660 important to what my personal journey reconnecting with my ancestry is and since dance is a huge

00:54:39.420 important part of that just being black uh that was the way i did it and literally letting the

00:54:45.740 spirit move you exactly yeah so how did you get into tarot because that's how i first encountered

00:54:53.260 you is as dark lake tarot that's at dark lake tarot so so that one was interesting because i

00:55:00.900 it was initially from a school project so when i came here to vancouver canada i came to study

00:55:07.380 illustration so i enrolled in emily carr university of art and design i graduated in 2012

00:55:12.440 yet another hat that you wear too many hats not enough headspace um at the time i was taking

00:55:21.700 illustration classes and one of my favorite projects was exploring um triadic art so

00:55:28.860 basically a triptych or three piece artwork so we were supposed to do it in a way that was not this

00:55:35.100 big bombastic piece but something that was tactile and something you can move around and at the time

00:55:41.660 I was super I still am obsessed with the wives of King Henry VIII oh interesting we'll save that

00:55:49.860 for another podcast I loved that era right so I decided to take the six wives and turn them into

00:55:56.100 playing cards. And it turned them into three queen cards, basically matched up, did some color 0.99

00:56:01.560 research and all the rest. And I tried to make it look contemporary, but also like this would

00:56:07.780 have been an actual hand of cards that people would have been using several years after the

00:56:12.200 queens had passed. Around that time, when I was reading historical fiction novels based off of

00:56:19.380 that time period, that's how I was initially introduced to tarot being used as a playing

00:56:24.720 card game. And so I was like, okay, I want to see what they were talking about. One book in

00:56:30.780 particular was constantly referencing the Wheel of Fortune, which to no one's surprise now is

00:56:35.200 my favorite card. So I'm like, okay, I want to see more about this Wheel of Fortune. So then it

00:56:39.680 starts the reading. And then it turns into, huh, this would be a kind of cool thing. I was originally

00:56:43.840 thinking that I'll do like a playing card deck for my graduation project. Maybe I should research

00:56:48.140 how people use playing cards. And then it turned into, hmm, I should probably practice with these

00:56:52.920 things but I'm going to actually like make this make sense I'm going to eventually draw it and

00:56:56.400 then it turned into oh shit I think I'm good at this and then I started like practicing with

00:57:04.700 myself practicing with other people I would give advice or I would say things and it would resonate 0.98

00:57:11.320 like really really strongly um there was one time I did a reading for somebody back home

00:57:16.300 and the next day they quit their job and pursued their passions uh I still don't know how I feel

00:57:23.400 depends on the passions I guess it was absolutely great like they were in a situation where they

00:57:30.440 were being taken advantage of and I didn't know this and I just blurted it out out loud and then

00:57:36.060 like literally like two days later they like send in a resignation and now they're doing their thing

00:57:40.720 and they reminded me of it a couple of days ago I'm just like oh that's great I'm glad that helped

00:57:45.860 I still feel really weird about that.

00:57:50.540 But yeah, so it was like, okay, if people are liking what I have to say, let's try cultivating

00:57:56.620 it a little bit.

00:57:57.760 And two years ago-ish, I decided to just make that legitimately a thing that I do.

00:58:03.960 So Dark Lake Tarot.

00:58:05.960 Yeah.

00:58:06.480 And so for our listeners who are listening to you right now and are like, oh yeah, this

00:58:10.180 is the person I want to read my cards next.

00:58:12.840 What's the best way to get in touch with you?

00:58:14.380 um darklake tarot.com so that's d-a-r-k-l-a-k-e tarot.com that has all of my um info it has the

00:58:24.160 way that you can easily order a reading from me i do tarot and astrology uh i'm also on instagram

00:58:30.680 at darklake tarot uh occasionally on twitter also at darklake tarot um but usually those are the

00:58:37.440 easiest ways to find me and hey magical girl has a twitter but do you have an ig for hey magical

00:58:42.940 girl yet i don't have an ig yet for hey magical girl i've been thinking about it but i don't

00:58:47.200 know like it's technically a podcast it's an audio listening thing so i'm not entirely sure

00:58:51.900 if instagram is the right format for it but it does have a twitter yes yes so you can absolutely

00:58:57.900 find hey magical girl at hey magical girl.com and hey magical girl at twitter at the very least

00:59:02.900 yeah and if you follow missing witches you've probably seen the multitude of retweets

00:59:07.360 So you'll get in there.

00:59:09.800 Okay, I have asked this of everyone that I am speaking to today.

00:59:13.960 What are your thoughts on or reactions to the term Black Girl Magic?

00:59:21.400 It's more literal than you think.

00:59:25.400 That was something I kind of had to learn, not quite the hard way,

00:59:29.320 but definitely through a lot of trials and tribulations,

00:59:32.960 to borrow a Christian phrasing there.

00:59:35.760 Um...

00:59:37.360 it's real it's literal it's easier to access than you think and there's no one way about it 0.97

00:59:44.620 so when you have found it for yourself fucking run with it 0.78

00:59:49.620 perfect so let's run it down one more time before i let you go um dark lake tarot yep just like the 0.99

01:00:01.740 words dark lake tarot all one word of course hey magical girl podcast listeners go now do these

01:00:12.280 things and um is there anything again is there anything you want to sign off with i mean i'm

01:00:17.800 just so happy that we finally got to meet and we've been communicating i've been a fan of you

01:00:22.000 that is the inception and this is literally making my day me too because i was like you know

01:00:30.960 you were like one of the first people to like follow us and so i you know obviously i'm like

01:00:37.200 oh you know who's this and again like i say like you contributed a piece of writing to our live

01:00:41.800 episode and so you know this has been our relationship i'm using air quotes but i guess

01:00:46.540 all types of relationships or relationships has been going on for a couple years now but this is

01:00:51.060 the first time we actually are speaking face to face as far as you know we can with distance and

01:00:57.820 a pandemic yeah and do you want to say anything about distance and pandemic maybe we could

01:01:03.680 leave on that uh please continue wearing your masks folks we're not out of the woods yet

01:01:09.260 um and yeah black lives matter duh like i feel like you know do should we add the duh

01:01:19.420 like yeah just like why why are we having this debate still it's 2020 get with the 0.93

01:01:27.820 program they matter we matter duh ridiculous i mean i you know like i always say like

01:01:34.900 disappointed but not surprised like my shock my shock ran out years ago you know i've i've gone

01:01:41.760 outside of my bubble enough to not be shocked anymore but like disappointed but hopeful but

01:01:48.780 hopeful because this um life but more specifically this podcast has enabled me to talk to people that

01:01:55.700 I never would have met like yourself and make connections with people around the world and that

01:02:01.320 is what gives me hope personally yeah absolutely connections are probably going to be the make or

01:02:06.060 break thing out of all of us so yeah so if you're out there and you want a reading or you're looking

01:02:12.460 for a new podcast in addition to your

01:02:14.220 Missing Witches listening.

01:02:16.860 But also, if you 0.94

01:02:18.620 need to make a connection, you can

01:02:20.460 email me at missingwitcheswitchemail.com.

01:02:24.220 Awesome.

01:02:24.980 Happy Juneteenth,

01:02:26.600 Lindsay! Yeah, thank you.

01:02:30.520 It's been amazing. Thank you so,

01:02:32.720 so very much, and I hope you...

01:02:34.240 Oh, thank you for thinking of me. This is so great.

01:02:36.540 Stay well, stay mighty,

01:02:38.640 keep working, keep unpacking,

01:02:40.780 and I look

01:02:42.460 very very much forward to the next episode of hey magical girl hopefully you'll be out in the next

01:02:46.480 two weeks oh okay listeners keep your ears peeled

01:02:50.940 hi monifa how are you it's so good to see your beautiful face

01:02:57.720 it's so good to um be talking to you again thank you for inviting me back i'm actually quite well

01:03:04.320 um despite the chaos that's going on but i love chaos i'm thriving chaos and um you know it's

01:03:11.700 helping me to transform and transform with people it's beautiful what's happening it is it's beautiful

01:03:15.420 what's happening yeah and that's how we change right as we get really uncomfortable and that's

01:03:20.180 how we make absolutely and you know that i mean our listeners who have heard monifa on the show

01:03:26.240 before we talked about shadow work and about how unveiling these darknesses for lack of a better

01:03:33.400 word these shadows um helps us to grow and change yeah this i feel is like what's happening right

01:03:40.760 now yeah it really is and i said to my friend yesterday that um you know some of the great

01:03:47.760 grandchildren and great great great grandchildren and great great great great great grandchildren

01:03:52.020 of these slave owners are actually helping to pull down these statues themselves so those children

01:03:57.340 are also healing karma as well it's not just one race that's doing massive healing here everyone

01:04:02.860 is doing massive healing here for one reason or the other that they know deep down that this is

01:04:08.080 like it's like a nexus point in history where it's like it's now or never and um it's funny

01:04:13.660 because before this all kicked off i did my video on saturn retrograde at the beginning of may and i

01:04:18.880 said it's pretty much a case during during the retrograde period it's like an opportunity where

01:04:25.420 the door will have a little gap and then people have a chance to kind of you know take a leap of

01:04:30.720 faith and go through that gap and see what's on the other side and the people that don't because

01:04:34.880 of fear and hold on to those fears by the time the retrogrades end they're gonna have to be

01:04:39.780 chipping through a very thick door to catch up with everybody else and I think that's what we're

01:04:43.780 going to see is going to be happening in the next few months that um you know people that dig their

01:04:48.140 heels in and don't want to learn how to sit at the discomfort are going to get left behind very

01:04:53.280 very fast even if other people don't want to leave them behind it's just going to be a natural course

01:04:58.200 of events because you know when your consciousness is evolving if other people aren't willing to

01:05:03.400 you know vibrate on the same level as you it's just really really hard to communicate and connect

01:05:08.340 with them so I have only a couple questions because what I really want to do is just give

01:05:14.160 you this platform the platform is yours what is your message to anything you want to say to our

01:05:20.540 listeners or to the world at large like what is your message the platform is yours Monifa

01:05:25.220 thank you okay um the first message that i have is um the guilt isn't going to change anything

01:05:34.380 stop with the effing guilt the guilt blocks abundance it blocks change and in some ways

01:05:42.580 it's also like cognitive dissonance as well so you know if you're feeling any guilt that's coming

01:05:47.520 up for whatever reason regardless of what your skin tone is check in with yourself as to why

01:05:52.580 you're feeling guilty because chances are you're denying yourself a pleasure there and you're

01:05:56.880 probably denying yourself the pleasure because it's like really dark and messed up and taboo

01:06:00.860 and you don't want anyone to know that's fine you don't have to tell anyone but just be honest with

01:06:05.020 yourself and cut the stop of the guilt and secondly um i feel like maybe it's synchronous of what i'm

01:06:11.880 doing but i feel like the we're at a point where everybody needs to really look at their relationship

01:06:18.040 with money and heal that because everything that we're discussing and everything that we're

01:06:22.440 doing to change things the one common denominator in the past future past present and future is

01:06:28.500 money and around it because um i think some of us still holding on to some poisonous myths about

01:06:36.620 money because of how dark our history was and it isn't actually true and um i really want everyone

01:06:42.460 to liberate themselves and they can help liberate others so that they can help liberate others and

01:06:46.880 so on and so forth um money is um you know what money isn't actually that complex but we make it

01:06:55.900 complex by the shared illusion of what we believe money actually is and when we break it down um

01:07:02.640 it's so it really shatters the ego when we break it down and realize what money actually is how we

01:07:08.180 can use it how can we can receive it how we can spend it and i think um the mistake that we've

01:07:13.160 been making is we've been trying to address money issues with uh the mindset that it's very very

01:07:19.920 poisonous it's very very bad and it's very very wrong because we connect money with a lot of the

01:07:24.640 ills and the horrors of the past but um money isn't bad money isn't good either and um actually

01:07:33.240 on my instagram i did a very important video on that when i said is money good or bad and discuss

01:07:37.160 this so this is why i want everyone to heal the relationship with money because i really think

01:07:41.240 that that is the key to our liberation like uranus is in taurus taurus was money it was earth

01:07:47.540 uranus is liberation it's instability so we're at this uh nexus point now a really good way to

01:07:53.820 start healing your relationship with money um astrology um sim and actually funny enough since

01:07:58.940 this has all been going on i've had a lot of people coming to me for like 30 minute hour

01:08:03.820 readings to look at their ancestry because um your ancestry is very much connected to the money

01:08:09.680 trail your behavior of money is connected to your your you know the people before you your ancestors

01:08:14.460 and your birth chart actually shows specifically what you may have done in previous lifetimes if

01:08:19.980 you believe in that if you don't it can also show certain patterns in your family certain behavioral

01:08:25.220 patterns certain money patterns and it also shows money blocks in your chart as well and it also

01:08:30.220 shows how you can best liberate yourself from that now i'm not saying that everybody um see some

01:08:36.080 sure i did would disagree with me and say oh not everybody can heal their relationship with money

01:08:39.680 and get money i don't actually believe that i think that's actually um a way of blocking yourself

01:08:45.080 through fear um because even though we're individual we're all connected so therefore

01:08:48.720 if some people can liberate themselves through healing their relationship with money why can't

01:08:53.040 we all do that yes it may be harder for some but it doesn't mean that it's impossible and that's

01:08:57.680 what i've actually been finding out through people that have been coming to me that have been like

01:09:01.260 really stuck but i really wanted to change don't know where to change and they've been like well

01:09:06.460 what's happened previously what's been going on in my family line and i've like this is their chart

01:09:10.960 i've explained it to them show them where um their money blocks are how to best tap into that

01:09:16.340 and every person that i've done that with um they've come back to me and said yeah they're

01:09:21.240 starting to receive more money like this is one lady um lovely lady and she came to me and um

01:09:27.540 I just kind of you know she trusted me I said would you be willing to let me give you an assignment

01:09:32.460 just for a couple of weeks see what happens and then if you if it works you can come back to me

01:09:37.060 again she's like uh I'm scared but let's do it she's Scorpio rising so she's willing to dive deep 0.97

01:09:41.640 I was like thank you Scorpio thank you so I gave her like a couple of exercises and how to um bring

01:09:48.420 some more money into her life just by looking at her chart and within two weeks bam she got like 0.82

01:09:53.040 mean a thousand dollars and she was like whoa okay i need to get another reading and she did

01:09:58.940 and um that person's like on a roll now they're they're starting to understand their relationship

01:10:04.880 with consumption and spending and why they were blocking money so yeah i really would encourage

01:10:11.720 anyone at the moment to look into that um and go deep it's another form of shadow work as well

01:10:17.400 um actually the way that my teachers describe it to me um the money healing is like a poison

01:10:24.000 medicinal path like ayahuasca or like um taking magic mushrooms it really is um it's very

01:10:31.400 transformative from the inside out once you start this journey you'll never look at money in the

01:10:35.920 same way again amazing i think that like what you were talking about about getting rid of fear

01:10:42.540 opens up so many of these big love money um you know success family friendships once once you

01:10:50.860 start to abolish that fear and I know this wasn't on the podcast this was something uh personal that

01:10:56.220 Monique and I did but we did a shadow work session that was extremely useful for me even just in the

01:11:01.900 one session of just understanding how my my fears related um to my relationships and seeing the

01:11:11.860 connections between those things you know i think i think capitalism has done a great job of making

01:11:17.060 us of telling us it's distasteful to talk about money and so don't say how much do you get paid

01:11:24.560 how much do you get paid how much do you there's this fear that of being polite and again this

01:11:28.740 brings us into you know um um tone policing which capitalism is also very good at oh my gosh yes

01:11:36.660 and it's so funny because you know the communities that are very open about talking about money

01:11:42.380 get judged but they also have amazing relationships with money and i know this partially because i

01:11:47.840 actually have like jewish ancestry in me so um i kind of feel like it's synchronous that now i'm

01:11:54.360 uh you know living a you know building a business where i'm helping people

01:11:58.260 in terms of how to liberate themselves through money because the jewish community

01:12:02.700 are very adept at money they don't mind talking about money they don't mind discussing money how

01:12:08.580 they can spend money how they can receive money and that's a very very healthy attitude to have

01:12:13.500 not just a Jewish community there's other communities as well but the one that's

01:12:16.780 connected to my heritage um yeah and it completely makes a lot of sense and like you said that

01:12:23.000 capitalism wants you to uh feel bad and hate yourself whilst at the same time trying to you

01:12:29.720 it's like what i said previously in one of my um in one of my um videos on my instagram and i said

01:12:35.480 you know many people are like oh money's so evil money's so bad it's this it's you know it causes

01:12:40.560 everything to go wrong i'm thinking hold on a minute you're saying this with a phone in your

01:12:44.620 hand that you paid with money can you not see the paradox of that my friend for me i mean i mean that

01:12:51.480 was me you're describing me where like my my parent i mean i grew up working class but my

01:12:56.700 parents still used money to manipulate me if you do this then you'll get that or or you have to do

01:13:04.200 this in order to for us to take care of you basically you know and so I've been working on

01:13:10.220 this of of okay money isn't evil money is a tool in the same way and I think you and I've talked

01:13:15.660 about this before how a hammer is a tool you can use to build a house and live happily in it you

01:13:21.220 could also use a hammer to bash somebody's skull in it's not like the hammer is not the thing

01:13:26.700 our intentions and how we use the thing in this case money is the thing absolutely i mean um 0.93

01:13:33.500 often a slight tangent you can say the same about drugs drugs aren't good or bad people define if a

01:13:38.420 drug is good or bad by their experience with it like you know some people have had a really

01:13:42.200 horrible experience of cannabis and say it's the worst drug out there and instead had an amazing

01:13:46.980 time on opiates and then some people that would have the complete reverse opinions it really is

01:13:51.200 about you know free will experience and a perception of the experience that makes us decide

01:13:56.480 oh yes that is good and that is bad and um as we're seeing as well that you know um that binary

01:14:02.640 thinking is not fit for purpose anymore we're evolving into the age of aquarius where it's

01:14:08.480 about freedom and all levels especially within um on an intellectual basis and for that kind of

01:14:14.000 freedom you have to go beyond the paradigms of binary it can't be either or anymore you have to

01:14:18.400 consider and or which or maybe or if and for some people that is really terrifying because it means

01:14:25.140 they have to look at their whole life and be like well have i been limiting my whole life out of

01:14:29.840 fear then and some people can't handle that and i totally get it i do um i think i'm facing it

01:14:35.220 head-on because my saturn return is in the eighth house the house of death and rebirth so i'm like

01:14:39.320 hey another ego death bring it on bring on the ego death i think we all need it absolutely and

01:14:48.640 you know because it's an aquarius as well i can kind of see that um people like me are saturn

01:14:53.280 in aquarius but if we break through our own personal fears we can help people break through

01:14:58.180 their fears as well and get the freedom that they seek so that's why i said it's a really beautiful

01:15:02.640 time i don't see it as some people see it as doom and gloom i really don't i really see a very very

01:15:08.700 bright future ahead simply because history has always shown us that we

01:15:12.220 always had to go through something very very dark

01:15:15.100 like a pandemic whether it's a psychological one or a literal one

01:15:19.580 and then comes after that comes the renaissance

01:15:22.780 and and you know so many new ideas so much creativity so many things get

01:15:26.380 birthed and i definitely definitely see that coming

01:15:29.660 um in so many ways and i think that's why probably why i've probably been

01:15:33.340 talking a lot more online getting more vocal because like

01:15:36.860 There's no time other than now to really put my mark out there

01:15:39.660 and have people to hear my voice or what I have to say

01:15:42.200 and how I can help them.

01:15:44.880 And then I was laughing the other day as well

01:15:46.940 because the video I did on the Pluto Retro Grage

01:15:49.660 actually said in a caption,

01:15:51.460 anger is the gateway to pleasure.

01:15:54.680 Interesting.

01:15:55.380 Can you unpack that for me?

01:15:57.260 Yeah, absolutely.

01:15:59.480 So anger is a very misunderstood emotion.

01:16:02.340 um even in mythology it's kind of portrayed certain deities or certain entities as um

01:16:10.020 really distrustful and demonic and evil but then when you think about Lilith and Medusa

01:16:16.380 and the serpents these are all symbols of free will yeah refusal to

01:16:21.720 exactly and free will can be seen as very dangerous it can be seen as very evil because

01:16:29.380 you haven't got a control over that and that's what the anger kind of represents it represents

01:16:35.380 um a desire to seek something outside of that emotion and when you understand that

01:16:42.500 and everything that it brings with you you can learn to enjoy the anger and the rage and

01:16:48.020 frustration and all the passion and the joys and the pleasures that come with it and um this is

01:16:53.220 why you know you know uh goddesses like lilith and medusa have been vilified for years and years

01:16:58.740 years and years of mythology because i wanted people to fear that power rather than tap into

01:17:02.940 it and go oh well hold on a minute and just to say as well this is not me dissing eve as well

01:17:08.000 because i don't like it when um richards in the community are like oh lilith over eve it's like

01:17:12.500 you're missing the point eve isn't meant to be denigrated either eve had another gift eve eve's

01:17:17.440 gift was to actually listen to lilith exercise that free will in a way that she actually tricks

01:17:23.060 god i think that's a damn skill in itself as well so yay eat yeah we definitely don't want to put

01:17:30.240 lilith and eve as um as against each other definitely not definitely not they had the 0.94

01:17:35.640 same intentions but they went they approached it at different angles that's all it is really

01:17:40.000 and um if lilith didn't have faith in eve she wouldn't have gone back to the garden she would 0.97

01:17:44.800 have stayed out in egypt and have been like hey excuse me i don't leave her to it but she didn't

01:17:49.220 because she knew that, you know, they were connected in some way

01:17:53.640 and she had to liberate Eve and Eve then liberated Adam.

01:17:56.520 So, but of course, then, you know, thousands of years later,

01:17:59.320 you know, society, a patriarchal society doesn't want to tell people,

01:18:02.480 ah, the divine feminine liberates you. 1.00

01:18:04.200 So, of course, there's denigrate women in mythology. 0.50

01:18:06.920 There's denigrate women in the Bible, you know.

01:18:09.400 Coincidence? I think not.

01:18:11.420 Definitely not.

01:18:12.520 And this, you're, you know, in praise of anger.

01:18:15.380 it also brings out um very racist ideas about the angry black woman the oh yes man and to me

01:18:23.660 i hear this as you know as a denigration and and i think to myself why are they angry is this 0.97

01:18:30.820 righteous anger fuck yes it is and and again like there's something to be said about someone who's 0.95

01:18:35.780 just pissed off all the time and and refuses to actually do anything to help the situation just 0.99

01:18:40.220 likes being shitty and complaining and then there's righteous anger which is like this is wrong and 0.87

01:18:45.800 i'm yeah and this we have to praise do you know i've actually found out people are scared of 0.97

01:18:51.420 righteous anger than just really bitter everyday anger because the everyday anger people are like

01:18:57.180 oh she's miserable he's miserable and they're moaning when you have righteous anger um you're

01:19:02.100 not angry like that all the time so when you roar and i'm in leo so when i roar everybody hears me

01:19:06.840 all and it kind of puts you like oh and i actually did another video see i've been doing a lot of

01:19:11.640 videos this gemini season and of course listeners we're going to we're going to mention um monifa's

01:19:17.260 instagram and we'll link to it in the show notes and you can go through and watch all of these

01:19:20.820 videos that she's talking oh thank you of course but um yeah it was on my music page and um it was

01:19:27.000 it was like a big leap of faith i was actually scared to do it but i wanted to speak about

01:19:31.160 some of the um experiences that I've had in the music industry and how being a black woman in the

01:19:38.060 music industry carries a lot of bullshit and also an immense amount of joy as well

01:19:42.380 and the one reason why I kept quiet about certain things that um that were going on is because when 0.93

01:19:48.760 I tried to confront people at the time they were like they shut me down oh why are you being

01:19:52.540 aggressive why are you being difficult or why are you being so angry so in this video I kind of

01:19:57.740 called all of that out i was like this is a video where you know i was getting called the angry

01:20:01.760 black woman i was getting called aggressive anyway so i may as well be righteously angry

01:20:05.540 in this video and explain to you all what i've actually been keeping in to myself and um i was

01:20:12.700 i was very anxious about it i put it out then i was like don't know how it's going to be received

01:20:16.840 and it's been received really really well people said um thank you for speaking up um didn't

01:20:23.960 realize some of those things are going on but it makes a lot of sense and I think it's going to

01:20:28.360 encourage other people um to speak up other women but especially other black women as well because

01:20:33.700 um you know yes women as a whole in industry have a lot of um rubbish to have to deal with 0.93

01:20:39.440 but what I've observed that black women have to deal with is something else and you know it was 0.89

01:20:43.700 hard for me as well because at first I tried to tell myself well maybe it's racist maybe it's

01:20:47.340 other things and I was patient I allowed all these other factors to get ticked off and I was like no

01:20:52.120 it's not that no it's not that hmm what is the last thing left in the list that i haven't ticked

01:20:57.460 off yet oh yes my skin tone so i couldn't deny it anymore yeah so how do you think as a british

01:21:06.180 black woman how do you think your experience is the same how do you think it differs being a british

01:21:11.360 black woman versus a canadian black woman or an american black woman how is it the same how is it

01:21:15.960 different um there are so many layers because um you know white supremacy is a very multi-layered 0.95

01:21:24.640 omnipresent multifaceted system it's also a psychotic system in my opinion because it

01:21:29.920 actually oppresses white people as well except that it doesn't oppress them first it's the people 0.55

01:21:34.720 at the bottom that is pressed first which are black people but you know even poor white people

01:21:39.280 get oppressed by the system as well but anyway um the reason i'm bringing that up is because

01:21:43.700 you have racism outside of your um your race and ethnicity and then you have issues inside

01:21:50.540 your race and ethnicity and they're very symbiotic they're not um they're not separate from each

01:21:55.960 other and I think what I've noticed is that um depending on where you where you live where you

01:22:03.000 were born as a black woman you can get a slightly different response than say um if you have an

01:22:08.540 American accent or um if you have a South American accent like let me give you an example um you know

01:22:14.860 I went to Los Angeles recently in January that's the second time that I've been and um you know I

01:22:21.740 didn't have any major assumptions but I just had a very uh optimistic in my head I was like look

01:22:26.880 you know I'm not gonna say anything's definitely gonna happen but I'm not gonna act surprised or

01:22:31.740 shocked or annoyed if it does because I'm not in my home country I have to respect the laws of this

01:22:35.340 country if they ask me questions i can't dispute that i can't get angry about it because i'm black

01:22:40.500 right so um in that i was thinking about that i was in the queue then this guy came up to me and

01:22:46.260 he was like where have you flown from london oh go there and i was like oh okay and then i remember

01:22:51.840 gina yashiri is comedian british black comedian who lives in la now she said that um when you're

01:22:56.740 a black woman in america with an english accent there is a slightly different reaction towards you

01:23:02.880 than if you're a black woman with an American accent and I didn't really get what she was saying

01:23:06.880 at the time until I experienced it and even when I was going out to places and people would hear me

01:23:11.900 talk and they'd be like oh my god I love your accent and I think because I had this accent

01:23:16.280 it was almost like a way of breaking down that barrier that they may have had towards African

01:23:21.240 American women because these people and some of these people I spoke to weren't black but they

01:23:26.120 were willing to talk to me because I wanted to know where I lived where I got the accent from

01:23:31.120 what's my heritage and you know i didn't actually find it irritating because i actually thought well

01:23:35.840 this is an opportunity to break down this barrier and show them that um yes the black lives matter

01:23:41.840 movement is unified but we're not a unified person we're all very individual we're all very different

01:23:48.160 we all come from many many many walks of life um you know i mean i mean heck some of my favorite

01:23:54.880 bands um like you know his infernal majesty and the killers and garbage so you know we are there 0.91

01:24:00.800 we are a plethora of um black people and i think that's all we really want to be seen as just seen 0.95

01:24:06.160 as people that deserve equity that are very very different very individual and um just have a lot

01:24:12.960 of love to give and a lot of love to share and um yeah it's not about being superior it's not about

01:24:19.440 being supreme it's just saying hey if i work as hard as you i would really like to be considered

01:24:25.480 and treated and seen and respected in the same way as well but yes um being a black british woman

01:24:30.820 is very different to say if i was african-american or canadian and then again that goes back to my

01:24:37.000 heritage as well because i'm i've got jamaican ancestry scottish ancestry and jewish ancestry

01:24:42.720 and you know that's a heavy karma to heal because obviously you know anyone of it if you know anyone

01:24:48.840 if intelligence can guess ah that's a mixed ancestry there so that person must have had 0.91

01:24:53.860 people in their family that were slave owners and were slaves which is true I've had both that's why

01:24:59.040 my relationship with money is very very very complex it took a lot of healing because um

01:25:03.680 part of the reason why I feared being wealthy is because some of my ancestors gained their wealth

01:25:08.960 through the pain and suffering of others and there's a part of me that wanted to reject that

01:25:13.220 so much like um there's a part of me that felt like oh if I like money will I become like them

01:25:18.100 and that is not true at all but I did have that fear for a very very very long time and once I

01:25:23.900 kind of broke through that barrier I got to the other side and I was like oh okay

01:25:27.300 all right so the ancestors wanted me to heal this okay cool

01:25:30.860 so what are your thoughts on the term black girl magic

01:25:36.640 um i love it um the reason i love it is because the default for girl magic is usually associated

01:25:46.080 with white women and i think a lot of the defaults in the society are associated with um um the white

01:25:53.080 skin tone so we saw this in in the craft where the three white women are always invited to all

01:25:58.820 of the craft parties and rachel true the the single black witch of the four is somehow not 0.96

01:26:03.920 invited to the conferences anyway carry on I'm so glad you said that it's like extremely weird 0.81

01:26:11.140 it's it's I mean we get it because racism but it's like there were only four of them how can 0.89

01:26:17.020 you invite three and not anyway this is obviously a very popular but nonetheless yeah white whiteness 0.61

01:26:24.280 is centered and and this was part of this project from the jump was to un-center this whiteness and 0.60

01:26:30.460 thank you for absolutely it's very omnipresent and i think using the term black girl magic is 0.64

01:26:35.340 just taking the focus off the omnipresence and saying hey there's something else that's just as

01:26:40.300 powerful that's just worthwhile that also needs recognition and also needs um a platform as well 0.93

01:26:47.240 because um you know black girl magic gets denigrated the minute we express a frustration 1.00

01:26:52.880 or concern again it goes back to being aggressive and the angry black woman so we always have to 0.94

01:26:57.340 having to continuously show that look we are more than activism we are more than the anger we are 0.78

01:27:03.420 more than the pain um suffering I don't well personally I don't feel I suffer I feel like

01:27:09.280 suffering is a choice I have a lot of pain for my epigenetics and my ancestry but I don't choose

01:27:13.840 to suffer from it there's a difference between the two but um yeah I don't think there's anything 0.53

01:27:18.940 wrong saying you know black girl magic because you know black girl magic hasn't been seen as

01:27:23.420 something positive for a very very long time but it is down to our hair our skin

01:27:27.920 tone what we like doing I mean I could think of in so many situations in school

01:27:33.880 where I now realize in hindsight I made a lot of these girls very intimidated

01:27:38.540 because I never come across a black girl like me that had all of these skills and

01:27:43.280 all of these talents and sometimes not all the times but sometimes when you're

01:27:47.900 face and look at your privilege if it's racial um able-bodied class um sometimes it gets so

01:27:54.700 uncomfortable addressing that because you may feel like well i haven't really done much so how can i

01:27:59.480 have all this privilege it's like well it's not about what you've done it's about what you have

01:28:02.460 end of exactly like what you were born with even you had nothing to do with anything that you were

01:28:09.580 born into and i think especially white people they they get uh i mean i've seen a lot of white

01:28:15.980 fragility coming into my inboxes i i guess people sort of see me as like a safe white space to

01:28:21.920 unpack these things and like help them unpack these things without asking for the labor of

01:28:26.400 black women and so i've seen this white fragility coming up this defensiveness of like well my life

01:28:32.180 has been hard and and we keep trying to explain it's it's not that your life hasn't been hard

01:28:37.620 no one's saying that you haven't suffered no one's saying you haven't struggled but you had

01:28:42.660 one less thing to worry about I mean I saw a really great meme when it said you've got 99

01:28:47.320 problems but you're already saying one hit it right it's as simple as that yeah but the fragility

01:28:56.500 and the defensiveness is still it's it's I don't want to say shocking because I'm not shocked like

01:29:01.240 disappointed but not surprised I guess is what I usually say people think like well that had

01:29:05.900 nothing to do with me but that kind of certainly makes me laugh as well though when someone goes

01:29:10.180 oh I didn't do that personally because like you may not have done that personally but you're still

01:29:13.860 benefiting from that system and you still have an unconscious bias where you see black and brown

01:29:19.020 people in a certain way because of the history and a system that made it very unequitable so yes

01:29:24.540 you didn't personally you know get your hands bloody and dirty but you're still reaping from

01:29:29.020 all the bloody and dirty riches so don't pretend like you're not and then it becomes our job to

01:29:35.200 unpack that and to recognize absolutely and you know every community um has to has their own 0.66

01:29:42.300 anti-racism work it's just that every community has to approach it differently and um with white

01:29:48.220 people it's really only the fact that um that i mean to be honest this is a bit radical someone's

01:29:54.680 going to come in the inbox for this but personally i think i love it come in my inbox

01:29:58.340 i was yelling over you i'm so prepared for people to come at inbox you said because i always do but

01:30:05.500 you know i think that the behavior of racism itself is deep on a soul level on an emotional

01:30:11.100 level a psychological level and i think there's also an addictive um there's also an addiction

01:30:16.140 to it as well the addiction of um oppression the addiction of victimization there's so many

01:30:23.240 different layers of this addiction but I feel like everybody whether you're white black brown 0.64

01:30:28.560 whatever has to do some form of anti-racism work it won't all be the same kind of anti-racism work 0.56

01:30:34.160 but everybody has to unpack something in the psyche a hundred percent and that's why I mentioned

01:30:39.720 earlier briefly about pain versus suffering um you know what we're experiencing what we're

01:30:45.240 witnessing is a lot of pain um but uh people of color and black people have to decide do they 0.98

01:30:52.200 really want to prolong that pain by suffering on top of that as well because when you're suffering 0.86

01:30:57.180 on top of that you can't be a black scholar you can't be a black professor you can't be a black 0.96

01:31:03.060 scientist because you've made your identity just the suffering and what we're seeing what is so 1.00

01:31:07.360 beautiful at the moment is you're seeing a plethora of black people with their pain but they're not

01:31:12.420 suffering they're still in a community they're still running businesses they're still taking

01:31:16.820 their kids to school they're still talking to their neighbors they're still cooking food so

01:31:20.840 these are all signs that yes we can have pain but we can heal it and acknowledge the pain is there

01:31:26.380 whilst continuing to be the people that we want to be and live the lives that we want and when you 0.51

01:31:31.820 want to just focus on the suffering whether you're white or black you can't and actually even white

01:31:35.820 people that focus on oh i haven't got white privilege i've suffered that's why they're stuck

01:31:39.860 in that place because i focus on the suffering they're letting the suffering become my identity

01:31:43.760 and go well no i couldn't have had that that could have had that privilege because i've suffered my

01:31:47.340 whole life so the suffering isn't just for black people here the suffering can happen to anybody

01:31:51.360 but once you let that suffering engulf you it becomes your identity and it's very very hard

01:31:56.200 to consider anything outside of that comfort zone and feeling guilty is is not the the first step

01:32:02.760 you know it doesn't help it blocks so much abundance and that's one of the first um uh

01:32:08.740 rule of thumbs i have when i do shadow work with people is whatever comes up this is a safe place

01:32:13.540 you're not going to be judged and don't feel guilty about it own it enjoy it and is it one

01:32:18.580 person that disagreed with me yet have you had any clients come to you especially recently

01:32:24.880 specifically wanting to work on their own racial biases through shadow work yes i have um and it's

01:32:33.160 actually the highest it's actually the the highest paid service that i charge for just because it's

01:32:38.460 such an emotionally charged um process but it's very very powerful um it's it's one that i've

01:32:45.040 come up with from doing my own anti-racism shadow work um it's kind of like a hermetically sealed

01:32:50.800 kind of um uh i don't want to say course but yeah it's very very high up there but i wouldn't

01:32:57.240 suggest doing this with somebody with a shadow worker unless we started doing the work for

01:33:02.160 themselves so for anyone who's listening if you're already doing your own anti-racism work

01:33:06.620 and your shadow work through textbooks like um mean white supremacy um or if you're you know

01:33:11.920 following rachel cargill through right online that's a really great way to do the personal

01:33:16.540 shadow work and once you've built that foundational layer then you can go seek out somebody where you

01:33:21.560 can go really deep without having without you know freaking yourself out and i i think that's

01:33:28.260 something that we do too especially in contemporary societies we tend to miss we skip the first eight

01:33:32.860 steps or whatever we want results get the same results skipping the first 10 steps i can i can

01:33:40.720 fully admit in the first half of my 20s i was actually like that in a recovery i remember when

01:33:45.360 i got taught this skill called radical acceptance and i thought right now i understand it i can

01:33:51.280 apply it to the most traumatic things in my life no it sent me back like two weeks because i went

01:33:56.900 into this complete meltdown of like whatever it opened up and then i went back to my therapist

01:34:02.080 and they were like yes you're meant to start on a really small things like you know it's raining

01:34:06.340 and I've got a date I'm going to radically accept that or um my fridge has gone and I wasn't going

01:34:11.380 I was about to cook a steak I can radically accept that and then you build up to the really heavy

01:34:16.020 stuff so that's why I was saying you know anyone listening if you're you know if you're working

01:34:19.840 with Leila's book or Rachel through the great unlearn that is great keep up with that build on

01:34:24.540 that foundational layer and then seek out other people um or if you want to if you're not doing

01:34:30.900 um the work of rachel or layla and you want to do shadow work personally you can still do that

01:34:36.180 through um you know your relationship roles or how you see money you know start with yourself

01:34:42.620 so you get a good um discernment for what it is that is going to be too far for you or what is

01:34:49.240 going to be okay to push you far enough if that makes sense and then you can go seek somebody out

01:34:54.040 and um pretty much everybody that i've worked with they had already had done some shadow work

01:34:59.300 in some way before but i wanted to amplify that and take it up to the next level oh okay so before

01:35:05.900 we wrap up because i do have three interviews for this episode so i don't want to keep you too

01:35:10.120 terribly long hit us with your links what services can people get from you what can they give us all

01:35:15.140 because you're also a musician those of you who have heard monifa on the show before we've talked

01:35:18.820 about monifa as musician monifa as astrologer monifa as shadow worker so give us hit us with

01:35:25.700 all your multiplicity of links absolutely so um yeah um manita walker on instagram and facebook

01:35:33.140 that will that will give you all of my um and my business page especially on instagram i'm very

01:35:40.340 very active on instagram my business segments visions um if you go on instagram i've actually

01:35:46.700 started a a show called mercury medusa money which is every other week where i just have to

01:35:52.760 like a little video just teaching about how to you know look at your relationship with money

01:35:57.760 differently but um also yeah i do shadow work at the moment i have actually been doing a lot of

01:36:03.660 ancestral shadow work through astrology with people in relation with money through astrology

01:36:08.600 so that's what um i've really been doing at the moment so if you're into doing that get in touch

01:36:14.060 with me especially as you've got the retro grace till september so this is a really great time to

01:36:19.020 re-learn and re-assess

01:36:21.380 and re-evaluate a lot of the core beliefs

01:36:23.300 or structures that we have in our mind

01:36:24.720 but if you want to have a 1.00

01:36:26.300 she came to me

01:36:29.480 the other day and she asked me

01:36:31.300 to use electional astrology because she has

01:36:33.360 a wedding so I'm 0.98

01:36:34.980 coming to find out the ideal date

01:36:37.340 for her wedding which is what we also do

01:36:39.420 astrology so yeah there's so many

01:36:41.300 radical things you can do with astrology

01:36:43.180 that I love so yeah absolutely

01:36:45.100 get in touch with me and as I said

01:36:47.300 You can also find my music page through Monique Walker.

01:36:51.940 I haven't got my album out yet

01:36:53.380 because obviously the pandemic caused,

01:36:56.020 but I've actually had the time to practice everything

01:36:58.200 and write everything coming out.

01:37:01.200 And the name of the album is called

01:37:03.160 Tales of Promethea as well.

01:37:06.360 Beautiful.

01:37:07.340 So let's end with this.

01:37:08.420 I saw a tweet that made me think of you specifically

01:37:11.580 because you are such an accomplished pianist.

01:37:13.920 That was,

01:37:15.200 If you want to learn how to play the piano,

01:37:17.920 you practice and get better at it.

01:37:20.020 You don't expect to be good at it right away. 0.96

01:37:22.040 If you're not good at supporting black people, 0.73

01:37:25.640 practice, practice. 0.99

01:37:27.760 And if you're bad at it,

01:37:29.220 keep practicing until you get good at it.

01:37:32.380 Yes.

01:37:32.740 And I said this the other day as well.

01:37:34.360 I said, if you're thinking that, you know,

01:37:36.420 the black community wants perfect allies, you're wrong.

01:37:39.760 People are not perfect. 1.00

01:37:41.300 They're not perfect.

01:37:42.200 People are going to make mistakes.

01:37:43.480 but what matters is that you're committed you care you give a crap and you show up it doesn't

01:37:50.160 matter if you make mistakes along the way because everyone's going to make mistakes along the way 0.94

01:37:53.340 even black people as well but if we're all committed into raising our vibrations to a

01:37:58.020 higher one where love is the primary tool and not fear hey please keep coming please be committed

01:38:03.180 and i'm just going to repeat that and then we'll sign off where love is the primary tool and not

01:38:10.400 fear where love is the primary tool and not fear thank you so much Monifa you know we've had you

01:38:17.200 on the show what three four times at this point yeah I love coming back every time I love you

01:38:22.260 guys yeah and I love talking to you I always learned so much whether we're on the podcast

01:38:28.120 or just talking amongst ourselves thank you again so much Monifa and of course it was a pleasure

01:38:33.080 and thank you for having me as well I mean thank you to you and Risa for making such an amazing

01:38:38.020 platform for you know missing riches i mean i can't thank you enough you know thank you so much

01:38:43.580 and listeners of course all the links that we mentioned and i think you mentioned mentioned

01:38:47.940 uh leila sad and uh a couple other books yeah so yeah rachel cargill very good so yeah i'll put

01:38:54.680 all those links in the show notes plus every way that you can get in touch with monifa if you want

01:38:58.920 to pay her for her services thanks again monifa have a great day and we'll talk again soon for

01:39:07.180 Absolutely. Lots of love.

01:39:09.100 You must be a witch. 1.00

Missing Witches - June 19, 2020

Juneteenth! with Caress Scarbrough, Lindsay Braynen and Monefa Walker

Episode Stats

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