Missing Witches - LAMMAS 2026： I'm Too Sacred For This With Christena Cleveland

00:00:00.660 Welcome, Missing Witches Coven and Happy Lamas!

00:00:06.860 Today we celebrate the halfway point between the summer solstice and the fall equinox with a spiritual feast.

00:00:18.580 Today I'm joined by Christina Cleveland, PhD, a social psychologist, public theologian, mystic, activist, a good friend.

00:00:30.000 And, author of some of our favorite books, including God is a Black Woman, and the brand new Life-Altering, The Black Madonna, Icon of Resistance, and Nourisher of Souls.

00:00:46.680 I also invited a co-host today, another good friend, Kay Reed Stevenson, another PhD, a

00:00:57.000 former pastor, working her way through deconstructing a lifetime of programming. 1.00

00:01:05.480 Now she's a witch. 1.00

00:01:07.060 Join us for a Lunasha party 0.99

00:01:12.300 Where we discover a profound love

00:01:17.460 Nurturing

00:01:19.260 And maybe even find God 0.97

00:01:21.980 If you want to support the Missing Witches project 0.83

00:01:25.140 Join the coven

00:01:25.960 Come check out the new world we're building

00:01:30.520 The things that we're imagining and creating together 1.00

00:01:36.200 go to missingwitches.com you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch 0.93

00:01:44.520 you must be a witch happy llamas and of course christina happy birthday i know it's coming up 0.93

00:01:52.600 very very soon an early august leo baby and i know that you have brought your leo energy

00:01:59.640 to fill this space with your light also thank you Reed for being here as y'all heard in the

00:02:07.220 introduction Reed is a former pastor an academic and also most importantly for this conversation

00:02:13.840 a Christina Cleveland super fan so I've known you Christina for years I've known you Reed for years

00:02:22.000 I hope that this can be like a coffee chat among friends about this deeply, deeply, deeply

00:02:31.860 incredible book of yours, Christina, that just came out, The Black Madonna. I expected the book

00:02:41.160 to be brilliant. It's you and thoughtful and personal and historical, but I was not prepared

00:02:49.620 for how deeply and profoundly healing the book would be for me personally. You know, I recognize

00:02:59.340 that not everything is for me, and that's okay, but the exercises that you put at the end of each

00:03:05.000 chapter to help the reader integrate what you're talking about and the stories, I felt so held

00:03:12.960 in the reading of this book and I mean we'll go on and I have a million quotes I feel like this

00:03:20.100 whole conversation is just going to be me reading your own quotes back to you but I want to open

00:03:27.160 with firstly you need no introduction but feel free to introduce yourself any way you please

00:03:32.540 and then if you could help us invoke the Black Madonna to open this conversation. Thank you Amy

00:03:40.200 and Reed it's so glad to have you in this conversation. I'm Christina my last name is

00:03:48.380 Cleveland. I am a Black Madonna fanatic and student and mentee. I'm lucky enough to write

00:04:03.620 books about Black Madonna. I'm lucky enough to lead a tiny but potent Black Madonna spiritual

00:04:14.100 community called the Black Madonna Freedom School. And I'm just really grateful to be here today. I

00:04:23.700 will say this is the first podcast conversation I'm going to do for this book. So it feels really

00:04:31.040 special and I've only said yes to maybe half a dozen because with God is a Black woman I had a

00:04:38.300 publicist who was booking a lot and so this is actually the only one that I did then that was

00:04:44.240 booked by my publicist that I actually was excited to do and stayed connected with. So it feels very

00:04:52.460 beautiful to be starting here with Missing Witches. I mean we just we just love you so

00:05:00.520 Oh, well, I love you all too. I'm a part of the coven and I have been, and I've enjoyed it just, yeah, it's just been a gift to me. So usually, you know, you go on a podcast and you're like, great, don't call me. I'll call you. But with you all, it's been different.

00:05:16.500 Yes.

00:05:17.600 Yeah.

00:05:20.240 So yeah, that's me. I'm really grateful to be here and honored.

00:05:23.220 so each of the chapters of the black madonna begins with an invocation to the black madonna

00:05:29.900 so can we invoke her now sure sure i'll read um invocation four to start thank you um yeah

00:05:38.800 subterranean lady who holds the world in balance you beckon us the under-mothered

00:05:47.200 and overloaded to swap our baggage for ease oh supreme ease in your unfathomably strong

00:05:56.320 and bountiful arms pregnant virgin keeper of the cosmic crypt neither void nor death can thwart

00:06:05.680 your seed of life impregnate us with your everlasting abundance as our burdened and

00:06:13.360 barren souls drink from your holy well our lady of the labyrinth you deftly deliver us just in the

00:06:22.260 nick of time when life's linear booby-trapped maze is set to discourage and detonate you whisk us

00:06:30.200 away to your circle where love is ever in bloom miracle working ob-gyn our resurrection doula

00:06:40.400 when toxic lies inseminate our body and soul you pull death from our womb and deliver nothing but

00:06:49.400 life more life indomitable life spiral seer your cosmic hands are the gateway to life

00:07:00.040 you guide each stride assuring your dear ones that every direction north south east or west

00:07:10.220 is anointed tended and lavished by you ashe oh it's so beautiful and i feel like your words have

00:07:22.160 really brought the black madonna into this space if she wasn't here already which she was

00:07:27.560 and the the book is so much about love about a kind of love that we can't even necessarily

00:07:39.260 imagine um you wrote so much about coming to this place where you could receive that love without

00:07:47.880 being suspicious read I think you have a quote read and I of course have been talking about the

00:07:55.260 talking about the book to each other and reed sent me this one this was something that um

00:08:00.660 just stopped me in the middle uh of of of my reading uh in other words profound love doesn't

00:08:08.980 play games keep the keep the recipient guessing or even require the recipient to decipher its

00:08:15.600 meaning profound love speaks directly to the recipient's deepest and even unconscious stories

00:08:22.100 affirming that they are cherished, embraced, protected, seen, and irreplaceable. Practically

00:08:29.560 speaking, profound love is freely given and ever willing to go the distance in order to express

00:08:35.200 itself. And then here's the part that just profound love doesn't lecture an unloved person with once

00:08:43.380 you learn to love yourself, others will love you. No, profound love says I see you. I see that you

00:08:49.480 don't yet know that you are dearly loved. I will love you and keep loving you until you are so

00:08:55.400 clothed in love that being loved and lovable becomes your deepest truth. Holy shit. That 1.00

00:09:02.760 just, you know, being someone who has been looking for that kind of love in religious spaces for a

00:09:11.360 really long time, thinking you found it only to have that, that love then suddenly come with

00:09:16.660 conditions. Well, I said it this way, or I meant it this way, or obviously you didn't understand.

00:09:22.140 But as someone who, and you talked about your, your, your, your Malcolm, your nibbling,

00:09:30.180 who was throwing that tantrum. I am Malcolm so many times I've seen Malcolm in me and have been

00:09:38.340 so ashamed of that. But to have you talk about how his mother helped him regulate and how

00:09:46.000 you know he was an altar for a wild passing God I'd love to hear more about wild passing God

00:09:52.100 but just to just sit in that knowledge and knowing that the ways that we were taught that

00:10:01.800 love taught what what love was and the conditions just to see that completely

00:10:06.420 no that's that's not the truth so thank you for writing that Christina

00:10:10.920 so so talk to us a little bit about firstly we'll get to malcolm for sure because i want to hear

00:10:19.200 about how how we all can create altars to wild passing gods um but firstly talk to us about

00:10:27.400 profound love and what effect that accepting this or recognizing it can have on us and on our lives

00:10:36.640 yeah I mean it's a journey for me too I read thank you for reading those words

00:10:44.440 out loud um you know I

00:10:48.640 it feels like a trap a lot of the times it feels um

00:10:59.460 I think so many of us have been hazed in spiritual spaces had to jump through hoops

00:11:08.800 um that tangle like what Reed talked about you know where it's like now it's here but

00:11:15.960 then it's not because you did something but you don't know exactly what you did

00:11:20.120 um and so for me it has just been

00:11:24.080 trying to be present to it without bringing my own

00:11:33.100 ego defensive need to like make to like offer something to offer something um and it's a

00:11:45.240 constant literally like my my daily meditation is um the black madonna of einstein is in

00:11:52.540 Switzerland. And, um, when I went to visit her, um, for the first time, like a year, a little

00:11:58.560 over a year ago, um, she's known as a, like our lady, the ominously dark forest. So like I had

00:12:04.540 like a lit, I was going to brief her on the state of the world. Like I had a list of like global

00:12:12.500 regional and personal issues that I was like, do you know, like, I know you're here in this like

00:12:19.360 monastery but like do you really know like and I whipped out my list and all I could feel from her

00:12:26.100 was she said I've been waiting for you to come since you were six years old

00:12:35.920 because I remember being at evangelical summer camp in the redwoods

00:12:42.660 and and hearing a voice saying I'm right here Christina I'm right here Christina but I didn't

00:12:49.680 know who it was I thought I was like Casper the friendly goat because like I was like it's not

00:12:53.980 God because God's male and scary so like I don't know what this is but like I so then I immediately

00:13:01.480 was like oh my gosh that was you so she's like yeah yeah I've been waiting for almost 40 years

00:13:07.340 I just want you to be here I just want you to be here and so then I was like

00:13:13.460 I was almost I almost felt tortured in the moment and this really brought to the surface how much

00:13:22.080 I'm uncomfortable with unconditional embrace because I was like this is literally what I've

00:13:28.240 been longing for a divine being to say to me my whole life and now that I'm here doing it I'm like

00:13:33.280 I don't like this. I want things to do. Like I want to show you. And so it was so uncomfortable.

00:13:40.780 Now, a lot of my daily practice is sitting with this little statue I have of hers and just

00:13:46.240 receiving, just opening to the love. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to, just my presence

00:13:53.880 is a delight to you. Are you kidding? I can just sit here and like daydream or my mind can wander

00:14:02.440 or i can talk to you about what's bothering me or i can just literally do nothing and so i've

00:14:12.740 been doing that and in that practice i've decided to set up a little black madonna altar for my

00:14:19.240 inner child and so i took like a caboodle case you know the caboodle cases it's i don't know

00:14:27.080 like a makeup case yeah that like we all had like if you're like an elder millennial young

00:14:32.900 young gen x are like me it's like we all had those in like sixth grade so I made my little

00:14:37.460 kitty altar out of that so that like I can invite my inner child to sit with her too and it's like

00:14:44.360 just sit here and play she just delights in you playing and like having fun and so my inner child

00:14:51.660 been helping me compose that altar and like what goes in it and but you know I just it's it's been

00:14:57.460 an ongoing it's really a daily practice for me I mean I'm an Enneagram one so I feel like I always

00:15:07.060 need to do and perform and um and it's a constant yeah I wish I had yeah I mean I don't wish I had

00:15:14.260 the answer but I can just say it's a really beautiful unraveling yeah I mean there are so

00:15:20.940 many different like forms of brainwashing that you talk about in the book um what you're talking

00:15:27.740 about sounds to me like that capitalist brainwashing of you always need to be performing

00:15:32.400 or offering offering yeah everything has to be an exchange yes everything has to be a transaction 0.97

00:15:40.480 yes um even with the divine being but i'm learning a lot about matriarchal studies 0.88

00:15:46.980 you know historical matriarchal studies and you know the maternal gift economy was not

00:15:53.000 an equal exchange it was unilateral giving and unilateral receiving and so this is the

00:16:00.260 this is the goddess model you know so it's just it's but it's yeah it's the unraveling

00:16:06.040 yeah let me ask this before we return to Malcolm um you wrote there was just one enormous problem

00:16:14.460 i had been so deeply programmed by our modern day plantation society that i didn't quite know

00:16:23.040 how to be free yeah i think that probably most of our listeners most of the people i know they

00:16:33.820 want freedom they want liberation whatever that means to them but they don't actually know what

00:16:38.700 it looks like maybe because our society has programmed us so far from any kind of real

00:16:45.940 freedom or liberation i do want to say i checked the words free or freedom appear in the black

00:16:52.840 madonna 105 times so i want to know have you gotten any closer to to knowing how to be free

00:17:05.480 and what absolutely yeah so tell us what is it yeah I mean it's still an ongoing journey but I

00:17:12.000 mean so much so much growth and release so I'm so I'll say it this way one of the

00:17:23.920 young younger folks who's worked with me for a few years said if there's anything

00:17:30.580 that I can walk away with knowing for sure, having worked with you is that I can walk

00:17:37.000 into any space and immediately be like, I'm too sacred for this.

00:17:43.860 And so I think that is embodying that energy of, of a knowing I am inherently

00:17:52.740 sacred. It is my birthright. I don't need anybody to confer that on me. I don't need

00:18:02.820 anybody to legitimize that. I don't need anybody to co-sign on that. And also to be able to

00:18:11.480 remove myself from situations with, with confidence that black Madonna is going to 0.79

00:18:22.920 provide what I need, that I don't have to stay in a plantation situation or a plantation relationship 0.92

00:18:28.440 or any, or plantation spirituality. I can take that uncertain, unknown step off.

00:18:37.540 so I think it's the combination of knowing I'm sacred and moving on it I can do that so much

00:18:46.220 faster I can do that so much with so much more confidence in the universe which I which I've

00:18:57.500 decided is Black Madonna's body and so I'm like okay I I'm not going to I just feel like 0.58

00:19:07.520 I made so many decisions in the past because I thought I had to, in order to pay my bills, 0.82

00:19:12.480 in order to keep health insurance. I'm in the U S where, you know, in order to feel loved or in

00:19:18.340 order to have this stability of a relationship, or, you know, I just made so many decisions

00:19:24.240 in order to be significant. And now I'm just like, no, I'm too sacred for this. And we out.

00:19:32.380 yeah we are allowed to make these decisions for ourselves i want to thank you again and i told

00:19:39.760 you this i i read page one of the black madonna and in this you you are sort of conjuring uh

00:19:48.120 an enslaved ancestor who looked at her situation and said i'm too sacred for this and then it's a

00:19:55.200 theme that carries on through the book but i just want you to know that i'm too sacred for this

00:19:59.620 immediately became a catchphrase read you can attest to this i took a screenshot i i sent it

00:20:06.740 to like group texts like christina cleveland's got the new we're not saying i'm too old for this

00:20:11.920 anymore we're not saying we are saying i'm too sacred for this yeah yeah but that birthright

00:20:18.480 sacredness you know that's just been ripped from us but that i mean that's our what i love about

00:20:23.560 black madonna and the fact that black madonna is forever is like this is our deepest dna

00:20:28.460 like there's been there's been genetic dna pile you know on top of that but our it's it's this

00:20:36.840 is who we really are wow that's really powerful to me um and it's a daily i mean it's again one

00:20:47.500 of those daily things where it's like i'm too sacred to be stressing over what that person

00:20:51.140 thinks of me I'm too sacred it shows up in all these ways um yeah there's something that I feel

00:21:02.560 that's in this I'm too sacred um it's part permission until you realize like there is

00:21:11.060 this acceptance like you were talking about that it and our very DNA um and one of the things as

00:21:19.000 I was reading your book, I felt myself even still, I only rescinded my credentials of ordination

00:21:27.120 not quite six years ago. So I'm still, even though I was deconstructing long before I left

00:21:32.120 the church, Church of God, Pentecostal, Cleveland, Tennessee. So all of that bullshit, you know, 0.99

00:21:42.440 still kind of sits in my body so I felt myself going okay I want this I want to believe this 0.98

00:21:52.160 but I'm still the the phrase that comes to my mind is a line from Girls Against God from Florence

00:21:57.560 and the Machine what a thing to admit that when someone looks at me with real love I don't like

00:22:02.320 it very much it kind of makes me feel like I'm being crushed so those that like feeling the

00:22:10.520 weight and I know I'm using my hands a lot um so people can't see but feeling the weight like

00:22:16.320 calm down on you of this love right that's how I felt with Our Lady of Einseeden you know I was

00:22:23.860 just like take it away like you know but I think but I and I say this in our school all the time 0.77

00:22:30.440 Black Madonna is trauma-informed like she gets it she's like girl I get it like I it's not per 0.95

00:22:37.820 she doesn't take it personally she's like we can go at the pace that works for you you don't have

00:22:43.620 to prove and even that you don't have to prove you don't even have to receive my love you know

00:22:48.260 what I mean like you don't even have to be ready to trust you don't have to be like I love how she's

00:22:52.800 so just like I'll meet you where you are yeah like and I'm not trying to rush you I'm not trying

00:23:01.040 you don't have to you know especially in like a lot of Christian patriarchal spaces it's like

00:23:06.980 you have to um be vulnerable before it's actually safe to do that as a as as a way to prove that you

00:23:17.740 are committed and she's like you don't have to do that she's like you're triggered i get it i and

00:23:24.580 i'm per and i and i'm not going to be like but not all gods you know what i mean or whatever

00:23:28.980 right right yeah and and just you know like there's a huge difference and the way that you

00:23:40.320 are introducing us to the black madonna um is really helpful in that way thank you for reminding

00:23:47.340 me the trauma informed part because my hyper vigilance keeps wanting to go nope can't can't

00:23:52.240 trust and so um but as i have kind of in my journey thought about uh the divine feminine

00:23:59.100 and the black madonna i am finding that i do have little statues that will show up so i'm gonna go

00:24:04.640 here try this do this do that and so it's like and i'm going to be in spain in november not very far

00:24:13.200 from the black madonna of montserrat so already planning to go i'm gonna i'm gonna put myself 0.94

00:24:20.420 into it christina i'm gonna try because it is our fucking birthright it is our birthright 0.92

00:24:26.500 and so thank you for just i sharing like saying hey look at look at this we can have it that's 0.97

00:24:35.760 so beautiful yeah we we can have it but i do want to firmly underscore um the idea that black

00:24:48.540 Madonna is black beyond speculation so maybe she is for everyone but um I mean it's a both and

00:25:00.120 yeah she's like it's and I think people really struggle to understand that I mean oh you should

00:25:05.960 see how much people don't look in the traditional black Madonna community don't love that I've 0.97

00:25:14.080 really highlighted and positioned her as black you know um because they don't want to deal with 0.91

00:25:20.640 their whatever anyways but there was that one thing about like oh she's just been discolored

00:25:25.320 by the soot from candles yeah every every single one every single one and just the face just yeah

00:25:33.040 yeah yeah yeah and so you know but but i think here's what i think about knowing that you're

00:25:39.400 truly sacred, it's not an escapist. It's not spiritual bypassing. If you truly know that

00:25:46.140 you're sacred, you're going to be like Harriet Tubman and you're going to spend the rest of your

00:25:50.180 life going back and making sure that as many people possible know that they're sacred too.

00:25:55.600 And so I think, you know, people who are uncomfortable with the Black Madonna's

00:26:02.480 blackness are uncomfortable with being accountable to their birthright sacredness

00:26:10.980 but if we truly are sacred then we would want everybody to have that and we would fight to the

00:26:20.960 death for everybody to have that because what is life if you're not sacred and so you know the

00:26:29.060 black and that, I mean, that's, that's for everybody. That's for me as a cis black woman 0.87

00:26:35.480 because black Madonna is black and trans, you know? And so it's like, I can't just be like,

00:26:41.980 oh yeah, she's, she's, I'm sacred. And then you white people have to do your work. It's like, 0.90

00:26:46.480 no, I have to do my work. Right. Like we all have, we all have ways in which black Madonna

00:26:51.160 is saying there's more love and I want you to embody it. Thank you for the segue. I wanted to

00:26:58.860 bring up this because i mean again the the book encompasses so much you know you you trace black

00:27:05.360 liberation through like congolese um enslaved people rebellion and harriet which was so cool

00:27:11.980 which was so cool but you wrote harriet harriet tubman harriet understood that love and

00:27:19.720 accountability are two sides of the same coin i mean that's what you were just talking about but

00:27:26.040 say more, say more, say more. Well, I mean, love is a verb too. And I, you know, bell hook said

00:27:36.240 that. So, you know, I'm not making this up and it doesn't, it it's about, but love is about

00:27:43.280 healing and connection. It's not about feeling good. And so I think black and black Madonna,

00:27:50.900 I mean, black Madonna is a typical, is a good mother. She wants us to be well.

00:27:58.480 She wants us to be on the path that is right for us. You know, we, we, we get to be, we get to

00:28:05.240 co-create that with her. So it's not like she's telling us, it's not patriarchal, right? She's

00:28:09.560 not telling us, but she wants us to be free. And those are things that we can't do without

00:28:16.040 accountability. And I mean, even in the communities that I'm in, the hard conversations

00:28:23.840 are the ones that help me be more free. The accountability is what helps me be more free.

00:28:29.760 The accountability helps me go beyond just I want to be this kind of leader to I am actually

00:28:36.140 embodying this type of leader. And without that, and I just think we live in this society where,

00:28:43.340 I mean, I kind of get it because life is hard. Like life is so violent. We're overloaded. And also if we don't have, so I can see why people are constantly turning to spirituality as like a, as a warm blanket, you know?

00:28:59.160 um but that's only I mean that to me that just feels like a band-aid and also if you are if 0.82

00:29:06.240 you're not a black trans woman if you're not like a poor black trans woman who's probably disabled 0.99

00:29:13.200 too and all these and a bunch of other things and you're going to the black madonna for just 0.99

00:29:18.280 comfort that's just mammyism that is literally just mammyism because she that that's she's not 0.77

00:29:30.200 she's not the magical negro who's gonna show up and historically right i right and i in the book 0.62

00:29:36.100 i talk about how you know this this this this sacred dark goddess image is like written into

00:29:43.560 our consciousness our collective consciousness like carl young said that but like the most 0.99

00:29:49.380 enduring stereotype of black women in the world is the mammy yes which just goes to show how much

00:29:56.520 our society is uncomfortable with the unconscious you know and so that's why i'm like if anytime

00:30:03.040 we're mammifying her we're really just literally

00:30:08.340 like abusing her sacred black feminine body and so i so i think the love and accountability

00:30:19.060 has to come through in in black madonna devotion because otherwise it's not 0.99

00:30:26.380 it's just like white patriarchal God in blackface it's just gross you know um and we can all we can 0.95

00:30:35.860 all fall into that yeah that's really helpful Christina the way that that you said that like 0.96

00:30:41.460 um there's something happening in the spiritual community right now online where there's a lot of

00:30:48.320 spiritual bypassing and people who have been respected in the community that are

00:30:53.140 creating content for less than above board type things. And so there's this big

00:31:02.100 conversation around spiritual bypassing and accountability that I see people going, well,

00:31:09.940 we're just going to write them off because they're that. And I, there is a thing of not

00:31:14.400 giving your attention to that kind of content, but I'm just going to put it out here. As I've

00:31:21.420 been reading the book as a white lady I'm like I don't like the the tension that I felt going I am

00:31:28.360 a white lady I'm gonna come to this person I'm doing my work am I like how do I I don't want

00:31:35.260 to use the word negotiate but how do I develop this navigate how do I yeah navigate how do I

00:31:41.940 navigate this especially uh and I hope this makes sense but back in spiritual communities that I was

00:31:48.640 part of one of the reasons I, I could no longer be a priest is because I didn't believe the creed.

00:31:53.200 I couldn't stand in front of someone and say the creed. I was like, can't do it. Don't believe it.

00:31:57.960 Not going to ask people to do it. But there is this thing of not spiritual bypassing, but sharing

00:32:06.020 lack of accountability in that you don't have to understand it right now because I understand it.

00:32:12.320 so I've got you. Or someone else in the crowd. What, what, how does that play into this cauldron?

00:32:20.820 Or, I mean, do you have any thoughts or comments on that? I did ask a couple questions right in

00:32:25.520 there. So I talked about my discomfort, not wanting to practice mammyism, but also the 1.00

00:32:30.620 spiritual bypass that happens in the wider spiritual community. And the lack of accountability. 0.94

00:32:38.140 Well, you already answered that question. Yeah. I mean, well, I think I'm not sure I quite

00:32:46.200 perfectly understand your question, but I'm wondering if you're, what you're getting at is

00:32:50.800 how, um, I'll say white, white people as an example in, um, some might have more awareness

00:33:00.260 and understanding, but they're not holding the other white people accountable. Yes. So it's 0.58

00:33:06.240 enabling yes when really that's the work that that's your work okay is there is there a tension

00:33:16.100 between accountability and on the unconditional part of unconditional love is accountability a

00:33:24.980 condition of unconditional love interesting thanks amy that's really that's a good question yeah i

00:33:33.760 don't i yeah i i really hesitate to define unconditional love um here's what i i feel

00:33:43.240 my experience of black madonna is that she doesn't follow her own rules so

00:33:50.340 i feel like she does what that person needs 0.72

00:33:55.680 um i remember when i was a professor because i was a professor for 11 years and one of my

00:34:02.620 department chairs who I respected a lot said, um, you do what the student needs. If the student

00:34:10.120 needs lenience, if that's, what's going to serve the student in this moment, give them lenience.

00:34:16.040 If holding them to the syllabus and doubling down, do that. Like, so kind of a case by case.

00:34:22.780 And I kind of feel like black Madonna does that. I also think though, and here's where it gets even 1.00

00:34:28.520 more complicated. She's a bit of a trickster. And she's, she's, she's, she's innovative. She's 1.00

00:34:36.760 not slippery, not flaky, but she's innovative, you know? And so, you know, because you obviously

00:34:42.640 have these experiences, you see these stories of like Black Madonna disappearing people, right?

00:34:47.840 Like, so obviously, you know, in our collective consciousness, there's an experience of Black

00:34:55.820 Madonna, who is holding people quite accountable, right? And also, I'm starting to think and believe 0.66

00:35:08.100 that her, quote, killing them is based on their perception of her,

00:35:20.580 is based on their limitations. And so it's like, if the only way they can interact with the divine

00:35:29.620 is in this violent way, that's part of their psyche. I'm blanking on the word that I'm

00:35:38.260 wanting to use, but it's almost like we co-create the God space with her. And so how she shows up

00:35:46.500 has a lot to do with our own, um, archetypes in our own. And so I'm wondering if these

00:35:56.200 super violent patriarchal men in medieval France could only experience her as someone who

00:36:05.400 disappeared them. And therefore they like, maybe if it, if they were different, they could, it

00:36:10.880 could have been a conversation because there's another story in Spain, also in a medieval times

00:36:15.960 where a woman was and I tell it in the book I think in the final chapter where a woman was um

00:36:22.240 her husband was cheating on her with uh local so with you know with a woman in the village

00:36:26.760 and black madonna appeared to them and they were able to to resolve things amicably and non-violently

00:36:33.980 right so it's like I kind of want it's like how is our expectation of her how is our um the boxes

00:36:43.940 we put her in how do those impact our experience of her so is she violent or are we violent right

00:36:53.520 like is she you know like yeah that's the question that made so much sense to me thank you

00:36:59.040 I thought that um you said you were an enneagram one I'm an enneagram eight

00:37:04.880 I wake up in the morning ready to fight somebody 0.94

00:37:08.320 i feel like eights wake up and they're just like bullshit to everything yeah like good morning 0.99

00:37:14.680 bullshit yeah i'm gonna prove you what are you mad about so many things uh 0.98

00:37:22.040 so what i hear you saying about in like how we are co-creating our spaces so knowing you know 0.99

00:37:30.200 showing coming to the black madonna going i am a white cis lady i want to do my work so that i can

00:37:37.300 honor the sacred in everybody um and can you hold my anger please because it's killing me um yeah

00:37:48.360 yeah that kind of thing yeah oh i was gonna say circling back to that i i think the word i was

00:37:55.220 thinking of was projection like it was their projection of her right that killed them

00:38:00.200 mm-hmm yeah rather than necessarily she killed them that makes sense yeah yeah and i appreciated

00:38:07.680 those stories i also appreciated um the our lady uh of charity and how you were talking about how

00:38:15.620 it had to be that the black madonna showed up to this person who worked for the king but then

00:38:21.380 also was enslaved and how those connections to those people in those bodies in those social

00:38:28.260 situations were able to spread. Um, yeah. So, and it was, um, her love was so strategic,

00:38:36.740 so personalized. Um, and you know, this is something we talk about all the time in my

00:38:41.480 community. Like, you know, if you are at that place where you feel abandoned, cause like,

00:38:45.720 of course we do. Right. Like, you know, we're all dealing with illusions of divine abandonment,

00:38:49.400 like all the time and everything in our culture is like poking at that. So we might, we might

00:38:54.700 get to like a point where we're like, okay, I kind of feel safe in this moment. And then we walk

00:38:58.400 outside and something happens and we're like back to God, are you there? Right. Um, so we're all

00:39:05.280 constantly fighting this. And so I, you know, we just start, I'm like a black Madonna. I need

00:39:09.480 receipts right now. Like, help me, help me believe, show me in a super personal way that I

00:39:18.400 cannot rationalize away I cannot you know show me that you know me you know what I need and you got

00:39:27.340 me and I think that's what she did for the Cuban for the Afro-Cuban folks she's like I'm gonna show

00:39:32.820 up looking like you I'm gonna show up acting like you I'm gonna strategically connect with the people 0.82

00:39:37.780 that you that have credibility with you you know it's so generous and in in this story um Black

00:39:47.820 madonna is also the orisha oshun she is all things um you said this turn of phrase illusions

00:39:57.880 of divine abandonment so i have to ask this on behalf of the missing witches coven we have been

00:40:05.120 talking so much about deity a lot of us either i heard that yeah yeah from like uh we have either

00:40:14.620 been traumatized by you know an unhealthy and abusive church system or we come in we believe

00:40:21.500 in science and we're militant atheists and there is this crumbling i am seeing of the illusion

00:40:30.520 of divine abandonment where people are coming to me and saying and this is happening to me too

00:40:37.640 are saying i picked up working with this deity as a lark i figured it couldn't hurt

00:40:46.700 worth an experiment and now these things are happening these things are falling into place

00:40:52.260 these problems are being solved without my interference and and one coven mate said to me

00:40:59.160 am i a deist like do i believe in god in this almost horrified confused way so i ask you

00:41:12.060 christina cleveland are gods is god real is it a symbol that we've created of the connection that

00:41:23.060 we're making with each other is it an avatar what what is god it's a small question yeah yeah um

00:41:35.520 i'm gonna say it doesn't matter to me

00:41:44.100 now i don't have i mean i i you know i might be in a different place than people who for whom you

00:41:50.880 know it really is important for them to have some semblance of certainty or even not certainty but

00:41:57.480 just geography around it maybe you know but um here's here's why i believe in black madonna

00:42:04.960 and what believe that god is a black woman who affirms the sacredness of all people

00:42:09.040 because it makes me a kinder softer more courageous person

00:42:13.680 big deep exhale over here please keep talking yeah that's that's it doesn't matter

00:42:23.540 what matters is how I show up in this world that desperately needs my gifts in a gentle but

00:42:32.380 fiery in a loving but stirring shit up way and I can't I've done it I've done it

00:42:45.280 on my own I've done it without having this conception of a divine being I've done it 0.94

00:42:52.880 without having um you know what whether she's a figment of our imagination whether she's a

00:42:58.680 projection, whether she's pieced together by our collective consciousness, I have a place where I

00:43:04.620 can safely lay my burdens down and where I can right-size my ego and also be empowered to do

00:43:16.060 the healing work that I'm called to do without taking on responsibilities that are not mine,

00:43:22.520 without without playing god without needing to be a savior i'm blessedly replaceable

00:43:29.900 but also absolutely irreplaceable at the same time and she makes that possible for me

00:43:38.280 what an incredible spiritual teacher you are um we talked about malcolm and i don't want to leave

00:43:47.400 that thread i don't want to leave that thread dangling in the wind for listeners who are

00:43:52.040 People are going to be like, who's Malcolm?

00:43:53.600 Malcolm X?

00:43:54.560 Malcolm?

00:43:54.900 Yeah.

00:43:55.640 So tell us whatever you want to tell us about Malcolm.

00:43:57.940 Also, my question is, how can my tantrum be an alter?

00:44:03.940 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:06.100 So Malcolm's my little nibbling.

00:44:09.780 He is now about to be six.

00:44:14.460 We have the same birthday.

00:44:16.000 So he's about to be six.

00:44:17.140 I'm about to be 46.

00:44:17.960 um yeah you know he he likes to he he has his tantrums he he you know what I love about those

00:44:29.500 kids there are four of them but like what I love is they actually get to be kids like like like

00:44:34.720 they get to be humans with like real feelings and confusion and like it's okay that they don't know

00:44:39.360 how to communicate their needs and it's okay you know I love that it's triggering though because

00:44:45.940 I go and spend time with them and I get so angry that they are just running wild and so I so every

00:44:55.440 single day when I go visit them I have my own little um studio apartment in their basement

00:44:59.700 they call it Auntie Nina's Auntie Nina's room and um so I'll go to I'll get triggered when I

00:45:05.680 see how gracious their parents are you know because it's just so it's that was not how I was

00:45:12.420 raised. And so it's, so I, I've been learning to ask myself, and this is where I think it's

00:45:17.140 the altarpiece, right? Like I've been learning to ask myself, why exactly am I triggered?

00:45:23.120 Because this kid's not a threat to me. I am not threatened. Like I'm safe. And I was talking to

00:45:30.980 Black Madonna and Black Madonna said, you're mad that he's getting unconditional love because you 0.87

00:45:35.960 don't believe you deserve it. And I was like, yes, you are right. So I actually, I was there, 0.83

00:45:48.200 I'm usually there for a couple of weeks at a time because they live out in California and I live in

00:45:51.660 Minnesota. So I don't, you know, I don't live near them, but I, I actually ended up every single time

00:45:57.740 I would get triggered by one of those four little gremlins doing things that, you know, we're doing

00:46:04.100 the most and still getting loved, I would go back to my little room and I would write a four line

00:46:12.020 stanza to black Madonna. So I'll read a couple of them to you. If you, if you don't mind,

00:46:16.880 I pulled them up on my laptop. Yeah. So it's, I've just, I just called it a spell for reparenting

00:46:23.760 and every day I would go, go, you know, I was, I was adding to it every single day. So I'll just,

00:46:31.060 i'll just read a few stanzas um if they seem repetitive it's because they are okay so um

00:46:38.560 repetitive in the way that like a mantra is exactly exactly exactly um so here's stanza one

00:46:45.180 black madonna loves to mother me i am not a burden to her she delights in guiding my every step 0.56

00:46:51.900 because i am her treasured child another one black madonna loves to mother me when my rage

00:47:00.280 erupts like lava she spelunks my inner volcano and quells the blazing fire

00:47:07.720 another one i'll be the the third one um black madonna loves to mother me

00:47:15.240 she will never neglect or reject me i can bring her my childish concerns yes she loves to respond

00:47:24.260 to my needs. And the last one, there's like 17, but here's the last one. I am Black Madonna's

00:47:29.940 child. She will never regret me. My deepest truth is that I belong to her and that she loves to

00:47:37.180 mother me. So I think, you know, the thing about having an altar to a wild passing God is that you

00:47:46.220 can take those really dysregulated moments and bring them to that God and place them on the

00:47:54.000 altar and just say, what are you showing me? How can I be more free? How can I be more free?

00:48:01.320 Because I don't have to hide this from you. I don't have to pretend like I'm more chill than I

00:48:08.100 am. I don't have to pretend like I'm more mature than I am. I don't have to pretend like I trust

00:48:14.600 you more than I do, or I know you more than I do. I can just be honest and then see what comes out

00:48:20.380 of that. And so it's been giving me a chance to reparent myself. And also weave, I mean,

00:48:32.500 attachment theory is so problematic and colonial, but, you know, weave a secure connection to the

00:48:40.500 deity of my of my heart's desire you know um because i've that's i didn't get that as a child

00:48:50.220 not from my parents and not from why male god why male god was like you are a burden why male god 0.60

00:48:58.080 was like i hate having anything to do with you why male god was like you better you better make 0.99

00:49:03.660 yourself useful to me or else i will literally kick you to the curb and banish you to hell 0.99

00:49:07.640 you know so i'm and i'm gonna test you with i'm gonna test you exactly exactly and so it's just 0.99

00:49:16.200 like you know i um it's it's a that's we get to bring these and you know my tantrums are more

00:49:23.880 around um on feeling unloved right but other peoples might be around other things including

00:49:29.260 you know given the context of a lot of people in this it could be around whiteness i i was a white

00:49:36.980 mother again. I did that white mom thing. I did that Karen thing. I did that. You know what I

00:49:43.400 mean? And it's like, okay, we'll bring that to the altar of the wild passing God. You don't have to

00:49:48.380 hide that. Like black Madonna wants us to be free. She'll tell you the truth, but I've never, 0.95

00:49:56.580 ever, ever felt shamed by her. Even when she's like straight up, look, here's what I see. It's

00:50:06.380 always I always feel a loved and be supported I she never says so much that I'm like overwhelmed

00:50:14.520 and like I don't even know where to begin it's always like yeah that challenge but a lot of

00:50:20.500 support too and so that I question you know if you're feeling if you're hearing shame I'm like

00:50:25.200 I would check my own projections if I'm if I'm feeling shame from Black Madonna um so yeah

00:50:33.080 i i read i mean it's all a lot you're contending with the whole universe um

00:50:39.660 i know matthew fox was like you're writing a cosmology like you know he was just like this

00:50:46.620 is a cosmology you're it's not theology it's not art like this he's like this is the this is the

00:50:52.280 big stuff that you're trying to do and truly like what i did not expect from your newest book the

00:50:59.120 black madonna available now everyone buy it um and why i will recommend it to everyone i know

00:51:06.360 regardless of anything about them is that i i mean a lot of us were not mothered or parented

00:51:15.260 in the way that we wanted to be or needed to be and i found in your book real or imaginary

00:51:23.740 uh a mother yeah a mother that's gonna mother me the way that i want or need to be

00:51:33.860 mothered and again it doesn't feel like a draining like i'm never gonna drain her

00:51:41.680 of the amount of love and compassion that she has no matter how many tantrums i have

00:51:46.620 um she's always gonna have the energy for me and just even like i say conceptually 0.96

00:51:52.520 having a place to put that mother void or having something to put into that mother void maybe 0.98

00:52:02.460 yeah i mean again the same kind of thing happened with god is a black woman but this is the next

00:52:10.400 level for me of reading your work and feeling so relieved i think maybe is the word that you

00:52:20.640 were articulating this thing that I had been longing for and longing for and longing for

00:52:26.560 so I just profoundly thank you for that and listeners like just go buy this book whatever

00:52:34.280 hesitation you're having whatever you know programming has told you maybe this isn't the

00:52:40.240 book for you is incorrect this um I'm not everything is for everyone but this book is for

00:52:48.120 everyone oh black madonna is for everyone black madonna is for everyone yeah yeah and i love i

00:52:55.480 love hearing that too your experience of mothering because because and that's the thing that i love

00:52:59.180 about black madonna you know because you know with god's black woman i use she her pronouns for her

00:53:04.820 um i i really think black madonna's pronouns are they them we us but like i um one of the things 0.61

00:53:13.220 that i really like about black madonna too is like she will she's such a good shape shifter

00:53:18.500 she's such a powerful shape shifter that you know like recently she was like i'll be your daddy

00:53:23.580 until you realize you don't need one you know what i mean like it's like she like what she

00:53:28.120 wants us to be free she wants us to be free and she's the divine parent you know among other

00:53:35.520 things yeah and that's what i'm gonna take from from from the from your book and from this

00:53:42.140 conversation. So God is a black woman was so revolutionary for me because it, you know, 2022,

00:53:49.280 I'm in the height of my deconstruction. I'm not the height. I mean, probably, you know what I'm 0.99

00:53:53.620 saying and writing a dissertation about leaving the church. And so to have someone define what

00:54:01.440 the white male God is, white male sky daddy. I mean, the, like having that language, but now

00:54:08.440 this transition and it may be not even a transition I don't want to you have a word for

00:54:14.380 for what has happened between that book and now this book I was really curious just reading like

00:54:21.580 because it's it's a continuation and there's nothing in God is a Black woman that isn't in

00:54:28.820 Black Madonna but very like different ways of looking so I'm I was curious about that when I

00:54:36.480 was reading like as much as you or as little as you want to share what happened between 2022 and

00:54:42.620 2026 uh in the way that you evolved yeah yeah so a couple a few things um one um I was actually

00:54:55.520 preparing for it it was a lot it changed my life I was preparing for the podcast with you Amy

00:55:01.200 I had never heard of Missing Witches and so I was like oh you know what like I want to listen to a

00:55:05.460 you so I've looked for the black people podcasts and Nadra Nadra Niddle was being interviewed

00:55:11.320 and um that's when the bell hooks scholar yeah right she's a bell hooks Tony Morrison scholar

00:55:17.400 but she hadn't written the bell hooks book yet it was um I think she was she was on the podcast

00:55:21.820 talking about the Tony Morrison book but she she made a side comment saying but bell hooks was a

00:55:27.080 devotee of the black Madonna and I was like what because bell hooks has what like 80 books who's

00:55:31.980 read them all, not me. Right. So, so like, I was like, what? And ever since that moment, I found 0.76

00:55:38.480 the book, um, read, read the book. It's from 2006, you know? Um, and I read about black,

00:55:47.600 about bell hooks, his devotion to black Madonna. And so basically from one, I read that book,

00:55:52.560 which was maybe like February, 2022, right around when God is a black woman came out.

00:55:57.560 um every morning I would wake up and I was living alone on 28 acres in a cabin in New Hampshire at

00:56:03.580 the time but every morning I would wake up and I would hear bell hooks saying reclaim the black

00:56:08.280 Madonna reclaim the black Madonna for black people and I actually wrote a whole book proposal

00:56:13.540 on anti-racism going back into my safe place because God as a black woman was not my safe

00:56:19.160 place it was so vulnerable it was so traumatic putting that book out into the world that I was

00:56:26.600 just like I'm gonna go back to my like professor hat my like I have answers hat you know this is

00:56:33.280 what my PhD is in this is what I do um and uh thankfully I have a great agent I sent her the

00:56:40.120 proposal she's like this ain't it like actually she's just an honest wonderful human so then I

00:56:46.780 just had to listen to this bell bell hooks haunting loving haunting which I also think is

00:56:53.340 Black Madonna who wants me to be free. And so I would say that, you know, that that was very

00:57:01.140 powerful. And that that led to me to really wanting to write a book that offered a Black

00:57:06.280 Madonna spirituality for Black people by Black people. But then also, you know, frankly, you

00:57:16.880 know god as a black woman was a massive failure um commercially um and um there were all sort

00:57:28.400 there was all sorts of hype and high hopes around it i had a large contract with harper

00:57:32.740 um it did not i i mean who knows like yeah i'm not anywhere near paying back my advance

00:57:37.980 um so so so when i brought the book you know i had to bring my next book back to harper and

00:57:42.940 they were just like, hell to the nose, you know? Yeah, we already lost money on you, kid. Yeah,

00:57:49.300 exactly. Yeah. And so, so, you know, that whole experience was really hard on me because so much,

00:57:57.280 it was good. It was hard in the good way, right? Because my, so much of my ego was intertwined

00:58:03.200 with that book and I needed to be more free. You know, I needed to be more free. I, I had made so

00:58:09.720 many, I'm the kind of person who I do what I'm writing. And so like, I personally made a lot

00:58:17.780 of changes in my life while writing that book in order to be able to write that book with integrity.

00:58:23.760 You know, I left a marriage, I significantly altered family relationships, I left church

00:58:28.420 community, you know, I did a lot. And I didn't really know at the time that the success of that

00:58:35.560 book was my way of saying, see, it was worth it. When really it was worth it for my freedom.

00:58:41.620 I don't need the American marketplace to, to say it was worth it again. Right. It's like this,

00:58:50.920 I'm my, my birthright sacredness. I don't need anybody else to co-sign on my, on the value of

00:58:57.300 my freedom, you know, but these are the ways in which like, it's this constant getting free.

00:59:03.920 It's this constant. And luckily I had scheduled to go stay with my nibblings for like a month at

00:59:09.380 that time. So like in March, 2022, so I'm in the depths of like feeling like a huge failure,

00:59:14.700 feeling like I put my whole life out there and like the market was like, meh. Right. And what's,

00:59:20.840 what's really a fun coincidence is Matthew Fox is this theologian who's become a mentor of mine.

00:59:25.900 He lives, he happens to live in the same town as my nibblings. So whenever I see them, I see him.

00:59:30.940 So I, I went for a long walk by the California, you know, California shore.

00:59:34.680 And he just said, he said to me, this is, this is the purifying work.

00:59:42.660 Like you're lucky that it hasn't gone the way you want it to, because this is, this

00:59:47.860 is how it's, it's healing your ego, you know?

00:59:51.860 And so that was, it was helpful to have some perspective too, from, from an elder who was

00:59:56.120 able to just kind of be like, yeah, like this is what's needed.

01:00:00.940 So I think it was, it was helpful. All of these things led to this book where I really just

01:00:05.860 wanted it to be an offering. You know, I really like, and I, you know, this book obviously has

01:00:10.960 a lot less of me in it. Like, I think Malcolm's in it more than I am, you know, in terms of like,

01:00:17.040 and bless Malcolm, I deposit money into their, whenever I use their stories,

01:00:21.120 I deposit money into their college fund. Just cause I'm like, I'm not trying to exploit Malcolm

01:00:27.020 them either you know but like the stories are good um but like you know i it was one of those

01:00:31.520 things where it was intentional it's like i want to tell this story of the black madonna particularly

01:00:34.740 in you know the story of black people in the black madonna i don't want it to be and i want it to be

01:00:39.400 in service of more black people and everybody because if it's good for black people it's good

01:00:43.420 for everybody um feeling like they can claim her and be transformed by her um and i feel like god

01:00:50.560 is a black woman was so much my story which isn't bad but i think it might have been hard for people

01:00:55.580 to see well what's my path to Black Madonna like I'm not I'm not crazy enough to walk 400 miles

01:01:01.140 across central France without knowing any French or knowing anything about being in the outdoors

01:01:05.220 but luckily Christina Cleveland is but so then like what's in it like how do I connect which is

01:01:13.620 why I was like oh let's do practices let's do you know invocations and I've never written poetry

01:01:18.480 before so that was you know one of those vulnerable things but it was fun so thank you for thank you

01:01:25.520 for sharing that that piece of your story you know i am i am sorry that it was a commercial

01:01:32.900 failure failure i don't i don't see how because for me it was so life-giving and now black madonna

01:01:39.820 it's the next iteration and so to go and sit with the exercises especially um i was taking i still

01:01:48.160 have it in my notes but the the ones in the first two chapters where you're writing out what you

01:01:53.500 need and you're right. And you're coming up with nicknames for her. Um, that was really,

01:01:58.800 really helpful. And one that's rising for me right now is, um, she, who's not going to be mad when

01:02:06.180 I'm mad. Um, and also she, who's going to be mad when you're mad. Yes. Yes. Yes. And see,

01:02:15.760 there's more of that nuance um yeah wow Christina this wasn't just incredible just be able to see

01:02:25.060 what you're doing here about this she's so revelatory she turns me inside out while at the

01:02:30.900 same time I wouldn't even say patching me up like what's what's so much something that's so much

01:02:37.900 more thoughtful and proactive she knits me you know like it's just and I think I could

01:02:47.120 you know dwell in her realms forever

01:02:51.560 you know I remember I remember reading the psalmist and being like you know

01:02:58.060 one day in your house is worth a thousand elsewhere and I'd be like I don't really

01:03:03.260 feel that way but I'll sing the song you know what I mean like and I'm a bad yeah I'm a bad

01:03:08.520 person for not feeling that way but as soon as church is over I'm ready to go I want to go to

01:03:13.300 the mall you know I'm a teen or whatever and now I'm like actually like other than the fact that

01:03:18.480 I can be wildly I can feel wildly naked and uncomfortable I'm still drawn here I still

01:03:25.360 want to be here and I want to get comfortable being here you know get comfortable with being

01:03:29.800 naked with the divine um um thank you so much for your time both of you today we are celebrating

01:03:44.220 llamas which is the halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox

01:03:50.240 it is a time of abundance and protection spells and the leavening of not only bread but also

01:04:00.600 liberation do you have maybe a bumper sticker version of how our listeners can incorporate

01:04:09.100 black madonna into a llama celebration that they might be having today

01:04:13.640 i wonder if there's a way for people to honor her as the mother of abundance

01:04:22.400 the source without source yeah yeah i think i would want to ask myself

01:04:30.260 how is black madonna sourcing me today and how can i honor and give gratitude for that 1.00

01:04:41.420 and then pass it on so it's multiplied yeah you're perfect I don't want to kiss your ass 0.99

01:04:49.900 too much but I do believe that you will be joining this rank of bell hooks Audre Lorde 0.99

01:04:55.620 Christina Cleveland the the black women who force us to rethink blackness womanhood liberation

01:05:03.660 spirituality all of the well integrated aspects of self that you have brought forth into your work

01:05:13.560 not just the books everything you do um thank you so much happy birthday again thank you we're so

01:05:22.180 grateful that you were born um but by way of closing the circle could you read another

01:05:29.960 sure invocation from your book yeah this is from in this is from chapter six so it's invocation

01:05:37.100 six and this invocation is written to uh black madonna of einstied in switzerland our lady the

01:05:44.980 ominously dark forest mothers and oh excuse me i'll start again mother of mystics and monks

01:05:54.720 weirdos and wanderers we are burned out believers awakening and longing for renewal

01:06:02.160 we hoped that light and certainty would make us whole yes we made offerings served faithfully 1.00

01:06:10.900 abided by the good book but the church's bright lights and clamor of creeds which promised

01:06:18.000 fulfillment and a clear path to heaven have left us disillusioned and agonized by a spiritual 1.00

01:06:25.700 migraine. Woo our souls into your dark forest where we can be born again.

01:06:35.900 Zealous blaze, mama volcano, in your ominous forest you reign over fire and lava.

01:06:42.100 even the most powerful cunning and sinister forces cannot decimate what you have willed to live

01:06:50.340 yes you gather the flames that are meant to harm and transform them into a holy molten fire that

01:06:57.540 burns burns burns away all that stifles true life when the fires of this world are set to destroy us

01:07:07.560 woo our souls into your dark forest

01:07:11.320 where we can be born again.

01:07:15.520 Cosmic womb, even amid senseless pain,

01:07:20.020 you liberate us from the need to know,

01:07:23.480 the need to control,

01:07:25.580 to see beyond our next step.

01:07:28.100 In your forest womb, you quiet our senses

01:07:31.640 and we become fetuses again, 0.96

01:07:35.460 free to depend.

01:07:37.560 As we rest in you, your sacred umbilical cord feeds us a feast of peace that passes all understanding.

01:07:48.140 Woo our souls into your dark forest where we can be born again.

01:07:57.700 Ashe. 0.80

01:08:01.060 Hell yeah.

01:08:03.200 Thank you, Christina.

01:08:04.660 thank you reed for being here too happy llamas everyone and go and purchase the black madonna

01:08:13.680 immediately listeners buy the audiobook and the ebook and the paper book get all three you will 0.93

01:08:20.420 want them for every part of your life and happy llamas and blessed fucking be blessed fucking be 1.00

01:08:27.500 you must be a witch 1.00

01:08:34.660 You 1.00

Missing Witches - August 01, 2026

LAMMAS 2026： I'm Too Sacred For This With Christena Cleveland

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