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00:00:12.340You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch.0.99
00:00:21.320Hello and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witches podcast.0.86
00:00:25.060podcast. Risa is here celebrating the summer solstice with our guests. Thank you so much
00:00:32.140for being here. Author Lorraine Montague, podcaster, audio witch Bex Carlos. We're so
00:00:40.960excited to be in circle with you both today and to have you interacting with each other to tell
00:00:47.120us about this word, this word that's nebulous, like the word witches, but in a different way.
00:00:53.400So let's start with Bex. I would love for you to introduce yourself, whoever you are today, wherever you are today, and also if you could get into the word Bruja, Brujeria, and tell us not only what it means in your definition, but also what it means to you.
00:01:12.120Yeah. Again, thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be here. I'm Bex Carlos. If you are not familiar with myself or my work, I am a podcaster. I have a show called Tutia Bruja, which would translate to Your Witchy Ants and vaguely.
00:01:35.400And I work, the term Bruja for me is, especially now, it's to re-channel this term that the Spanish used against all different traditions outside of their own.
00:01:53.440My family, we're from, it feels like it's getting so deep, you know, like the core of who I am, like, who are you?
00:02:05.400And it's the rechanneling of a word that cast my grandmother out of the Pueblo that she lived in.
00:02:12.520She and her family always had this, like, word leaming over them that they were witches.
00:02:18.660And so they lived in the Barranca, which is kind of out in the outskirts.
00:02:23.140And interesting fact, Padre Toribio, the folk saint, died, like, on the land of what was my father's, like, childhood home, you know.
00:02:33.280So it's, it's, it's always been this heavy word to kind of explain what is unknown. And it's also a way of demonizing people who practiced indigenous or any kind of form of the African traditional religions. It was a way of hiding tradition faith in public.
00:02:55.340uh so that's sort of my definition of brujeria and and bruja and for me uh using the term is a
00:03:03.320way of re-channeling uh what demonized my grandmother uh i actually had this thought
00:03:10.660because i i work in a lot of different types of magics cannabis being one of them uh because of
00:03:15.240the ancestral ties and i was smoking a blunt and burning hell money and i just had this thought
00:03:22.040of like holy shit I'm getting compensated now to do this work that feels right for me0.90
00:03:30.480that would have you know chastised my my grandmother and all she really did was light0.98
00:03:35.760candles and pray you know like and and maybe she worked with herbs maybe she didn't that's0.62
00:03:42.960nobody's business but like was that really worth taking her making her feel like she had to be
00:03:49.460kicked out of the town you know uh so yeah that's that's me that's what I do uh I'm an audio witch
00:03:56.180as you mentioned working in podcasting and uh different audio work yeah that's who I am in a
00:04:04.740nutshell awesome so I am Lorraine and thank you so much I've been wanting to um meet y'all for
00:04:15.580so long. I've been listening to Missing Witches for a little bit now. And I am one of the
00:04:24.300brujitas, brujas that Bex mentioned who are newly reclaiming this word. I am a child of Cuban and
00:04:34.800Colombian immigrants. I'm the first generation to have been born in this country in Miami.
00:04:40.180um and i uh am reluctant to say that it has been an easy identity bruja uh it is
00:04:56.040wrought with all sorts of um difficulties even today even after i kind of made my work on this
00:05:04.420So just to back up a little, I recently wrote a book called Brujas, The Magic and Power of Witches of Color.
00:05:13.420It came out in 2021, and I just recently celebrated the paperback release this month.
00:05:20.500So it's really exciting because I've seen the project from, you know, the early stages that started in my dissertation 10 years ago to this wonderful moment where it found its niche audience and did well enough to warrant going to paperback.
00:05:37.600So I did a little tour and celebrated that and it was wonderful. But it also brought up all these old fears and insecurities around like the constantly involving nature of the Bruja identity.
00:05:51.960And like Bex commented, bruja has been historically a bad word.
00:06:00.240It was something that just as there were the witch hunts in Europe and in the Americas, there were in here in the United States, there were also parallel and even like way more egregious, terrible witch hunts across Latin America, the Afro-Caribbean diaspora,
00:06:16.380that were basically amounted to genocide because it targeted and demonized groups of people who
00:06:23.200would never themselves probably use the word Ruha. You know, my grandmothers, they wouldn't
00:06:29.460have used that word. That was a bad word to them because they in turn also demonize
00:06:35.980other ways of knowing. And that's the problem here is that we internalize that kind of
00:06:43.020colonization, that colonizer mentality that would demonize anything different. And the number one
00:06:50.660thing we were told to do in this country was to assimilate. So we came and we were supposed to
00:06:58.020leave everything behind. Don't ask questions about what your abuelita did, you know, in those rooms
00:07:03.700when she was calling on the spirits. Don't ask about that. And it's like the most interesting
00:07:08.220thing right as a kid you just want to know that stuff um and they told us no you need to be
00:07:13.640American and be American means like no no cool stuff in my opinion in my in my 11 year old
00:07:22.220opinion I was like but what about the ghosts and the spirits and all this stuff so um my reclaiming
00:07:29.460of the word for myself I think is just one way that a lot of us are doing it and a lot of us are
00:07:36.620doing it in different ways and it means different things to all of us so it is a really complicated
00:07:40.980word to define it's not one thing it's not one tradition um i focus on kind of the new way we're
00:07:48.800using a bruja brujex or brujekis um with the x at the end for the gender neutral term um he is
00:07:57.820another good one that i really enjoy that's gender neutral yeah yeah and that's um paralleling the
00:08:05.500you know, Latinx, Latine, and we're constantly changing it and bringing up new words. And
00:08:11.960so I think that's really cool. The way that it's currently evolving, it's completely new. So we
00:08:17.780talk about ancestry and we talk about, you know, like where we come from, but a lot of it is also
00:08:23.900brand new traditions that we're creating. Can I just say snaps for everything you said,
00:08:30.040because i feel like it's really hard to have like a really honest conversation sometimes about like
00:08:36.480brujidia because it's so layered and it's just so many parts of who we are um because just like
00:08:42.320brujidia we are the products of colonization you know and we are constantly being told we're not
00:08:48.600good enough or we're constantly being told we have to adapt and i think that that is one of the best
00:08:54.040things about my practice is that it has adapted and it's what feels right to me like um I I do
00:09:00.320divination by iPod uh can't come antsy and like you know divination by music is something that's
00:09:06.480so important to me because I realized that thank you but I realized music has been so culturally
00:09:13.100important you know so it's it's of course me being a first gen you know Mexican American I'm
00:09:20.020going to figure out my own ways to do it and I'm like the iPod is it for me you know and so you're
00:09:24.900so right it's about like creating our own traditions as we go and and do you run into the
00:09:30.760issue where people tell you that you shouldn't use the term brucha or or because it's not like
00:09:35.920set in the old ways and I'm just like can't we let ourselves grow can't we let ourselves change
00:09:43.120what feels right for us like it just seems like every part of our identity wants to put us in a
00:09:48.660box yes you know yeah for sure um i come up with a lot of complexities when it comes to like
00:09:57.440saying i'm um just one thing um i you can't see me on the podcast but i am a caucasian presenting
00:10:06.320person i look as gringa as you can get um i was always like the little whitest one in my family
00:10:13.380and that is a one way that you know this becomes complex for me is that when I'm trying to
00:10:22.700you know create this identity for myself that is an in-between identity it is you know based
00:10:28.740on my ancestry but it's not the same as my family who grew up in these countries in Colombia and in
00:10:35.520Cuba and who are still there and who couldn't leave it's completely it's more privileged for
00:10:40.160sure and um I've had a lot more freedoms and so it's it's this in-between thing um and I come up
00:10:48.140to the problem of on both sides so on one side this is not traditional enough you're not like
00:10:55.140being authentic enough um because um these the roots of some of these traditions are you know
00:11:01.840deep and secret and occulted for a very particular like important reason is that it was to protect
00:11:09.220the traditions so you know opening them up to the public or trying to uh quote-unquote reclaim them
00:11:15.860is problematic to a lot of people who try to protect them for so many centuries um but then
00:11:22.480there's others who are like you know um on the other end of the spectrum like i i don't even
00:11:30.760know i just uh i'm trying to think of an example um what you know why why are you the one to
00:11:40.500just be american why you know why are you um even trying to do this you're you're here and um it's
00:11:50.500you know everything is for everyone so um what's the point of of claiming one thing we can practice
00:11:58.340anything so so the those who are gatekeepers you can't practice this and those who are like
00:12:04.620uh you know everything is for everyone and i'm kind of in between you know i think that there's
00:12:10.340a respect that you need to have and there are some close traditions that aren't for me um and
00:12:16.640every bruja or brujeks or brujekis needs to find their own way um against their own personal
00:12:26.220boundaries and their families boundaries and their cultural boundaries they're also very
00:12:30.000specific for each one of us you're Mexican American I'm Cuban Colombian American there's
00:12:34.660different traditions there's different ways we grew up and so we all have a very individualized
00:12:40.200path but I think we are also connected by that seeking that that magnetic kind of seeking
00:12:46.960motivation to figure out how to be in between in a way that feels good instead of bad instead of
00:12:54.500like how we grew up where it's like you don't belong here but you also don't belong here you're0.84
00:12:57.760not Mexican enough but you're also not American what are you okay I want to touch on two things
00:13:04.220that you said because the gatekeeping piece I I literally was thinking about this last night so0.59
00:13:09.540divine timing because it is difficult right like I'm with you I'm in the middle because some things
00:13:16.040do need to be gatekept um one thing that's heavy on my mind is did you know that the that somebody
00:13:22.880trademarked protected by Santa Muerte and protected by La Santa Muerte it's it's owned now
00:13:29.000and it's I write about that actually that's in the book is it oh my god I have to definitely
00:13:36.360read the book so it's official now because before it was just like pending there was a lot of back
00:13:41.220and forth about it but like it is live they own it and it's just very heartbreaking because
00:13:48.380i remember as when the when the podcast started you know that was something that we we covered
00:13:54.980throughout the show because it was just i knew people who were involved in like pushing it back
00:14:00.740because they're like this is for the people like you can't do that and that's the thing with like
00:14:04.920anything legal you know it's like you have to keep up with it if not eventually people get their
00:14:09.480moment to monetize it in a way that's not for everyone and it's just i don't know gatekeeping
00:14:16.980I think in gatekeeping in some way should exist because it's just like people but then people
00:14:22.340medicine is for everybody you know I I feel like I work with something more that because the idea
00:14:27.960of like living every day like it could be taken from you is something that not everyone does so
00:14:33.420it's like are you really living or are you just waiting to die and so that's sort of like the
00:14:38.860approach of how I live my life so I don't know the way the for me the fact that someone could
00:14:44.540feel like they are entitled to that that they own that it's just like you're missing the whole point
00:14:48.720i think maybe for sure um i don't know if you had christy from bujas botanica on your um podcast
00:14:56.620i know yeah yeah she she dealt with the she was very impacted by this trademark uh protected by
00:15:05.060santa muerte because she created shirts that sent that um and she herself you know is a disciple of
00:15:11.140um all this and um she was given a cease and desist so and so that's that's what we cover in
00:15:20.320the book um but it's just uh yeah one of those very many examples of how spiritual consumerism
00:15:27.700and capitalism come in and steal and um own things that shouldn't be owned by certain people
00:15:37.300or any one person really um and then to the exclusion of the actual like indigenous
00:15:44.820populations that from which these traditions came in the first place um so i do think that
00:15:52.480that's the line i draw when people ask me so what's the difference between appreciation and
00:15:57.880appropriation and it's this it's are you profiting off of something that's not even yours
00:16:04.800because you saw that it was popular and in our in our law of america the free market
00:16:13.240anything's for grabs so it's legal and possible for you to take anything if it's not already
00:16:21.280trademarked or claimed even though it's it belongs culturally to the collective or to
00:16:29.080you know a very specific group of people who have tried to protect it so it's just it's just messed
00:16:35.600up and i i think that part of the bruja path and what makes the bruja movement
00:16:43.000a little different than the wider witchcraft feminism is that this is a central part of our
00:16:52.800um discussion and our magic and what we do every single day when we work our magic is that these
00:17:01.400concepts and these problems are are the work you know it's not about um magic for magic's sake
00:17:10.820um to feel good or to personal empowerment's really important but it's not just that it's
00:17:17.580It's also cultural empowerment and reclaiming things for the people who who have been the guardians of those things for so long and making sure that we proceed with caution and respect, even as we make new traditions.
00:17:36.400So I do think that there is there are a lot of witchcraft feminists who are also doing this, you know, who come from European traditions.
00:17:44.880but the consumerized part of witchcraft that has become popular is not putting this at the
00:17:51.960forefront of course what sells is crystals and they're sparkly you know what sells are tarot
00:17:58.440cards and and pretty art and you know that's all beautiful and nice but um it doesn't get to the
00:18:05.620root issue of the magic yeah and the magic is the most important we are the magic you know just as
00:18:13.060these traditions have been able to survive and thrive like so have we and so I'm glad that you've
00:18:19.180said that it's like it we embody the magic and I think that that is what a lot of American and just
00:18:25.220and not that like you said there's a lot of people who are still very connected to their roots
00:18:29.720who practice in a way that is honoring everything that came before them but I think that's the
00:18:34.380thing is like in America so many people are disconnected from those traditions those roots
00:18:38.180So they don't even know where to begin.
00:18:40.640They do start with the brand sparkly because they don't want to do that inner work.
00:18:44.600I also want to touch on if you don't know Lisa Martinez, because I know that she was,
00:18:49.480along with Christy, someone who was making sure all the paperwork is in order.
00:18:54.140There were so many people on the back end, you know, that were like really just trying
00:18:59.320And if you haven't been connected, she's a curandera, amazing lady, just really working
00:19:04.960on putting the medicine out there for the right reasons.
00:19:07.580And that's what gives me faith, right?0.99
00:19:10.640That there are so many Brujas that are actually trying to help people do the work or help1.00
00:19:17.260people get to the things that help them do that inner shadow work.1.00
00:19:21.820Because it is, sometimes it does feel very consumeristic.
00:19:25.520And, you know, I'll see friends who are amazing Brujiks, just magic people literally begging0.88
00:19:32.360for their life, you know, because they just can't get the resources that a lot of0.99
00:19:37.580white witches with generational wealth can get. I have a friend who is fighting to get a tumor0.89
00:19:43.440removed and has some of the best money drawing oil that I've ever, you know, used. And, and I get it
00:19:50.240like, you know, we, we go for the products and the people that like have this like large following
00:19:56.200sometimes. And I'm just like, followings don't mean anything. If like, they're not doing what
00:20:01.460they can with the power and privilege that they have, you know, that's, that's something that
00:20:05.380I've been running into a lot it's do you ever just feel like you're playing the game to like
00:20:12.440get ahead and it's almost like exhausting like it's just like uh at the cost of getting your
00:20:18.020work seen and recognized you have to compromise parts of yourself oh my goodness yes all the time
00:20:25.800so to to just be able to you know get a book deal for instance which is very like a mysticized
00:20:35.080process that's actually really simple but they you know it's all like market it's how many followers
00:20:41.760do you have you know like will you be able to um you know sell this book to millions of followers
00:20:49.140um it's a different world now where that goes first before substance it's like the promotion
00:20:56.300before the thing that you have to promote the cart before the horse you know so um i feel all
00:21:03.740the time this this feeling of do i still love this work am i still even doing it uh while i'm
00:21:11.440doing all this promotion i've been in such a promotion phase last few years um and that's
00:21:16.940why i feel calling to get back to the creative work and to get back to the core of my practice
00:21:22.380um quietly for for a good season or two without the social media and all that um because i need
00:21:31.480to remind myself like oh there is this root work that I still care about um it's still there um
00:21:38.460and I think that's what I counsel people when they come to me and ask me how to do work it's just
00:21:44.200it's very quiet and it's very personal at the root um and if you're not doing that first everything
00:21:51.620else is a distraction you'll be pulled in so many different directions you'll feel competitive with
00:21:56.400others which I think is really um it's really disappointing to see especially like among the
00:22:04.360Bruja community sometimes competition and like bad blood because people are doing quote unquote
00:22:10.720the same thing which I think is impossible nobody's doing the same thing everyone's different
00:22:15.100and there's plenty of room for all of us um and if anything one of us doing something you know
00:22:22.560opens paths and makes it more possible for others right so um the competition that the market
00:22:29.620creates is just an unfortunate um killer of creativity and of confidence and of this thing
00:22:37.380that drew us to our practice in the first place which was a needing to reconnect with what was
00:22:43.120lost and that is still there that thread is still calling us and it's calling each one of us in such
00:22:50.160a very specific individualized beautiful way that nobody can take from you and the work is to get to
00:22:56.740hear that call and to respond that hit me in the feels that was such an amazing response thank you
00:23:04.220thanks for that in fact you you sort of started I was thinking about asking you this and you so
00:23:10.720you've started to answer it so I'll interject as much as I could just sit back and watch the two
00:23:15.140of you vibe off each other all day I do wonder like we have listeners who are from or taking
00:23:23.280maybe their first step like I feel like I'm called I hear that spirit call I know that
00:23:30.680I come from a culture that or a generation or maybe there was a grandmother or that like I
00:23:37.720feel like there is a sense that there was someone who knew this who I'm making the like touchy
00:23:43.960finger feeling of like new magic you know like or I had a grandmother who who read tea leaves
00:23:51.060but that's maybe all we have right and particularly if you are from a culture that experienced the
00:23:57.360violence of colonialism and just being sort of totally ripped apart your traditions your culture
00:24:03.480your relationship with nature violated over and over and over again there's just this wound of
00:24:07.660like how do I do it and and maybe the only place I go to try to learn it is Instagram like maybe
00:24:13.120that's all I have what would you suggest as those first steps coming in quiet but but also first
00:24:19.780practices to start to connect with maybe that brujia experience if you are from that culture
00:24:25.840all right would you please start I'd love to hear your take yeah sure um so yeah I certainly don't
00:24:33.960want to come off as like you know Instagram is only superficial um you know there's a lot of
00:24:41.460connection this book wouldn't have been born without social media that's how i met everyone
00:24:47.100you know every chapter is a different person's story um and we connected online and so i do
00:24:54.140think that online communities are a great resource for beginner witches and brujitas
00:24:59.980um i i offer in the book um the altar as the as the entry point for anybody no matter what
00:25:12.560tradition you come from whether you you know a child of immigrants or your family has been here
00:25:18.340for many generations i think that setting up that sacred space for yourself is something
00:25:23.780it's a physical manifestation of your, your individual connection to spirit. And I offer
00:25:31.380that because that's how I grew up. I always had altars in my home and I naturally just created
00:25:36.900them as a child, but sometimes they were so simple. They were just a little rock that I
00:25:41.260collected on a, on a walk, a little flower, you know, a journal entry. And so I think this is
00:25:47.960something that anyone can practice is just making physical a physical representation of spirit
00:25:53.940um i think there's a lot of power in doing that there's a lot of you know reclaiming of control
00:25:59.180on your life of creating a space that's just yours a sacred boundary that you can feel protected
00:26:05.780within uh when your life is in chaos especially in those moments um so that's what i offer for
00:26:12.100the beginning witches is um and brujas is um the ancestral altar for those of you who really have
00:26:20.240this tradition that you feel disconnected from so an altar doesn't have to be ancestral but i do
00:26:25.560think if that's your aim and that's your entry point into this work and you're trying to reconnect
00:26:30.220with that um you know start with what you have do you have a photograph of a grandmother do you have
00:26:36.180a practice that you heard about um is there a book that is going to teach you a little more
00:26:42.840about a tradition that you're interested in um that's all for your altar um and can you speak
00:26:49.680to the dead you know through it can you you know communicate just start to open your your voice
00:26:57.260in that way um it feels really weird sometimes if you've never done it before to go and actually
00:27:02.560like vocalize what you want into the air to your ancestors um just that small practice of letting
00:27:12.260your voice be heard by yourself by your spirit community is really empowering and it took me a
00:27:20.100long time to even get to that point where I didn't feel weird or dumb you know just saying
00:27:26.100abuelitas ayúdame estoy aquí I love your answer and I want to kind of agree with you I I hope
00:27:37.900that we weren't coming off like Instagram has because it has it's a portal it's a portal you
00:27:42.920know like I feel like you get amazing things from it um but it also has it's like toxic issues and
00:27:48.900sometimes that is like keeping really talented people out of the spotlight you know uh there's
00:27:55.680amazing people there you know but I I think Instagram is amazing for learning the basics
00:28:00.740if you are trying to learn like oh um like my grandmother used to light candles I want to
00:28:07.800connect with that learning the meanings of all the colors you know if you don't know that um
00:28:12.980basic herb stuff I always just recommend that if you're getting information on Instagram you should
00:28:17.840always just like double check your information and now there's so many you can get books
00:28:23.340and and so um instagram is amazing because you can also like see what someone else's practice
00:28:28.780kind of looks like and you know i i think it's amazing to be influenced by other people i think
00:28:34.620that that's a skill that spirit speaks to you but i think where you know for me like where it gets
00:28:41.440complicated is when you're exactly copying people and i think that that is sort of an issue that
00:28:46.320social media creates but alters like lorraine said are an amazing place to start i always
00:28:52.720recommend like starting to look up herbs and like plants and things that either had some type of
00:28:59.840family connection all my work is ancestral um really so I feel like for me it was getting down
00:29:04.440to basics it's like what do I know about my family and the things that they use in their everyday
00:29:09.040life that I can incorporate some way and magic and a book I want to recommend um it's by Laura
00:29:15.000Davila and it's called Mexican Sorcery Brujeria de Rancho and it's amazing because it shows you
00:29:22.580that there are so many things that you can just do in your, in your, you know, from your household
00:29:27.440kitchen. And I think that that's the thing is that sometimes witch consumerism makes us feel
00:29:31.780we have to get all of these things and have the most complicated arsenal of witchcraft. And that's
00:29:37.040not true. You know, you use what you need. You have a lemon, you have garlic, you have salt,
00:29:43.560you have whatever, you know, you figure out a way to utilize that to really bring the reality that
00:29:48.860you're trying to bring uh and sometimes it is by like praying over it and asking your abuela
00:29:54.740your tata abuela all of these people who came before you to help you and sometimes it's asking
00:30:01.680the universe sometimes it's asking i don't know maybe you had a stuffed animal that we were very
00:30:07.600partial to as a kid that's now disappeared and you still speak to its spirit i don't know whatever
00:30:11.660whatever connecting to something feels like for you you know and for me it's my ancestors for some
00:30:17.980people to the universe, for some people, it's deities, you know, it's just whatever calls to
00:30:21.760you. For sure. I love, I love that. What you said about Instagram being a good reference point and
00:30:33.340an inspiration point, but just like anything online, you need to do your own work and make
00:30:38.780sure you vet the ideas because there's misinformation everywhere. So just make sure
00:30:43.820that you're also connecting to some really good sources um and this is where my academic self
00:30:48.820and my teacher self comes in i'm like where are your sources you know that's make sure you do your
00:30:54.540due diligence you know and uh if you're going to be a serious bruja you know you're you're doing
00:30:59.820that work as well and i do think it's good to connect to anything that makes you feel like
00:31:05.020creative that's waking up that creative energy inside of you and we all have that we are all
00:31:10.800creative in some way I think to me that's always been very close to spirit for me is what are you
00:31:17.820creating that's so special to you creativity can take so many forms and for me it's always been
00:31:22.840the written word um so I journal at my altar and I um I write every time I'm there but for others
00:31:31.240it could be painting or it could be things that we don't necessarily see as creative um it could
00:31:37.440be organizing a drawer you know it's uh getting it's it's the you know witchcraft has always
00:31:45.860been about personal power it's it's empowerment it's it's getting control and power back in your
00:31:51.060own hands um and i think it is always good to start with what feels good and feels easy
00:31:56.880and um what feels like yours so i like what you said about um brujeria del rancho which is all
00:32:04.740about your your home your immediate surrounds there's weeds that you could use outside for
00:32:14.400smoke bundles you don't have to use sage you know sage has been misappropriated over harvested
00:32:21.220taken from indigenous communities so let's think twice before we use that this is just an example
00:32:26.260and maybe you use the spanish needle that's right outside your yard because it's antibacterial
00:32:31.920antiviral too you know it's it has cool properties and it's right there it's for you
00:32:36.280it's magical you know manifestation of the universe just for you um so i i like that idea
00:32:43.620of just starting with what you what you know what you have and going from there i want to return to
00:32:50.260this notion of power and control because bex i know um something that's very important for you
00:32:56.740in your work is underscoring this like the thievery we can call it appropriation but the
00:33:02.100theft of um marginalized witches and their practices and i kind of want to throw this
00:33:09.500question to lorraine because you have a chapter in brujas called white witches that's not
00:33:15.780accusatory it's you know you're investigating your own scare quotes white passing and and what
00:33:21.820that means but i really want to know from both of you like what good allyship looks like and and
00:33:29.300specifically lorraine why was it important for you to put this white witches chapter in your book
00:33:34.100oh dang so that's like the most uh the most uh what is it called contentious
00:33:42.440chapter in the book where i get the most comments um people either stop reading the
00:33:47.980book at that point because they're so offended yeah or they're like yeah like clapping you know
00:33:55.080and and like he's cheering for me um and i think it's really i think i must have hit a good chord
00:34:00.800and i must be doing something right because i get a criticism for extreme opposite ends of the
00:34:06.720spectrum like why are you even talking about this um this should be a non-issue race you know should
00:34:15.000not even be an issue here um and on the other hand i get you know the opposite why did you even
00:34:23.060think you could write this book you're too white for it so so i have people saying you know you
00:34:27.340you shouldn't even be talking about white passing you are you know you are from these traditions and0.77
00:34:32.500you're completely empowered to write about this and other people who who will look at the flap
00:34:37.480of my book and see my face and say, I'm not reading this because, you know, a white person
00:34:45.260shouldn't be writing this. And I respect that 100%. And so I, but I am who I am. And I do think
00:34:54.040that I, I, I can, I, I have a right to be here. And so that's what this very weird, complicated
00:35:01.680chapter is about. It's about the hard work that I did on my end in my practice to face
00:35:09.180the in-betweenness of my own Bruja identity. I try to approach this very
00:35:17.400complicated topic, you know, very controversial topic through my own personal experience. I think
00:35:24.780I, in rereading it, I think in some parts I do go into like kind of like a luxury tone and I
00:35:31.220can't stand it but at least forgive me that but i do still stand by um the fact that people like
00:35:39.920me who are in the in-between that's where our magic is we um we have a responsibility to face this
00:35:49.660these spaces where we're not invited sometimes and to accept them um and to our work is maybe to
00:35:59.680not reclaim so much as it is to unsettle maybe like unsettle what we think are neat boundaries
00:36:10.140you know of belonging and for me I had to unsettle this neat history I had about my
00:36:18.960great-grandmother doing her work she was a spirit medium in Cuba and she channeled African spirits
00:36:27.100But she, like me, was, you know, light skinned. And she in her in her life was racist. I mean, just to put it bluntly. Right. And so it's my reclaiming my tradition through her must involve like dealing with those issues is OK.
00:36:52.220she was taking from the law you know she was taking from which are like the spirits the
00:36:57.700african spirits you know um from in santeria the orishas you know she was she was borrowing from
00:37:04.340these really powerful magics and making a living off of them and am i doing the same thing um
00:37:12.760i would like not to so instead of my reclaiming myself and like as like the descendant of this
00:37:20.580long line of witches and I have all this power it's more like oh dang that I am the descendant
00:37:29.900of you know complicated histories that meld together the Spanish colonizer and the Afro
00:37:37.680indigenous you know native to to the countries where my parents come from they I'm somewhere
00:37:45.960in between those two threads um i am the product of mixing and some so are most of us right um
00:37:54.840so power to me means just having my eyes open and seeing that clearly and but it's it's it's hard
00:38:02.840work it's what we call shadow work because it makes you come up to your baddies it makes you
00:38:07.900have to deal with um complicated emotions that don't feel good it's like icky sticky emotions
00:38:13.640and I think it makes people feel icky and sticky when they read it no matter where they're coming
00:38:20.600from so that's the chapter that really I guess triggers lots of people oh my god I want to
00:38:29.060expand upon what you said because we like people might not be able to see this but again I'm very
00:38:34.580like light skin too and I feel like it is the realization that we embody like both of the
00:38:40.340oppressed and the oppressor because like we didn't get this light just out of you know thin air and
00:38:45.960that's a heavy conversation and uh I don't know it's uh what I feel like Americans and a lot of
00:38:55.560maybe Canadians too maybe don't understand is that it's such a layered existence because there's
00:39:03.280like you said all of these things inside of us that we kind of carry there's this thing that
00:39:07.480when you heal yourself you healed seven generations forward and seven generations back and there's a
00:39:13.520lot of inner stuff like sometimes my mom was the darkest person in her family and just the the
00:39:20.740things that she had said to her by her because it's it's all this sense of like at sometimes
00:39:25.480othering other people for the sense of like well I know who I am because we don't know where we
00:39:31.220come from you know a lot of us could do ancestry tests and there'd be you know what would come up
00:39:36.660would be so surprising i've it's so weird that you can have like lighter skin but you might come
00:39:43.080up with like 55 african and you're just like how and and it's because a lot of times people didn't
00:39:47.940want to talk about like what was there um i i don't know a whole lot about the colonization
00:39:53.340process of of cuba or of colombia so you'll have to excuse me but in mexico the caste system was
00:39:59.920like 16 tiers because they like differentiate which i imagine it was all new spain so it would
00:40:06.640be very similar if not this it's not the same but 16 tiers to from like you are a spaniard
00:40:12.660who was from spain but you might live here you know and then all the way to this is what you
00:40:18.300are here and so there is all of this internal like judging of ourselves and other people and
00:40:23.720what is good enough and what's not good enough and i think that that's just a curse that we have
00:40:28.120as unfortunately the product of colonization but i think that since we are like lighter and we do
00:40:34.980embody a lot of these things i think it is important for us to be in those spaces to also
00:40:39.280like expose things that still happen to this day a lot of the theft and a lot of the the toxic
00:40:45.720behaviors that that people just feel like they're entitled to and it's because of their privilege
00:40:50.820You know, I hate to say this, but a lot of times white women, I would say can be worse than white men because white men have never really been oppressed in that way. So it's like they can yield over their power in a way that's more sharing. Whereas I feel like white women always have to like pull it back. It's like, but I want to be in control. I have to be in control. And that comes from a place of not being able to share their power.0.50
00:41:16.660and I don't know I I'm a tarot reader uh at times and I had an event where I had another tarot
00:41:24.820reader that was there who was a younger like white witch she was very sweet or at least it0.95
00:41:30.660seemed so and then her partner got a reading from me and then later because a witch always finds out
00:41:39.000someone made a tip about how she was doing her readings and it was the exact same as how I was
00:41:45.960doing my readings like I I typically use the combination of a tarot and oracle deck but even
00:41:51.420down to the language she was using and I'm like you couldn't even move it around a little bit and
00:41:58.520cheat properly to not get caught and I'm just like you really thought I was that unaware and I'm just0.96
00:42:06.320like if people are doing this in in spiritual in witchy communities like I just imagine how bad it
00:42:14.040is. And, you know, and I've worked in corporate America, you know, but it's just, it really kind0.71
00:42:20.300of like breaks your heart. It's like, you should know better. You're supposed to be a spiritualist
00:42:24.680or whatever, you know? And so I think it is sort of like, we are meant to do some of this work to
00:42:30.660expose some of this because it is so prevalent. You and your book had to have a whole chapter
00:42:34.820about it, you know, like this is happening more than we'd like to admit. And to kind of answer,
00:42:41.780like what does a good ally look like I feel like for me right if I can tell you that something
00:42:47.820happened and you don't automatically well what if and you start what if-ing and making excuses for
00:42:54.480the person I feel like you are at least a decent ally you know you don't have to have it explained
00:42:59.800to you how to stand by someone who has had this thing happen to them because I think that that's
00:43:07.620the thing too is that like white supremacy has taught us that there has to be all this evidence
00:43:11.840and proof and whatever but it's also just like if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck0.99
00:43:17.240maybe we should just say it's a fucking duck you know and so there we have to do some of this0.99
00:43:23.500unlearning too and just at times to like trust our fellow witch you know to really stand by her0.99
00:43:28.980and be like i believe you this happened how are we going to like process the aftermath like
00:43:36.040what does that look like for you do you need to just vent and get it all out of your system
00:43:40.420or do we need to do something you know and I feel like that for me is an ally someone who is
00:43:47.260constantly in the trenches with us and is like an accomplice in how to undo white supremacy
00:43:54.360I approach allyship from a perspective of the person outside in the book so how to be an ally
00:44:05.740like I I'm thinking of myself even as an outsider because I have been in spaces and that chapter
00:44:14.480goes through that where I was excluded and I'm told I didn't belong there and I think part of
00:44:20.480being an ally is just accepting that where you don't have consent you know I think it's simple
00:44:26.440and like even if you feel like you belong somewhere it really is all about relationship
00:44:31.520and if you're told you don't then then you don't because it's a relationship and that
00:44:35.280that other half of that relationship is not there. So for me, yeah, I feel like I, you know,
00:44:42.900come from these places where I am different than somebody whose family was here for generations
00:44:49.020and generations. But at the same time, I am white presenting. And there are places where I am not
00:44:54.740accepted or invited. And I, you know, knocked on those doors for the book, I didn't want to exclude
00:45:01.300anyone so I knocked on some doors you know metaphorically and physically um and some of
00:45:07.780them were shut you know and um rather than barge in or try to like write my way through it I was
00:45:13.800just like okay I guess I'm not writing about that's not for me you know so I think I offer um
00:45:18.400I think at the end of that chapter on white witches like how to be an ally because there's
00:45:22.880little rituals and practices at the end of each chapter and my main I guess my main theme there
00:45:29.540is consent um it I think it's so important every relationship it's like the core of every of trust
00:45:36.240is are we are we both in this you know and there are some spaces there are some spaces where I did
00:45:45.020stand up for myself and I said wait but wait a second this and this and this and then people
00:45:50.920listened and you know I was I was allowed to be there and then we created something together
00:45:56.520and certainly with the book I didn't want it to just be my memoir because I have such an individual
00:46:02.880specific path like everyone so I tried to include as many people as possible so every chapter is a
00:46:09.080different person's story and that was consensual as well so I think that's what it is to be an ally
00:46:15.680is to like not overburden others by your presence you know like I'm here let me in let me in you
00:46:24.080know it's like kind of annoying it's annoying at like at minimum and at the worst end of the
00:46:30.200spectrum it could be dangerous you know um so you know i go into uh in the chapter i talk about
00:46:38.780hoodoo and voodoo specifically with this because they are african practices and i think that's
00:46:46.760that's work for maybe another person and not me so there are boundaries and that's that's where
00:46:50.900I think allyship is all about is understanding boundaries. Yeah. And I do want to thank you
00:46:58.340for saying that because it's true. Boundaries are so important and there are spaces that we're just
00:47:02.720not allowed. And I'm actually like good for people for standing up for themselves and just being
00:47:09.200like, listen, you trigger me. Like, cause that sometimes is what it is. You know, we, we trigger
00:47:13.460them for whatever reason and in their life experience. And I don't want to be somewhere
00:47:18.940that I shouldn't be where I am going to upset people and that is such a bottom line for me
00:47:24.740that is sort of just like I will not I always ask permission and I feel like that is sometimes what
00:47:30.400a lot of folks don't understand is that we we need to ask permission to be there and like you
00:47:36.000said if they're like we don't want you here being okay with that and not taking it personally
00:47:41.080because it's not always personal you know it's just like we want to be able to have this safe
00:47:47.800space that we don't feel like we would have with you um yeah my my thought is on on it is if I'm
00:47:55.540having these conversations with you I've already like trusted you like it's just like and I0.86
00:47:59.680appreciate the knowledge um that white witches do bring into my life because I have so many like0.89
00:48:05.440friends who do really help me see and understand nuances that I feel like I don't understand um0.91
00:48:13.240and it is important to have that buffer who can in some ways I always joke be my like my fairly
00:48:17.780lady it's like please help me like in white culture you know because I don't always get it
00:48:24.440I want to pick up the word accomplice um I love that especially in the context of witches
00:48:36.620um brujas magic makers I loved you said earlier Lorraine that we how do we get comfortable being
00:48:43.620in between or how do we find a way to be in between that feels okay um and I love that
00:48:49.400because that's not about how do we get into the into the mainstream it's like how do we own that
00:48:57.120we're not that we're on this outsider path and we're sort of on it together sort of not you know
00:49:04.140like we're sort of reaching out and celebrating each other's outsider-ness um and I want to go0.67
00:49:10.480further than allyship you know i want to be a fucking accomplice you know i want to like i0.75
00:49:18.120want to i want to be an anti-racist anti-capitalist spanner in the works with other witches you know0.99
00:49:24.500i want to fuck that shit up and and and help help give birth to something new you know i want us to0.99
00:49:30.740be together for the re-enchantment and not for the fucking apocalypse so what does that look like1.00
00:49:36.280like how do we how do we call out that magic that resistance magic that accomplice magic what does0.95
00:49:41.960that look like from your perspective or your family or your culture the top of your head
00:49:46.600that's so beautiful i love that so much because ultimately like and i worry about this all the
00:49:53.520time when i talk about these topics that i'm alienating somebody you know um because witches
00:49:59.460of all kinds are all outsiders we're all called to this work because we didn't fit into the
00:50:05.520mainstream and i hate seeing us you know hold each other up as the enemy and this happens with
00:50:12.780feminism all the time because you know witchcraft feminism mirrors larger feminist movements but i
00:50:18.220think we're getting there you know i think we're starting to understand that um joining together
00:50:24.900and making space for each other is where the magic is even though it's hard and complicated
00:50:30.040um and i think it's just like any wounded animal you know like we're when our defenses are up it's
00:50:40.520just because we we were traumatized in some way um and so when someone that's kind of like us or
00:50:47.440doing the same thing as us approaches us we're just kind of like defense mode you know um and
00:50:54.060I think the work for me is to drop those defenses more and more and just be kind to myself and be
00:51:03.920kind to others and inviting as much as possible you know within limits it's important to know
00:51:10.120what's you know what's dangerous and where you should have your boundaries because of course
00:51:14.480this work you know a lot of us are empaths a lot of us are open and see and hear and feel
00:51:19.840so much more than just the material world and so if we don't have our boundaries we can get
00:51:26.560pretty fucked up but you know I I do think my work in the next chapter of my life is to is to0.76
00:51:33.780drop defenses and you know be open and make mistakes and be kind of like bumbly like we're0.99
00:51:41.860not all poised and you know we're not all like instagram ready all the time I ramble a lot you
00:51:48.180know I don't I don't know what I'm doing a lot of the time and that's part of like the fun of it
00:51:55.320is that we're all making this new thing so we're not always doing it right0.77
00:51:58.460so let's just fuck it up together let's let's like you said fuck it up together like0.97
00:52:05.600but also just like fuck it up like make a mess of it oh my gosh I love that so much I love the next0.94
00:52:12.880the next project stage of my life is to be bumbly i feel that's so deep yeah because it's just like0.89
00:52:21.440it's like going back to childhood right i i do feel like i have a thesis brewing that like
00:52:26.740we're all our 11 year old selves or at least we like the same things that we did when we were 11
00:52:32.680and if we can just show our 11 year old selves to each other um we weren't we didn't care what like
00:52:39.860what the presentation was or like what the outcome would be we were just like hey look at this bug
00:52:44.640isn't it cool and then we like and then we'd fall off a tree and get her and just scream and cry
00:52:49.720I regularly say that but about my eight-year-old self it's just like we've all become more feral
00:52:57.120versions of that eight-year-old self but with disposable income now the things I like now are
00:53:03.560pretty much the same if I could have like Spice World just on repeat in the background everywhere
00:53:08.420where I go, like, you know, that would be amazing, but I don't, but you know, one day, uh, I think
00:53:15.760that it's so important that we are having these conversations with our inner selves, because I1.00
00:53:20.600feel like a lot of the work that we do is around making this world safe for that younger version
00:53:26.300of ourselves that really just needed, you know, more love, more attention, what have you. Um,
00:53:32.620I always just think about, I've lately, I've been really interested in the mother wound and, you
00:53:37.300know, because a lot of our issues come back from our grandmother. And I just think about like the
00:53:43.160ways that we are healing our family lines and becoming accomplices to ourselves, right? Because
00:53:49.120I feel like a lot of us, how can we be accomplices for other people if we don't even know how to0.99
00:53:53.740advocate and how to really fuck shit up for ourselves? Like, you know, in part of being0.98
00:54:00.160bumbly is making mistakes and maybe sending that risky text or, you know, like having that
00:54:05.600conversation that you've been so worried about, like, well, what happens if it gets weird? It's
00:54:09.780like, let it get weird. You know, like, are you really even living in your witch experience if
00:54:15.340you're always just like, but what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, what if, just what0.53
00:54:18.920if you do it? You know, like, I feel like I'm always the dangerous friend that encourages people
00:54:24.040to just, well, what if you do it? But what if you do it, though? Like, someone will be like,
00:54:27.660I'm really into pottery. What if I quit my job? And like, and I'm like, but what if you do it,
00:54:31.000though but my thought is like okay but let's think about how to properly do it we're not just gonna
00:54:36.360quit we're gonna have a plan you know I always tell my friends do not tell me your hopes and
00:54:41.240dreams if you're not trying to actually make them happen because if anything I'm gonna get
00:54:44.780frustrated with you because I'm the one pushing you and you're annoyed or something you know like
00:54:50.580because I I just feel like everything that I put my seeds into like so to speak like and I plant0.86
00:54:57.140like they start happening um shit with like the podcasting and then and combining my my witchy
00:55:04.580pursuits and interests and like my audio work that started three years ago and I'd been like
00:55:09.280all right you have three years because that's the most you can have this domain for if you can't do
00:55:12.720it in three years then you're not meant to do it and now I'm having opportunities to talk to other
00:55:18.000witches about like our work so it's just like do it you know what if you do it what if you give
00:55:23.540yourself a timeline and what if you're happy, you know? What if you're happy leads me to one
00:55:30.100of my favorite subjects that I really need to bring up. And that's, again, spice world. What
00:55:36.300if you were happy? All of these things. One of my favorite subjects, and again, Lorraine, you have a
00:55:41.880chapter about this in your book, gratefully, thankfully. So I would love to hear Bex's
00:55:46.160thoughts as well. I think there's this misconception that, you know, anger is the only
00:55:51.820emotional path to resistance and i want to talk about joy as resistance and joyful resistance can
00:55:59.900you bubble up with some joyful resistance yeah so um kind of hopping on what bex was saying about
00:56:09.540just doing something i think it's important to just do things that you're called to because you
00:56:17.100just love them without worrying about the outcome too much i mean of course we live in a world where
00:56:23.420we have to think about how we're making our bills and is this practical and all that as part of being
00:56:28.920an adult unfortunately but at the core of it if you're not enjoying your life i i you know i just
00:56:38.460don't think any of that matters so i think if you if you've decided to live this life this witchcraft0.74
00:56:45.420life this witchy life uh it is already it's the its core is resistance right it's we're not doing0.87
00:56:51.640this the way you've told us to do things we're not going by the institution so we must build it
00:56:58.100on what we love like what else is there right so we we were drawn to this because we just
00:57:04.600love it we're full of wonder for it uh and so i think especially for people whose
00:57:11.320And families have been oppressed and have been kept from practicing their magic, have been kept from even communing with their families, have been separated from their families.
00:57:25.040And this is happening right now in this country at the border.
00:57:27.500You know, and we have a candidate for president who shall not be named from my state of Florida who, you know, has built his platform on, you know, infringing on the rights of immigrants.
00:57:44.440And this is, it's, it's more important now than ever that we stand in our power through our joy and whatever that looks like for us, because that's telling them like, you are not controlling my life. You know, there are things that I have to reckon with. There are realities, but I, I still have control over my love and what I love and what I do with my love.
00:58:10.080so what is that for you for me it is reading books and going out in my garden and keeping
00:58:19.640my bees and being with my animals and and slowly making my family a new family that
00:58:27.800is built out of love and not fear that is so hard to do it's so hard not to be scared
00:58:35.580so any moment and it's okay to be scared also it's okay that if joy doesn't come naturally
00:58:41.380it's it's a it's a muscle we have to learn how to exercise so it's it's okay not to if you're
00:58:49.500depressed you know I want to make that clear because I've been depressed so much of my life
00:58:54.620but joy is a something that builds on itself as you feed it it just gets stronger and stronger
00:59:02.240and stronger and it becomes easier to feel um the more attention you give it and so i'm spending
00:59:10.200the summer chasing my joy i i have the great privilege of doing that after a few years of
00:59:15.460working really hard um and too much working too much i think um i feel lucky that i can take this
00:59:23.320time and because i have it i'm going to take it because other my inclination is to fill it with
00:59:29.320more work because i'm a capricorn rising that's another conversation for another day but i i'm
00:59:37.000going to give it my give me myself time to just be out in a nice summer i'm going to the pacific
00:59:42.480northwest where it's not hot uh and i'm going to look at the water and look at the trees
00:59:48.280and see what comes i'm not trying to over plan it and i'm going to see like what
00:59:53.180creativity bubbles up that's my joy this year I love that and I I really love what you said about
01:00:01.320like joy being a muscle that like not everyone is super used to flexing and I feel like it's
01:00:06.400because so many of us like are were come from an a place of like having to exist in survival mode
01:00:15.020and you kind of said that like so many people are so at least they're they're they're taken up their
01:00:21.480lives are taken up by work and they figure out more ways to like oh well what if I can do this
01:00:25.500and and that does come from like a mindset of like having to really hustle and survive but
01:00:31.360I also really recommend to people that if they're in they find themselves in a space of doing this
01:00:36.380it's hard to stop I'm I'm trying to be better about it myself but the more that you stick to
01:00:44.080your relationship with money and that it's scarce and and and you have to always be like working for
01:00:49.540the way that's how it's going to be, you know, in finding my joy and creating more time for
01:00:54.480myself, like I've really been reevaluating my relationship with money. And if I tell myself,
01:01:01.200be a little delusional is what I always tell witches is like, just tell yourself that you
01:01:04.700have everything you need and that it finds you easily all of the time and opportunities
01:01:08.960come to you. Because if you don't change your mindset, you're going to continue to make it
01:01:16.160be that way. You know, I think that, which is, we don't realize we have so much power as
01:01:20.940Brujita, Brujita, Brujita, Brujita, sorry. I'm like trying to say Brujita as, but you know,
01:01:28.320we have to really live the life that we want to live and that is changing our mindset. So if joy
01:01:33.440doesn't come easy for you, figuring out ways to do that. If money doesn't come easy for you,
01:01:38.460figuring out ways to relax your relationship with it. I also just feel like anything that
01:01:44.340is worth having you can't hold on to like tight you know because it's going to kill the joy
01:01:48.740associated with it and I think a lot of young people millennials and gen z is like they feel
01:01:54.560like the things that bring them joy their hobbies then have to become a way to make money yes and
01:02:00.440it's such a it's such a damning space to be in you know I I stopped doing that like with my hobbies
01:02:06.600if I don't enjoy it anymore I don't do it and that's just that is what it is you know whether
01:02:10.640it made me money or not you have to be willing to walk away from the things that you've built
01:02:14.280when it just doesn't serve you anymore so yes it's okay to have hobbies and they don't mean
01:02:20.780anything other than they're fun you can you can do something for a couple days and then never do
01:02:25.540them again it's okay that is such a that's such a gig economy like being you know coming of age
01:02:31.440in the recession thing that I'm unlearning um is that scarcity mindset where you know money is real
01:02:38.580and money limitations are real and you know having gone through really difficult financial times
01:02:43.520during that recession like 10 years ago god at one point i was working at a cracker barrel and
01:02:49.420a call center at the same time while doing my master's and being in an abusive relationship
01:02:53.560that was like shitty shitty time of my life and if someone had come in and been like
01:02:57.240just you have a scarcity mentality darling just believe in that you can have more i would have0.98
01:03:02.860bitten their fucking head off but you know but it is what did i do during that time i did find my1.00
01:03:09.940joy. And that joy was a thread that led me out of there. And my joy was school. And I learned1.00
01:03:15.120philosophy and literature. And I just poured myself into that. That made me feel wonderful.
01:03:19.020I loved it. And it was for no other reason, because at that point, the economy was in such
01:03:24.200shambles that I didn't think anything could get me out of it. So I was just I was like, you know
01:03:29.200what, I went to school to get a job and that didn't work. So I'm just going to go to school
01:03:32.760for what I love. And that's what that's the thread that led me here, you know, out and and dug me out
01:03:39.020of that situation eventually. And it was because it led to this magical job. I still don't have a
01:03:44.940job, y'all. It was just, you know, you find yourself, you find your community, you find
01:03:52.820your opportunities through what you love. It's never through what you fear or what you hate.
01:03:57.960That's never, that's always going to be dead ends. So, you know, anywhere you can feel your fear,
01:04:04.000feel your anger but then soothe yourself with comfort the comforts of what you love um those
01:04:10.660things will be the helping hands I think yeah and I also just like I don't like operating out of a
01:04:16.720place of fear it's just really not good for me I feel like it's not good for my skin and I know
01:04:22.720it's like hard for people to like people who are in terrible situations like I don't want this to
01:04:27.940sound like callous or whatever but it you have to imagine a way out because if you don't you're
01:04:34.180you aren't you're just trapped and uh I just we don't have to live like victims and we don't have
01:04:39.620to be trapped um and you're right community is so important I always tell people that like mutual aid
01:04:45.660is the most powerful thing at our disposal being able to help each other being able to
01:04:51.500actually say I need help because that's the first that we carry too you know is that we
01:04:58.460can't ask for help or we feel weak or and I'm just like everyone struggles you know and I think that
01:05:05.180that's something with like Instagram too is like we always see the best of people's lives and that
01:05:10.140then gives people the the opportunity it's like well how is she affording Europe if things are
01:05:14.100so bad how is she affording this how is she affording that it's just like
01:05:17.780you know wrong questions wrong questions yeah um yeah and i've been there i've been there like
01:05:28.080that the envy sets and you're like why can't i have that you know what's wrong with me like
01:05:32.660they don't understand and i do still struggle with that and i feel the little victim
01:05:37.900voice coming and i like treat it like a little child i'm like oh there there have a little
01:05:43.140sandwich you're okay let's leave it alone yeah and you know it's particularly hard when we come
01:05:51.380from families that perpetuate that victimhood or like once you get a little success like there's
01:05:57.660maybe jealousy or like this the sense that like oh but you you still like a reminder that we still
01:06:06.460came from little you know and it manifests in my family with hoarding um I know this is kind of a
01:06:13.640tangent but it's like the hoarding is a reminder that like oh we're not quite okay we have a lot
01:06:20.660but it's too much now you know and it's like so so I feel like I'm getting free right but then my
01:06:27.440mom will send me big smash boxes full of stuff um she can't stop doing it she just keeps sending
01:06:34.340them I ask her to stop she just keeps sending them and so I'm being I'm drowning in her fear
01:06:40.340and her lack and her you know addiction to the cycle of poverty and wealth and capitalism and
01:06:49.080all that that I feel like I've escaped and I found my joy and but then there's that like little
01:06:54.380reminder that like it's still there um and so if you are in a family that reminds you all the time
01:07:02.800or like unhealed people are in your family like that's okay too it's okay for you to have joy
01:07:09.000even if your parents don't yet or ever you know um it starts with you and boundaries I open the
01:07:18.880box at the foyer I take a couple items and I donate the rest instead of drowning in it it's
01:07:24.920just a little metaphor I think that I'm working with right now okay I'm really glad that you
01:07:31.500brought up the hoarding thing because I feel like that across like the latine community that's
01:07:35.640something that we do share because I also feel like it's this place of like um their inner child
01:07:41.720just having the opportunity to have all the stuff they couldn't have at one point and so it just
01:07:46.760brings them so much joy to have it and then they're like oh no I messed up and you know they'll pass
01:07:51.580it on to you and they're like ah but I was just having this conversation about how this is a common
01:07:57.080thing and they're like do you think i'm like yes i do think that court that hoarding is a common
01:08:01.820thing because it's uh sort of adjusting from that like have not having anything to having so much
01:08:08.160and like yeah like you said a little reminder of oh well what if we need this and whatever and um
01:08:14.060there's so many things that i feel like i wish the latin community would realize would be so
01:08:20.380much more beneficial to them instead of operating out of that place of fear um and being worried
01:08:25.880about having conversations and and and I understand where that comes from because like it's those
01:08:30.800survival tactics right like if this in the people in charge the Spanish or or then police officers
01:08:36.220or any type of like structure were asking questions you could like just be like oh no everything's
01:08:40.380cool everything's whatever but it's like we have to undo that like thought process of like if we
01:08:47.480bring anybody in from the outside it's going to cause issues you know because the reality is
01:08:55.740is that patriarchy thrives when it's like religion government and family are the three
01:09:00.860structures that have all the control and I don't know sometimes old ways die hard you know and I
01:09:06.640feel like um for any latine person out there who is seeking like help for any type of like issues
01:09:14.820with their mental health like I really do commend you because um I remember when I first started
01:09:19.900seeking that out it was like all a joke because my parents couldn't really processing what was
01:09:25.260going on they're like are you gonna kill us in the middle of the night I'm like oh my goodness
01:09:29.280like what and I'm like I don't think it's that serious I think I'm just a little sad all the1.00
01:09:35.340time but it's uh you know it's like I don't know I always say about Mexicans is that we can take0.93
01:09:42.480nothing seriously and therefore like nothing is serious uh but everything can be you know serious
01:09:48.220so it's finding that that space you know where if you don't have that support system uh within your
01:09:54.760family finding it in other places and i'm sorry i went on in this whole tangent but i all i think
01:09:59.040it's all relevant too yes to connect it back to joy it's it's not about ignoring pain and like
01:10:06.800so our generational trauma like all that stuff it's all part of the joy process it's we you know
01:10:13.040we say we need help like i need i need to go to therapy and this is something that's super
01:10:17.980stigmatized in latin a communities is like you know getting help um it means you're weak it means
01:10:24.460you're you're vulnerable um that means something's wrong with you um and so the first step towards my
01:10:30.740joy was telling my parents you know like i'm not i'm not totally okay with what happened growing
01:10:36.260up and i'm gonna go get therapy for it and i'm on medicine now and you know and just listening to
01:10:43.760them you know respond to it in ways that would trigger me before but understanding that they're
01:10:48.900coming from an unhealed space as well and they haven't gotten that therapy you know and so i'm
01:10:54.200like, okay, yeah, maybe something is wrong with me, mom. Yeah. Maybe like, you know, she says,
01:10:59.480I not, you know, like you're, you're totally fine. You're like, that's the mentality is like,
01:11:05.840you know, the, the toxic positivity is like, you're fine. You're fine. Even when you're not
01:11:10.520fine. No. Um, so, so I think joy is honesty as well. Honesty with what's not fine.
01:11:18.440Yeah, no. And you're, and I think that the hard thing too, is like, because watching us get
01:11:22.780help for our issues also like makes them start to think it's like well did I have it that bad
01:11:28.660and the reality is like yeah you probably did my mom was one in 12 so there's a lot there's
01:11:35.240a smorgasbord of things there you know but she I think it's powerful because like as I heal I see
01:11:43.260her healing and no longer accepting some of the things but I also just like my sister reminds me
01:11:48.060all the time she's like no vas a cambiar la cultura you know you're not and and and I think
01:11:52.160that that is important is knowing like what your limits are in the ways that things just are set up
01:11:57.420uh there's that quote that's like um personality decontextualized uh you know and it's and then
01:12:05.180like personnel or uh community decontextualized and culture and it and how all of these things
01:12:10.000present so many things that we've just accepted too as a way of like surviving and i don't know
01:12:17.100yeah we're just not a lot of us are just not in that space where we want to just survive we want
01:12:21.440to thrive so we are decontextualizing culture and how it impacts us and it's powerful yes
01:12:29.560I also want to thank you Bex for it's okay to be a little delusional this is the permission that
01:12:37.680I've been waiting for my entire life and I really really really appreciate that it's okay a little
01:12:44.800delusion is going to help us find our joy just a little bit just a little bit so i i like to ask
01:12:52.280this like if you could slap a bumper sticker on the on the car of the missing witches coven as we
01:12:59.440drive through the universe what what message like what short message would you want your your bumper0.84
01:13:04.900sticker on the missing witches car to say be gay do crime i love it thank you john waters forever0.94
01:13:14.220John Waters is, you know, one of the patron saints of my entire life, so thank you.0.99
01:13:19.960Be gay, do crime. The life of a heterosexual is a miserable and boring existence.1.00
01:13:31.560Mine would be, what would your 11-year-old self do?0.84
01:13:36.740Let's spend some time with our 11-year-old selves.