Missing Witches - Lughnasadh Meditation： If You Want To Say Yes, Say Yes

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00:00:54.700 that's patreon.com slash missing witches you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must 0.97

00:01:00.820 be a witch you must be a witch 0.84

00:01:06.340 hi friends hi coven

00:01:11.520 it's a warm sunny midday windy day after this cool luna so weekend that sunk us suddenly into

00:01:21.820 a premonition of fall we gathered with some friends for days or nights or the whole long

00:01:31.340 weekend and as we wove grain mothers from clover mint and meadow sweet to honor until sow in

00:01:37.900 a knotted poppet set of corn husks and talks through knots of feelings and tendrils of ideas

00:01:44.380 we did some field recordings and i've edited some moments from these into what turned into

00:01:50.860 a meditation to carry

00:01:52.900 forward with us from these first fruits

00:01:55.120 into the harvest season

00:01:56.360 the plump August days ahead

00:01:59.200 and then into the

00:02:01.000 coming dark

00:02:01.740 became a

00:02:05.100 meditation on rot and water

00:02:07.100 and weaving and what we

00:02:08.960 keep and what we value

00:02:10.140 we shared water

00:02:12.560 around a fire and drank

00:02:14.920 grape juice from Italian grapes brought

00:02:16.900 to Montreal over 30

00:02:18.900 years ago

00:02:19.580 we talked about the dishes and anger and anxiety and gratitude and the feeling of putting away

00:02:27.380 we meditated on rain predicted in the height of the sky knitting and weaving in the math of care

00:02:37.040 husks and kernels and umbilical cords and tides and awe and its contexts repair and cursed objects

00:02:46.160 all while leaving and cooking and eating the movable feast

00:02:50.500 of mint and raspberries and blueberries and oregano and wintergreen

00:02:54.480 and each other with a dose of cat Stevens

00:02:58.640 hollered from the porch

00:03:00.440 thank you for being with us

00:03:04.660 la la la

00:03:06.640 la la la la

00:03:08.840 la la la

00:03:12.060 blueberry pancake song

00:03:15.660 because when you see like value in everything then everything has value it's difficult

00:03:24.640 but then one has to see like where this like second half-life can be doesn't have to be at

00:03:32.480 our place for example yes it can be somewhere else it can live with someone else we have a

00:03:39.580 In May's dress-up trunk, which has taken over a chunk of the living room.

00:03:44.020 Good.

00:03:45.020 There's this hand-knit little crop-waist sky-blue wool tank

00:03:52.100 with sequins stitched on every single possible centimeter of it

00:03:58.220 that my great-grandmother made for my grandmother.

00:04:00.860 She made it.

00:04:01.800 Oh, wow.

00:04:02.440 When my grandmother was a teenager.

00:04:04.300 Oh, my goodness.

00:04:05.000 Yes.

00:04:09.580 Thank you for bringing yourselves and your water visitor.

00:04:14.860 It's really nice.

00:04:17.700 Oh, thanks.

00:04:18.340 I didn't realize you were reaching out.

00:04:21.360 But of course you are.

00:04:26.680 Andy?

00:04:27.920 Thank you.

00:04:31.260 Thank you for this water.

00:04:33.240 I feel like I should be standing.

00:04:35.080 I like it.

00:04:37.660 Do you want to tell us about your well?

00:04:39.580 well well well um i don't really know much about the well itself other than that when we

00:04:47.580 got our place we didn't know what the water quality was and i just had a really good feeling

00:04:53.420 and then we got it tested and it's like the cleanest water that's ever existed but also

00:04:58.420 full of iron and as a former anemic oh all hail the iron filled water and my next door neighbor

00:05:07.820 told us it's the best water

00:05:09.820 he ever tasted.

00:05:11.440 So now that I've raised your expectations

00:05:13.760 as high as they possibly could, 1.00

00:05:15.520 koats and chok.

00:05:16.720 What's koats and chok? 1.00

00:05:18.560 Cheers in Hungarian. 0.98

00:05:21.080 Ege shagetra.

00:05:22.460 As May likes to say all this.

00:05:26.140 Kanpai.

00:05:27.040 Ege chuch.

00:05:28.560 For me it's always an act of gratitude 0.99

00:05:31.380 to do dishes

00:05:33.320 because it used to be the thing that made me

00:05:35.760 uh the most like angry inside like i become impatient and everything and uh when we started

00:05:45.580 dating of course he was like cooking all the time so the least i could do was do the dishes

00:05:51.400 and it became like a uh like a work with myself to accept this uh this task and uh

00:06:01.520 yeah as and like approach it as an act of gratitude yeah i've been on this same evolutionary

00:06:08.580 path myself like learning to actually appreciate it for like the moment of zen that it kind of is

00:06:14.120 and it used to just be like full-on a source of anxiety like a sink of dirty dishes it's like

00:06:19.000 i'm just gonna panic and run but now i'm like this is an opportunity to like stand still and

00:06:24.400 yeah dishes for me are total like party party me time i know it's like you shouldn't have

00:06:32.020 labor be a me time but sometimes labor is just so fun and like dishes it's like a podcast or

00:06:38.420 music and i'm drinking a glass of wine everyone else is away i'm alone i'm making things tidy

00:06:44.360 i make a lot of decisions in my work and like so to have a space where i can just like

00:06:51.440 do something that's really monotonous and like i'm so like i love the end when everything's

00:06:58.220 spotless and like everything's put away it was raining a bit on my way there but

00:07:03.080 yeah i mean the foretold 70 rain all day has not manifested so far

00:07:10.180 yes yes yes but then you know microclimate they were even like even a 70 chance of rain here is

00:07:18.440 always going to be nicer than yeah in most other places it's like when you're at the lake whichever

00:07:23.740 lake it is there's some small magic of even if it was rain we would be happy for having shelter or

00:07:31.960 being in a porch or whatever and being able to just see rain on the lake it's different in the

00:07:38.280 city too because it kind of just feels like the same but wet yeah i find the same with winter like

00:07:43.820 it's like in the city it's just the same

00:07:45.900 but cold but out here

00:07:47.900 it's like a completely different universe with its

00:07:49.820 own beauty and same with the rain

00:07:51.680 it's like it's different

00:07:53.700 and wet

00:07:54.240 I like in the city the one thing that helps me

00:07:57.880 we have a nice view

00:07:59.120 it's the sense of having like a medium distance

00:08:01.620 to be able to see the clouds

00:08:03.960 come in or see the rain coming at an angle

00:08:06.180 and things like this

00:08:07.020 whereas in Montreal in particular since we're always

00:08:09.680 in these troughs

00:08:10.660 that it's hard to get any sense of

00:08:13.460 like medium depth

00:08:14.820 and so these moments

00:08:16.720 of getting out

00:08:17.340 like on the Carriard

00:08:18.660 along the train tracks

00:08:19.740 to be able to see

00:08:20.780 like oh horizon

00:08:21.600 but like a far way away

00:08:23.460 suddenly the eyes open up

00:08:25.160 the sky opens up

00:08:25.940 and you're like

00:08:26.240 oh yeah right

00:08:27.000 and not just in this

00:08:28.560 little like short distance

00:08:30.860 I've never been to the prairies

00:08:32.940 this is where I'm from

00:08:34.460 so it's about

00:08:35.360 I need to be able to see

00:08:38.640 everything

00:08:39.080 that makes sense

00:08:39.860 where are you from?

00:08:41.980 from Edmonton

00:08:42.700 Okay, I'm from my bag.

00:08:44.100 Okay.

00:08:44.720 So you've got that, like, expanse that, like, I've never seen.

00:08:48.360 Maybe from an airplane, I guess, is, like, the closest.

00:08:50.720 It's a crazy feeling.

00:08:51.940 I was, like, very much an adult the first time I saw it.

00:08:54.500 I was very bowled over by it.

00:08:56.540 It was very visceral.

00:08:57.860 And when I go back, it's also really surprising because it's not there often.

00:09:01.800 I remember being in Edmonton in June.

00:09:05.080 And, of course, like, the sun is up forever.

00:09:07.460 Yeah.

00:09:08.400 Edmonton's north.

00:09:09.420 Yeah.

00:09:09.740 It's really north.

00:09:10.360 and so it's like

00:09:14.380 it's still light at 11 o'clock in the night

00:09:15.740 and light at 4 in the morning

00:09:16.960 so it's 6 o'clock or 8 o'clock

00:09:19.820 and the sun's still there

00:09:21.220 it looks like it might be going down except it's going in that direction

00:09:24.460 and so it's like just looking at you the whole time

00:09:26.500 like you're on a patio

00:09:27.780 it's all fine

00:09:28.740 but I remember being in a parking lot

00:09:31.520 and all the houses, everything looks super squat

00:09:34.380 and all the trees are squat

00:09:35.720 everything's shorter because of the permafrost

00:09:37.480 and it's just sky

00:09:39.040 and then you have these massive cumulus clouds

00:09:41.460 10,000 feet

00:09:43.160 that look like they're about to fall on your head

00:09:45.060 it's really like a

00:09:47.040 resting feeling of

00:09:48.160 there's so much space but also all this weight

00:09:50.640 up there

00:09:52.180 why am I not flying up

00:09:54.560 into space

00:09:55.600 I think about that all the time

00:09:57.980 I landed in

00:10:01.300 Winnipeg the first time I ever went there

00:10:03.400 by plane going to a conference

00:10:05.000 and the skies were doing that

00:10:06.740 Winnipeg sky thing where it's like how can they go on forever as we're landing

00:10:11.600 with the blue sky. Life-changer like who had two sticks and some string and was

00:10:20.420 like apparently it's actually like Fisher people who needed to do like to make

00:10:28.280 nets and like knitting was a new uh someone just like yeah thought about making loops within loops

00:10:38.640 within loops to then at the end just secure the loops uh with the rope to make nets so instead

00:10:45.780 of doing knots every time it's just like you loop it and you do it like across your um on your arm

00:10:51.980 that's really interesting

00:10:55.580 like the people who

00:10:57.540 like dressed their whole families 1.00

00:10:59.880 were women 1.00

00:11:00.520 they're the ones who kept their families warm 1.00

00:11:03.880 through generations 1.00

00:11:05.600 so it's a woman thing 1.00

00:11:07.800 it's another one thing 1.00

00:11:09.400 I mean just the idea of looking at something that's for one purpose

00:11:12.120 and then in your mind applying it

00:11:13.920 to a completely other purpose with different materials

00:11:16.060 and it has obviously like a complete

00:11:18.200 life of its own

00:11:19.040 it's so abstract

00:11:20.440 like to create something 3d out of two sticks and yarn yeah like it's been

00:11:26.880 yeah so once again this is how far back in amazement I'm still working through

00:11:41.340 like neanderthals and like proto people like the internet don't even get me

00:11:47.000 started on like how much that blows my mind i can't even get past knitting and cooking food

00:11:53.740 over heat i think it's great to stay amazed and enthusiastic about these things that are amazing

00:12:02.420 and not see them as as normal or like there is this there's this author named uh terry tempest

00:12:11.040 Williams and she lived in Utah

00:12:12.860 forever and she

00:12:14.920 tweeted this recently like she was

00:12:17.020 flying over and like remarking

00:12:19.040 on the beauty of you know how the

00:12:20.520 water passes through the land

00:12:22.320 to the point where the person next to her was like

00:12:24.900 oh is this your first trip to Utah

00:12:26.300 like she was in such awe

00:12:28.500 still after her whole life that they assumed

00:12:31.060 she had never seen it before so

00:12:32.500 I like to interpret that

00:12:33.680 like geology and geography

00:12:37.320 is like not banal

00:12:38.860 or just like existence

00:12:40.920 I remember the last time I was at

00:12:43.840 Fundy's National Park

00:12:45.840 in New Brunswick

00:12:47.420 it's the place where the

00:12:49.400 tides are the highest in the world

00:12:51.860 and it always amazes me

00:12:53.920 I remember being a kid and going there

00:12:56.020 and being totally impressed

00:12:57.680 and even as an adult

00:12:59.340 when the tide comes back

00:13:01.900 and you see like

00:13:02.960 the ocean turns brown

00:13:05.580 because the force of the water

00:13:07.960 is stirring all of the

00:13:09.840 the sand and

00:13:11.300 like the sea bottom

00:13:13.800 and this wall of water

00:13:16.020 coming at you

00:13:16.780 it's so amazing and I went to get

00:13:19.940 an ice cream right next to this place

00:13:21.900 and I don't know I was just

00:13:23.860 telling the person who was serving

00:13:25.420 how amazing

00:13:28.180 it was and she was like

00:13:29.900 ah no it's disgusting 0.91

00:13:31.800 I call it the 1.00

00:13:32.800 like the tide of shit 1.00

00:13:35.840 it looks like shit 1.00

00:13:37.060 it's true that you've been living 1.00

00:13:40.260 your whole life here

00:13:41.220 but when we visit spaces like that

00:13:43.560 we can divorce

00:13:45.020 the landscape from the culture

00:13:47.460 the experience this person has

00:13:50.120 of living there

00:13:50.900 the human environment

00:13:55.340 we just skate and skim on top

00:13:58.160 we don't get a sense of it

00:13:59.780 and you go to Barcelona

00:14:01.800 which is totally beautiful

00:14:03.080 and all of the people in Barcelona

00:14:05.280 are so pissed at all the tourists that are just ruining everything they're like oh but it's such

00:14:10.000 a beautiful city it's so nice i love it and your food's arranged go home my friend uh came up with

00:14:18.400 this notion of also as a like creative person who repairs keyboard instruments for fun like finding

00:14:26.080 old pump organs on the street like uh harpsichords from people's basements and stuff and like

00:14:32.400 re-carving the wood to make the parts and all the little brass hooks and the little leather straps

00:14:38.480 took everything on like oh yeah i understand that uh and he he clearly identified he said well

00:14:45.320 there's these are curses like i'm cursing myself by taking this home and having this object in my

00:14:52.000 own house so it's do i am i choosing to bring this like to invite this curse into my life because i'm

00:14:58.280 way to be trapped with it and it really helped me uh sort out my like garbage picking yeah to be

00:15:05.640 able to look at something and be like no you're cursed i don't accept this curse uh there are

00:15:12.220 other ones that that are on the list that are acceptable and then being able to look at things

00:15:16.420 that were curses that i invited in and saying like nope your time's done i'm not carrying i'm not

00:15:21.500 holding space for this this obligation that i've given myself really any longer and it's okay to

00:15:28.100 let it go it's so much easier to purge physical things than like the emotional things it's like 0.98

00:15:38.160 it's a pleasure i love pitching shit out of my house like passing the kids shit on getting it 0.99

00:15:44.500 out moving keeping the cycle but then like when it comes to your my own shit and like what the 0.99

00:15:51.720 things i think about and it's like i want to get rid of that but it's still kicking around 0.79

00:15:57.020 but it's not just anyway for me it's not physical like the the for me it falls in the category or

00:16:04.820 like the secret life of objects of that how imbued they become with attachment with memories

00:16:11.660 like an external memory device i can remember which corner of which street i found it on and

00:16:17.120 what kind of garbage bag

00:16:18.080 and what the weather was like

00:16:19.200 and what I had to do

00:16:19.840 to get it clean

00:16:20.620 and all the hopes

00:16:22.300 and wishes

00:16:22.780 and it's all

00:16:23.900 of this aspirational future

00:16:25.280 wrapped up in this

00:16:26.660 which is about

00:16:27.260 like potential worlds

00:16:29.220 and possibilities

00:16:30.420 and then giving that up.

00:16:32.660 That's totally

00:16:33.580 our relationship

00:16:35.040 with thrifting.

00:16:36.020 It's like bringing stuff in.

00:16:37.400 Sometimes it sticks.

00:16:38.780 Sometimes it doesn't.

00:16:39.900 You're passing on

00:16:40.800 the sort of lives

00:16:41.840 of these things.

00:16:42.400 Sometimes they stick

00:16:43.000 for a couple months

00:16:43.940 but it's okay.

00:16:44.760 They're like,

00:16:45.260 it's like a dollar.

00:16:46.180 You don't need it back.

00:16:47.120 You see your stuff there all the time

00:17:17.120 do you know this song don't be shy by cat stephen yeah you do have you ever seen the

00:17:27.020 movie harold harold the mod oh yeah yeah so this is the page wrong

00:17:31.840 next i think that one's only three words

00:17:47.120 well don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by and don't wear fear but nobody will know

00:18:02.660 you're there just lift your head just lift your head let your feelings out instead don't be shy

00:18:11.180 Now don't be shy, just let your feelings roll on by.

00:18:17.980 On by, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by, on by.

00:18:33.880 That was the practice round.

00:18:35.620 now don't be shy just let your feelings roll on by and don't wear fear or nobody will know

00:18:50.040 you're there just lift your head and let your feelings out instead

00:18:57.900 Now don't be shy

00:19:01.660 Just let your feelings roll on by

00:19:05.080 On by, on by

00:19:08.340 On by, on by, on by

00:19:11.820 On by, on by

00:19:15.080 On by, on by

00:19:17.640 Now we're all gonna sing la la la la

00:19:20.520 I'll go first

00:19:21.780 You can do whatever you want

00:19:23.100 Risp out on that

00:19:24.300 La, la, la, la, la, la, la.

00:19:54.300 It's really a mansion of a fire.

00:20:17.520 Yeah.

00:20:19.540 I like to build a very architectural.

00:20:24.300 It's very satisfying.

00:20:29.100 The squareness of it all and the smile. 0.98

00:20:39.280 Also, since the last time we gathered on this day with that big rotten birch log

00:20:49.460 and the pleasure of having this big, gross, wet, unburnable thing be consumed.

00:21:01.480 Every time I come to make a fire, I'm looking for another giant, gross thing to lean on. 0.51

00:21:06.140 Like a challenge?

00:21:07.120 Yeah, or more just like, let's get this started.

00:21:09.660 It's going to take a while.

00:21:10.820 I won't be here for all of it, but let's get it in there.

00:21:14.560 And actually, it's super useful to have something that doesn't burn up right away

00:21:18.100 because then everything can lean on it

00:21:20.980 and, like, be supported by.

00:21:23.620 And it brings air in and all this other stuff.

00:21:27.780 It's quite surprising.

00:21:31.640 I'm going to stick my fistful of knots,

00:21:36.280 my husks that I want to shed, 0.98

00:21:37.920 right in the mouth of that fire face. 0.98

00:21:40.560 I'm excited about it.

00:21:44.360 I think I heard that, like, the hairs on these

00:21:47.440 maybe everybody knows this but i just learned this recently that like every one of these hairs

00:21:52.940 connects to a kernel like on the cob and it's that's like where it brings in the like the

00:21:59.780 moisture and the energy so every single kernel is connected to like one of these guys

00:22:03.840 it's like their umbilical cord to the to the air to like to the outside

00:22:08.960 Wow.

00:22:09.760 Amazing.

00:22:29.220 That's your button I'm holding up.

00:22:34.380 Do you feel like it's a person?

00:22:35.840 it's part of me that's for sure it's part of you

00:22:40.400 i think the last time we did this mine was so mine were all so clearly men

00:22:56.100 it was like a burning of men figures and roles that i wanted and had had in my life

00:23:06.500 ways of thinking about men patriarchal controlling versions of men con men

00:23:21.620 but it doesn't feel like that this time

00:23:23.800 what were you saying before that you were thinking about as you were

00:23:32.860 braiding it didn't you say something at the house yeah i i mean yeah this time it really

00:23:41.060 felt like it went it was a path of like

00:23:44.400 judgments of myself

00:23:52.560 you know not so circular thinking and doubt

00:23:59.040 and trying so hard to try so hard to try so hard to try so hard

00:24:05.480 and control ultimately you know i was thinking about the the

00:24:15.720 sort of surfing versus horseback riding metaphors and like i'm always trying to

00:24:25.140 face events and things that i want to change and things that i want to transform or

00:24:33.140 transubstantiate or eat or whatever

00:24:36.340 just sort of versions of these knots of a relationship of control

00:24:56.380 thinking about that dance researcher that we just spoke with about like

00:24:59.980 just seeing the dance in every gesture and every like gathering of people in every way

00:25:09.880 your body's moving through time like seeing those things as helping us heal really

00:25:16.880 just trying to always I guess let go of some back control that I have

00:25:25.560 yeah i feel ready to burn that

00:25:34.320 it makes me think about part of the

00:25:37.960 part of the magic that we found had to do with letting it go

00:25:47.960 acknowledging the care in it like all of that effort to control uh like stabilize and be on

00:26:00.980 top of the charge hold on to is about self-preservation about safety

00:26:09.240 about survival

00:26:11.920 and really from a place of strength

00:26:14.500 though as distressing

00:26:16.120 as it feels

00:26:18.000 for me I think about this time

00:26:20.220 being in a place

00:26:22.620 of fullness

00:26:23.200 reaching to harvest etc

00:26:25.880 and the work that it's

00:26:28.400 taken to get this far

00:26:29.300 so being

00:26:32.500 in a place of strength

00:26:33.380 to be able to

00:26:35.660 say

00:26:36.160 with the

00:26:38.700 lightfulness of light, what's necessary,

00:26:40.640 what's not necessary

00:26:41.520 as a preparation to plunge

00:26:46.480 back in the dark.

00:26:48.100 I'm keeping you head to sing.

00:26:50.600 Okay.

00:26:53.200 Sun, sun, sun.

00:26:54.840 I'm a jungle

00:26:56.740 fly up in the sky.

00:27:00.840 You can do what you want

00:27:02.840 The opportunity is on

00:27:07.720 And if you find a new way

00:27:11.060 You can do it today

00:27:14.360 You can make it all true

00:27:18.800 Or you can make it undo

00:27:22.180 You see

00:27:23.640 It's easy

00:27:27.300 You only need to

00:27:32.840 If you want to say yes, say yes

00:27:38.840 And if you want to say no, say no

00:27:42.680 There's a million ways to go

00:27:46.380 You know that they're all

00:27:48.280 You know that they're all

00:27:50.900 You know that they're all

00:27:54.740 You know that they're all 0.99

00:27:58.420 You must be a witch. 0.99

00:28:28.420 You 1.00

Missing Witches - August 04, 2021

Lughnasadh Meditation： If You Want To Say Yes, Say Yes

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