Missing Witches - Mabon 2023： Collaborating With Our Ideas w⧸ Christena Cleveland And Amanda Yates Garcia

00:00:01.000 Happy Mabon! Today marks the five-year anniversary of the Missing Witches podcast.

00:00:08.380 Over the past five years, the idea seed has germinated and sprouted and expanded into books, a coven, a zine.

00:00:18.820 If you want to keep the Missing Witches project alive, join our coven.

00:00:21.960 Buy our books, New Moon Magic, 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools of Resistance and Re-enchantment,

00:00:28.860 and Missing Witches, Recovering True Histories of Feminist Magic. 0.93

00:00:33.560 Or just spread love. 1.00

00:00:35.680 Plant a seed. 0.97

00:00:37.440 Be a witch. 1.00

00:00:38.560 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:41.760 Be a witch. 1.00

00:00:45.000 You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:49.320 Hello! 0.98

00:00:49.960 Hello! Hi, Coven, and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witches podcast. I'm Amy. I'm here with Risa and our two very, very, very, I'm going to say very a couple more times, very, very, very special guests who are so near and dear to us.

00:01:11.900 We are thrilled and honoured to have the two of them in a room together.

00:01:18.780 And we're so excited to see what blooms from this conversation.

00:01:24.260 Amanda Yates Garcia, one of our favourite witches in the world.

00:01:29.800 Christina Cleveland, one of our favourite theologians in the world.

00:01:33.660 let's get together and talk about witchcraft and god and ideas and writing ideas down

00:01:42.400 so before we dive into our our equinox fantasy um let's start with you christina can you

00:01:51.460 you've been on the podcast before obviously i'm sure most of our listeners are familiar with you

00:01:56.360 and your work um but can you reintroduce yourself like who are you today who are you now

00:02:03.460 well sure sure um I am Christina I how do I even want to answer this question today

00:02:15.920 I'm a learner I'm a learner of the Black Madonna and I feel like every day she's teaching me

00:02:26.040 something and it's my life purpose to learn and to listen and then to hopefully communicate and

00:02:34.720 translate her in a way that resonates with people but specifically Black people. I'm doing a lot of

00:02:42.760 listening to my ancestor Bell Hooks who said it's really a shame that African Americans

00:02:51.100 i haven't reclaimed the black madonna and i wake up with that quote on my mind most days

00:02:57.140 so that's who i am today that's what i'm doing that's what i'm dreaming about

00:03:04.260 what a beautiful dream i'm so excited to be in this dream with you i hope we don't wake up

00:03:12.760 amanda who are you today what are you doing what's going on um yeah that's such a big question

00:03:18.940 um and i feel lucky to follow christina because i was already very inspired by what she had to say

00:03:25.320 there um well i would say my life's work is really about um enchantment which i understand as

00:03:39.560 a re-weaving of webs of connection between the the self and the the broader world that have been

00:03:50.220 severed through colonialism and uh capitalism patriarchy white supremacy etc but

00:03:55.820 i i don't see those webs as actually having been severed but more like the settler perception of

00:04:04.860 them or the colonialist perception of them is that they've been severed. And so I see land-based

00:04:11.740 spiritual traditions as enchanted ones, which are woven completely into the matrix of the

00:04:21.020 life force on earth and specifically place. So right now I'm really interested in looking at

00:04:27.580 how as a as a settler on land that isn't quote-unquote mine but that I that my family

00:04:37.340 has been living on for over seven generations how to have spiritual connection to this place

00:04:46.300 and how to understand my traditions which are northern European in theory but like I said like

00:04:56.380 My family hasn't lived in Northern Europe for a really long time.

00:05:00.060 So how can I have holidays, spiritual traditions, relationships, relationships to the other beings on this land and in this land while at the same time honoring the history of violence that brought us to this place?

00:05:22.200 So, yeah, that's what I'm focused on.

00:05:24.160 But the way that I do that is through, I have a newsletter that sounds so office-y or, I don't know, corporate.

00:05:38.480 But yeah, I have a newsletter, Mystery Cult.

00:05:41.300 I have a mystery cult.

00:05:42.340 That sounds better.

00:05:45.360 And we do ritual there and do all this work of enchantment there.

00:05:51.180 To interrupt you.

00:05:51.840 I'm a writer as well.

00:05:52.740 Yeah.

00:05:53.160 I'm going to interrupt you and just say, A, I think newsletters are magical and can be magical and can change lives. And B, I have a mystery cult. Sounds kind of cult leader-ish.

00:06:05.760 I don't know. I don't mind it because I feel like it has kind of a charge to it, you know? And I think of mystery cult as like, the name of my newsletter is called mystery cult.

00:06:17.740 So yeah, but I think of cult, well, I mean, there's a long story that goes with that. So it's basically that when I first got into college, when I was like 18 or 19, and I took this art history class, and they were talking about all these like matrifocal, you know, Neolithic communities and cultures.

00:06:44.640 and they would talk about you know the goddess Anana or Ishtar or Estarte and they would call

00:06:50.380 them fertility cults and I would be like that is so offensive to me like that this that it was like

00:06:57.720 the it was like the dominant religion of the time and it was called a cult why was it called a cult

00:07:04.060 like when why isn't Christianity called a cult or why isn't you know Islam called a cult or

00:07:10.060 hinduism called a cult because it's like well it's given this credibility so i feel um i'm kind

00:07:15.660 of like reclaiming the world word cult um and yeah it is a charged word but i'm also a witch

00:07:22.380 so i'm used to that well i can relate because i i lived in taos new mexico for most of 2020

00:07:28.900 in the early part of 2020 we were under lockdown but then right around um juneteenth in the george

00:07:37.240 foreman murder not george foreman george floyd is george foreman like an athlete or something

00:07:45.220 yeah he's a boxer and also the george foreman girl right okay so thinking of grilling but

00:07:50.500 anyways george floyd um there was this um you know like event that these black trans folks put on

00:07:58.700 around gt's and george floyd and so i spoke at it and that was my first like public appearance

00:08:04.280 in Taos I was brand new and of course you know Taos which has tons of cults several cult leaders

00:08:09.900 came up to me after the event or reached out to me and asked for coffee because of course if you're

00:08:14.660 a cult leader why wouldn't you want me to be your second in command you know like I would be a great

00:08:19.920 assistant cult leader um but after talking with them and sort of like informationally interviewing

00:08:27.420 them I decided that if I'm gonna be in a cult I would want to lead it myself like I was just like

00:08:33.760 I'm not really, like, second-in-command material.

00:08:38.540 And it was these interactions with actual cult leaders

00:08:41.540 that helped me see that I would make a good one myself.

00:08:46.320 I mean, I might join that cult.

00:08:48.080 I would totally come to that cult.

00:08:50.720 But also, I question, like, going back to this idea of, like,

00:08:56.820 what a cult is, I feel like there are so many

00:09:01.500 imbalances of power in any group you know in in most groups of people like in the government

00:09:09.800 in major religions um in even like political organizations socialist organizations like

00:09:17.880 nra whatever like families yeah families and so the idea i feel like by saying like

00:09:26.840 oh here's this small group of people and they are a cult

00:09:30.400 and and yet here's this other group of people and they're not a cult you know but but who gets to

00:09:38.980 decide that and then I also think of the root of the word cult is like in culture or cultivate

00:09:44.600 cultivate yeah and it's like for me it's about nurturing the mystery growing the mystery honoring

00:09:50.540 the mystery um and also understanding the culture of groups of people together like what happens when

00:09:59.160 groups of people come together and grow things and also thinking of cultures like um in uh

00:10:06.100 science right in biology where you like have a culture and it grows and creates like a

00:10:13.800 like biofield which I like so I think it was like too I mean I think what's so challenging

00:10:20.740 about cults as we you know tend to understand them is that usually there is a leader and we've

00:10:28.140 associated cultivating with domination i think in part because of how we've treated the land

00:10:34.500 but what if we thought about cults as in like i'm in a mystery permacult

00:10:39.580 i love that so much i'm helping what's already there flourish

00:10:47.660 and take root and i'm not trying to control and dominate i'm just trying to support you know but

00:10:57.360 yeah it's interesting how that's just been turned yeah i took an e-course two years ago on

00:11:05.700 spiritual abuse and spiritual power and it was sounds like a good course for spiritual leaders

00:11:13.740 because where who who led that course reclamation collective which is like um led by a group of

00:11:21.520 therapists who focus on religious trauma and spiritual trauma and are like specifically

00:11:27.000 trained in that so they create these like processing groups whether you've been a victim

00:11:32.100 of trauma which I have been of course but also they have processing groups for leaders now

00:11:36.900 so that those of us who all we've experienced is toxic leadership in spiritual spaces how do we

00:11:43.720 start to lead differently and it's like I lead a work team I lead a patreon community I you know

00:11:48.260 there's so many and then they just define spiritual power as people trust you so that's like

00:11:54.600 parents that's teachers that's therapists that's the guy on in the in the plane next to me who

00:12:01.500 downloads his entire life story on me when I tell him I do whatever you know I mean like sometimes

00:12:07.260 you're not always asking for that power but it's conferred anyway and so there was just like 12

00:12:12.300 weeks I think of just a bunch of spiritual leaders getting a chance to talk talk and process and like

00:12:17.160 what does this look like in my world um but it's like we need more spaces like that because we have

00:12:22.180 so much power and what does it look like to do it differently and to say um yeah technically i guess

00:12:28.020 somebody needs to lead or somebody needs to take ownership and responsibility um but

00:12:34.060 everyone has a voice and it's not my way or the highway and i'm like such a leo 0.97

00:12:42.500 that and an enneagram one and the big sister and raised by toxic white patriarchal christianity

00:12:51.040 so there's so much divesting that needs to be done yeah and it's really challenging too because

00:13:00.620 at least in my own practice like we're all we're all still living under capitalism we're all still

00:13:08.240 living under colonialism so we also have to like pay our rents and you know pay off our student

00:13:15.180 loans and save for retirement and do all of those things and navigating like having a community so

00:13:24.940 for instance like with my you know subscription service like that is my community it's my

00:13:30.780 responsibility and the money goes to me as well because I couldn't do it without the money like

00:13:35.760 I wouldn't have the time it takes a lot of time to cultivate community like it's a it's a job

00:13:42.520 farming you know it's like it's a job for sure it's a lot of work so so um navigating those

00:13:51.600 territories of like well the buck does stop with me and like I have to show up in a certain way

00:13:57.640 And I have to, like, get things done on schedule, otherwise I don't feel, like, I feel like I have a responsibility to my people, you know.

00:14:11.260 And simultaneously, I feel like my practice and the philosophy of witchcraft is, you know, everyone is a priestess, everyone is a priest, everyone is a priestess, like, there are no spectators in witchcraft.

00:14:24.660 there is no like you are your own authority is one of the fundamental tenets of witchcraft like

00:14:29.480 you are your own spiritual authority so that's really important to um re-emphasize for me and

00:14:37.120 and simultaneously i think that we often all like struggle with like how to how to do the things

00:14:43.000 that we dream of doing while living in a world that's so challenges and in fact um punishes

00:14:50.000 oftentimes people who try and find other ways well this is why I think I want to hear so much

00:14:58.140 more about your work with enchantment particularly with the land because I feel like any of us who

00:15:08.420 are trying to do this revolutionary way of being in this capitalistic world

00:15:12.440 um we there has to be a deeper resource that we turn to when we're concerned that you know

00:15:21.880 divesting from hierarchical structures is going to negatively impact our bottom line and we have

00:15:29.180 a writ to pay and I know I'm more this just this summer I got connected to this image of the Black

00:15:34.760 Madonna that's called Our Lady of Deep Soil and I have been like rooting in her and I've been like

00:15:42.040 in mining all the different aspects of her death as I've you know gone through a fairly turbulent

00:15:52.140 like experience with capitalism this summer and work so I'm really curious to hear like how

00:16:00.460 enchantment with the land can nurture the freedom and the liberation to let go

00:16:07.260 when we want to cling when resource scarcity which is constantly being programmed into us

00:16:14.640 is saying cling cling cling hold on to power tell people what to do stick to that deadline

00:16:20.100 don't listen to your body don't let people be human including yourself yeah you know well

00:16:28.300 Well, I feel like ultimately our fear around our needs being met is one related to belonging.

00:16:38.100 And so the more we connect with the land, which isn't just mean one thing, right?

00:16:46.660 It means that entire matrix, that web of life, meaning humans, pollinators, plants, water, the water table, the way that it connects to the ocean here in L.A. and the precipitation cycle.

00:17:05.140 All of that is the land. And so the more we reweave these webs of relationship between ourselves and the land, the greater our sense of belonging and the more we'll be able to, I get this image when I think of it as like someone holding on, like gripping to some kind of resource,

00:17:32.780 like a nugget of gold or a glass of water or something and it's like we feel like we have to

00:17:38.480 like pry our hands off this resource because we're so terrified of being abandoned and like left to

00:17:47.020 starve and so I was just thinking about this this morning actually on my walk that like the land

00:17:56.420 gave me this little bit of wisdom and thinking about specifically because of um you know the

00:18:01.840 school shooting that happened yesterday um um the the recent shootings of people uh you know

00:18:10.540 black people targeted or like trans people targeted or you know students and i was thinking about

00:18:18.960 the you know the dominant culture in the united states and how 0.89

00:18:26.640 So the people who are doing this violence are so convinced that the only way for them to belong is to shed blood, right?

00:18:49.540 They can't even imagine, and I should include myself in this, they can't even imagine a world where they could belong and be safe without killing, exorcising, extracting other people from the land.

00:19:09.900 it's so tragic for everyone and yeah and and so it really convinces me that um like we're not

00:19:21.980 gonna let that go we're not gonna let that level of violence go unless we feel like we do like

00:19:26.700 unless we see there's a possibility that we could belong like there's a possibility that we could

00:19:33.160 be safe and that is just this really hard work because even for myself like I

00:19:39.880 I panic you know like sometimes I really do panic when I'm like I need to meet this deadline it

00:19:47.680 feels like a life-or-death thing even though like my followers quote-unquote you know they're so kind

00:19:52.640 and generous and they're all working on the same stuff too like they all believe in taking bio

00:19:57.740 breaks and stuff like that but nevertheless i i am like no i have to i have to like there's a

00:20:03.840 there's a primal fear in me of not um of not being okay you know so i i feel like for myself it's

00:20:14.240 about um experimentation and seeing like what works for me and then just sharing that with

00:20:20.860 others but i i see it's really about connecting with the other beings like the more i feel connected

00:20:27.740 the more i feel safe and the more i feel that sense of belonging the more i feel like okay i

00:20:33.500 can take a break and i don't it's not my job to fix the world you know how do you how do you cope

00:20:42.300 with it christina um i have a follow-up question okay

00:20:51.220 what you shared is just so beautiful and it strikes me in light of you

00:21:04.580 having a mystery cult because we talked about that the trouble with cults right or this idea

00:21:13.560 that they're associated with top-down leadership but usually cults have a strong sense of belonging

00:21:20.100 because of that hierarchical structure so I wonder how do you cultivate belonging

00:21:28.860 while also resisting what we would sort of stereotypically call old leaders like vibes

00:21:39.580 yeah before you answer that Amanda this ties into something I wanted to bring up so I'm just

00:21:46.180 going to shoot it out there um that we we are at the equinox and this time makes me think about

00:21:52.680 contradictions but also balance and christina this is actually exactly the point you're making

00:21:58.740 right like how do we balance leadership with dismantling hierarchy how do we balance safety

00:22:06.060 with risk taking um yeah from an equinox standpoint maybe

00:22:12.040 we return to the question but like through the lens of an equinox and and and are we seeking a

00:22:22.380 balance are we just going from from one side of the binary to the other in the equinox what do you

00:22:30.220 think yeah and just to add more amanda like i mean when i think so like

00:22:35.540 groups that have high what we call sensitivity in the social psychology world that's my background

00:22:43.620 high belonging high groupishness they have rules they have in-group out-group lines

00:22:51.340 they have hierarchy it's real organized and so yeah high control and so I'm just like yeah

00:23:00.600 how do we cultivate belonging when people also have freedom and the boundaries are blurred

00:23:07.640 and there is balance yeah oh my gosh um so many like uh paths we could go down as far as like

00:23:19.700 what to say about that first of all i i i just want to say again that when i think of cult

00:23:25.640 I have many different ideas associated with cult for me, but I was thinking of mystery cult in terms of like the mystery cults of like the Eleusinian mysteries or, you know, the mysteries of Dionysus, which we don't associate with anybody in particular except for the gods themselves, right?

00:23:46.100 Like the Dionysian or the Orphic cults, but those we are not thinking of a specific leader, right?

00:23:51.700 We're thinking more of the mysteries themselves, like a cult in devotion to the mysteries who are the cult leaders, we might say, rather than, you know, me in particular.

00:24:01.840 Although I think that I am kind of playing with that idea of like cult leader-ish, but I was thinking of it as like kind of more punk rock version.

00:24:12.960 Initially, when I started this project many, many, many, many years ago, this was the first like web domain I ever bought was called Mystery Project. But then when I came back to this, my podcast producer, Carolyn Pennypacker-Riggs and I were saying, I was like saying, well, it could be Mystery Project.

00:24:34.400 but I also kind of was thinking mystery cults and we were like, yeah,

00:24:36.820 that's like the punk rock version. So I was like, let's go with that.

00:24:41.320 It just kind of has more of a like, um,

00:24:44.480 frisson might say, but, um,

00:24:47.280 as far as the hierarchies and the belonging and the inside and the outside,

00:24:51.220 I would say, first of all, I like to look to, um,

00:24:56.220 other animals besides humans,

00:24:57.660 like wolf packs also have a really strong sense of belonging that like all,

00:25:01.780 all animals like elephants have a strong sense of belonging um orcas have a strong sense of

00:25:07.500 belonging lots of mammals that live in groups have strong senses of belonging and um from a

00:25:13.940 kind of more anarchistic perspective i think groups have to determine what works for them

00:25:20.740 rather than like this is the way we do it and so that this is the way everyone should do it

00:25:28.280 Like I can say in my group right now, it's working to do the work that we're doing in the way that it's happening.

00:25:35.100 But I mean, groups evolve.

00:25:38.020 Eventually, maybe one day I'll step back from a leadership position once it's more established or, you know, I have figured out a way to do that.

00:25:45.420 um so it seems like the group norman's norms and dynamics and who's inside and who's outside

00:25:52.520 um would have to be determined like as a self-organizing system by the group itself

00:26:00.300 what what do you what comes up for you

00:26:03.920 well i you know i feel like i personally am a bit of a refugee from from groups

00:26:15.260 specifically spiritual groups and I think a lot of people in my crowd relate to that like

00:26:21.660 we care deeply about our spirituality we want to do it in community but our experiences have been

00:26:27.220 entirely toxic um and so we're trying to dream up what that looks like um and I'll say personally

00:26:35.860 um this is starts like real clunky real patriarchal I'll give you an example from 0.80

00:26:43.800 the spring you know so I I do a lot of work around the Black Madonna um I was when I first

00:26:51.300 found the Black Madonna like eight years ago or whatever like right in the heart of my leaving

00:26:55.640 like sort of orthodox Christianity um I felt so I finally felt like I belonged to her at least 0.99

00:27:05.660 right but then I met the Black Madonna community which is white women 0.98

00:27:14.460 and it was like extra painful to not to be excluded from that community 0.97

00:27:23.280 and it was like almost unbearable you know what I mean because I had finally found and so I wanted

00:27:29.900 to cling to her because I'm like this is the one place in the world where I belong

00:27:34.060 and there's like a lot of other people telling me I don't belong so then I reacted I had I think

00:27:42.880 like kind of what you described earlier with this like um like panic you know like where what 1.00

00:27:51.040 so then I kind of went into this like white women are the worst which is like a true a lot of the 0.97

00:27:58.840 so I'm not you know what I mean like I'm not saying like you know it was completely inaccurate 1.00

00:28:05.620 but it was it was too much right it was reactive just for podcast listeners who can't see us

00:28:11.880 the three white women directly in front of Christina all giggled and nodded when she said

00:28:17.380 white women are sometimes often the worst we we all we're all on board for that right I don't 0.58

00:28:23.340 we've done it yeah just so listeners know we're here with you okay yeah um and so then my response 0.99

00:28:33.220 to that was like i'm gonna create a black madonna that's not for white women and da da da da and so 0.94

00:28:39.720 that's my way of creating community right and excluding them because i couldn't control them 0.99

00:28:47.400 and I remember this spring having I went I taught this terrible e-course on the Black Madonna that 0.99

00:28:55.820 was mostly populated by white women and there was like a gang of white women some some of them are 0.91

00:29:02.620 actually quite noted teachers of the Black Madonna worldwide who joined the e-course just to like 1.00

00:29:08.680 undermine me and would undermine me every single week in the e-course in the comments I actually

00:29:14.040 saved some of the comments because i'll be using those i mean i think a public a comment in an e

00:29:19.200 course like that in zoom is public you know what i mean i will be sharing those but um i just

00:29:28.860 remember after one of the course class sessions being so angry and going upstairs so i was living

00:29:35.120 in um the boston area at the time and going upstairs my loft where i had tons of black

00:29:39.740 mandana surrounded by them and screaming and being like these white women because I didn't feel like 0.87

00:29:45.420 I belonged and I feel like the black mandana just said to me like I just dropped my knees and started 0.51

00:29:51.180 crying because I feel like she said Christina they don't own me and neither do you

00:29:56.880 release and even now like I feel so emotional even saying that because I think it is so human

00:30:09.020 especially those of us who've been so shaped by colonialism to say I have to possess in order

00:30:14.320 to feel safe and that's what community is possession and I'm still wrestling with like

00:30:23.620 what does it even look like to like be I'm for Black people connecting with the Black Madonna

00:30:29.560 and also I'm not against whatever is happening around the Black Madonna because like you know

00:30:39.000 so it's just this like ongoing I guess invitation for me to release and to just stop clinging 0.54

00:30:46.080 um but it feels like a huge sacrifice and it feels like a huge um purification process 0.56

00:30:54.860 you know like who is the Black Madonna to me if she's more than just something to make me feel 0.63

00:30:59.940 like I belong I mean first of all I'm so sorry that that happened it's like just the the pain

00:31:11.320 hearing the pain in your voice when you talk about that it's really like I really feel it

00:31:17.120 you know feels like I can feel like getting choked up or like the idea that there's this

00:31:24.860 like precious thing that finally you found and that it's been like taken by the very people

00:31:30.780 who've like taken everything like historically um yeah uh and and i so am resonating with what

00:31:40.880 you're saying about colonialism and i was thinking that actually kind of making that connection while

00:31:49.620 you're speaking obviously from kind of the other side of the fence right as like people whose

00:31:55.500 whose family were colonizers and continue to colonize um and i think it goes back to this

00:32:05.280 idea that like colon colonialism like is this corrupting force that affects both ways like

00:32:13.160 it because just thinking about like in my own family for instance um it's done so much damage

00:32:20.960 like the violence within my own family as we were kind of speaking to before we even got on

00:32:25.900 the line um is is a result of colonialism and and how it affects the family unit

00:32:34.520 and so like it goes back to what we were saying about how it's like we can't even imagine a way

00:32:41.420 of doing it a way of being in community or a way of belonging that doesn't involve ownership in

00:32:49.280 some way it all comes down to that ultimately like we we don't even remember that there could

00:32:54.520 maybe there could in some universe be some other way of doing this what you were saying too also

00:33:00.500 reminded me of um some of the work of bio akumalafe who talks about he was talking about that

00:33:06.980 idea of um ashay which is um i'm not sure is it a yoruban word which kind of is like a spiritual

00:33:13.900 force of the universe and someone was asking him about like does he get mad when white people say

00:33:21.500 the word ashay you know white people love to say ashay and aho and like all sorts of like

00:33:26.920 indigenous kind of words um in their spiritual gatherings and he was saying that it doesn't

00:33:34.240 because he is like the because it's a colonialist idea that we can own of a spiritual force

00:33:44.740 because we think it's like our idea but the but in fact it's its own thing it's its own power we

00:33:52.640 don't get to say what it does or where it comes or where it goes and he talks about the idea of

00:33:56.880 ashe is like when somebody says ashe that that that the force of ashe like comes into the room

00:34:04.460 and manifests itself there and that that it had some kind of agency or volition and bringing

00:34:13.140 itself into that space i'm making the connection now between that and like for instance like plant

00:34:22.740 medicines like ayahuasca or mushrooms and how like I do believe that the plants are like trying to

00:34:30.860 get through to us right they're trying to be like look there's this other way look at the plants

00:34:35.600 like look at the way plants live together we can do this together people but that doesn't mean that

00:34:42.260 people always get it right because people go to like ayahuasca tourism and like just practice

00:34:47.420 like colonizing like the amazon but that doesn't mean that the message is wrong it just means we're

00:34:54.920 still confused you know i want to pick this word out of um ideas um not owning ideas but also like

00:35:07.340 both of you are authors so part of you must feel like you know this is my idea and i need to write

00:35:12.860 it down and I need to share it maybe I'll read something from Christina and Amanda maybe you can

00:35:18.260 react to it and then I'll read something from Amanda's book and maybe Christina you can react

00:35:22.600 to it um we'll start with God as a black woman this notion of ideas um Christina wrote let's

00:35:31.020 pull back for a minute to study the idea of God if you close your eyes and try to imagine God

00:35:37.920 what image comes to mind. Even if we don't call ourselves spiritual or religious, gods matter

00:35:45.500 because ideas matter. Ideas are deceptively powerful. Even when we barely pay them any

00:35:54.440 conscious attention, ideas have the power to change our emotions, thoughts, and behaviours.

00:36:02.540 Amanda, do you want to talk a little bit more about the power of ideas?

00:36:07.920 I wonder if there's some way in which we collaborate with ideas in a group way.

00:36:22.520 Because thinking of, as Christina was speaking about the idea of God,

00:36:28.360 And I see paganism or animist traditions, so like paganism being like a European form of animist tradition.

00:36:41.560 I mean, it's like a broad word, but let's say animist traditions.

00:36:46.820 The idea of what God is is so different in that kind of worldview, in that ontology.

00:36:54.000 So I see the idea of God or the gods as like this collaborative project that involves like a mythopoetics, right? So there's like myths that are part of plants, ideas that are part of plants, the we, the plants, the plants are part of us, you know, our bones go into the earth, but we are part of the earth.

00:37:18.380 And so there's this way that there's like collaborative ideas and there, but that I, if I'm understanding correctly, one of the things that Christina seems to be isolating in that passage is like the, the sort of non-corporeal or the imaginative, the imaginal part of ideas that are like, you know, they can switch, they can change.

00:37:45.380 we can't pin them down exactly they can come up as symbols they can be represented in multiple

00:37:49.720 different ways um and that they are very powerful even though they may be not material in the sense

00:37:57.100 that we like normally think of material objects um we might even if i'm understanding it correctly

00:38:07.280 i'm kind of understanding in the same way as like an archetype which is like a force that kind of

00:38:11.720 is like a paradigm that things shape themselves into.

00:38:22.380 I think it really relates to what we're saying now

00:38:25.400 about this imagining of a kind of belonging

00:38:30.080 that doesn't know ownership.

00:38:34.080 And therefore, if we can imagine it,

00:38:40.060 which is like what an idea is then it can it can happen isn't it somebody is it tony

00:38:49.940 k bambara i know adrian mary brown talks about this like that

00:38:53.980 that like we have to we have to be able to imagine this other way of living and that that's why

00:39:03.700 artists are so important because without like artists are the people whose jobs are to imagine

00:39:10.480 things that haven't yet occurred or that are outside of the dominant order so i guess i say

00:39:20.640 yes i say yes to that passage i yeah i cheer on that passage i just want to add like

00:39:31.540 um part of why i connect so much with both your work is that a lot of spiritual work can avoid

00:39:41.440 the political and uh you know in the worst case form it's like groups where it's like we don't

00:39:47.560 talk politics here or actually it can be a lot worse than that but that that can be really

00:39:52.100 disempowering and infuriating. I want my magic, I want my re-enchantment to fuel actual

00:40:01.820 equality. I want physical, social change. I want housing for all. I want, you know, like,

00:40:08.560 I want fucking healthcare for Americans. Like, I want that stuff baked into my life, my work, 0.99

00:40:14.420 all the time. And I think those are ideas that are, you know, begin maybe a symbolic action as

00:40:21.640 as Deb pointed out in the chat, and that Rebecca Solnit says, you know, all revolutions start with

00:40:26.700 symbolic action that comes from a place of art, and then it can become direct action, and then

00:40:30.760 and more. And so I'm so drawn to the way both of you practice and talk, because deeply rooted in

00:40:37.880 that feeling of searching for belonging and of spirituality is a real honest negotiation with

00:40:44.380 the shit that is broken and with bringing community together around activism I wondered if 0.65

00:40:51.840 Christina I know you directly take on the idea of anti-capitalism and it's a point of connection 0.98

00:40:57.940 I know you wrote back to us when you saw the title of our book had anti-capitalism in it

00:41:01.960 I felt proud that you felt proud of us like yes let's talk about it let's put it right in the

00:41:08.140 title um i wondered if you could draw that into this conversation and the way you write about

00:41:14.020 ideas and the power of ideas no i was just that's such a um useful addition because i was thinking

00:41:22.560 about what amanda just said about ayahuasca and people going and like consuming to like

00:41:29.300 sort of tourist touristic consuming of it and it kind of points me back again to like

00:41:34.700 our idea even our ideas about God right and so like I know because I was discipled

00:41:45.580 into a religion with a God that was like a victor and like a go forth and taker 0.93

00:41:54.660 and a top-down authoritarian of course my first steps towards the Black Madonna 0.75

00:42:02.780 are going to have elements of that because that's what it means to be faithful

00:42:08.260 and you know that's that's what little christina was taught you know in sunday school when she

00:42:15.080 learned that that that yahweh told all of the you know freed enslaved people the hebrews to go 0.99

00:42:26.080 and like commit genocide and kill all the black and brown people who worship the black and brown 0.99

00:42:31.060 goddess you know like that's literally what it means to be free to be a follower to be righteous 1.00

00:42:40.180 and so of course when people get connected to a spiritual resource like ayahuasca it's going to be

00:42:49.640 well yeah claim it that's what it means to be free that's what it means to be righteous

00:42:54.160 um and i think because so much of our ideas of god are tied up in capitalism

00:43:02.760 and um i used to i used to write a lot about capitalism in christianity this was years ago

00:43:10.880 and i remember once writing that we think that financial independence is a fruit of the spirit

00:43:16.200 like it's proof that you're like a better christian than other people because you don't

00:43:21.080 you're not poor you don't have need you don't have to go to the church and ask for canned goods

00:43:24.840 and so like I was just talking about how like in a lot of middle-class churches

00:43:28.980 poor people are never elders you can you can't be needing the church's help and also a leader

00:43:35.980 in the church at the same time and that connection between you know like winning

00:43:43.080 at capitalism and God is just so powerful in the American psyche and it's why we believe that

00:43:51.080 you know if you don't have your own money why should you have health care

00:43:55.040 like you're not you're not even human you literally are not even human so why so of

00:44:03.020 course we're not going to have universal health care because some people don't deserve it

00:44:06.940 according to our concept of God which is a very much like um you know like godliness is

00:44:13.980 cleanliness is next to godliness kind of idea you know so um Risa I don't know if that speaks to

00:44:19.940 what you were talking about at all but that's the beginning of it and that's why I was I was

00:44:23.560 really excited to read your book and to even have like a little tiny like shout out because um

00:44:29.860 we need ways to we need more ways to identify how to get free of it's just deep it's just so

00:44:37.920 deeply baked into our psyche um and I was going back to the Protestant work ethic too and just

00:44:43.980 this idea that like to work yourself to death is like the holiest thing you can do other than

00:44:49.700 go become a priest that's like literally how it got started not everybody can be priest so here's

00:44:57.240 how you can be a priest in the world work hard feel yourself yeah you know so it's just

00:45:04.480 there's so much ton pack there yeah

00:45:07.820 let's go to uh a reading from initiated and christine you can tell me what you can give

00:45:17.280 your uh your review um this is from initiated by amanda yates garcia witchcraft is an act of

00:45:27.760 healing and an act of resistance declaring oneself a witch practicing magic has everything to do with

00:45:36.200 claiming authority and power for oneself life itself initiates each of us according to our

00:45:46.040 own particular stories. Our stories lead us toward our purpose in this world. Each initiation

00:45:53.520 strips away something and gives us a gift. If we want to meet our full form, we are obligated

00:46:02.580 to give that gift to the world. And Christina, maybe if you could focus on this notion of like,

00:46:08.800 if you're given a gift or if you're given an idea that you're obligated to share it. Again,

00:46:13.640 both of you are are authors both of you have um the websites newsletters you know projects that

00:46:20.800 are continuing and going what do you think about this this ob maybe to to to use a christian term

00:46:26.440 a phrase like evangelizing your ideas what do we think about having like a calling to share

00:46:32.160 yeah what do we think about that okay first of all what a beautiful um passage you just read

00:46:39.860 thank you Amy for reading it thank you Amanda for writing it um wow it sounds like to me it

00:46:48.500 that whole passage just sounds like major soul deconstruction like um it's identity

00:46:56.380 liberation you know like I'm no longer gonna let the world determine if I do or do not have power

00:47:06.800 I'm going to claim it for myself and I like that it was for myself not over myself or against

00:47:12.100 myself which I think is a common trend in my life um that idea the idea of an obligation to share it

00:47:22.940 with the world just remind it reminds me of Harriet Tubman it was like if you get free go back and get

00:47:28.140 other people free and I I really intentionally want to take it back to that because I feel like

00:47:34.780 in this case that idea is an action it's not uh an ownership thing like she she couldn't

00:47:41.740 she couldn't own more people by setting them free 0.90

00:47:45.860 if anything it was hurting her bottom line to set to go back and set people free

00:47:55.100 but I think she felt like a righteous obligation like how can I be out here being free

00:48:00.740 if other people are not free um and of course like Danny Lou Hamer said the same thing like

00:48:07.660 if none of us if all of us aren't free then none of us are free um and so to me that's where the

00:48:15.440 I think we're obligated to share this with the world that even ideas um feels really resonant

00:48:24.380 but in that sense to me it yeah obligation is such a tough word for me

00:48:30.460 um just with my background um it's it's like should I actually just recently told a beloved

00:48:35.940 in my life like just don't use that word with me because I just I don't like it and obligation I'm

00:48:42.340 right even in the moment I'm trying to unpack like what really is obligation and does it have to be

00:48:48.780 this authoritarian thing can it be more of like a devotion

00:48:52.920 um because I'm just noticing that I have baggage with that word

00:48:58.660 um where i don't feel like anyone's forcing me it's more of like an invitation that if i really

00:49:08.860 want to be free if i really want to experience my power the best way to do that is to be really

00:49:16.500 intentional about sharing it yeah yeah maybe obligation is like a secret here's the secret

00:49:24.240 pathway I I think I think in the in this passage I sort of um interpret obligation more like you

00:49:32.060 would say to someone who's done you a favor oh much obliged you know like you have given me

00:49:36.920 something I mean do people say that in the U.S. maybe not I'm kind of an old soul

00:49:42.000 much obliged yeah yeah that Jane Austen tracks yeah but just this which is cool yeah I was just

00:49:51.480 like do people say that no nobody says it but me but when I say it what I mean is not a sense of

00:49:59.780 like well now I'm weighted down by you know the duty that I have to put more like you've done me

00:50:05.280 a favor and I am much obliged to you and however I can like pay it back to the universe is what I

00:50:11.340 want to do Amanda does that make sense to you being much obliged yeah um you know I the word

00:50:19.240 oblige does have a lot of um meat to it it has like a lot of history if i were to rewrite that

00:50:26.520 i don't know if i would use that word still though i might but um yeah i think the way that i was

00:50:32.100 thinking of that was more of like as um like if we imagine a gift economy that the wealth of the

00:50:39.620 community comes through the trust that resources are shared so wealth comes through the movement

00:50:49.460 of resource the the blood of resource through the body whereas in our culture in the dominant

00:50:58.660 culture wealth is like essentially the hoarding of resources and we might think of that in relation

00:51:08.040 to ideas as like this is my idea and if you're going to use it then you know we need to copyright

00:51:16.060 it and we need to like I need to be getting the um what's it called when you get like money from

00:51:23.440 royalties royalties yeah that I need to be getting the royalties and it's like yeah like the writers

00:51:29.300 right now in Hollywood are fighting for that because like they do need that in order to

00:51:33.340 survive in our world and i can also imagine a world where we don't have to worry about that

00:51:39.460 because the ideas are flowing as um as christina was talking about in that her own beautiful

00:51:47.100 passage about like ideas being very powerful and and therefore they shouldn't just be hoarded to

00:51:54.440 oneself but they need to be allowed to percolate through the community and um and that that is the

00:52:02.480 way that real abundance and security happens is when those ideas go forth however

00:52:08.840 it comes back always to this thing that we're talking about about like wrestling with that

00:52:15.200 on um on a daily basis like within our own lives as writers like yes of course I don't want

00:52:22.860 somebody to just copy my book and then like go out and make money of it because then it's like

00:52:28.200 yeah my my that will impact my you know tenuous middle class lifestyle or whatever I might

00:52:35.840 you know it feels threatening so and and that's legitimate on the other hand in an ideal way

00:52:42.860 I don't want to do that and I want to be like yeah take it see what you can do with it like

00:52:48.360 what happens next um so yeah I don't know how how to do that but I'm trying to figure it out

00:52:56.020 in my daily life yeah i think like what oh sorry no you go ahead oh um okay well i to me it just

00:53:05.340 i feel like what amanda you've been sharing about obliged or just like much obliged makes me think

00:53:15.620 of like tag i'm it and that i'm being invited into a reciprocal relationship not like a

00:53:22.300 transactional relationship but I mean I was talking with a friend one of my best friends

00:53:26.960 we've been friends since my first year in college so over 20 like 20 almost 25 years now

00:53:31.420 um and she she and I were talking about what does friendship even mean today

00:53:37.600 and they're just noticing that over the course of our lives a lot of what we called friendship

00:53:43.340 was really obligation or um something that was really lopsided you know and how we talked about

00:53:50.280 now like friendship whatever friendship is it's the one thing that needs to be there is mutuality

00:53:56.320 in order for it to be to feel like friendship um and I think that kind of going back to

00:54:02.300 equinox balance um this idea that we see can you tell I was a professor for a long time

00:54:08.840 um but anyways this idea that you know this all works in balance so yeah I give and you give

00:54:19.140 um and without keeping tabs but just with also I mean I think intimate relationships that work

00:54:26.800 well there is a general sense of balance right like you're not necessarily keeping tabs but

00:54:31.980 you're also generally aware that there's some there oh there's a little bit of imbalance here

00:54:38.120 let's adjust that um so that there's there's balance and so um yeah I just I that's just

00:54:43.780 those resonate with me but I also just what's coming to mind too is also history and the history

00:54:51.000 of silencing stealing of stories profiting off of people's work particularly women particularly

00:55:00.260 people of color particularly you know you know queer folks and um and so to me it resonates

00:55:08.520 what you said Amanda about like you know I have this tenuous middle-class life so no I don't want 1.00

00:55:12.920 you I don't necessarily want to copyright everything I do but I also don't want you just

00:55:16.200 running off and that's why I feel like the enchantment that you're talking about in your book

00:55:21.200 that even in that little passage is an invitation into this mystical reality right there's this

00:55:27.780 there's this grounded reality of like yeah please don't steal my work because that actually impacts

00:55:36.860 me in a really negative way but then there's also like a mystical reality we're being invited into

00:55:41.060 that i think like the black madonna is inviting me into of like and also i got you

00:55:47.660 the more power you give away the more you'll have like it's this

00:55:56.640 and i can't describe it i just know it's there it's that it's there

00:56:02.860 i feel like you just described it really well

00:56:07.440 but but what you're saying um and what you're saying really resonates with me in relation to

00:56:17.840 the the equinox as well um i was thinking about mabon which is the name of the holiday for

00:56:26.860 witches and um that name comes from mabon at mabon who is a god a welsh god and the name

00:56:35.580 means divine sun but he's also kind of a trans god i i see him as kind of a transitional god

00:56:42.580 because he's about like the shifting between seasons and so that's like literally a transitive

00:56:49.180 function like in his um kind of spirit his iconography but um what i think about that is that

00:56:58.940 if we think the divine sun often relates to literally the sun in our solar system

00:57:05.100 and for witches the this winter solstice is like the darkest night of the year and as my mother

00:57:15.420 says about that holiday it's when it's only during the night when it's dark that you can

00:57:23.940 see out into the limitless universe when the sun is shining we can just see what's around us and

00:57:30.420 And so for witches, there's this idea of like the ego, the solar eye, the self, and it's very bright and luminous.

00:57:41.100 There's a lot of beauty to it.

00:57:43.540 But when it's gone, when it's on the other side of the earth and we can't see it, that's when we can see out into the communal, which in a way is more powerful because it's infinite, right?

00:57:56.380 It's the entirety of all being that we can't even see the end of.

00:58:00.420 So there's this balance of forces of, like, the self who's, like, wrestling with the truth of material existence.

00:58:09.340 And then there's that mystical force that you were just talking about, Christina, which is, like, yes and the infinite, the thing with no beginning, no end, no I, no division, no separation.

00:58:24.320 and that they're intertwined they're simultaneous with one another and that's what kind of happens

00:58:28.920 in this specific holiday is that like we're celebrating and all honoring that and then

00:58:33.960 for me what i really love too is that this holiday is the second harvest holiday the first one being

00:58:41.080 lunasa which is the the harvest of the first fruits um and at august 1st and the the third

00:58:47.620 being Samhain which is an honoring an ancestral holiday and celebration of the um you know the

00:58:54.200 spirits of the beyond but so here we are in the middle and this is really about like gratitude

00:59:00.180 and feasting and abundance and so I think it kind of comes back to what we're saying that like true

00:59:05.720 abundance limitless abundance renew like abundance that renews and renews and renews and renews has

00:59:12.840 to do with this this ebb and flow of seasons tides money ideas um like

00:59:25.120 self another and and that's just what i love about witchcraft and paganism is like we have

00:59:34.100 a holiday that is about this like that you're supposed to think about this and like honor it

00:59:38.660 and do something in your community that really makes these ideas real for you.

00:59:47.300 I'm really curious about how the, in the cult of the Black Madonna, if I can say that,

00:59:56.400 how do y'all deal with the equinox, the autumn equinox?

01:00:02.900 What's your celebratory style here?

01:00:04.920 i don't have one personally yeah i'd be curious to know what other people who are devoted to the

01:00:13.680 black madonna do i know that there are a lot of people who are devoted to black madonna who would

01:00:17.220 also identify as like wiccan or something and so they would probably um commemorate the equinox

01:00:24.200 similarly to you but um i do i mean one of the things that i love about the black madonna

01:00:31.500 is that she's so many things all at once and she's constantly inviting me into

01:00:42.660 yes and this a whole lot more yeah and so that looks like oh sometimes that can be

01:00:52.920 painful because I want to say no but

01:01:01.500 oh yeah i wonder what the black madonna i don't know this but i'm wondering if you know like

01:01:08.640 she's making me think of uh nuit you know the the goddess of the night sky and egyptian

01:01:15.960 lore and then like connecting that like to the winter solstice like that like that totality of

01:01:22.120 being that endless like a soup of the cosmic that from which everything comes yeah and clark strand

01:01:30.760 who's a writer of the writer and devotee of the black madonna talks a lot about the black madonna

01:01:35.420 um as the darkest part of the night as like the infinite darkness which gets tricky

01:01:42.040 when you're talking about blackness and darkness and he's writing as a white man too so it's

01:01:47.540 complicated but one of the things that i like that he says is that you know he discovered one night

01:01:53.640 commuting with the darkness under that the darkness is not a what it's a who

01:01:58.000 and that there's this invitation into intimacy that can only happen

01:02:05.060 as we move into as as we move into what I would call like womb spaces uncertainty spaces like

01:02:13.820 incubation spaces as opposed to darkness which is usually equated with bad and black um and so

01:02:20.400 but this idea that you know this uncertainty space um this infinite night that perhaps night

01:02:28.500 of the soul um is an invitation into being nurtured cultivated um dependent and and so to

01:02:40.320 me that's like a really disruptive way of thinking about balance too because of course i've been you

01:02:47.320 know as a as a capitalist and as someone who was raised um in christianity of course the sun

01:02:53.260 is goodness and light is right and so that like

01:03:00.440 not just accepting or making peace with the uncertainty but also cherishing it

01:03:09.680 and seeing it as a who that wants to be known by me and a who that is ultimately

01:03:17.140 trustworthy even if I don't get it um and even if that who doesn't feel safe necessarily

01:03:26.640 um that to me feels like just a love letter

01:03:33.700 and I think you know this morning I was just in my own practice because I've been sitting in front

01:03:42.340 of this image of Our Lady of Deep Soil every day for I don't know maybe the last 60 days or so

01:03:46.540 and I'm always just trying to get more connected to this image and I was just imagining myself

01:03:51.800 being an earthworm spelunking the deep soil you know and gosh what how to be surrounded by that 0.99

01:04:02.400 much blackness that much um that I can't see the unknown and everywhere I turn there's more of it 1.00

01:04:12.360 and um maybe there's it doesn't feel like there's a way out or back to the surface anytime soon

01:04:20.780 and like I've been spelunking and um I definitely had like probably a panic attack you know because

01:04:28.800 I just didn't like I didn't like that feeling I didn't like it and I was spelunking with like

01:04:36.660 three super skinny white guys who did not have butts or hips and they'd be like come on we'll 0.99

01:04:42.100 just gonna go through this little hole and I'm like my butt's not gonna make it it's not like 0.68

01:04:45.680 I'm gonna be stuck here like so I was trying to just connect with that feeling and then oh but

01:04:55.380 this is deep soil and this soil is good and this soil I can actually just like stop panicking and

01:05:02.600 breathe because she's not gonna let me get lost in here and this is an invitation to this like

01:05:10.440 adventure i like that earthworm image because like earthworms of course move the soil through

01:05:18.280 their body like like they're part of it right i didn't know that yeah like if you if you cut an

01:05:24.680 earthworm in half there's like dirt inside of it like they eat the dirt essentially and then they

01:05:29.900 like through their digestive juices like um essentially inoculate it with like even more

01:05:37.460 nourishment making notes but um i'm also thinking about going back to this idea of colonialism and

01:05:45.720 and that kind of concept of ownership and how often i've been so deeply troubled by 0.99

01:05:52.200 this binarism in our culture that like black

01:05:58.820 night and like black people like like black people get the night and white people get the 1.00

01:06:06.800 light and the day and how like how completely stupid and arbitrary that is like why do like 1.00

01:06:12.360 the idea of owning something like light or owning something like darkness or being like 0.89

01:06:17.020 this goes with them and this goes with like it's such a weird idea like that sunlight

01:06:22.620 gets correlated with essentially like skin color of like one little animal on this earth that has

01:06:35.400 only existed for a couple hundred thousand years in this like billions of years old

01:06:39.560 solar system and also thinking about how like so many african traditions like are about light

01:06:48.960 and like have whole you know um religious traditions that are like really located in the

01:06:58.460 light like egyptian you know solar gods or whatever like it's just such a strange arbitrary

01:07:04.600 idea that like light equals essentially like pink people and and also like gender too like

01:07:15.400 because light is associated with masculinity and darkness and the moon are associated with

01:07:22.080 femininity and actually you know what's interesting is there are a good number there's you know

01:07:26.800 there's all these like weird reasons like complex reasons why the black is on it is black and

01:07:30.900 there are all these like explanations um but some black madonnas are black as activist art

01:07:37.520 they became black in response to the renaissance because artists were like you can't say that

01:07:42.700 everything good is male and and white and light and so they went and so you see these black so 0.94

01:07:50.020 some black you know you see these black madonnas and you look at them and you're like you kind of 0.99

01:07:54.060 just look like a white lady in black face you know because literally they were just painted over 1.00

01:07:58.860 like I'm like you don't even like it's like um I guess that that is a simplistic way of looking

01:08:07.500 at it too because it could be that they're like me and they're 23 percent white which I recently

01:08:11.300 learned in ancestry DNA and was like kind of like it was it was there was I had an identity crisis

01:08:16.640 let's just say that um but you know it could be that too but um but this this resistance to that

01:08:23.300 very idea that you're talking about but you know happening in the 17 16 17 centuries where

01:08:29.020 activists were just like no we don't accept that i just wondered though if oh sorry i just want to

01:08:35.960 add quickly that play with the earthworm metaphor and idea that majority of earthworms in north

01:08:43.700 america are not indigenous that i know they're also brought here you know there were almost no

01:08:49.980 earthworms here like 10 000 years ago after the ice ages they were almost all brought here in the

01:08:55.360 1800s by settler colonizers and so the majority of our land is and sometimes they're fueling the

01:09:02.240 land sometimes they're not sometimes they're straight up stripping the soil and it's so

01:09:06.660 interesting to me to like dig deeper into the history of those kinship relationships right

01:09:11.240 because it helps me understand myself like who was who was also brought here who was doing harm

01:09:16.620 without realizing it how do we relate to those if I can have empathy and care for you know a species

01:09:23.960 gone wild in my garden can I have empathy and care and also try to do better and I wanted to add

01:09:29.620 also I think a lot about the darkness in a universal sense uh you know that we're the

01:09:35.460 majority of the universe is dark matter and we haven't figured it out because we haven't been

01:09:40.080 able to stop paying attention to the the tiny bright objects that are actually such a small

01:09:45.360 portion of what it all is you know we haven't understood dark matter yet at all because we

01:09:49.440 haven't even known how to look at it so i wanted to just add those two pieces with love

01:09:55.560 wow the earthworms are out here just being colonial settlers

01:10:00.040 but that speaks to me so much to what amanda you were saying about a resource that's renewable

01:10:07.140 that we're feeding off that not something that is not renewable

01:10:17.640 for me all of this goes back to another thread about this conversation which is 0.94

01:10:25.980 we don't know what the fuck is going on right like we're so small and like 0.97

01:10:36.460 we can think like 0.97

01:10:38.960 you know here's this idea

01:10:42.740 of the Madonna and of course the Madonna

01:10:44.660 was taken from like Estarte and 0.80

01:10:46.660 Ishar and all these other goddesses

01:10:49.180 and kind of became this

01:10:50.680 other thing and then artists in the

01:10:52.820 Renaissance painted her black or whatever

01:10:54.540 but we don't

01:10:56.780 know that that's not the Madonna or

01:10:58.680 whatever force that is that's like

01:11:00.460 you can't get rid of me like I'll

01:11:02.740 be here I'm going to come back and come

01:11:04.720 back and come back in some form. And you're going to try and get rid of me. You're going to try and

01:11:08.940 get rid of the Madonna even. And then she'll come back and she'll come back and she'll come back

01:11:13.940 because that's like, she's bigger than us. We're not in control here. Similarly, I'm thinking about

01:11:20.000 like invasive species and how, you know, yeah, they are colonizers. They were brought by colonizers.

01:11:25.300 They're very destructive. You know, they can erode forests in like a couple generations. On the

01:11:31.480 other hand we don't know what is really happening right because when we think of invasive species

01:11:36.560 like a lot of people like cut down the weeds that are like growing in the abandoned parking lot and

01:11:41.300 yet that that those weeds are the only ones that can live there and they're the ones who are like

01:11:45.900 remediating that soil and we as humans are like no i know better what should be done here

01:11:51.620 and like that weed shouldn't be there it's not even doesn't even belong on this continent

01:11:56.760 But, you know, there's this there's this great book called Beyond the War on Invasive Species, which is talking it's a scientist who was like all about remediating soil and like dealing with invasive plants and stuff.

01:12:08.820 And he was talking about how he had been hired to like regenerate this kind of swampy land that had been overrun with this invasive species.

01:12:19.880 And he was trying to rehabilitate it so that the indigenous species could live there and thrive there.

01:12:26.760 But the land over so many generations had been so fucked with that the indigenous species really couldn't live there anymore.

01:12:37.080 And yet these invasive species could live there and that they were like changing the soil in such a way that like other beings could live there again. 0.86

01:12:48.680 And I think about that garbage patch at the center of the Pacific Ocean that's like the size of Texas.

01:12:54.540 and what a great tragedy right but then I mean I cry about it all the time this stuff is devastating

01:13:00.180 to me I'm on antidepressants because I can't handle the way that like the world is you know

01:13:05.680 dealing with all this violence but um but like there are microbes on that plastic that are like

01:13:15.040 we can live here we can break this down it might take us like a million years but like the goddess

01:13:22.460 as i understand her potentially the black madonna is like she just knows what to put there and it'll

01:13:28.860 go there like maybe not within our lifespan i i i studied with the zen roshi this um daido

01:13:36.760 lori uh in the zen monastery when i was like in my late 20s and

01:13:40.300 i can't remember the context of why i asked this question but i was just like

01:13:47.520 i was just i was upset that like people were suffering essentially and he had given this

01:13:58.120 reason and i wasn't satisfied with it and i was like well how why is there colonialism still like

01:14:04.920 in africa then and like all these people are suffering there and tortured and like

01:14:09.880 like wealth is extracted from them and it's so unfair and he was like well yeah but you don't

01:14:17.020 know the end of the story yet like you don't know what happens because many civilizations

01:14:23.480 have risen and fallen maybe in a thousand years like the the tables have turned or have gone into

01:14:30.680 something completely different like we we see from the perspective of now we see from a human

01:14:38.460 perspective but we don't we can't see from that universal perspective that where the story just

01:14:46.960 keeps going and going and it won't be the way that it is forever I don't know if that resonates

01:14:53.960 for anyone but my point with that is totally resonates with me yeah the humility right of

01:15:00.320 just recognizing too that like not only are um you know humans just this like speck in the history

01:15:10.400 of the world like I'm so am I you know and it's and I think that totally resonates too with the

01:15:17.100 goddess slash black and daughter because I as much as I I love to talk about the black and daughter

01:15:21.600 you know um magnanimous love and abundance and the you know the life spring and the renewable 0.99

01:15:32.460 resource that she is i also call her our lady to fuck around and find out because like there are 0.99

01:15:40.780 some stories about the black madonna where i'm like yeah she's not playing you know and there's 1.00

01:15:48.300 a pettiness to her too that but the the best kind of pettiness that the kind of pettiness that

01:15:54.900 has a holy no underneath it and so if you actually listen you're gonna learn something

01:16:01.260 you're going to get some wisdom from that pettiness you know but it's interesting when

01:16:05.340 you see like these these goddess stories where they come back and it's like whoa they escalated

01:16:11.160 it you know what I mean like that was not a proportional response like the Artemis stories

01:16:22.740 or whatever I did this thing called um running with Artemis last fall where every every month

01:16:26.940 every week I drove up into Vermont and did trail running and listed Artemis stories from

01:16:31.180 this witch and we like integrated it and so I just heard so many Artemis stories just have last year

01:16:36.520 I was like she was a trip right she's like you catch me bathing I'm gonna like sick these wild 1.00

01:16:43.680 dogs on you to tear out your entrails yeah and she's like and I have a whole pack of like dog 1.00

01:16:50.600 gnomes like fairies like a bunch of people I have a whole army of mythical creatures that will come 0.98

01:16:57.980 for you if you look at me the wrong way if you look at me with lust you know what I mean 1.00

01:17:02.820 so there's that element too of just like you know and that's it's funny because in 2010 yeah I was

01:17:12.440 doing this gender and Christianity seminar like month-long fellowship thing and I met this woman

01:17:17.940 who's really high up in the um Catholic church she's like a um a provost at one of the like 0.99

01:17:24.700 major Catholic universities and I just remember talking to her and she's a feminist you know and

01:17:29.160 an intersectional feminist and I was like how do you even deal with being in this like you're you

01:17:35.600 you're so committed to this institution you have a lot you have you know about as much power as you 1.00

01:17:40.580 can have and still be a woman in this institution how do you like don't these like rules and 1.00

01:17:46.360 regulations and the patriarchy like doesn't it just like deflate you all the time and she's just

01:17:51.760 like oh the bishops will die and i was like that is so morbid i was like are you planning on

01:18:03.940 guilt i mean like it just makes you but it's so true though because like she was like

01:18:09.100 like the catholic church isn't nowhere where it once was yeah and also like she's just like

01:18:16.520 they don't have the last

01:18:18.780 word. They don't have the

01:18:20.780 last word. They don't get the last word. We don't know the whole

01:18:22.760 story. And it's like, she

01:18:24.720 was just so unbothered. And that to me

01:18:26.720 felt like that mystical, like, right?

01:18:28.620 She's obviously only aware

01:18:30.740 of what the Catholic Church is, right?

01:18:33.300 And also,

01:18:34.840 she's like, I'm not

01:18:36.880 going to let them bother me.

01:18:38.880 I'm going to keep doing my work.

01:18:40.540 Because we don't know the end of the story.

01:18:44.020 Yeah.

01:18:44.900 There's a thing about that

01:18:46.520 kind of in witchcraft well i guess i kind of partially put it there i'm drawing from some

01:18:52.460 ideas in witchcraft where i think about um desire you know and how in witchcraft like you're

01:18:58.580 essentially supposed to like really listen to your true desire your kind of true will and then

01:19:03.080 follow that because that's like a desire that's put in you by the goddess because she needs

01:19:08.460 something done and you don't know what that is and you don't know why that is and i think about

01:19:12.800 that kind of like a beaver where like a beaver is just like that wood goes in that water like

01:19:19.300 that tree needs to be in that water because I want it there I have a desire to put it there

01:19:26.400 I'm not questioning it I'm just going with it and then that creates these wetlands that attracts

01:19:32.020 insects that attracts birds that attracts um trees and forests so the beaver essentially by

01:19:38.300 following its desire to put that wood in the water is nurturing this whole forest but it's

01:19:44.260 not thinking you know what i'm gonna do this whole ecological project and you know rehabilitate

01:19:51.020 these wetlands it's just like nope that that log cannot stand it needs to be over here

01:19:56.860 so i i see it kind of like what that woman was saying you know like we don't know how it's gonna

01:20:04.660 go we just need to I feel like we just need to follow the desire but the trick is to know

01:20:10.560 which desire like because a lot of desires are put into us by this like capitalist machine

01:20:17.360 which maybe is like doing something that we don't understand right like maybe we need to do all this

01:20:23.140 so that we can get to another planet someday or something we don't know why that is but um

01:20:27.760 but i feel like in in witchcraft the idea is like that your true will can't it won't be your

01:20:36.500 true will if it impedes the free will of some other being like your your true will cannot be

01:20:45.600 to hinder the free will of someone else so yeah do us that well she'll be the whole of the law

01:20:57.760 do you both have the time or energy or inclination to maybe take a question from our

01:21:05.440 coven mates who are here what's your time like guys we're we're at the hour and a half

01:21:11.100 are you hard do you have a hard i could say for like another 10 10 or 15 minutes

01:21:15.220 right so coven um if you have a question you can unmute yourself now or maybe you can raise your 0.99

01:21:21.580 hand if there are you oh no questions just oh here goes lisa running to her

01:21:28.720 hi lisa hi hi this has been such a great conversation to listen to thanks everybody

01:21:36.580 for being here um i was raised by a mother who loved science fiction and really understood like

01:21:45.900 the science of the cosmos but to my five-year-old mind anyways anyways so like we didn't go to

01:21:52.500 church we weren't that kind of family but i had church families all around really understood that

01:21:56.480 context from an outsider view but i think like the big bang started the universe and everything

01:22:03.440 is just like on this trajectory outwards from that spiraling swirling and uh so that's where

01:22:10.820 i derived my sense of spirituality too um thinking about if we are like the idea of obligation like

01:22:18.380 you're gonna do the thing that you've been given for the world that if we are each these like

01:22:23.940 little particles flinging outward from the great big bang that we each have unique properties

01:22:31.620 amongst us and that um i don't know maybe the goal the ideal is to fly as far out from the center

01:22:40.060 as you possibly can and the best way to do that is unimpeded and without banging into others

01:22:45.660 pushing other people off course or whatever so that obligation is like find your perfect balance

01:22:51.900 in the sense of like you are a moving particle in a moving universe find your balance and move

01:22:57.320 through it freely without bumping into others and causing them to go off course or causing yourself

01:23:02.140 to go off course and like maybe we do sometimes bump into each other and propel again more

01:23:06.900 further outward but um you have a duty to like find your spin and fly find your spin yeah

01:23:15.840 anyways that's what came up for me while I was listening to you guys that's so interesting Lisa

01:23:21.500 I was thinking about it in such similar terms like last night that I was falling asleep I was

01:23:25.820 thinking about just being these like threads of energy and and that sometimes magical work or

01:23:33.900 like spell work is is hoping I can draw someone else's trajectory to intersect with mine for just

01:23:40.300 a sec like just maybe we could share this point of intersection for just a moment and there would

01:23:45.780 be some energy created there thanks so much for sharing that I love that image gotta find your

01:23:52.100 spin I love too how that ties into what Amanda was sharing about your true your true will being

01:24:02.760 something that's not going to impede someone else's free will. I think in the context of

01:24:06.740 community, what that means is there's consent. I'm consenting to letting your will impact me

01:24:15.040 and vice versa, which to me kind of gets at the finding your spin and like what happens when you

01:24:23.060 do cross paths, my spin cross paths with someone else's spin. Well, then the question then is,

01:24:29.980 do I have your consent to bump into you and be transformed by you and vice versa? And in my,

01:24:38.160 I do a lot of interplay, which is like embodied wisdom play for adults. And we often skip backwards

01:24:43.800 just to like try something new. And if you bump into someone else, you just say, you're welcome

01:24:48.540 instead of I'm sorry, because we've all consented to participating in this practice together in a

01:24:54.960 right so of course I'm not just randomly bumping into you know but it's like but what does it look

01:25:01.040 like when our spin is in balance with other people's spins in the and in the context of consent

01:25:07.600 that to me feels like that's where the that's where the big bangs happen

01:25:14.120 yeah and so much of community building is this right like I mean I yeah I've done this in

01:25:22.200 different realms for so long and so much of it is like do you feel like you can leave are you

01:25:28.880 gonna get a shit ton of pressure if you leave are you gonna feel relieved if you really if you leave

01:25:33.600 like what does it really feel like in your body to be a member of something if you take a like

01:25:38.540 that's one of the big pieces of advice given to people who think they might be in a cult it's like 0.96

01:25:43.180 what happens if you take a break for a month are you gonna get a bunch of shit or you're gonna be 0.95

01:25:47.860 okay like you know how do we how do we are we giving ourselves consent to like listen to our 0.98

01:25:53.920 bodies where we feel happy where we feel safe or we just I mean so much of our culture has

01:25:58.820 desensitized us to our own feelings of not safe or our own feelings of empowerment so it's hard

01:26:04.760 to even know if I feel good in a community really have to take the time to listen to that yeah

01:26:10.920 thanks for bringing this conversation to so many spinning beautiful wise places

01:26:19.020 you are two of our favorite writers um can i say one thing about that spinning yes please

01:26:25.620 just want to add a little bit um yeah it really everything all y'all are saying really reminds me

01:26:33.360 of just the idea of relationship in general because like and the kind of beautiful like

01:26:44.020 purposelessness of existence and that like we can intersect with one another we can run into

01:26:51.360 one another and that's when relationship happens right which seems very beautiful to me

01:26:55.440 and then we can get in relationship based on consent and still bad things can happen right

01:27:02.320 like you can get in a relationship it can break your heart it can destroy you and maybe you both

01:27:08.040 were like let's do this and maybe it still hurt you and um and then maybe you split apart and you

01:27:15.140 come back together some point or like there was some purpose later on that like only because you

01:27:19.660 were in that relationship could you be in this other relationship with that turned out way better

01:27:23.220 whatever like this story never ends you know like and so really it comes down to like what do we want

01:27:29.540 if there's if there's not like you know maybe there is a purpose or a reason to the suffering

01:27:36.000 that happens maybe we don't know what that is maybe we'll never know but in this moment we get

01:27:43.120 to be like what do we want what do we want to do together how do we want to create this together

01:27:48.120 so that's that's what you're you're atoms propelling through the universe brought up for me

01:27:57.500 i love um atoms in the universe and we four being four of them um thank you so much for going into

01:28:09.980 the deep soil with us for spending equinox with us amanda i want to thank you for initiated i want

01:28:18.200 to thank you for mystery cult i want to thank you especially for writing the forward for our first

01:28:23.760 book that was a great treat thank you so much for inviting me to do that how can our listeners

01:28:30.260 support you or what's the best i want to thank you you all here for having me today this has

01:28:37.460 been such an enriching conversation and thank you so much christina as well like what a treat

01:28:41.460 thank you for introducing me to christina this has been such a blessing to um be able to be

01:28:47.120 engaged in this beautiful conversation and uh yeah if you want to know more about my work i

01:28:52.960 suggest you check out my cult join my call at amandayatesgarcia.substack.com the first level

01:29:01.000 is free so there's no obligation and even if you join and then want to leave that's totally fine

01:29:06.140 um and then the news the newsletter is so magical and fantastic it really is like a treat to receive

01:29:13.120 so i i would recommend all our listeners go and do that right now thank you so much and then um

01:29:18.940 Yeah, you could check out my book, Initiated Memoir of a Witch, or follow me on Instagram at Oracle of LA.

01:29:25.380 You can also book an appointment with me for a one-on-one divination or healing or ritual session.

01:29:31.400 I will say, it was many months ago that Rhys and I were like, what if we could get Christina and Amanda into the same room?

01:29:41.060 Like, it was very much like...

01:29:42.880 Like, if you just had a sense, like, that would be a good convo, or...

01:29:46.480 Well, let me say...

01:29:47.740 what were the chemical the chemicals being imbibed at the time when that came out

01:29:52.360 just tea and sympathy tea and sympathy

01:29:57.020 but um well the reason is because um again like thank you christina for writing the forward

01:30:08.380 for our new book new moon magic um again like we're we're just such huge fans and it's such

01:30:15.580 an amazing honor. And I will say like a thrill to have someone that you respect and admire and

01:30:22.400 adore so much to basically like write an essay about your good work that you just did. It's

01:30:28.460 really, it's really like such an amazing feeling that I don't, I can't compare to anything else.

01:30:35.960 It's so validating, maybe validation, but it's more joyful than value. It's a joyful validation.

01:30:42.500 But again, Christina, I want to thank you for God is a Black Woman. 0.92

01:30:46.380 I want to thank you for Shameless Liberation.

01:30:49.780 And of course, again, thank you for writing the foreword for New Moon Magic.

01:30:53.520 How can our listeners best support you and your work and your abundance?

01:30:57.900 Last time we talked, you were like on this abundance.

01:31:01.000 Yeah, I talk a lot about abundance.

01:31:03.220 Well, I want to say thank you, too, first of all, for having me and for inviting me to write your foreword.

01:31:08.680 um it felt like such I was told the whole time um and thank you for introducing me to Amanda I had

01:31:16.560 a moment earlier in this conversation where I had a thought that I have not had since November 1999 1.00

01:31:27.160 and I this thought was I want to be friends with this white woman 0.62

01:31:34.120 wow that is the greatest honor i've ever received and she went on to become one of my best friends

01:31:41.960 but like no pressure but i'm just saying like in 1999 i ran into someone on my campus and i

01:31:49.100 was like i want to be friends with her that's the last time i've heard that about a white woman

01:31:53.780 and that was like the goal me down 1.00

01:31:56.460 if we can introduce them then something very magical will fruit from this for sure 0.97

01:32:04.940 and i i'm still grateful that i can make so many comments about white women in this space

01:32:10.920 because i know that that there's an authenticity and a knowing

01:32:14.800 yes yes um how can people uh those who still want uh to at this point um join my

01:32:26.400 my cult um i have a cult on patreon um so the people that's such a great way to just

01:32:33.260 sustainably support my work um i am so excited because we're we just launched this but um i'm

01:32:42.080 leading a black madonna pilgrimage for black women in may in paris and we're gonna go see

01:32:48.420 four french black madonnas and also live our best parisian black women lives so if you if you are a

01:32:54.780 black woman and or non-binary person or you know folks who would benefit from such a pilgrimage

01:33:01.060 let them know about it and um maybe even get them a gift card to help them pay for their

01:33:09.660 pilgrimage and to support their liberation and their sacredness so those are two ways to kind

01:33:15.560 of be involved I also have a goddess a black woman newsletter which you can go to my website

01:33:19.540 and sign up for it's super fun it's like a monthly it feels like a spiritual but like just

01:33:24.240 luxurious bath like skip the $15 bath bomb and just read this thought it's a black woman newsletter

01:33:31.780 yeah yeah that's free too that's a free way to be engaged with my work

01:33:40.100 I just want to go back and and reiterate one last time I mean we we asked you both because

01:33:49.840 you're our favorite writers let's no bullshit like we read a lot of books that's what we try

01:33:55.640 to do is just try to read a bunch of stuff and tell people about it um and both of your books

01:34:01.880 have like shattered me had me in tears had me cheering they're just to get to go um into those

01:34:09.660 questions with people who are so vulnerable and so authentic and so such beautiful writers

01:34:18.500 um it really gave us a lot of hope and made us feel like we had found the stream we wanted to

01:34:26.400 swim in it made us feel like what we were doing was legitimate and not more repackaging and

01:34:34.580 reselling of the new age it's not what we want to do and you know we wanted to find people who

01:34:39.480 took it in this space in this activist space that was still wrestling honestly with our own selves

01:34:46.280 and so yeah just thank you so much for your work and thanks for saying yes and not not just not

01:34:54.460 just favorite writers but you know favorite thinkers favorite world changers favorite you

01:34:59.720 know people who are who are creating the world that Risa and I want to live in and again it's

01:35:05.640 it's uh it's brilliant to be in circle with you both and of course you can exchange numbers and

01:35:11.220 leave us out of the next time the two of you hang out we you know we give our consent for you to to

01:35:19.860 go and fruit in the deep soil on your own next time as the as the big bang that knocked you

01:35:26.400 happy equinox happy equinox and thank you thank you too so much for the for the work that you

01:35:35.480 create and i've always been so impressed by the generosity and um trust that you put forward into

01:35:44.540 your communities which i feel like is is like uh does actually the work of this like reciprocity

01:35:51.640 of giving and you know the way that you always give back to people and um the the love that you

01:35:58.200 access so easily and generously it's like it recreates the world as like you you see it you

01:36:06.260 do it you make it you made it happen today um i feel so honored to be here and to be here with

01:36:13.040 both of you and also so deeply honored by you christina that

01:36:16.540 you would want to be my friend i would humbly accept with great gratitude

01:36:21.420 dude i'm honored yeah i just want to echo what you said about the work that you amy and risa do

01:36:30.180 because um it there's just yeah it's really beautiful i mean i've i've been on a lot of

01:36:35.520 podcasts and there are very few where i'm like oh i'm like i want to lean into what's happening

01:36:40.800 here um usually i'm more like they're so lucky that i grace them well we are we are both things

01:36:49.020 can be true at once you're on a podcast where it's like oh they haven't read my book and like

01:36:53.500 you know what I mean like you know you're everyone's authors here like you know what

01:36:57.900 I'm talking about um so you kind of just like come in and you're like I this is not there's

01:37:02.420 no reciprocity there's no mutuality here I'm just another thing that they're consuming you know I'm

01:37:09.640 content for their audience um and I didn't feel that with you all and that really resonated with

01:37:16.120 me just as a black woman bringing a book a book as vulnerable as mine into the world

01:37:20.180 um but then to like follow and to like listen in to so many of the podcasts and to see how you all

01:37:27.820 practice that reciprocity with everyone is has been really beautiful to witness so yeah

01:37:34.220 and it's so interesting I'm always like yeah they have like they read the book

01:37:39.600 that's so amazing and so when you say oh you should get this book I'm like oh I should get

01:37:46.260 the book like I've bought several books off off of listening to your podcast because I know y'all

01:37:50.480 actually read the book there have been a couple times where I've been like this is a great book

01:37:57.840 it's super fun but never actually said the tag of like go out and buy this book

01:38:02.280 yeah i have noticed yeah yeah yeah initiated god is a black woman listeners if you haven't already

01:38:11.020 go and buy these books immediately amanda you go and buy that your new your new moon book

01:38:18.020 everybody needs that book both of your books because because you're doing that with liberatory

01:38:25.260 work and and and you also show exactly how to do it you know like you're like here are some ideas

01:38:31.200 And this is how we do it

01:38:32.660 And here's what came up for us as we did this

01:38:34.960 And this vulnerability

01:38:35.820 All interwoven with love

01:38:37.380 So I highly recommend

01:38:40.220 All of it's sources cited too

01:38:41.560 Y'all are really good at citing sources 0.99

01:38:46.020 Cite your fucking sources people 0.99

01:38:47.820 So thank you Christina Cleveland 1.00

01:38:51.720 Thank you Amanda Yates Garcia 0.97

01:38:53.560 Happy Equinox and blessed fucking be 0.99

01:38:55.680 Blessed fucking be 0.99

01:38:56.720 Blessed fucking be 1.00

01:38:58.440 you must be a witch 1.00

01:39:04.580 if you want to support the missing witches project 0.94

Missing Witches - September 21, 2023

Mabon 2023： Collaborating With Our Ideas w⧸ Christena Cleveland And Amanda Yates Garcia

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