Missing Witches - Mabon 2025： Word Witches With Charlie Burgess, Kate Belew, and Sanyu Estelle

00:00:00.880 if you want to support the missing witches project buy our books new moon magic and missing witches

00:00:06.480 and our deck of oracles the missing witches deck of oracles or join the coven find everything you 0.98

00:00:13.120 need to know at missingwitches.com you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch 0.51

00:00:22.480 you must be a witch happy equinox to the missing witches coven 0.68

00:00:27.840 the geese are leaving the lake. The leaves are starting to fall and we've got this one day to

00:00:35.600 celebrate equilibrium before we tumble into the dark half of the year. Fall winter is of course

00:00:42.880 the perfect time to sit alone, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of tea and start writing.

00:00:49.920 So for Mabon, the autumn equinox, I've invited three word witches from across the USA, triangulated

00:00:59.100 even, to guide us into and through our writing practice. Senyu Estelle is also known as the

00:01:09.560 word witch because of her deep love for word origins and word culture. Senyu is a self-described

00:01:16.740 pigmented, womanist, sissy, flexible, asexual, travel-apt, and fashion-forward SSJW, 0.95

00:01:27.320 sarcastic social justice warrior. We love sarcasm around here. Love and light is great, 0.99

00:01:32.600 but hey, give me your sarcasm all day. She is also a musician, singer, and lyricist. Her latest album,

00:01:41.000 Shipwrecked, came out last year, and she's a tarot historian and card reader who promises

00:01:49.780 the reading you need, not the reading you want. Her book, The Cultural Roots of Tarot, will be out

00:01:57.240 in fall 2026, so hopefully we'll have her back on the pod to talk more about that next year,

00:02:04.360 sanyu open invitation in her essay i am the fight sanyu wrote black liberation does not equate to

00:02:14.120 white supremacy it remedies it kate bellew is an author poet and witch whose work exists at the

00:02:23.400 crossroads of creativity and craft she has taught and facilitated circles and workshops worldwide

00:02:30.360 since 2017. Kate has an MFA in poetry from Sarah Lawrence College and is an initiated green witch 0.90

00:02:40.280 fully devoted to the magic of poetry and the poetry of magic. She's also the co-host of Magic

00:02:47.440 and Alchemy, the Tamed Wild podcast with co-host Kristen Lizenby. Shout out, Kristen.

00:02:52.880 kate's new book word witch is a literary grimoire a guide and companion helping readers

00:03:00.980 through the alchemy of becoming writers in which kate reminds us that everyone is creative

00:03:07.540 everything is connected writing is magic word witch is out october 7th and available for

00:03:17.100 pre-order now publishers love those pre-orders people charlie claire burgess is a self-described

00:03:26.440 queer and trans non-binary author and artist working at the intersection of spirituality

00:03:32.040 and queerness a prolific author and death creator death

00:03:38.040 deck creator charlie's latest book is queer devotion queer devotion reveals that spirituality

00:03:49.620 has always been far queerer than we've been led to believe queer devotion's first line is

00:03:55.920 in the beginning the gods were queer and charlie insists that they still are charlie's decks to

00:04:05.720 reimagine archetypes beyond binaries. Their latest deck is Fifth Spirit Tarot.

00:04:14.220 And just to put a fine point on it, they are, were, Charlie, maybe you can speak to this, are, were,

00:04:20.300 the host of the Word Witch podcast, and their IG handle is The Word Witch. So if you missed the

00:04:29.120 title of this episode, Use Your Context Clues, today we are talking about the magic of words.

00:04:37.240 As Terry Tempest Williams wrote, a pencil is a wand and a weapon. And our guests today will

00:04:44.540 help us learn how to most powerfully wield this wand and weapon. Please join me in welcoming

00:04:53.160 the beautiful the talented the wonderful the exceptional sanyu estelle kate blue and charlie

00:05:01.980 claire burgess yay hi kate i'm gonna leave you to last because our listeners know you

00:05:12.240 um and they know your work so let's start with sanyu i want to start with this question we say

00:05:20.880 all the time you are under no obligation to be who you were five minutes ago wonderful i agree

00:05:26.520 so i want to know like who are you today is there anything that you want our listeners to know

00:05:33.760 about you before we jump into my questions uh today i am still a soothsayer truth teller

00:05:43.520 claire cognizant card reader i have been actually this is totally random thing to say but it is on my

00:05:50.300 on my spirit whatever that you know when you went into the science store in what my niece calls the

00:05:56.660 1900s and there was the pins thing that you stuck your hand into and it took your what was that

00:06:04.400 called i am i am desperate to know the mystery of that because that's what i think of claire

00:06:08.800 cognizance as right please expand please you know it's like i know what i need to know when i need

00:06:15.180 to know it about what and who i need to know it about for as long as i need to know it and then

00:06:18.420 i forget it so i you know when i was getting into my craft i'd be like oh god i'm not a psychic

00:06:24.500 like i don't know things ahead of time you know i'd like have angst about it and then as soon as

00:06:29.220 people sat down i would know things and i was like oh claire cognizant is like that pins thing

00:06:33.880 it's like when you need it and then it goes away so that's who i am today like it pushes through

00:06:40.020 but then when you turn it they all fall back it's like an impression and then when people get up and

00:06:45.260 go away the impression fades I love that that's what you want our listeners to know about you

00:06:51.540 yes randomly Charlie who are you today who were you yesterday who cares about yesterday but you

00:07:00.900 didn't you've done a lot of amazing work so let's let's talk about yesterday and today

00:07:05.220 yeah totally thank you um uh I think that the thing that I would add to your beautiful intro

00:07:13.800 is that I'm actually currently working on a novel so yeah so I've got my two non-fiction books

00:07:24.680 and now I'm going back into fiction territory I started as a fiction writer I have my MFA in

00:07:32.180 fiction and wrote a lot of short stories had some really cool success with that about like

00:07:40.740 10 13 years ago and then life took me in a different direction and i found tarot and

00:07:48.520 it all this happened it is still happening so i'm like not going away from tarot or witchcraft or

00:07:54.480 spirituality but i am writing a queer horror novel and i'm almost done so 0.57

00:08:02.480 i i mean i want to get through our introduction sorry kate you're gonna have to sit there

00:08:08.080 on mute for another second but there's so much i mean like this this overlap of like queerness

00:08:16.120 and witchcraft and also this overlap of like queerness and and horror in the sense of like

00:08:23.840 monsters yes yes yes yes absolutely uh i have a essay coming out in the rebus which is a uh

00:08:32.800 literary anthology of creative writing and art uh surround that surrounds like one tarot card each

00:08:40.020 time um but it's like creative writing so it's poetry and essays and short stories it's not just

00:08:44.880 like this is what the tarot card means right um and this uh issue is themed the devil and so i

00:08:52.900 wrote a essay on the devil tarot card as transgender liberation and it's very much

00:08:59.140 like that nexus of what you just said of like queerness yes and you're holding up the uh

00:09:05.600 wheel of fortune issue which was i think was the first one um but yeah it's very much the

00:09:10.400 intersection of queerness and uh transness and monstrosity but in like a beautiful liberating

00:09:17.380 i don't need to be what you tell me i need to be kind of way so yeah totally which is also kind of

00:09:25.080 i'm doing with my book so i'm so excited to dive more into this because again like um i i gathered

00:09:33.000 you all together as it were because you all self-identify as word witches but you all have

00:09:39.260 completely different practices and media and form and content and and and and and so we'll get into

00:09:48.580 fiction versus poetry versus essays versus Kate who are you today it's a great question

00:09:58.960 um who I'm really happy I'm happy to be here amongst word witches amongst all of you this is

00:10:05.860 really I'm just really grateful I'm still still and always have been a poet and a witch and

00:10:13.140 And I'm here in Brooklyn, and my dog Banjo is here with us, and that's me.

00:10:23.000 I'm a poet with a dog in Brooklyn.

00:10:27.340 The dream, the dream of my younger self.

00:10:30.460 You are living many people's dream, for sure, for sure.

00:10:34.540 So let me start with the basics.

00:10:38.860 And Kate, let's start with you since we ended with you.

00:10:42.160 what is a word witch like what does that mean to you what does that mean to your practice and like

00:10:50.880 what is a word witch what's the difference between a word witch and an author a poet

00:10:56.740 a lyricist an essayist there are probably as many word witches as there are word witches like

00:11:06.540 everyone just being so different and like you said in their own craft I guess to me a word

00:11:11.680 Witch is someone who loves language, who believes in the power and the intention of language,

00:11:19.800 who crafts poems or stories or storytellers, is a part of the larger lineage of creative

00:11:29.480 ancestors, who wants to be a good creative ancestor, who takes the hand of the writers

00:11:35.460 before us and throws the hand back um a word which is a channeler a word which is a knower

00:11:44.220 and a and a speaker and we all of us can be word witches if we want to be word witches

00:11:52.620 and what do you think separates an author a poet a lyricist from a word which where does the magic

00:12:00.660 come in I think that that for me is like the the intention behind it and that like acknowledgement

00:12:08.040 of that magic like I feel like all word witches can be any and all of those things but maybe not

00:12:15.820 all of those people would identify themselves as a word witch or do the work of the word witch

00:12:21.940 which is like giving honor to or working with that greater, greater magic.

00:12:30.680 Edgar Fabian Frias said to me once, and I carry this all the time, is that what's interesting

00:12:37.560 about witches is that we are self-ordained. And so I think that's kind of what you're saying,

00:12:43.680 the difference between a word witch and an author is that intention, that decision, that,

00:12:49.940 you know knowing even yeah and that's something too that I think writers are as well like I've

00:12:56.740 always I don't I remember this moment of um Conrad Hillberry a Michigan poet where I grew up

00:13:04.200 writing um our names in third grade in our notebooks and then signing and dating it with

00:13:09.100 the statement is a poet and so we from that early age could like claim that that word for ourselves

00:13:15.260 because I think that there's it's it's hard it's a hard fight sometimes in this world to claim

00:13:20.080 claim our names but poet and writer and which I think all have that in common yeah we'll come back

00:13:27.040 to the liminal space of the blank page but I just want to I want to suggest um that at the top of

00:13:34.480 the page listeners start with your name is a blank lyricist poet essayist have that at the top of

00:13:42.760 your page I'm going to start doing that Amy Torek is asking Sanyu the same question

00:13:48.940 what is a word which and why do you call yourself that

00:13:53.960 uh word which all of what Kate said I agree and also I would say a word which is someone

00:14:03.940 who intentionally crafts language

00:14:07.200 to deliver a particular message.

00:14:12.700 I think the difference between word witchery

00:14:15.520 and maybe being a writer,

00:14:16.860 although obviously there's a lot of overlap

00:14:18.460 because I think we're all writers too

00:14:20.660 and probably came into word witchery through writing,

00:14:24.080 is your investment even before the writing

00:14:32.880 and after the writing in what was said right because as a word which I'll go back and like

00:14:38.720 change things I've written when I change my perspective or I will take things offline that

00:14:47.400 no longer align with the identity that I have today you know to the degree that you can take

00:14:51.160 things offline and you're I think the difference between a word which and maybe any other kind of

00:14:58.640 uh artist of words is um you're how investigative and curious you are about like

00:15:11.020 what you choose to say and what you choose to hear um because for me I was a kind of child who

00:15:20.540 underlined words and highlighted words I didn't know and then went home and looked them up in

00:15:25.560 dictionary you know so there was an that was always going to be a part of my character whether

00:15:30.240 i had found like craft or a pagan uh indigenous cosmology that then spiritually led me and then

00:15:39.780 maybe also i would say a word which is like intentionally spiritual yeah and whatever that

00:15:45.100 might mean across cosmologies and practices i love also your interest in etymology because it is this

00:15:54.000 like digging and digging we use words I use thousands of words a day but I'm not necessarily

00:16:00.180 thinking about the root of the root of the root of the root but we all know we're word witches right

00:16:06.240 we know that language informs if not creates our reality via our perspective right

00:16:13.360 yes language is a spell for sure um and you know even when you get into the etymology of things

00:16:23.120 like word or or i have tattooed on my wrist speak on this one right and i have listen on this one

00:16:30.860 so like those still come down i think a lot of people think of words in written form now that

00:16:37.600 so many of us are literate um but obviously it was sounds and and all oral telepathic communication

00:16:48.840 whatever our ancestors were doing way back when um so the reason I like the roots is because I

00:16:54.520 like to see the evolution of words and if they still mean what they were intended to mean from

00:16:59.700 the beginning and like how they have grown um or not and and how they shape our world right like

00:17:07.420 I remember I did a whole project when I was in school about the word virtue and the root of that

00:17:13.040 being weir which is like latin for man you know so like from this feminist perspective of equating

00:17:19.180 manhood with virtue um and and that's how we've been trained on language okay charlie charlie

00:17:26.600 charlie charlie charlie what is a word witch yeah well sort of piggybacking on what you were

00:17:33.380 saying a moment ago amy um about language um language being a spell as sanyo said uh i mean

00:17:42.820 it does, I think of language, well, it shapes our reality for better or worse. It sort of defines

00:17:48.200 how we understand reality because when we make meaning of things, we make that meaning through

00:17:54.700 language to a certain extent, you know, and as writers as well, I think we all know the struggle

00:18:01.260 when like you are looking for a word to describe something and just can't find that word. And

00:18:07.860 sometimes it's because you know you just don't have it in your vocabulary but sometimes it's

00:18:13.880 because it doesn't exist in whatever language we're using um and i think that that's something

00:18:18.700 that multilingual people really have up on us only you know my i only speak english i

00:18:25.220 questionably speak spanish and french but like not really you know um like language defines

00:18:34.760 what's possible for us in that way. And so I think that one thing that word witches do

00:18:41.500 is play with that possibility, like have a heightened awareness of those possibilities

00:18:46.860 and the limits of those possibilities and do what we can to bend those sometimes, you know, because

00:18:55.040 language might sort of create our understanding, but it's not all there is, you know, there's so

00:19:02.920 much beyond that and so i think that that's an important aspect when we talk about um maybe being

00:19:09.820 the difference between being a writer or an author versus being a word witch you know there's there's

00:19:16.720 a magic there it's like our vocabulary is like a permeable membrane and like i'm always trying to

00:19:22.540 like sort of press beyond it to discover what else is on the other side and then how i can sort of

00:19:29.300 bring it back into my understanding or my readers understandings um if that makes sense

00:19:36.740 it makes perfect sense to me yeah and i i like that you brought up this like there's a difference

00:19:43.560 between words and language you know birds have language trees have language the mycelial network

00:19:49.380 has language um we use words but we also have body language you know if i'm sitting with my

00:19:57.260 arms crossed and scowling at you, that tells you a lot more than probably a lot of the words

00:20:02.100 that I could say. And sort of on this subject, like as we create the future with language,

00:20:09.280 with words, you, Charlie, specifically, and Senyu specifically, your work contends a lot

00:20:17.520 with rewriting history. Senyu, you wrote an essay called Rewriting History. Charlie,

00:20:23.480 you're rewriting mythology which is history you know it informs how we have set up our universe

00:20:31.280 so tell me about rewriting history and the permission to do so the desire to do so the

00:20:41.380 effect of doing so charlie like why did you go into these histories and like reclaim them and

00:20:49.640 rewrite them how how did this happen yeah well for me and for the work that i've done i don't

00:20:55.880 think of it as rewriting history uh but instead as uncovering things in history that light hasn't

00:21:03.000 been shut on previously um especially when it comes to like uh my second book queer devotion

00:21:09.580 um what i'm doing there is like sort of following like the hints and traces and whispers

00:21:15.420 of queerness or of gender nonconformity

00:21:18.140 into

00:21:19.660 the past and specifically into

00:21:21.660 the sacred stories

00:21:22.960 of the past

00:21:24.560 because

00:21:26.480 what's been handed down to us at this point

00:21:29.660 has been written by

00:21:31.100 mostly

00:21:32.980 wealthy white men

00:21:34.500 and all traces of 0.68

00:21:37.740 anything that they would consider

00:21:39.820 subversive have been

00:21:41.480 filtered out of it

00:21:42.340 they're the ones that rewrote history

00:21:45.420 Not not us. And so I think of it as going back into history and trying to kind of resurrect what was there or what might be there, because unfortunately, at this point, it's impossible in some cases to go back and definitively say, you know, Sappho was a lesbian.

00:22:06.520 i mean i like she wrote poetry love poetry about women uh so i think i think that's enough to say

00:22:14.860 that zappos a lesbian but a lot of male scholars have argued that actually she wasn't because she

00:22:19.500 had a husband um just for an example and i'm like gee no lesbian has ever had a husband before

00:22:26.060 we're all collectively rolling our eyes in the zoom room yeah precisely um so yeah i mean i

00:22:36.380 and i think that uh i definitely thought of the process of researching and writing queer devotion

00:22:43.240 as one that was magical and also devotional um and very much was doing it sort of like in

00:22:51.660 cooperation with the the spirits and the entities that that i personally work with and so it

00:22:57.860 definitely was an act of word witchery you know um but uh yeah yeah I'd love to hear what Sanyu

00:23:06.480 has to say about this yeah and while you unmute Sanyu um you made me think of Anhadawana who is

00:23:13.000 you know our first known poet a Sumerian um priestess um and a lot of her work was that

00:23:22.920 devotional thing that you're talking about and so I think that there's definitely room in our

00:23:28.080 word witchcraft for just writing devotional we think of like politics and we're angry about

00:23:35.200 things and we're writing a letter to the editor or to our congressman but like equally valuable

00:23:40.840 for our world building are these like devotions to things that we love whether it be gods or

00:23:47.540 flowers or san you estelle i was gonna say or technology or technology oppression or whatever

00:23:56.060 people are devoted to um so being born bread and buttered in los angeles i tend to think well this

00:24:04.820 version of me now and and in the past little while thinks of history maybe more like uh

00:24:11.760 cinematically like a series of still frames that create a narrative and um yes of course there's

00:24:20.900 the the first take the first direction the story as it was brought to form uh aka history and then

00:24:28.160 there is everybody else in that frame and their own perspective of the history right so rewriting

00:24:36.800 it is reorganizing the frames and creating different sort of focuses um and narratives

00:24:48.040 within the scope of a tale right so um of course we can see that in the most like fun and uh

00:25:00.680 superficial ways like emma becoming clueless right and and that kind of reinvention right um

00:25:08.120 or you can see it in you know a history where we were like and everybody in that town was crazy

00:25:16.440 and then you're like oh it was moldy bread or like a gas leak or they were you know inhaling

00:25:22.860 some sort of methane that was close to a cave that you know made them a little like

00:25:27.040 different you know and then there's what i'm doing in the cultural roots of tarot which is

00:25:33.140 filling in gaps that people were just like we're just gonna attribute it to whoever we want right

00:25:40.180 because that's the last known place but history is also how you organize your understanding by

00:25:48.140 how you ask questions and so if you don't ask any questions there's very little to rewrite

00:25:53.880 right um but if you ask questions like you know i had a great upbringing in the church i'm not

00:25:59.300 christian anymore but i love my church i still talk to people from my church but as a young

00:26:03.620 person sitting in the sermon i'd be like there's more to this story here like why aren't we talking

00:26:09.280 about other universes or galaxies like what about aliens what are dreams you know like my young self

00:26:15.700 was like this cosmology is not meeting my needs and even though the community aspect is amazing

00:26:22.080 I am going to have to fill in some gaps here because I have more questions than these people

00:26:26.920 are answering. And then I found Taoism and then I found Ifa Nisheshe. And then I had a bunch of

00:26:34.140 dream kind of experiences that were very prolific. And then I had some like first contact kind of

00:26:40.340 extraterrestrial situations that brought in a lot of perspective. So it's like rewriting history is

00:26:45.920 choosing the genre the narrative the pace the story that you're going to tell yourself about

00:26:52.300 what is right and then whether you commit to that hook line and sinker or whether you just let it

00:27:00.200 be porous like charlie was saying and and you know ephemeral and sort of evolve as it evolves

00:27:05.840 and um and whether you can contribute enough of the truth because i do think that the truth is

00:27:14.060 irrefutable but it's also unknowable in its totality so it's inherently paradoxical right

00:27:20.980 but if you know enough of whatever aspect of the truth that you are perceiving at

00:27:26.640 your your perspective may stand the test of time and you know a thousand years from now we may see

00:27:35.100 that in any of our works and a thousand years from a thousand years ago whoever decided to

00:27:43.940 combine their forces to get the playing cards together and the major arcana together and have

00:27:49.700 them arrive 100 years apart in Italy in this exact era where there was no political law because the

00:27:56.720 Vatican had moved to Avignon for 100 years because all the papal states in Italy were murdering each

00:28:00.780 other and they were like, we don't have the time for this. And so, you know, if you're asking

00:28:04.800 questions like that, you can find all kinds of things that are already kind of written, actually,

00:28:09.040 and documented but just haven't been included in the narrative in the same way like the Dead Sea

00:28:15.340 Scrolls are not included in the bible in the same way that King Richard's story isn't included in

00:28:20.360 the bible because if you knew his story you might not be reading the bible but anyway editor's note

00:28:25.160 Sanyu emailed me immediately after our conversation with that dreadful feeling we all know

00:28:32.100 the haunting of a verbal typo. She said King Richard, but meant King James. I, of course,

00:28:40.100 assume everyone in the room is smarter than me, and I know next to nothing about Richard the

00:28:44.140 Lionhearted, so I didn't question the slip. But here's the gem. Charlie replied in the email

00:28:50.820 thread, quote, I'm sure King Richard wasn't a peach either, Sanyu. My personal theory about

00:28:56.880 the King James Bible is that James, or his Jacobian PR person, commissioned it to distract 1.00

00:29:03.600 from his many torrid gay love affairs, a detail I love sharing with Christians, end quote. 1.00

00:29:11.400 And as Charlie loves sharing this detail with Christians, I wanted to share it with you. 1.00

00:29:16.740 Now, back to the show. 0.87

00:29:19.120 So that's my thoughts.

00:29:20.780 I mean, thank you for bringing up the Bible, because if we need one example of how powerful words are, how powerful books are, that's a great one. This book has created the reality that many, many, many, many people live in. And you also got me to thinking about this butterfly effect idea, right?

00:29:43.740 Like, if we're talking about a thousand years ago and today, and then a thousand years forward, we are, with our work, rewriting future history. Right? And so, Kate, I want to know, like, you, your book is coming out soon.

00:30:03.080 and so what's the future history that you want to like bring out of people what what would be

00:30:10.460 the dream effect that your book would have on a thousand years or five years or ten minutes from

00:30:18.240 now i well i love to think about that i i the dream would be is that someone writes a poem

00:30:26.380 because they read a prompt and then maybe one of their future generations writes a poem

00:30:34.280 because their grandmother was a poet and then the poems just kind of like travel through space and

00:30:40.200 time and more people feel more creative and are more connected to that space of power and voice

00:30:47.860 in themselves and everyone claims writer and poet for themselves and everyone is writing.

00:30:56.380 without wondering if it's good or bad um for the spring equinox this year um i had our coven

00:31:05.680 write spell poems and then we we recorded them spoken out loud and that became the the

00:31:12.940 austara special for the podcast and there were a few people in the coven who were like i've never

00:31:18.520 written a poem before and I'm going to do this for this and I was like result I can retire happy

00:31:27.320 like I'm fucking Oprah Winfrey you know you've never written a poem and now you're writing a

00:31:33.800 poem like I felt like my legacy has been solidified in this moment not that we're not 0.98

00:31:39.760 carrying on and doing more and more and more and more but just this idea to to not necessarily be

00:31:47.240 a world leader but to inspire a world leader i think is something that our culture has kind of

00:31:54.400 pushed down it's got to be me it's got to be now and i you know it's got to be it's got to be it's

00:32:00.600 got to be it's got to be but there is this idea like we've all read thousand year old books

00:32:06.280 and so again i just keep going back to the senu's idea about like thinking a thousand years

00:32:14.200 in the future and all of your books all of our books I'm one I'm one of you all of our books

00:32:22.380 might might still still be there so I want to know from everyone and if something comes up just jump

00:32:30.500 in but let's talk about that that blank page how do you conjure the bravery to go from a blank page

00:32:41.780 to a full page. Senyu, you also made me think about the Mama Lola quote of her biography,

00:32:50.360 not an autobiography, she didn't write it, of her biography, she said,

00:32:53.980 I hate the book because I change and it doesn't. And I say that all the time. And you know, my

00:33:01.400 cohort, Risa, is like, don't say you hate the book in interviews.

00:33:07.660 I love our books. I love our books, but I change and they don't send you. You were talking about I can just pull that offline if I change my mind about that. But just wait, you know, when your book comes out next year, you're not going to be able to do that. So it requires, it requires bravery and imagination and, and, and, and.

00:33:32.060 So let's start with Sanyu. How do you conjure that bravery to take the page from blank to not blank?

00:33:40.660 You know, in my life, that didn't require bravery. It's something I did very early on when I was like a wee child, like below five, you know, before kindergarten age.

00:33:57.140 my mom would read me to bed and so I my first formative book read like book reading experience 0.98

00:34:03.720 was Anansi stories and um and so I asked her to teach me to read so that I could read that shit 0.76

00:34:14.520 myself after she decided she was going to bed and when I got to kindergarten Miss Neil great 0.91

00:34:21.020 teacher still think of her uh we had like a painting hour and I can't draw a straight line

00:34:26.180 And I remember going to Miss Neal and being like, can I write instead of paint?

00:34:30.160 And she was like, you can write.

00:34:31.360 And I was like, yeah.

00:34:32.360 And she was like, OK, then you can go writing.

00:34:35.320 So, you know, I learned to write early on.

00:34:38.480 And so and I did that mostly because in a dream I had some sort of like experience where

00:34:42.520 some being was like, you should write down your dreams.

00:34:44.760 And I was like, I don't know how to write.

00:34:46.960 And so like I learned to do that.

00:34:49.340 So writing my dreams down from an early age made the blank page more invitational, I think.

00:34:56.180 um it doesn't mean I'm always writing I've definitely like put some things on the back

00:35:00.280 burner that I are burning a hole in my head and those pages are blank but like I think the whoever

00:35:08.500 gave this saying like the book writes itself it's you know I get inspired by doing the dishes

00:35:15.580 I have an idea I stop doing the dishes I go write the idea and and maybe I'm not writing on paper

00:35:23.200 all the time now maybe it's a note or an audio note or but I'm always like constructing something

00:35:28.440 and so as long as I have some reference of a past versions of me's construction

00:35:33.520 this version of me feels very able to develop that and and maybe not always in the mood okay

00:35:42.600 maybe not always having the time but always having the the resource of something to say

00:35:51.840 or communicate, even if it's just to myself. And I think, you know, writing every day,

00:35:59.060 whatever you're writing, maybe for people like us, it's sort of inevitable, like communicative

00:36:04.760 people communicate. And so there's always some aspect of writing since that's such a huge part

00:36:09.560 of communication now that you don't just have to call people. But I know it's kind of hard for me

00:36:16.260 because i love to write so it's never something that i feel dragged to do that being said i'm

00:36:22.640 still in the research part of my book so if you asked me this in october november when i'm writing

00:36:27.300 the book i might feel differently about that but i'll check back in on that question i think

00:36:32.680 i remember during new moon magic we we had like sent the manuscript and i discovered a little

00:36:39.320 piece of trivia for lack of a little fact and i immediately went to our editor and i was like

00:36:45.320 you have to let me put this in you have to let me put this in you have to let me put this in

00:36:49.240 and they were like okay okay we've got time we do you know don't freak out

00:36:52.480 but charlie like um is sand you use this word invitation is a blank page a challenge for you

00:37:01.620 or is it like sand you says an invitation to i mean the blank page definitely used to be a

00:37:10.920 challenge for me um i for me in my process i've i tried to be one of those people who

00:37:19.020 woke up every morning and wrote for x number of hours every single day or five days a week or

00:37:26.400 whatever um and for me i discovered that that's just not how i work that's actually a great way

00:37:31.660 to make myself burn out um as if i'm i'm trying to make myself do that when like when the fire's

00:37:39.320 not lit you know um and so for me i've learned that like i i kind of have to you know wait for

00:37:48.600 the inspiration to strike and when it does that's when i sit down like sanya was saying i'm doing

00:37:54.020 the dishes i get an idea stop doing the dishes sit down you know um i will cancel plans uh i will

00:38:01.440 write for literally 16 hours a day if it's if it's rolling like if it's because it is somebody

00:38:08.960 one of you either sand you or kate said something about word which is being channelers and that is

00:38:14.360 kind of that's how it feels like when when it's really happening you know it's like it's coming

00:38:20.560 through from somewhere else and or it's like riding me and i'm just like the bicycle and it's

00:38:24.880 like you know i'm going somewhere um but uh that being said um at this point like on with with both

00:38:34.440 of my books and with the novel i'm writing right now i end up reaching a point when i'm far enough

00:38:39.400 into the project that like starting the next chapter is almost easy like i i sit down i stare 0.70

00:38:48.760 at the blank page and then i just start like fucking around and then eventually you know 0.67

00:38:54.860 something good starts happening um and i have been like writing this thing every single day for the 0.82

00:39:00.540 last like three months you know but then after i finish a project i'll go like sort of like i'll

00:39:05.880 lie fallow for a while like i won't write anything for like two months or something i mean other than

00:39:11.800 emails or instagram posts or whatever the thing is um and i don't know like i've i love writing

00:39:22.040 and i hate writing like i love it when it's working i hate it when it's not working and

00:39:28.380 it's like pulling teeth and like I said that's when I learned to sort of like if it's feeling

00:39:34.940 that hard I like close the laptop I go spend a day reading a book or spending time with friends

00:39:42.640 or taking a hike you know I'd like I have to fill that creative well in order to keep producing

00:39:49.540 and then almost always like the next day I'll come back and then I'll be able to like

00:39:53.920 meet that page again and accept that invitation um yeah and neurologists tell us that our brains

00:40:03.220 need like study and then unfocused like a walk like you're saying doing the dishes

00:40:10.880 in order to really like synthesize information our brains need both and of course capitalism is 0.81

00:40:17.800 like no you fucking work all the time and you never stop and that's how you can become successful 0.56

00:40:22.360 but our physiology says different um kate is a blank page an invitation to a party 0.99

00:40:31.080 or a terrifying oblivion and also i want to know and from you sign you too do you have like a i

00:40:39.960 am at my desk from this time to this time or do you just wait for the channeled spirits to tell

00:40:45.720 you the poem that's a two-part question not not afraid of the blank page like saying you I've been

00:40:53.100 writing I used to dictate poems to my mom like before I could write and she would write them

00:40:57.600 down and they're in a scrapbook about like unicorns and fairies like those were like my first

00:41:03.940 poems but um so that's always made a lot of sense to me the sharing part for me is way

00:41:12.400 way scarier sharing my full page with someone um as a like a deeply shy person but I am more

00:41:21.380 afraid of not sharing than the sharing and so the sharing must happen but um and then wait what was

00:41:29.400 the second part the second part is like what's your process do you have a practice that you stick

00:41:33.680 to or do you wait for the muses for my longer projects i like map it out and i don't i can't

00:41:42.400 do time because i will play games with myself about it in my head and nothing will get done

00:41:47.680 but i kind of like have to like bait myself by being like you can write a thousand words and

00:41:53.980 you can either go outside or the a thousand words can take 12 hours and we'll sit here

00:41:59.200 um which has worked for me um because then I get to go to the park and that's like my

00:42:05.180 creative foraging space like I like to have that space to go kind of like do nothing or read or

00:42:12.120 listen to someone else or something like that but yeah I can't I can't do the schedule

00:42:18.880 yeah I'm I'm gonna use this phrase from Kate from now on whenever anybody asks me to do anything

00:42:25.720 I can't do time

00:42:28.360 and I'm just

00:42:30.520 going to leave it at that

00:42:31.700 no one will argue with you

00:42:34.400 I just like

00:42:36.080 can't do time right now

00:42:38.600 I'm not sorry

00:42:39.960 so tell me

00:42:42.720 you are a poet

00:42:43.460 but now you are like

00:42:45.640 an instructional

00:42:46.880 manualist

00:42:48.920 and I want to know this

00:42:52.320 from all of you because you're all

00:42:54.080 um write in different forms in different media so how do you decide what's going to be a poem

00:43:01.360 and what needs to be a book and what's going to be fiction and what is going to be again like you

00:43:08.400 know research based like like san you your book is going to be um and also um like why

00:43:18.320 Why, why did you need to write Word Witch? Why did you need to write Queer Devotion? Why do, do you now, Sanyu, need to write the cultural roots of tarot? Like Kate, like, I'll start with Kate. Why did you need to write this book?

00:43:35.040 i i feel like just after teaching poetry and writing in so many forms i felt so called to

00:43:46.000 make it more widely accessible and that someone could kind of like go on that journey for

00:43:51.280 themselves without me in the room like i've taught seventh graders and i've taught in in prison and

00:43:58.160 i've taught in colleges and i've taught in retreats on the beach and it's just been like

00:44:03.880 you know, a whole spectrum of the human experience. And I've seen how writing can help people and

00:44:11.720 change people. And so I wrote the book really, because I feel like so many of my teachers and

00:44:17.860 the writers that came before me supported me on my path. And if I could even just be like a single

00:44:23.320 little stepping stone in the path like that, then it will have all been worth it.

00:44:29.400 And how did you go from, oh, I should write this book, and I am writing this book? Because I think I should write that book is like, everybody thinks that, but the people who actually go and write the book are not, the list is not that long. So how do you get from idea to manifestation?

00:44:47.960 that's a good question I feel like it was just like I'm doing this thing like I just I don't

00:44:55.040 even remember there being a choice or like a decision it was like I want to write I'm going

00:45:00.560 to write this book and it started out as like a little workbook that I had just for like my email

00:45:06.260 list it was just a few like poetry spells and prompts and I think it just kind of like evolved

00:45:11.500 into this bigger thing i like found old like canva graphics from like 2014 that were little

00:45:18.020 like witch hats that said word witch under it and so i just feel like it's like been

00:45:22.020 the seeds have been planted and like the the book was

00:45:26.140 always happening if that makes sense it makes sense to me sanyu charlie

00:45:32.700 did your have your books always been happening no not for me i mean i'd really have to

00:45:41.060 shout out Brittany Carmona Holt um because when she wrote tarot for pregnancy radical um I have

00:45:47.460 it here what is it called so I don't butcher the name of it it went oh here we go tarot for pregnancy

00:45:54.140 a companion for radical magical birthing folks right so when she asked me to write the history

00:46:03.340 of tarot chapter I kind of I didn't learn to read cards through any sort of formal education

00:46:10.620 just had a teacher read for me and then I bought a deck and I messed around with enough decks for

00:46:15.700 long enough that it started to make sense so I didn't have any attachment to tarot history or

00:46:21.300 anything like that but when she asked me I was like okay well I could go at it from a word

00:46:26.240 perspective you know like I can be like what is the etymology of tarot and like other words that

00:46:31.260 were involved in this and stuff and then just doing that and finding some book from the 70s

00:46:36.460 that was like playing cards were originally called Mamluk cards.

00:46:39.880 And I was like, Mamluk is not an Italian word.

00:46:42.360 And like that led me down a rabbit hole where I was like, whoa, OK, calling a tarot Italian

00:46:47.840 is an exaggeration.

00:46:50.060 Definitely Italy had to do with bringing it together.

00:46:52.760 But like, let's talk about 78 percent of the tarot deck being the minor arcana, which

00:46:58.200 is basically playing cards with four extra cards that we call the pages.

00:47:01.520 um and so that is why i end up starting my book but the kind of funny thing about that

00:47:09.080 to just reiterate things that kate and charlie have said and you amy is like the idea

00:47:16.140 is like a specter you know it like haunts you you know you're waking up with it you're going

00:47:21.880 to bed with it it's like the creature on your back and like you can marinate on it as long as

00:47:28.340 long as you like. And we happened to be in quarantine when Britney had asked me to do the

00:47:32.160 first chapter. And then L.A. didn't just go through quarantine. We had the strike. And then we had the

00:47:36.560 year after the strike, which basically means like L.A. is like Detroit without cars. You know,

00:47:41.000 Hollywood is our industry. Right. So there's no business happening. OK. And then we had fires.

00:47:46.180 So I had a lot of time to be like, oh, can't do that job. Oh, can't do that. OK, well, maybe I'll

00:47:52.060 write a book since I've been talking about it for so long. But something that Kate said that I think

00:47:57.880 is so about the sharing, you know, I actually think the blank page is an invitation for me

00:48:03.320 because I don't think I do my best writing until I share it. It's literally I'll share it. I'll

00:48:10.120 share a post. I'll write something. I'll share a newsletter and then I'll reread it and I'll be

00:48:13.460 like, ah, typo. I'm like, and I've read it 10 times and I've read it out loud and I've done

00:48:18.820 all the things you're supposed to do. Babe, I'm the queen of not seeing the typo until I've posted

00:48:24.560 or submitted or and and like you say I've read it a hundred times it's something about knowing

00:48:30.240 other eyes are on it and other minds are on it that I think shifts my perspective as I read it

00:48:37.200 because I talk about this actually in cups you know like the suit of cups and tarot I'm like

00:48:41.820 it's the suit of creativity and emotional intelligence but like it's the suit of creativity

00:48:47.200 and procreation and like romantic relationships because a child is the most autonomous creation 0.95

00:48:51.860 you can make it's like made out of you it doesn't have to give a fuck about you doesn't have to like 0.57

00:48:55.440 you talk to you right like but when you write the book those are your words and when you paint the 0.95

00:49:00.000 picture those are your painting you know your brush strokes and like there's an autonomy to

00:49:05.120 writing too especially with the internet and with like the digital writing because people can copy

00:49:11.300 and paste whatever aspect of it they want and they can interpret they cannot read the whole thing and

00:49:16.480 interpret the beginning and then make an assumption about it you know and so something about sharing

00:49:21.280 it makes it much more alive and real to me um so inevitably i do think that publishing and writing

00:49:32.040 books and all this would was an interest of mine but i'm like the i'm actually kind of like charlie

00:49:37.680 in that i came up reading and writing a lot of speculative fiction but because of my degrees

00:49:44.200 being in sociology and political science and criminology and like all these other like i

00:49:48.840 don't know technical writing things and me also liking to write and like enjoying language and

00:49:55.580 looking it up made me a good non-fiction writer which is not something i attend and tried to be

00:50:02.660 but i think when you're in the church and you're a lay person you have to do reading in front of 0.97

00:50:06.400 people and learn these fucking words like i don't know clasians and like blah blah you know you're 0.97

00:50:11.880 learning all this zebuchadnezzar you know like you're you're just reading all these things where 0.99

00:50:15.840 you're like what the fuck is that and um and it makes you just a lot more I don't know if you're

00:50:22.440 if you're questioning it makes you a lot more analytical and so like this book the culture 0.97

00:50:26.840 roots of tarot is only being written by me because someone else hasn't written it already you know I 0.87

00:50:31.440 was reading enough things to be like why the fuck isn't this written like playing cards have been 0.94

00:50:34.740 around a thousand years like this is absurd um but the mystery is good for business right 0.97

00:50:39.280 like it's it's magical and I'm magical and you're like history is still magical if you like 0.95

00:50:45.840 know it you know like it's it's not less magical because you know more shit about it like um and so 0.78

00:50:52.920 i am writing it from a perspective of like as a service and because i have the mentality

00:51:01.680 to ask the questions for enough people that i hope you know it stands the test of time but like

00:51:09.120 i would not have gotten around to this at this time if i hadn't been asked by britney and if

00:51:15.600 five years of la being down bad had given me other things to do you know i would have probably ended

00:51:20.960 up trying to get some fiction published first but the amazing thing is i've tried to get fiction

00:51:26.020 published for years and no one will publish it and every time i write something about non-fiction

00:51:30.000 esoterica people were like i'll publish this so i'm like okay well i'll go with the synchronicities 0.66

00:51:34.360 who am i to argue with existence about this shit that's it that's it i do want to say like um the

00:51:41.760 Missing Witches project started because Risa had this idea about writing a piece of fiction where 0.98

00:51:46.880 two women were doing the Missing Witches project essentially and then she was like wait a second

00:51:53.420 I don't think this is fiction I think I'm gonna call Amy and we're gonna do this you know

00:52:00.880 and so I pass it to Charlie um your work is it um something that someone was like you should

00:52:10.660 write this book or was it simmering forever or are you halfway between kate and san you where

00:52:17.720 yeah i mean uh pretty much i think all of my major projects have kind of happened by accident

00:52:26.400 um like my my first deck fifth spirit tarot um i was just like doodling one night which i i didn't

00:52:38.020 think i was an artist by the way before i made fifth spirit um uh like i knew i could like do

00:52:44.900 little doodles but i'd never i'm not like trained you know i just sort of figured it out on my own

00:52:51.240 as i was making that deck but yeah i was just like doodling one night and drew an ace of cups

00:52:56.620 and i had like felt around that time that like if for like weeks leading up to that like something

00:53:03.680 big was coming like something wanted to come through but I didn't know what it was and I

00:53:10.460 think it was actually I think I actually drew that like on the Aquarius new moon or something

00:53:15.640 as well anyway and I like looked at um the doodle which was uncharacteristic of me because I almost

00:53:22.640 never doodled back then and was like oh my god it's an ace of cups am I right am I making a tarot

00:53:27.660 deck I don't know let's find out and so then I just like kept doodling and eventually it turned

00:53:33.400 into fifth spirit um and uh when i i did the kickstarter for that um after all the art was

00:53:42.940 made i hadn't actually written the guidebook yet i wrote the guidebook after all the art was made

00:53:49.420 and then the guidebook for that for the indie version of that deck just turned into a full

00:53:54.080 length book on tarot which was ostensibly about the cards that i had illustrated but was very

00:54:02.600 much trying to be its own book on tarot and so then later when fifth spirit got picked up by a

00:54:10.100 publisher um i rewrote like i made a smaller guidebook that could actually fit inside of a

00:54:16.720 deck box instead of just like a full-length actual book um and then wrote radical tarot

00:54:23.920 which very much kind of like began as that original fifth spirit guidebook but became its own

00:54:31.000 thing right and queer devotion kind of like happened the same way i was teaching a class

00:54:36.700 um for a local shop here in portland called sea grape apothecary uh and the class was called

00:54:44.280 queer devotion um and it was about you know working with various queer deities and like

00:54:50.680 um doing devotion queerly and stuff like that and i the pdf i made for that class was like 25 pages

00:54:58.200 long and just like packed full of information and their events coordinator at sea grape was like

00:55:04.420 um this should be like a whole book and i was like oh maybe it should and then i wrote queer

00:55:12.720 devotion um and like the novel i'm working on right now literally came to me in a dream

00:55:18.600 which i didn't think was a real thing that like happened to people but it's never happened to me

00:55:26.000 before it's very very real but it happened i'm usually a person that doesn't really remember

00:55:32.180 my dreams um so that was like a major surprise but i remember having this dream about this like 0.54

00:55:39.000 queer immaculate conception um and waking up and being like oh holy shit and like literally getting 0.63

00:55:46.660 up at like 3 a.m and like writing the whole dream down because i was like i feel like this is 0.93

00:55:51.560 something um and so then the novel that I'm working on came out of that so have they always

00:55:58.240 been in me maybe but I think that I needed like these invitations to sort of like unlock them

00:56:04.820 and so I think that there is definitely like a I've learned to sort of like listen to the universe

00:56:10.160 when it's talking to me and when it's like maybe you should make a tarot deck maybe you should

00:56:15.460 write this book here's a weird ass dream go for it um yeah

00:56:21.540 yeah i have to tell you charlie um ash is in the chat saying that she has been reading radical

00:56:30.180 tarot and it's truly x an excellent guide to deepening the cards so i just wanted to

00:56:35.600 speak that out loud um charlie do you have a copy of um fifth spirit with you uh yeah i'm so glad

00:56:44.580 that I'm actually wearing real pants right now

00:56:46.800 because I'm...

00:56:47.260 You go grab it.

00:56:50.080 And in the meantime,

00:56:51.620 in the meantime,

00:56:53.960 Sanyu,

00:56:54.760 I can't let you pass by

00:56:57.300 without asking about quantum witchcraft. 0.92

00:57:01.740 I mean,

00:57:02.760 when we were going back and forth before today,

00:57:05.860 you told me your personal practice

00:57:07.720 is quantum witchcraft 0.99

00:57:09.380 and there's no fucking way I'm leaving here 0.95

00:57:11.840 without hearing about that yes you know quantum witchcraft is the way I think about it is using 0.96

00:57:22.900 your self and your experience as a form of divination right like you can use yourself

00:57:28.040 like a pendulum in Congolese tradition there's a thing called knocks and it's like things your

00:57:34.560 body does or ticks that you have that indicate to you that a certain energy or presence or

00:57:39.740 thing is happening um so it's like oh my head leans to the left when i'm thinking about this

00:57:45.440 energy or the back of my back feels warm when i'm thinking about this so there's already many

00:57:50.300 divination types of uh of this but i've organized mine around like sort of auric sigils where i

00:57:59.540 create what people would call mantras i call auric sigils right because it's not in the tradition of

00:58:04.520 the mantra so i create language linguistic spells that you can use to sort of orient your life and

00:58:13.840 yourself as the thing that you're using to inform yourself about what needs to be done right so

00:58:20.400 quantum witchcraft is based upon several tenets but one of those tenets me being daoist practicing

00:58:28.440 also being a part of Bashar org and like having a lot of interesting connections from that

00:58:35.860 community that over the course of my life and not even knowing that has created a reality where you

00:58:42.440 don't invalidate what you don't prefer that existence takes all kinds and so the idea is

00:58:47.760 not to use and in Taoism this is the case too like there's a in the Tao Te Ching a passage is like do

00:58:52.900 you think you can improve the world I don't think it can be done the world is perfect and it's your

00:58:57.580 perception of the world that imperfects it right so people are what they are they have a right to

00:59:02.000 themselves they have a right to whatever they choose to believe about themselves and for

00:59:06.440 themselves and that's it's not our job to change but it is our job to use you know and so quantum

00:59:12.480 energetics is how do i use what i don't prefer in a way that i do prefer so i still get the benefit

00:59:18.100 of the experience you know i like to say that yeah that like you need an ego because you have

00:59:24.340 identity but like neutral ego is all verbs i sleep i eat i love i laugh i die right it's like

00:59:30.640 the fool card all presence no worry no anxiety everything i give to the moment and so i don't

00:59:36.440 worry about the next moment because i know i'm going to give it all and i don't worry about the 0.94

00:59:39.420 past moment because i know i gave everything that that version of me had to give but a master of

00:59:43.660 personality is like how do i use everything that has happened to me to become more of who i prefer

00:59:51.920 to be myself and then a master of negative personality is how do i use everything that

00:59:56.200 has happened to me as a reason i cannot be who i truly am right so quantum energetics is sort of

01:00:02.040 navigating that reality i don't want to put any more on your plate than you already have but i 0.89

01:00:07.780 will buy the shit out of quantum witchcraft as soon as you write it i'll give you some time 0.95

01:00:13.340 but like pre-ordered awesome I wrote a chapter on it in um a confluence of witches which is

01:00:22.040 around here somewhere that's why I'm looking around around too like yes I have a chapter

01:00:30.180 in there yes so I have that but yeah I definitely will expand into a book um but you know it's

01:00:37.840 interesting practice because i'm not so much i mean i have tattoos of words and i i love casting

01:00:44.120 intentions with my words and casting spells in this way but i'm not super like practical magic

01:00:51.860 hocus pocus you know i'm not out here casting and and make and manipulating through i mean i grew up 0.86

01:00:59.680 in a concrete jungle so like maybe if i had like had woods at my disposal and shit i would have

01:01:03.780 been much more of that leaning but you know i'm from a place where even the palm trees are not

01:01:08.680 indigenous you know so i'm like okay i'll use what i have which was myself and and all the answers

01:01:15.120 are in you you know i think of it as the scene and the fifth element where she's like the stones

01:01:19.380 are in me the opera the diva um the stones are in you okay but like you need to know that trust that

01:01:26.420 and okay last principle of it is that you use existence to trust existence whereas a lot of

01:01:32.440 people use existence to not trust it but you're right you're still using existence you know so i

01:01:36.100 trust existence because it's infinite and it made me so i don't know why shouldn't um and it you

01:01:46.060 know makes life a little more funny than cruel oh spirit definitely has a sense of humor there's no

01:01:52.360 question about that it's i've got a perverted sense of humor very kinky it's kate kate brienne

01:02:00.300 is here. I am here. Oh my gosh. Hi. For those listeners, Brienne is the one who introduced

01:02:08.940 me to Kate. So that's cute. Thank you. Brienne, do you have a question for our word witches?

01:02:16.160 I do. First of all, big fan of all of you. So yay. If you could go through time or history

01:02:26.460 and talk to a word witch that influenced your your work who who would you want to meet

01:02:34.080 i'll mute myself now i'm gonna i'm gonna take a wild guess like emily dickinson audrey lord

01:02:45.000 oscar wilde anyway that's just a wild guess did you literally just read our minds because like i

01:02:53.540 don't know which one you're pointing at but I was thinking of Oscar Wilde I was thinking of Emily

01:02:59.660 Dickinson so that's funny I was thinking of Lao Tzu very good or Nina Simone but Audre Lorde of

01:03:07.860 course as well yeah but now I want like were those the answers that you actually would have given if

01:03:14.240 I hadn't interrupted you I was literally thinking of saying Oscar Wilde although Audre Lorde

01:03:19.960 Absolutely. But yeah, Oscar Wilde was top of mind for me. Yeah.

01:03:25.640 I was moving between Lorca and Emily Dickinson.

01:03:30.880 Do you want to expand?

01:03:33.880 I just love Lorca's theory and play of Duende so, so much.

01:03:38.280 And it's just been such an influence in my life.

01:03:41.440 And if you haven't read it, I just recommend it.

01:03:43.800 And Emily Dickinson was the first poet that I remember reading with my dad.

01:03:49.380 like he was this like Emily Dickinson for young young people book and like we had the dictionary

01:03:54.920 out like Sandy was talking about it was like what words don't we know we're gonna go look them up in

01:04:00.260 this grimoire and it was just she has she's just her envelope poems I love her gorgeous nothings

01:04:09.240 like I memorized the poem I'm nobody who are you and when I was seven and I can still do it and

01:04:15.280 it's just like that is my yeah so thanks for reading my mind amy who would you pick oh 0.69

01:04:23.780 um emily dickinson oscar wilde and we'll have dinner together and it'll be fucking amazing 0.98

01:04:33.860 i would have to probably put kurt vonnegut in there um ee cummings i want to talk to ee cummings 0.97

01:04:42.360 about about um line breaks and punctuation uh charlie do you have an ee cummings quote i do

01:04:51.400 i do it's the last two lines of his uh poem that starts with um i thank you god for this most

01:04:57.940 amazing day for the leaping green leaf spirit of trees and the blue true dream of sky etc but it's

01:05:02.280 the last two lines from it which are now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are 0.97

01:05:05.980 opened so this is listeners word witchcraft we are fucking psychics we are claircognizant we are 0.97

01:05:15.860 tattooing each other's favorite poets on our bodies we'll take one more question and then 0.93

01:05:22.220 charlie will you pull a card from your deck to sort of send us off great jasmine jasmine's a

01:05:28.300 teacher and is super stoked on the teacher love that was coming through i just got back from work

01:05:34.320 and I'm co-parenting tonight. So, um, I love to read and write, and I wanted to ask the guests

01:05:45.000 when you were little, what is the first book? Cause I'm surrounded by little ones this year.

01:05:51.300 What is the first book that made you go, Oh, I really love this. So mine was when I was four,

01:06:00.460 i got a book called happy birthday little witch from my aunt who replaced all the pictures of the

01:06:08.120 witches with pictures of my family and i still have it so there's a little but yeah i would like

01:06:15.880 to know as a teacher who this year is teaching the littlest supporting the littlest of kids

01:06:21.380 what is the book that you can remember maybe your first book that you went wow i really love this

01:06:28.420 i'll start while everybody unmutes um shell silverstein where the sidewalk ends and a light

01:06:37.020 in the attic i his sense of humor to my like five-year-old brain was um so compelling saying

01:06:46.620 you is holding up a copy of where the sidewalk ends because of course you are and you um but

01:06:52.520 yeah that's like my and I it's funny because I you know I have degrees in English literature

01:06:58.160 and journalism and all that stuff and people ask me who is your favorite poet and I still say

01:07:03.420 Shel Silverstein um because his work was so evocative for me and the illustrations and

01:07:12.660 just I've memorized so many of them so I know you didn't ask me Jasmine but I'm here too so

01:07:18.480 that's my answer san you charlie your opinion super matters i mean i can still quote pickle

01:07:23.800 me pickle me pick i can still quote lots of shell silverstein poems because it's memorable

01:07:27.920 for me i really like anansi's folk tales obviously that's why i chose to learn to read but why i like

01:07:34.520 anansi is because he's an imperfect uh protagonist um he's a trickster so like rumpelstiltskin his

01:07:44.060 job is to get himself into trouble and to get himself out of trouble and i think it embraces

01:07:50.240 children's spectrum of ethics and still the inevitable happens like when you trick people

01:07:58.060 they don't like it and that's why nancy always ends up getting called out and so i really like

01:08:01.980 those stories and there's so many different versions of those folktales that you can find

01:08:06.060 in various books yes Kate Charlie first whispers yeah my mom used to read me this book called Kate's

01:08:16.120 Giants and it was about this little girl Kate who had night terrors like I did I was so afraid of

01:08:22.020 the dark and basically like the more the lesson of the book is if you can think them up you can

01:08:27.560 think them out so it like taught me the power of imagination on both ways and I still think that to

01:08:34.120 myself like like okay if i can think it up i can think it out and thank you kate's giants yeah what

01:08:40.800 what a powerful like anti-anxiety tool very good charlie yeah i've been trying to think of something

01:08:48.920 from like young childhood but i don't actually remember a lot of my young childhood for reasons

01:08:55.800 but um I mean my mom used to read me poetry um when I was going to bed or just whenever that's

01:09:04.720 one of the reasons I have that E.E. Cummings poem on my arm is because it's one of the ones that

01:09:09.560 she would recite all the time I actually had it memorized before I ever saw it written on a page

01:09:15.200 and so sometimes when I'm reciting it I actually get words like wrong or flipped because it's the

01:09:21.320 way my mom would say it instead of the way it was actually written um but she would also read me

01:09:26.380 walt whitman leaves of grass as like a little bitty kid so you know thank you mom she's like

01:09:34.920 here's some queer iconography young child yeah and then and then she like had no idea that i was

01:09:41.120 queer until i told her when i was 30 um she knew somewhere deep down i know she did but um i'm not

01:09:48.140 even sure sappho is a lesbian so don't you dare don't even don't even um yeah but i can't remember

01:09:58.040 i mean i know there was this one picture book that i uh was obsessed with for a while that

01:10:03.260 was called gwina but i can't remember anything about actually the plot of it um i just remember

01:10:09.580 there's like a girl with wings on the cover you know so walt whitman and ee cummings i guess

01:10:17.540 will you pull us a card for word which is everywhere from fifth spirit and while you're

01:10:24.280 doing your little shuffle um send you kate start thinking about um what you want to tell our

01:10:31.220 listeners about how to support you i'm saying you i know you've got a patreon kate obviously your

01:10:36.700 book is is available for pre-order start thinking about that as we shuffle and we'll wait for charlie

01:10:43.440 to pull a card no rush the spirit will flip the card out when it's ready to it just flipped half

01:10:50.920 the deck exactly when you said that perfect yes i was gonna say shout out to all the moms who

01:10:57.760 read to us and mothers whatever they the gender my mother had me under the guise of helping her

01:11:09.860 memorize i was about eight years old and i memorized macbeth soliloquy the tomorrow and

01:11:16.180 tomorrow and tomorrow one uh obviously i still know she was like i want to memorize this help me

01:11:21.040 and i'm like eight years old reciting it trying to like ostensibly help her memorize it she still

01:11:28.520 doesn't know it but i know it so yes thank you san you for shouting out those like parents

01:11:34.700 teachers witchy aunties who get us those books who read us those stories who encourage us to

01:11:42.440 memorize soliloquies and poetry i love that you can still recite it and she can't of course

01:11:53.080 i pulled the king of wands for us from the spirit what does that mean to you uh i mean for me this

01:12:03.260 is a card that's very much about uh creativity um it's wands right which is the suit of passion

01:12:10.420 it's the suit of like of energy of creativity um i think of wands and cups as kind of working

01:12:18.320 together in the creative realm but wands is like the fiery inspiration side the like active i'm

01:12:26.080 to do something about this inspiration side and cups the water is like that sort of channeling

01:12:33.780 and uh emotional like the feeling behind the creative work that we do but the king of wands

01:12:42.960 and as well as the queen of wands are um very much like the the doers the creators you know

01:12:50.360 i think that the reason we've got the king here instead of the queen is because in fifth spirit

01:12:56.120 like the i've got the um the king is holding that torch up high um and sort of like leading the way

01:13:03.680 carrying a flag um not an american flag just in case that gets misunderstood somehow

01:13:11.180 and i think that the king of wands i mean the king of wands is also a leader and so maybe it's

01:13:18.640 showing up to remind all of us word witches that the the things that we write the that the things

01:13:26.920 that we put our intention behind to behind and put out there and share with the world have the

01:13:31.540 potential to lead other people right to bring other people with us inspire us show them the

01:13:37.880 way forward for themselves and it brings me back to something that uh we were talking about

01:13:43.340 near the beginning about um uh 2000 years from now will our our books still be read will they

01:13:51.240 still be remembered and i was thinking as we were as we were talking about that that like

01:13:55.600 it doesn't even really matter if there are specific books are still being read because

01:14:00.700 they will have been read by people who then go forth and create things that then other people

01:14:07.080 will read who will then create things that other people will read so even if our books are

01:14:11.920 completely forgotten we're still leaving like a a trail like a legacy right and that's that's

01:14:20.360 beautiful and important so king of wands thank you so much for just pulling the absolute perfect

01:14:26.800 card sanju kate do you have any thoughts about the king of wands before we move on to shameless 0.68

01:14:33.140 self-promotion and when i say shameless i mean fucking shameless please brag about all the rad 0.96

01:14:40.680 shit that you're doing and how people can support you but if you have thoughts about the king of 0.99

01:14:44.920 wands please add that to your speech uh yeah i like to think of wands as the suit of learning 0.98

01:14:54.900 the difference between embodiment and performance and i read my aces high so my ace is above the

01:15:00.880 king um but king of wands for me is an advocate of passion meaning like hey i love this thing

01:15:11.720 i'm gonna go do this thing if you need to find me that's what i'll be doing whereas when it's

01:15:16.560 reversed it's like isn't this thing that i want you to do with me the most special thing in the

01:15:21.500 world and whatever you wanted to do is dumb but you should come do what i'm doing you know so the

01:15:25.160 upright king is like i'm passionate about this thing i'm gonna go do this thing 0.93

01:15:28.920 um and leading by example i suppose and um so that's all i would add to that

01:15:35.000 and what about your infinite radness how can our listeners support you pay you yes um tell us about

01:15:44.340 your album which is fantastic i love that you brought that up i album life is a different

01:15:50.080 life in a way i mean obviously i i wrote all the songs so there's that aspect of it but yeah i did

01:15:57.280 released an album shipwrecked i put all my relationship songs on one album and then i was

01:16:02.520 like i'm done with it i'm not i'm not singing about relationships anymore it's all on one album

01:16:06.660 called shipwrecked which is relationship wrecked it's so clever ship you know um you know getting

01:16:13.720 uh using them as buoys to get to the land using the little shards and shattered things so i love

01:16:19.840 that listen to that that's on all the platforms i'm writing a book the cultural roots of tarot

01:16:24.180 going back to italy um in next week to go to the florence archives and the venetian archives where

01:16:31.320 they have things from the fifth century onward and i'm going to look at the cargo maritime records

01:16:37.780 i'm going to see who was shipping what to who and i'm going to see what the fuck was on the boats

01:16:41.540 um and i did an indiegogo campaign for that which is over however if you go through my links on 0.84

01:16:48.440 sanyostelle.com you can still find ways to as i like to say like the folktale help me bake this

01:16:53.060 bread, like the hen who went around to all the animals and was like, do you want to help me make

01:16:56.900 the bread? And everyone was like, nah, you can help me make the bread. It costs money to pay

01:17:01.520 translators, which I have to do for Coptic and Arabic and Latin and Italian and all the languages

01:17:09.880 of those ancient worlds. And I'll be writing the book through December and then editing it

01:17:16.120 through release. I'm sure you all know more about that process than me. This is my first book with

01:17:21.720 my name on it so i'm very proud about that uh otherwise my books are closed until october

01:17:27.320 because otherwise i'm never going to get this shit done but i do readings in person in la

01:17:32.600 and virtually i will be teaching quantum energetics again which is my methodology for 0.88

01:17:38.140 quantum witchcraft um and you have a patreon yes i have a patreon thank you i have a patreon

01:17:44.560 um where you can get the cheapest readings from me i do a monthly read there but also if you're

01:17:49.160 at the top tier which is 10 bucks you get a card pulled every month which is the really the cheapest

01:17:53.340 way to access me and um other than that uh the book will be out in fall 2026 red will wiser so

01:18:01.340 do read have me on your things uh tell me to come to your town tell your local bookstores to carry 0.56

01:18:07.620 my shit uh all those wonderful things and your local metaphysical witch stores and that's my 0.85

01:18:13.800 spiel i'm so tempted to just like book the three of you for map on again next year and we can see 0.97

01:18:21.140 where all of these projects have gone and developed because i'd love that i want to keep

01:18:25.320 talking to the two of you the three of you for uh like the next six hours but i'm not going to do

01:18:31.220 that to you or our listeners kate baloo the book is word witch pre-order it now what else infinite

01:18:39.000 radness she's here um my uh yes so it's out october 7th um no readings to add to the king

01:18:52.000 of wands because i'm solely a tarot admirer but both of those readings really resonated with me

01:18:57.860 so thank you for that and what else you can find me on instagram at k8 baloo i'm over on sub stack

01:19:06.940 writing about word witchery um you have a newsletter yes a newsletter that goes out

01:19:13.020 you people you people are terrible at self-promotion i'm like what do i do again who am i

01:19:18.320 i'm down for mayvon next year um this has been so much fun so much fun um and if you pre-order

01:19:28.860 word witch that i'm going to have a little like pre-order launch party you just if you go to my

01:19:34.500 link um you can just submit to hachette the photo of the book or the proof of the book or whatever

01:19:40.100 and they'll send you a link we'll do a writing ritual we'll celebrate it'll be a blast yeah

01:19:47.340 yeah infinite radness charlie uh i think that being horrible at self-promotion is a prerequisite

01:19:56.700 in order to be a writer so um we're all doing a great job at being writers um i mean we work

01:20:04.380 in like solitude basically most of the time right so self-emotion is hard um that's why i'm here

01:20:10.720 yeah uh yeah my uh decks are fifth spirit tarot and uh queer devotion nope that's not a deck that's

01:20:19.260 a book see horrible my book my decks are fifth spirit tarot and the gay marseille tarot um

01:20:26.980 and my books are radical tarot and queer devotion queer devotion just came out a few months ago

01:20:32.900 um and i have a sub stack called queerly devoted um where i write about queerness transness

01:20:43.760 transitioning deities a lot of stuff that i couldn't fit in queer devotion um because

01:20:49.960 word counts are a thing um and yeah like ostensibly i'm on social media at the.word.witch

01:20:59.200 on instagram um and something similar to that on blue sky i can't remember thank you and of course

01:21:07.860 listeners all of this will be in the show notes i want to thank my guests again so much and honestly

01:21:14.320 for me the blank page is a challenge and now i can reinterpret it rewrite this personal history

01:21:20.640 and think of the blank page as an invitation and listeners poets lyricists essayists novelists

01:21:29.180 researchers

01:21:30.900 to-do list makers

01:21:33.660 whatever you are writing

01:21:35.740 this can be an invitation

01:21:37.380 to a thousand years in the future

01:21:39.380 thank you so much

01:21:40.940 Senyu, Estelle, Charlie Burgess

01:21:43.460 Kate Ballou 0.89

01:21:44.640 for being word witches

01:21:47.220 for having the bravery

01:21:49.660 whether you feel like it's brave

01:21:51.580 or not to put your work out into the universe

01:21:53.880 for me to

01:21:55.700 eat

01:21:58.000 and drink and feed myself with i want to say happy equinox i just want to thank you all so

01:22:05.900 very very very much for being with me on this blessed day thank you thank you for being such

01:22:13.420 an amazing host informed questions i was like you read essays i haven't looked at since

01:22:17.980 and thank you for all of your amazing word witchery amy yes yeah we are all in this

01:22:27.320 together, my loves. We are all in this

01:22:29.340 together, and as we always say, 0.99

01:22:31.440 blessed fucking be. 1.00

01:22:33.880 Blessed fucking be. 1.00

01:22:35.380 Blessed fucking be. 1.00

01:22:36.220 Blessed fucking be. 1.00

01:22:38.300 You must be a witch. 1.00

01:22:44.540 If you want to support the Missing Witches Project, 0.99

01:22:47.220 buy our books, New Moon Magic

01:22:49.000 and Missing Witches, and our

01:22:50.820 deck of oracles, the Missing Witches

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Missing Witches - September 22, 2025

Mabon 2025： Word Witches With Charlie Burgess, Kate Belew, and Sanyu Estelle

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