Missing Witches - MW Gaura Devi： This Forest Is Our Mother's Home. We Run Our Lives Through This.

00:00:00.000 Season four of the Missing Witches podcast is lovingly sponsored by our Patreon patrons.

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00:00:09.260 Foxglove Farm subscription boxes are amazing and their proprietor is a role model.

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00:00:24.620 You can find all that info and more on our website, missingwitches.com. 1.00

00:00:28.740 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:35.120 You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:37.540 What about the word witch draws you in?

00:00:42.420 As Pam Grossman of the Witch Weave podcast and Waking the Witch Memoir writes, 0.71

00:00:47.820 show me your witches and I'll show you your feelings about women.

00:00:52.660 For me, the through-line draw has always been a connection to the natural world.

00:00:56.900 I had a feeling about those women, women who had a connection to other living beings in our living, 0.88

00:01:04.420 spinning womb world. Witches were folks who could see past the built world. They could change it 0.99

00:01:11.480 too by drawing on the palpitating power of the web of life. I am basically a 40-year-old baby witch

00:01:18.100 who wants to see a future for myself and all my ancestors to come where we are connected to all

00:01:24.300 life. Hearing each other, learning from each other, protecting each other, flourishing in symphony.

00:01:30.960 I want a spiritual and material philosophy that speaks to what I experience when I hear the wind

00:01:35.980 coming across the water, when I look into an animal's eyes, or when I wrap my arms around and

00:01:41.280 lean my head against a tree. Bill Nige, the last surviving speaker of the Gaguju language,

00:01:47.480 who shared his secret knowledge with the world before it died with him, wrote,

00:01:53.060 Amy and I have happily confessed to you before that we are tree huggers. We are proud to be

00:02:11.660 among those people who know the great emotional calm of resting your heart and face against a

00:02:16.780 tree, and who want to live out among them all the time and blend our dreams with theirs.

00:02:22.620 My first heroes were activists living in the old growth trees on Vancouver Island,

00:02:27.200 insisting that these bodies are not replaceable. These trees have a life that is intertwined with

00:02:32.620 the health and potential and spirit of all of us. My first love was a polar bear at the Toronto Zoo,

00:02:38.980 one of my first heartbreaks too. The moniker tree hugger feels like a dismissal now.

00:02:44.880 A convenient way to diminish the whole huge feeling and activism of a person.

00:02:50.120 That old capitalist ego energy pushing in on us to make us feel shame.

00:02:54.960 Shame for wanting the most basic thing.

00:02:57.440 To be in awe of this earth and to thrive with it and not let it die.

00:03:02.540 And to wrap our arms around the things we love.

00:03:06.100 I remember those stories peppered through the 80s and 90s news cycle

00:03:10.000 about people living in trees to protest deforestation

00:03:13.300 and prevent their leafy friends from being cut down.

00:03:17.240 The original tree-huggers were incredibly powerful.

00:03:20.560 In India, September 11th is National Forest Martyrs Day in their honor. 1.00

00:03:25.000 At the heart of this history is an elderly woman with her arms around great trees,

00:03:29.660 followed by another and then more.

00:03:31.720 A wave of people whose lives and practices can teach us

00:03:34.900 how to break out of the box of our relationships to plants and animals

00:03:38.720 and radically expand our connectedness and our power.

00:03:42.100 This is a story about hugging trees

00:03:45.120 About the women who inspired the iconic environmental Chipko movement in India

00:03:50.640 Which literally means to hug

00:03:52.620 And it's a story about the Bishnoi faith and the women leaders

00:03:55.800 From a small spiritual minority in the Himalayan foothills

00:03:59.100 The ones who triumphed and the ones who were murdered

00:04:01.800 Protecting the ancient trees that hold back the all-consuming desert and keep the mountains up

00:04:06.840 This is a story of Amrita Devi and Gauradevi

00:04:09.900 who lived and fought for trees 300 years apart in the Marwar region of western Rajasthan.

00:04:16.280 The Bishnois are a sect of Vishnu worshippers with an intense connection to nature.

00:04:21.960 In the places where Bishnoi people live, animals and birds, peacock, partridges, vultures,

00:04:27.300 and the endangered great Indian buzzard roam without fear.

00:04:30.680 The Bishnoi allow deer like Black Buck, Chital, Nilgai to graze in their farmland

00:04:35.720 because the community believes these animals have the first right to hold and use the land.

00:04:40.700 Legend has it that flora and fauna flourished wherever Bishnois were found,

00:04:45.040 that even in times of severe hardship and drought,

00:04:47.660 the black buck and the Indian gazelle would return to them,

00:04:50.760 knowing the community kept them stores of food and water.

00:04:53.940 Up against the Himalayan mountains, at the edge of a massive desert region,

00:04:58.060 the Bishnois cultivate and protect pockets of jungle, lush vegetation, rich biodynamic farms.

00:05:03.960 they care for animals, maintain drinkable water, and harbor sacred groves. A photo of a Bishnoi

00:05:09.860 woman went viral in 2018, depicting her nursing her baby on one breast and a small orphaned fawn

00:05:15.620 on the other. To cultures that have somehow managed to denormalize mothers breastfeeding

00:05:21.960 their own human babies, this is radical compassion and connection. For a Bishnoi woman, both prayers

00:05:27.800 and service to the land and animals are part of daily ritual. They dig the soil and make sure that 0.99

00:05:33.480 nearby clean water remains in good condition to welcome birds. Tending to the world, digging our

00:05:39.620 hands in it and wrapping our arms around it and feeding it with our bodies can be a central act

00:05:44.360 of our rituals, witches. Our ceremonies can be rooted in the real magic of life pulsing right

00:05:50.620 here. Studies of soil microbes and human health found that the bacterium found in soil can

00:05:56.120 stimulate serotonin production, making you relaxed and happier. This dirt is literally medicine.

00:06:03.480 The Bishnoi sect was founded by Guru Maharaj Jambaji in 1485 AD in lands that collectively 0.73

00:06:10.800 bear the name Marussali, Sanskrit for land of the dead. Jambaji witnessed the clear cutting of

00:06:17.560 trees during times of drought to feed animals, only to see the animals die out as the drought

00:06:21.960 continued and ravaged those clinging to life at the edge of the land of the dead. And seeing the

00:06:26.720 struggles over political power between Hindus and Muslims, he sought ways to reconcile these

00:06:31.180 meeting faiths. Learning and borrowing from contemporary Hindu and Muslim cultures,

00:06:35.520 the Bishnoi faith that he formulated offered an innovative concept of humanness.

00:06:43.440 Despite being born in the second highest caste in the Hindu caste hierarchy, 0.95

00:06:48.080 Jambaji dreamed of a caseless community. And he went further. He saw a possible future where the 0.90

00:06:54.640 hierarchy between humans and other living beings was brought into balance as well.

00:06:59.720 He strictly prohibited animal killing and the cutting of green trees.

00:07:04.300 Of the 29 principles laid down by Jambadji as fundamental to the sect,

00:07:08.540 and from which they take their name, Bish is 20 and Noy is 29,

00:07:12.120 so literally they are the 29ers.

00:07:14.100 Eight principles were prescribed to preserve biodiversity,

00:07:18.980 including things like the non-sterilization of bulls,

00:07:21.740 or prohibition of killing animals and birds,

00:07:24.400 and the cutting of any green trees.

00:07:26.240 Ten principles deal with personal hygiene and health.

00:07:30.000 These mention simple tenets like vegetarianism, safe drinking water, bathing daily, environmental sanitation,

00:07:37.500 prohibiting the use of tobacco, opium, and alcohol.

00:07:40.840 Four principles provide guidelines for worshiping God daily and to always remember that God is omnipresent.

00:07:48.080 And for me now, always, when I hear God invoked, I hear Margaret Murray,

00:07:51.620 because I too believe in that power that science calls nature and religion calls God.

00:07:57.400 And I'm comfortable recognizing that it is omnipresent and I do want to worship it daily.

00:08:03.480 I want my life to be an act of worship. For the Bishnois, on every new moon a fast should be 0.96

00:08:09.400 observed and a collective lighting of holy fire is to be performed. Idle worship is discouraged.

00:08:16.180 Seven principles describe directions for healthy social behavior. These direct the followers to

00:08:21.200 live a simple life, be content, be moderate, avoid lies and false arguments, criticizing others is

00:08:28.140 prohibited. The principles also call for tolerance during discussions, and I am here for all of this,

00:08:34.840 although not always good at all of it. The first two principles on the list of 29, though,

00:08:40.300 concern women's bodies. Ritual prohibition for 30 days after childbirth and for five days during 0.64

00:08:46.720 menstruation. And if you are barred from connecting with the spirit when you are at any stage in your

00:08:52.080 internal moon and blood and birth cycle by your religion, call me witch if you like, but I'm going

00:08:57.480 to say that that particular regulation comes from man. Mechanisms of control and othering and shame

00:09:03.620 sneak their way in everywhere, but your voice and offerings matter. Always. Your body and mind

00:09:10.960 wrenched open by the vulnerability of blood and pain and womb world cracking open to unleash

00:09:16.320 something new is fierce and it is holy. In those moments, you are that power which religion calls

00:09:23.420 nature and science calls God. And taking that power away from menstruating bodies and replacing 1.00

00:09:28.920 it with shame has spiraling effects, keeping girls out of school and shaping how we think 0.99

00:09:34.120 about what their lives are worth. Rajasthan holds the record in India for the highest percentage of

00:09:39.940 married girls between the ages of 10 and 14 and saw a 66% rise in cases of violence against women

00:09:46.040 in 2019. To be clear, this is not in any way unique to the Bishnoi faith. We find it encoded

00:09:52.140 all over the world as patriarchy weighs its heavy choking hold on our bodies in all kinds of ways.

00:09:58.400 The women we honor with our story today were empowered by the profound dharma to the earth

00:10:03.340 and animals and plants encoded in their faith. And still they also had to work for fairness and

00:10:09.780 for their gender. We can't greenwash this story. It's been done too many times. But we will honor

00:10:18.600 these heroic, humble warrior women's lives and their spiritualities and their struggles too.

00:10:26.860 In 1730, almost 300 years after the 29 principles were recorded, the king at the time wanted to

00:10:33.820 build a new palace. He sent soldiers to fell timber from the forest near the village of

00:10:38.520 Khejarli, where Bishnoi villagers had helped preserve the sacred and essential Khejri or

00:10:44.300 acacia trees. When the king's men began to hatchet away at the trees, the Bishnois protested in

00:10:50.780 anguish, but were ignored by the soldiers who were under royal orders. Amrita Devi could not

00:10:56.800 bear to witness the destruction of the village's sacred trees. Since cutting or injuring trees

00:11:02.560 at all, and especially the Kedri, is against Bishnoi Dharma. Amrita Devi hugged a tree.

00:11:09.600 She cried out that if she sacrificed her life to save just one tree, it would be a good bargain.

00:11:14.220 And the men axed through her body to cut the tree. They beheaded her in front of her children.

00:11:21.020 And her three daughters wrapped themselves around trees to honor her in their grief,

00:11:25.260 and they were murdered also. The news spread like wildfire, children running with fear to

00:11:32.060 get help, and Bishnois of 83 villages gathered at Kejarli. 363 Bishnoi people became martyrs

00:11:40.080 to the forest that day. The soil of Kejarli is said to have turned red with their blood.

00:11:47.280 When the king heard the news, he called for it to stop. He apologized to the community and issued

00:11:51.760 a decree engraved on a copper plate prohibiting forever the cutting of trees and hunting of

00:11:56.500 animals within and near Bishnoi villages. That protection is still technically valid today,

00:12:01.920 although the Bishnois still constantly must fight to guard the biodiversity. The Bishnoi

00:12:07.500 sacrifices became the root of inspiration for a much larger Chipko movement. Amrita Devi's life 0.99

00:12:13.160 was stolen, but with her last act, she imparted a wave of power that electrified Gora Devi in her

00:12:18.640 own fierce spell of true protection 300 years later. Born in 1925, Gaura Devi left her family 0.99

00:12:26.420 and moved to a village named Rennie after her wedding at the age of 12. Her husband passed

00:12:31.440 away by the time their son was about two, same age as my daughter is now, leaving her home alone

00:12:36.520 at 22, not the age I am now, to raise her son and be the family's sole provider and homemaker.

00:12:43.200 I don't know what it is to be a single parent, but I know what it is to be raised by one,

00:12:47.340 at least for a while. Around the age of 22, my mom raised me alone while she finished her master's

00:12:52.900 and worked at a day job with children and sex offenders and children who were sex offenders.

00:12:58.020 And then she'd pick me up from daycare and drag me home in a red plastic sled through the snow to 0.86

00:13:02.380 make dinner and spend late nights on the phone with her parents who were going through bankruptcy.

00:13:07.200 And she says it all forced her to learn about empathy beyond what she had imagined possible.

00:13:12.120 She was exhausted and stretched thin all the time and so raw that I think she kind of accidentally

00:13:19.760 taught two-year-old me an empathy so painfully vivid it extended all over the world around me.

00:13:26.900 Raw to the point of confusion and agony a lot of the time. Some days, these days, I realize I feel

00:13:34.060 strangely numbed by the pandemic. I don't know if you feel that as well. We're back in our second

00:13:39.880 locked down here and I notice my reactions to things aren't what they were before. I joke that

00:13:44.900 I'm like dead inside or more it's like I'm frozen until it's safe to thaw and I don't want to stay

00:13:52.220 that way but weirdly and almost guiltily it's kind of a relief to take a break from feeling so

00:13:57.660 constantly raw to the feelings of every scared family member or terrifying statistic.

00:14:03.360 while this feeling is new in scale I think I've been tactically numbing myself for a long time

00:14:11.260 just to keep my head above water and keep going I have this weird vivid memory of being like a

00:14:18.320 young teenager like just old enough to read the morning paper and sort of doing that for the first

00:14:23.620 time and it turning into crying uncontrollably over every single page like everything you turned

00:14:31.200 was just this mounting feeling of desperation on my hands and skin like so much ink. I think

00:14:37.860 in different ways, we all have had to unconsciously numb ourselves to some degree. Long before COVID-19,

00:14:44.980 long before Zoom fatigue, just to keep going day after day, bludgeoned by the obvious systemic

00:14:51.640 injustices, the gross global grasping inequality, the great forest turning to desert, the coral

00:14:58.200 reefs bleaching and fossilizing and dying from the inside. Our ego-conscious minds might forget

00:15:05.760 the great chestnut trees that once stretched their wide arms across the entire eastern edge

00:15:11.060 of North America and then were all gone within one dying generation. But our cells that were

00:15:17.200 nestled in our grandparents' bellies when the great trees last walked still remember. And they

00:15:24.120 more than I think and they rage. I want to honor that rage in my cells as well as that enormous

00:15:32.820 empathy and so I call these missing witches into our circle to root us back into that power. I want

00:15:41.140 to honor the adaptive care of my own body and mind, self-protection. Thank you for keeping me

00:15:47.280 going but I don't want to be numb anymore.

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00:18:17.620 farm and you can save 13% by using the offer code missing witches. 1974 the state government

00:18:26.080 authorized the felling of 2,500 trees in Rennie. Landslides that were devastating the foothill

00:18:32.420 regions from drought and too many trees taken already and the forest being parceled up from

00:18:37.820 afar with logging work sold to contractors from the plains with no idea as to what was at stake

00:18:43.340 led the people to hold peaceful demonstrations, public meetings and rallies, and generally made

00:18:48.680 a nuisance until the state government and contractors hatched a scheme to draw the local

00:18:52.980 men away under the false pretense of a payout. With the men gone from Reni, the state sent a

00:18:58.840 group of forest officials and loggers to take the trees. A young girl from the village saw them

00:19:04.220 approaching and rushed to Gauradevi. I don't know whether she felt like her selfhood and empathy

00:19:10.980 were spread across the trees and the world around her, but I know Gaura's experiences had drawn her

00:19:16.720 into community work and made her a leader in forest protection and women's rights in the region.

00:19:22.720 And by then, the Chipko movement had begun to roll across the countryside, and inspired by it,

00:19:27.300 Gaura Devi had started campaigns in the nearby villages to spread the word about forests, 0.80

00:19:31.740 what they meant, and how they were threatened. The Chipko movement is a Gandhian movement that 0.51

00:19:36.300 was based on non-violent principles of satyagraha which means the force that is generated through

00:19:41.680 adherence to truth. Chipko literally means to hug or to cling to and the people were clinging to

00:19:48.440 the very truth in their trees. In the Garawal Himalayan region of Uttarakhand in the 70s there

00:19:56.240 was rapid environmental degradation due to commercial logging and it became clear especially

00:20:01.280 to women that logging was destroying their forests and threatening their access to resources needed 0.54

00:20:06.980 for their daily lives. A pioneering Gandhian grassroots activist, Chandi Prasad Bhatt

00:20:13.100 mobilized communities to stop the destruction of the forests under the banner of Chipko,

00:20:18.060 inspired by Amrita Devi. He was joined by hundreds of women who were on the front lines of the

00:20:23.240 resistance because they were on the front lines of the devastation, marching and rallying to

00:20:28.160 protect their community forests. They formed human chains to hug towering old growth trees.

00:20:34.360 That one night in Renni, with all the local men gone, Gauradevi mobilized a group of 27 women

00:20:39.720 and confronted the loggers. She tried to reason with them, but by then the officials were drunk

00:20:44.300 and they began to hurl abuses and wave their guns at the women and children while ordering

00:20:48.420 the loggers to chop the trees. Gauradevi called out to the people to hug their trees and the

00:20:53.300 Women followed her lead and wrapped themselves around them.

00:20:55.980 But this time, the men didn't murder the tree-huggers. 0.96

00:20:58.900 They were shook, and they delayed.

00:21:02.440 Garadevi spoke to the laborers.

00:21:04.440 Brothers, this forest is our mother's home.

00:21:06.940 It keeps us alive, and we run our lives through this.

00:21:10.120 You can have your food and then come along with us. 0.61

00:21:13.760 The contractors tried to scare the women into changing their minds, but they did not fear.

00:21:18.960 Into the night, the women stayed awake, and with their embrace and their lives.

00:21:23.300 they guarded the trees. After a four-day impasse, the contractors left. Shortly after, the state

00:21:28.680 government would comply with the villagers' demands and issue a 10-year ban on commercial

00:21:32.900 deforestation in the area. This incident would go on to define the Chipko movement. 0.84

00:21:39.840 And afterwards, Garadevi kept on mobilizing women to organize protests and rallies. But because she 0.99

00:21:45.260 was illiterate, she was never included, never even asked about her views on the preservation

00:21:49.820 of forests by policymakers. The people in Uttarakhand passed her story between them,

00:21:55.720 but at the age of 66, she died an uneventful death in Renni, forgotten by the world outside

00:22:01.020 her village and its sacred trees. It was only when the Himalayan Action Research Center and

00:22:06.500 the Society for Participatory Research in Asia featured her in one of their books that people

00:22:10.840 slowly began to celebrate Gauradevi's contributions that had crystallized the Chipko movement and

00:22:16.300 launched a wave of environmental activism and eco-feminism around the world. We include these

00:22:23.460 women, Amrita and Gauradevi, of the nature-worshipping Bishnoi Hindu sect in this feminist

00:22:29.520 occult research project we've created for ourselves here at Missing Witches because of their strength

00:22:34.860 and their persecution and their radical relationship with the living world. I want to think about how

00:22:41.900 the earth-centered spirituality inherent in witchcraft can pay homage to the forest martyrs,

00:22:48.640 to the women who helped birth an environmental movement anchored in the lived reality of poor

00:22:53.520 people who love and need the land. I want this story to give power to our own earth-centered

00:22:58.800 activism and to the ways we honor and embrace the living world, to find a humanity and a

00:23:04.820 spirituality that helps to save that world, this world. But we also include women of the Bishnoi

00:23:11.320 faith in our story and research about witches, because witch hunting is used by and against

00:23:16.340 women of the Bishnoi faith even today. So a story about the eco-spirituality of the Bishnoi that

00:23:21.800 does not include the violence against women, especially under the umbrella of witch hunting,

00:23:26.800 in our context just doesn't seem fair or complete. For example, in January 2005, three women in a

00:23:34.400 village in Rajasthan accused a woman named Boli Devi Bishnoi of being a Diane, of practicing

00:23:40.200 witchcraft and making their children sick. They branded Bully a witch with the intention of 0.99

00:23:44.840 grabbing her family's land. Like Bully's family, the family of her harassers belonged to the

00:23:49.760 Vishnoy community. Bully's husband, P.R. Chan Vishnoy, says that for many years the other family

00:23:55.720 had been demanding access through his fields, and when he refused and told them to take another

00:24:00.860 route, it led to Bully being called Diane, a witch. Witch hunting is deployed as a common tool of both

00:24:07.820 the misogynist and the greedy and the tired and hungry. In April 2015, after a 25-year-long

00:24:14.340 campaign by activists, the government of Rajasthan passed the Rajasthan Prevention of Witch Hunting

00:24:18.700 Act. The law declared both witch hunting and witchcraft crimes punishable by prison sentences

00:24:23.880 and fines. The law has never yet been used to actually punish someone for witch hunting.

00:24:29.900 On August 14, 2016, a neighbor beat up Boli, alleging that she had performed black magic. 0.99

00:24:37.820 articles about her end with her echoing question, why is it that only women are labeled witches? 0.98

00:24:45.980 We still live in a world where terror is used in a war against women and people of marginalized

00:24:50.620 genders, and where the crush of late capitalism pushes neighbors towards a fear and grasping

00:24:56.620 violence. And look, I don't mean for this to be a distraction from talking about the exceptional,

00:25:02.860 magical, holy belief systems of these women who drew on its tenets to fuel their resistance.

00:25:08.660 And let's be really clear, I don't really know what I'm talking about here in terms of gender

00:25:13.200 dynamics in Rajasthan. I'm trying to dig and ask questions with an eye to educating myself.

00:25:20.380 And I really don't want to slip into oversimplifying and idealizing a belief system,

00:25:26.040 even one that I find beautiful in its relationship to the natural world.

00:25:30.160 I think that's kind of numbing and these days I want to be awake and I want to be honest even

00:25:38.720 when it's complicated and contradictory. Though the trendiness of the word witch can make me want

00:25:43.940 to creep back into my broom closet, I want to be honest about how this idea of witch can

00:25:49.740 simultaneously be used to isolate us, be used like a weapon, put people in danger and also

00:25:57.460 right through us into the earth and up into the infinite and stretch out across boundaries to

00:26:05.620 reach those who are isolated and terrorized and give us all power. I want to own all the names

00:26:13.380 they throw at us and laugh and rage and turn the tide. I want to be part of the history crafting

00:26:21.700 that puts Gaara Devi and Amrita Devi at the origin and heart of the Chipko movement and holds them

00:26:27.060 wholly in the pantheon of our modern syncretic idea of which. Critiques of the Chipko movement

00:26:33.780 today say it became dedicated to tree conservation above all else and cut the people's rights and

00:26:40.320 needs out of the equation, that it lost sight of the forest for the trees. In Rennie, a woman who

00:26:46.240 wished to remain anonymous when interviewed for an in-depth piece on Chipko for downtoearth.org

00:26:51.180 complained, they have put this entire area under the Nando Devi biosphere reserve. I can't even

00:26:56.720 pick herbs to treat a stomach ache. We got into enough trouble with Chipko. Now we don't even want 0.62

00:27:02.420 to attempt anything else. She said she'd come to hate the word environment. A movement launched

00:27:08.740 and inspired by forest women left them standing at the edges of their home, severed from their body 0.99

00:27:14.340 and broken from their medicine. Soil is ours. Water is ours. Ours are these forests. Our forefathers

00:27:21.820 raise them, it's we who must protect them, goes a song from the Chipko movement, which is, we are

00:27:27.600 rooted and intertwined with the trees and with each other. For this final episode of season four,

00:27:34.220 as we hear in the northern hemisphere tip into the deep dark, I want to put this song in your hearts.

00:27:41.760 Ours are these forests, and ours are these movements, and they are flawed and incomplete,

00:27:46.980 but it's we who must protect them and uplift them and complete them ancestors left their

00:27:54.060 blood in the ground and when we call to them they are standing all around us dozens and then

00:27:59.800 thousands not just people animals and trees too so much bigger than conservation they call on us

00:28:08.500 to see this great ancestral web the way we need and are each other as sacred

00:28:15.200 they are calling on us to shed our numbness and come back this month is strange on the 31st of

00:28:23.580 October this year we have a second full moon a blue moon a second chance moon and I hope you

00:28:28.820 will bask shamelessly in its light even if it's just through your bathroom window and you get up

00:28:34.740 in the middle of the night to take a pee but then for the next new moon to honor Gaura and Amrita

00:28:41.060 Devi, if it's available to you, maybe you could fast for a few hours and use your hunger to follow

00:28:49.840 your curiosity about the living world. Is there a plant you've been noticing? A weed? A mushroom?

00:28:57.760 A tree? An animal that's made an appearance in your waking life or dreams? Go find out everything

00:29:06.980 you can. Listen to the quiet insistence of the natural world that wants to be known by you.

00:29:15.200 Then in the darkness of the new moon night, light a purifying fire. This could be a candle or a

00:29:22.320 dried rosemary sprig or bay leaf or bonfire. Whatever you have access to will do. Slip out

00:29:29.560 of your skin in the darkness. Feel the trees as they are dreaming, their vast roots reaching

00:29:35.820 under everything. Feel your own empathy unfurling like how coral seems to bloom at night, reaching

00:29:44.200 out its tender arms to catch the waves. Slide out of the protection of your bark, just for a minute

00:29:51.400 while you are safe in the net of all our collective fires. In the deepest dark of the new moon night,

00:29:58.280 notice that without the dominating brightness of the moon catching the sun, the infinite glows with

00:30:04.860 infinitely brighter lights. The sky is deeper than we can ever imagine when the sun and moon

00:30:12.020 hold sway. And our own little flame holds its own too. Feel your fine roots extend for miles

00:30:19.740 beyond what the eye can see. The way things appear is not how they have to be. Everything

00:30:26.560 is changing and it always has been. You are a light. You are sister to a tree. Your embrace

00:30:35.940 is infinitely powerful. Your life is a sacred and worthy offering. This forest is our mother's home.

00:30:45.360 We run our lives through this. The trees and the grass are listening.

00:30:56.560 You must be a witch.

00:30:58.100 This episode of the Missing Witches podcast was written and performed by Risa Dickens.

00:31:02.640 Music and editing by Amy Turok.

00:31:04.720 Thanks again to our sponsor, Foxglove Farm.

00:31:07.520 Don't forget to use our listener code offer,

00:31:10.460 Missing Witches, for 13% off your order.

00:31:13.580 Or make a contribution to their wildlife rescue out of the woods.

00:31:18.220 Find your witchy wellness at Foxglove Farm.

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00:31:23.980 You can also support Missing Witches on Patreon at patreon.com slash missingwitches, and or pick up some Missing Witches merch on TeePublic.

00:31:36.560 And please consider pre-ordering our upcoming book, Missing Witches, by Risa Dickens and Amy Turok, published by North Atlantic Books,

00:31:45.200 available for pre-order via Penguin Random House

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00:31:52.920 available online and in your communities.

00:31:56.380 All these links and more are on our website

00:31:58.820 missingwitches.com 0.98

00:32:00.520 Blessed fucking be. 0.99

Missing Witches - October 25, 2020

MW Gaura Devi： This Forest Is Our Mother's Home. We Run Our Lives Through This.

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