Missing Witches - MW Rx. 21 - Missing Witches Prescription with Risa + Amy

00:00:00.000 The spirit is rising, she's rising, she's rising. The spirit is rising, it's rising, it's rising.

00:00:10.340 The spirit is rising, they're rising, they're rising. The spirit is rising.

00:00:16.720 Hi Risa, hi Kevin.

00:00:18.260 Hi Amy. Welcome home to your witch prescription for this week. 0.72

00:00:24.700 This is another week surviving late stage capital. This is how we're going to fucking get each other through. 0.99

00:00:29.340 i think your first prescription is to just fucking celebrate our our month-long community 0.97

00:00:35.520 act of reparations is a glorious success and it just feels so deeply good to have done that with 0.86

00:00:43.240 all of you yeah i want to um thank everybody who participated if we announced on instagram the

00:00:52.380 total but maybe you don't have instagram and if you don't that's awesome i support that yeah so

00:00:58.340 I will tell you now, the total that we raised was $10,230. And over 4,000 of that went directly to

00:01:08.960 the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal. It's over $10,000, y'all. That's way beyond what my goal

00:01:16.700 was. And I'm like really emotional and grateful. I want to do one shout out. Our largest donor two

00:01:25.680 years in a row has been brianne iverson i did ask if i could say her name molten hot cosmic witch

00:01:33.140 and the reason that this fundraiser is so important to her is because of the missing

00:01:40.800 witches project and she told us that she was like ready to give up wayfinao and just

00:01:50.700 whatever that might mean and somehow she got her hands on a copy of our book and according to her

00:01:58.440 it saved her life according to her it was a life preserver when she felt like she was drowning

00:02:06.420 and same right relatable relatable content love us too yeah I'm still a little bit sick so if

00:02:18.100 you hear me coughing something up don't worry it's the it's the end it's the last of this the

00:02:22.500 last of my illness trying to get out of my body sorry everybody but um uh I just really want to

00:02:30.520 thank Brie because she went out and like involved her family and did like her own thing and made a

00:02:39.500 huge and amazing contribution we also got an email from someone who was like you know I've been

00:02:46.120 really inspired and I've been thinking about doing something myself but like I don't I don't

00:02:49.940 want to copy your idea and I was like please steal this format like we did not invent send us a

00:02:57.660 screenshot we didn't invent fundraising and most importantly like we want to see we want to see

00:03:04.840 what you do like if you're thinking to yourself you're listening and you're like I didn't have 10

00:03:09.660 last month to get in on this maybe next year you'll start your own yeah you know also next

00:03:18.160 year you'll you'll do your own fundraiser and raise like a thousand dollars you know like

00:03:23.220 also relatable to not have ten dollars oh absolutely like please please feel no

00:03:29.660 please please remove any shame of that and know that everyone in the circle of this act of

00:03:37.600 reparations has at some point been there, you know, like this, this, this flow of this

00:03:44.440 system of inequity that happens around money, like it has crushed us. And we have sometimes

00:03:51.540 been in an opportunity to call it forth to support each other. So if, if we also got emails from

00:03:57.420 people who are like, I'm able to donate for the first time, here's a $10 donation to the Native

00:04:02.040 women's shelter that made me weep. It has been for me in times in my life, despite a lot of

00:04:10.200 systemic privilege that I have benefited from. It has definitely been for me at times in my life

00:04:15.180 where I could not fucking afford rent and I cried at the situation in the world and being unable to

00:04:20.000 donate. So just know that that's part of the spirit of a community act of reparations. There's 0.95

00:04:26.900 a loving balance in there okay yeah and if and if you can't contribute money just like go out and be

00:04:34.600 rad just be rad you're so rad you're so rad I'm I'm a huge believer in this like the rippling effect

00:04:44.100 of literally like smiling at people you like it feels like the pressure and the heat and everybody's

00:04:51.560 like honking their horns and being rude to each other and you know so if you can go out with like

00:04:57.800 and it sounds maybe silly but like go out into the world with like hope and love in your heart

00:05:03.300 and like smile at somebody that to me is like a beautiful act of community service it doesn't have

00:05:08.980 to be money it doesn't even really have to be time it can just be like a sense of joy that pours out

00:05:16.580 of you that leaks onto other people in the street and changes their day or it changes their life 0.97

00:05:22.180 yes it can be joy it can be joy fueled truth telling and like taking of no shit also you know 0.99

00:05:31.160 sometimes it can be your fucking rage too that that's a magic you know you see somebody acting 1.00

00:05:36.680 like a racist piece of shit on the bus and you can be that you know if you are in a white body 1.00

00:05:42.600 you can be that white body that's like no stop it you know like that's a magic too 1.00

00:05:47.520 doesn't always have to be fucking love and light you know with witches 0.99

00:05:50.740 sometimes we pull on darker things too to get us through the day 0.91

00:05:54.620 yeah and that brings me to my first piece of the missing wish

00:05:59.300 um i didn't plan that segue but it is something i've been thinking about

00:06:06.440 um I guess in part so the two pieces that go into that for me this weekend there's probably a

00:06:13.240 thousand um strange synchronicities but one it's you know a million degrees um and our lake is

00:06:20.980 really cold still so I'm I am back to being my like true water witch diving deep in the dark

00:06:29.480 cold lake like that is truly me at my core you know when we talk about what did you come here 0.97

00:06:36.980 to do I am here to dive deep into dark cold lakes um I also went to like a terrible fucking yoga 0.98

00:06:46.360 class like the worst the worst yoga class that ended up being like an exercise in me channeling 0.98

00:06:53.580 my rage and there was so much well-intentioned love and light and my inner anger was just

00:07:02.640 radiating around me in a rage ball I think and I was thinking you know it's like it's okay that I

00:07:09.560 don't think that this is all okay like it's not okay to not warn people that you're going to

00:07:15.660 photograph them and video them to put on your website at the start of a class it's okay to be

00:07:20.920 angry that they're burning like very strong smelling heavy smoke that's also Palo Santo

00:07:28.840 which you know there's issues around extraction and spiritual inappropriation and heavy on a hot

00:07:34.500 day really strong smelling so I had a terrible headache and then there was someone chanting for

00:07:40.000 like an hour and a half too loud on a mic with like loud drone sounds and I was just thinking

00:07:45.580 about how like my body is not wired to hear that sound like I'm in I just had a terrible migraine 0.95

00:07:53.660 from like three seconds into this fucking yoga class so there was some rage in me this week 0.96

00:08:01.840 um and also just rage at the world rage at the iniquity of the world you know the the crackdowns 0.99

00:08:10.140 in Atlanta on cop city the charges that are being brought against protesters as the city

00:08:14.680 plans to spend like 64 million dollars to build a training militarized training center for police

00:08:23.580 I mean just everything like my rage was bubbling and boiling and then I was diving down into the

00:08:28.680 dark waters you know so the song that was on repeat and that May has added to her May playlist

00:08:36.060 she's now got a couple non-kid songs it's by the Secret Sisters I only discovered it when

00:08:44.640 Missing Witches did a our first like Spotify Missing Witches collective playlist which we

00:08:53.200 will have to do more of I think that one is tricky because some people by accident added

00:08:58.300 whole albums to the playlist so if you don't like that particular sound there's a lot of it

00:09:03.000 it kind of drowns it out so we'll have to do a new version of it but that is how I discovered

00:09:08.100 this song Water Witch and it is so fucking fun to swoon around the house or scream in the car

00:09:18.580 and it also speaks to this idea you know like yeah we're just we're not all love and light

00:09:25.940 some of what this idea of playing with or owning witch is about is also about the

00:09:36.720 the sorrow and the ugly and the dark and the truth telling you know like in the song she says

00:09:43.760 afraid of the strong magnetism of the pain that leaves permanent unafraid of the strong magnetism

00:09:50.160 of the pain that leaves permanent marks you know not afraid of that that's part of what being a

00:09:57.080 witch of the water is you know and a witch of the fire and a witch of the earth and the wind you

00:10:02.700 know we're not we're called to that we're called to the truth in the pain places you know people

00:10:09.760 come to our circle for a lot of reasons and some of them involve real trauma and childhood trauma

00:10:16.880 and they don't want you know it's like Sophie Strand says you know it wasn't it wasn't going

00:10:24.520 to be love and light that healed her from her childhood trauma and from the sickness inside

00:10:30.040 her gut and the chronic illness in her. It wasn't going to be just erasing and sterilizing and

00:10:36.900 bleaching it all away. It's composting. It's like, what more do we add? How much deeper do we go?

00:10:43.100 Where in the dark and in the earth can we make rich soil of our lives? And anyway, all of that

00:10:49.480 goes through my mind while I scream that I am the witch of the water. And there's a fun harmony in

00:10:55.080 i come like a thief in the night bewitched by invisible forces to lead you away from the light

00:11:02.340 it's very fun so that's your prescription play that song loud swoon around wear dark clothes

00:11:08.860 and then dive deep in whatever waters you can whether they're dream waters emotional waters

00:11:14.260 shower waters lake waters yeah metaphorical or literal yeah i just got out of the shower before

00:11:23.420 a reason I sat down to record and it's like it was one of those like literally and metaphorically

00:11:29.580 washing off the whole like few days the heat and the dirt and just letting it run off me and down

00:11:37.900 the drain it's obviously like a symbolic practice that witches have been doing for a very very very

00:11:44.020 long time you know lav tets uh head washing and and and the floor washing so as we enter pride

00:11:53.740 month that's kind of my prescription too i want you to go deep deep into yourself um because

00:12:03.240 the number one thing that i got called in high school was freak i got called all the time freak

00:12:10.240 freak freak freak freak and so it's definitely one of the first words that I reclaimed for my

00:12:15.280 own humanity I'm a freak you know I'm a freak I'm not normal normal is super boring and all of y'all

00:12:23.120 in your beige need to like need to like take a deep look so that that's what I want everybody 0.99

00:12:32.200 to do I want you to look and think about what makes you a fucking freak what makes you a freak 0.99

00:12:40.180 are you um what ways are you different what are the things about you that are quote-unquote not 0.99

00:12:49.760 normal and I want you to think about them in the ways that they've caused you pain

00:12:54.860 and then I want you to think about them in the ways that they've brought you joy

00:12:58.980 because again you know we witches we live on both sides of the coin at all times we have this

00:13:04.380 complete non-binary existence that isn't just this or that it's everything and it's mixed

00:13:09.580 together to make new colors and form new things um but like sit down with it like sit down with 0.98

00:13:17.600 your inner freak ask yourself like what makes you the wonderful freakazoid that you are you know i

00:13:25.540 i i got an email from a friend who is like being harassed by proud boys basically and and i i told 0.72

00:13:36.140 him you know i'm in my mind i'm creating this circle of protection around you and all the

00:13:42.700 freakazoids who literally make life on this earth worth living you know if you look to arts you'll

00:13:52.040 find freaks and i don't just mean like you know lgbtqia plus you know although obviously that's 1.00

00:14:00.180 a huge part of like lee bowery comes to mind of just like the freakiest queeriest most exciting 0.97

00:14:06.800 i remember the first time i saw lee bowery and it was like the whole world cracked open for me you 0.97

00:14:11.420 know um what makes you different and so what makes you special um and i brought someone who can relate

00:14:22.120 to you um for that Janelle Monae uh came out as non-binary um they had already claimed pansexuality 0.91

00:14:30.320 so in terms of all that freakiness they're freaky but I don't know if you remember when Janelle 1.00

00:14:35.340 Monae first came on the scene it was all about a tuxedo you know it was all of it like it was

00:14:40.960 feminine but there was this like hard masculinity about it um and that's just expanded I don't know

00:14:48.880 if you all have seen the video for pink with the vagina pants they're like all of the dancers are 0.98

00:14:55.180 wearing these like amazing like labia pants that are like like vagina lips like you look at there's

00:15:03.360 no mistaking it but the song that I brought from Janelle Monae is a duet that she did with Erykah 0.92

00:15:12.220 Badu called Q-U-E-E-N so known as Queen and it's a song about asking like am I a freak for

00:15:21.620 getting down am I a freak for this am I a freak for that and and her and their answer is like yeah

00:15:28.780 yeah I'm a freak for all of these things and I want to I want to read the conclusion that Janelle

00:15:37.040 Monet comes up with well I'm gonna keep leading like a young Harriet Tubman you can take my wings

00:15:44.280 but I'm still gonna fly and even when you edit me the booty don't lie yeah I'm gonna keep singing

00:15:51.460 I'm gonna keep writing songs I'm tired of ask I'm tired of Marvin asking me what's going on

00:15:56.720 and just as an aside here um what's going on was like a political song written by Marvin Gaye that's

00:16:02.640 like a plea of like what is going on like this racism this this violence like what is going on

00:16:10.460 so that's an aside and don't don't I remember Janelle Monae saying early on in interviews that

00:16:16.080 they channel like they they feel Marvin Gaye in them that they feel different black voices through

00:16:23.460 them they hear their voices that it comes through in their music I'll see if I can find the interview

00:16:27.720 but I do remember them being really explicit about parts of their musical

00:16:33.980 creation, feeling like an act of possession.

00:16:37.260 Yeah. A channeled. Yeah. I hadn't read that interview,

00:16:39.900 but I'm excited to now march through the streets.

00:16:43.860 Cause I'm willing and I'm able categorize me.

00:16:47.600 I defy every label. And while you're selling dope,

00:16:50.860 we're going to keep selling hope. We rising up. Now you got a deal.

00:16:55.720 you gotta cope will you be electric sheep electric ladies will you sleep or will you preach 1.00

00:17:03.680 and so again that that is the prescription for me this week think about what makes you a fucking 0.99

00:17:09.520 freak and then preach it reach it if you're in a safe place tell the world if you're not in a safe 0.99

00:17:16.800 place write yourself a love poem about the freakiest bits of you and the strangest bits of

00:17:22.480 you and the weirdest bits of you, because that's what makes you exciting to me. That's what makes

00:17:27.420 you interesting to me. That's what makes you taking a hold of your life. I've known so many

00:17:33.300 people who wanted to be so fucking normal and now they're adults and they're trapped in these lives 0.96

00:17:40.380 that they didn't choose because they let society choose for them what the right path would, the 0.96

00:17:45.180 normal path, the quote unquote, I'm using mega scare quotes. I'm waving my fingers around in

00:17:50.040 the air right now the right and normal way of doing things and they're fucking miserable 0.99

00:17:55.300 and they're fucking miserable so i want you to bust out of that like what is normal what is 0.98

00:18:03.900 correct because it might not be normal or correct for you it might not it might be what your parents 0.99

00:18:10.540 wanted from you it might be what society wanted from you but if it's not right for you it's going

00:18:15.440 to hurt and it's going to keep hurting and someday you're going to wake up and realize 0.92

00:18:19.300 you're fucking trapped in a life that you didn't want and I don't want that for you because I've 0.98

00:18:24.380 been a freakazoid my whole life and it has never steered me wrong it has never steered me wrong 1.00

00:18:30.660 I've gotten in trouble I've taken hits you know I've lost friends who couldn't deal um but I've

00:18:40.380 never regretted it never once so take it for me lifelong freakazoid um will you sleep or will you

00:18:48.740 preach yeah and if the word preach um is a trigger for you like uh religious trauma is real and

00:18:58.820 painful and sometimes like you know sometimes the word can be enough like we've heard this from we

00:19:03.740 get educated by our coven so much but we've heard this about the word play you know like 0.76

00:19:07.060 it's sometimes if you had childhood trauma the word play can be really fucking unwelcome 0.96

00:19:11.800 sometimes if you have religious trauma even if we're playing even if we're fucking with the word 0.93

00:19:18.280 you know even if we're dismantling the word we're reclaiming it we're taking it for ourselves 0.71

00:19:22.940 words from that experience can shove you right out of your magic right like so the word that

00:19:30.900 was suggested to us uh by coven members who brought this to us is like instead of preach 0.66

00:19:36.240 what if we fucking howl so if janelle monet speaks to you all the way up until that word 0.85

00:19:41.540 and then you feel like dropped a little bit because that word is dismembering for you um 1.00

00:19:47.720 just howl over that part because you're a fucking freak and you can howl if you want you don't have 0.99

00:19:53.300 to fucking preach yeah and I you know we are translators it's what we do you choose your own 1.00

00:20:00.680 word babes choose your own words I um Michaela Harrison the whale whisperer maybe you remember 0.99

00:20:06.960 the interview we did with her she didn't particularly feel drawn to the word gay or 0.99

00:20:13.540 queer so she calls herself prismatic and i'm like fuck yeah you're prismatic like choose any word 0.98

00:20:22.520 that makes you happy it doesn't have to be the words that we tell you that's counter to everything 0.99

00:20:27.520 that we just said choose your own words and do your own translations you know do your own

00:20:32.800 translations yes okay so that brings me to my next prescription pieces because we're translators

00:20:42.160 and we use words so these ones aren't songs these are two books that have been really with me in the

00:20:49.700 last couple of weeks one of them you can purchase now the other one is available for pre-order 0.63

00:20:56.100 uh eliza robertson wrote a fucking killer book called i got a name it's a true crime book eliza 0.75

00:21:06.720 um is a contributor to our book coming out in september um our book is new moon magic and for 0.99

00:21:14.740 that book we asked some of our favorite astrologers who we'd met over the years on the show

00:21:20.080 to give like a little piece of an insight into the character of the new moon in each astrological

00:21:27.480 season. And Eliza wrote incredibly beautiful sort of doorways into understanding the way that that 0.99

00:21:34.140 time is felt. She's a brilliant astrologer. She's just a brilliant writer, like award-winning 0.50

00:21:41.940 Canadian novelist and writer um who I finally got to meet in person last week and she is so

00:21:50.620 delicate seeming and so lovely and so precise and then she traveled across North America 0.92

00:21:56.740 hunting a fucking murderer and she tells the story in this book and it's just so empowering 0.94

00:22:04.640 and haunting terrifying um so i got a name if you are up for a cold case uh in the hands of a 1.00

00:22:16.120 really thoughtful beautiful writer who you can tell on every page is a fucking witch although 0.97

00:22:24.080 she never names it she just sees she sees the signs and places and she thinks about the 0.99

00:22:31.200 connections and things. And she's really deliberate and thoughtful about the world of true crime and

00:22:38.040 its biases and the world of domestic violence and the way it's so deeply entrenched in bureaucracy.

00:22:44.660 If you are up for that, I so highly recommend it. And I just wanted to share. So

00:22:51.800 So Eliza tells the story that she started to tell the story of this cold case of the murder of the murder of Crystal Sank is the subtitle.

00:23:08.040 And she finds out about the story because a neighbor leaves an envelope on her doorstep that's from like 20 years before.

00:23:18.860 and it's uh the collected sort of writing of this woman who had been murdered up in the yukon

00:23:25.880 that you know a neighbor had known her had worked with her and had kept her writing

00:23:32.640 and she so she quotes from it throughout the book uh throughout the story she's she's we hear bits

00:23:41.380 of crystal's own voice of crystal's own writing and at one point crystal writes i am the collective

00:23:48.580 gathering of all my experiences. My behaviors and beliefs have evolved throughout countless ages

00:23:54.100 and have currently chosen to manifest themselves in the human form present on this earth in this

00:23:59.500 time. I am part of a continuum, a linkages of lives, each unique unto itself, but forming a

00:24:09.620 complete picture of the essence of the life it was and currently is. And how strange to be reading

00:24:18.500 a book written by a woman 30 years after this woman was murdered, and for her to be writing

00:24:26.720 about being part of a wave, part of a continuum. And it's so heartbreaking that this happened to

00:24:33.680 this incredibly strong woman who was murdered for protecting a friend, murdered by the friend's 0.95

00:24:39.600 husband we know his name he's still at large fuck that guy Ronald Bax um but and to think of 0.96

00:24:49.160 ourselves as part of a continuum a continuum and a wave of people rising of picking up each other's

00:24:54.800 stories and the heartbreak of that but also the undeniability of us I feel that in her book um

00:25:04.780 So that is part of my prescription.

00:25:08.460 If you are up for the sorrow of it and the unresolvedness of it in very loving hands, read, I got a name.

00:25:15.940 And then the other one is an invitation.

00:25:20.000 So Claire McMillan wrote a novelized version of the story of Remedios Varro and Leonora Carrington.

00:25:28.500 So if you've listened to our Leonore Carrington episodes, our interviews with her family members, our writing about her work, this novel is so juicy and joyful.

00:25:41.960 And Claire will be on the show with us, which means coven members, if you're a member of the Missing Witches coven, if not, go to Missing Witches and just click join the coven.

00:25:52.780 There's memberships for as cheap as a dollar a month.

00:25:55.560 you'll be invited to meet with Claire and we can pull cards together and talk about art and talk

00:26:02.700 about novelizations of real witches and dig into the history but I wanted to read a little bit of

00:26:10.240 Anatomy of a Blackbird because this is like a class in tarot writing in tarot reading this book

00:26:16.280 like there's pieces of how Remedios came to understand tarot told to us through Claire's

00:26:24.940 like wonderful, insightful thinking about it. This piece is in the voice of a Cherugi woman

00:26:31.200 who, you know, Leonora and Remedios encounter on the banks of the Seine, you know, as the Nazis are

00:26:39.320 coming in to France. So Nazis are already like arresting and murdering fortune tellers,

00:26:46.020 astrologers in Germany, they know it's coming to France. So this woman is kind of hiding her cards, 0.99

00:26:51.160 but you know remedios and leonora find them and so she gives like a bit of insight into the cards

00:26:59.320 and it's um funny too because leonora has these ideas about like oh you can't touch the cards

00:27:06.160 um you know you must never pull the cards for yourself you must never buy yourself cards and 1.00

00:27:12.380 this woman is like you were told a bunch of bullshit like that's not but that's superstition 1.00

00:27:16.580 like that's not real that was your nanny trying to keep you from fucking with her shit 1.00

00:27:20.160 yeah um but then she says no power inhabits a deck of tarot cards beyond what you as the tarot 1.00

00:27:29.920 reader bring to them there's no doctrinaire meaning for any card and no authority on high

00:27:35.780 handing down pronouncements there is only your knowledge of myth and symbol these things you

00:27:41.760 may consider through the study of classical greek and roman myth physics all forms of mysticism and

00:27:47.120 occultism, even psychology. You combine this with your own life experience and bring it to the

00:27:52.940 cards. And then later she says, your first lesson is this, the tarot is like life, a set of cards

00:28:01.600 to be played that rely on the skill, knowledge, and intuition of the reader to view the cards

00:28:07.320 dealt, understand them, and react to them to the best of her ability. Like life, there is a random

00:28:14.260 element to it. And like life, there is a synchronicity to it. And like life, what matters

00:28:19.840 is the truth that can be glimpsed behind what is rather small and flimsy, in this case, a card,

00:28:26.520 and then what actions are taken in reaction to that truth.

00:28:34.320 So juicy. So that's called Alchemy of a Blackbird. It's available for pre-order. Pre-orders help

00:28:40.400 authors so much. So if you're inspired and you want a juicy summer novel, you can pre-order it

00:28:46.280 now and it comes out July 11th. And ultimately, I think that's a good bow to tie around this is

00:28:55.800 just like reacting to the truth. Can we react to the truth of ourselves? Can we react to the truth

00:29:02.900 of the society that we're living in? Can we react to the truth of our feelings? Can we react to the

00:29:09.000 truth of ourselves that we've kept hidden how do we react to the truth let's examine that this week 0.98

00:29:18.600 and blessed if i can be we love you and thank you again for joining our fundraiser holy shit y'all 0.99

00:29:26.020 we love you holy shit 0.99

00:29:27.500 awesome 0.93

00:29:31.480 If you want to support the Missing Witches Project, find out how at missingwitches.com.

00:30:01.480 Thank you.

Missing Witches - June 05, 2023

MW Rx. 21 - Missing Witches Prescription with Risa + Amy

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