00:02:07.400A few times lately, people have written to us and said, oh, you mentioned this thing on the podcast and here's an article or here's a podcast and like, thank you so much. I love it because you're giving me information that I otherwise would not have had. But also it's like, oh, someone's listening to my questions and attempting to answer them. It's very, it makes me feel less lonely in the universe.
00:02:34.400totally yeah it's so funny we spend so much time on this podcast talking to each other
00:02:41.140and talking to brilliant people and in theory we know you're listening but in practice we forget
00:02:47.120it's just good to be reminded for sure that you're out there yeah speaking of being reminded
00:02:57.320that you're out there here's the song i stumbled on this week and it has this album the song in
00:03:05.900particular has been such an easing for me this week it's by ted lucas i was not familiar with
00:03:14.780ted lucas so like detroit motown era 19 you know late 60s early 70s ted lucas is in all of
00:03:27.260these like early psych folk psych rock bands um and he has some some success and then I guess
00:03:37.980he's not really interested in success in that particular way I think he studied guitar at
00:03:43.660university um he studied with Ravi Shankar and then he becomes like Motown's session guitarist
00:03:52.360especially for Indian stringed instruments so just an incredible player but then he goes up
00:04:00.420into his attic like sometime after Detroit after Motown leaves Detroit heads to LA and he like
00:04:08.860self-records with a multi-track recorder this folk album and it's like his one album really
00:04:16.220his one solo album and then he kind of disappears and I guess this album becomes like very sought
00:04:22.240after when you listen to it you're like oh okay iron and wine and bonny bear like i get now
00:04:27.900what the roots are of that sound um it's so so lovely there's one song on the album it's just
00:04:36.660like about how good it is to be stoned and just be like experiencing the world that's not the song
00:04:42.920i'm bringing today though though it's true now this one it just goes if i could be baby where
00:04:51.940you are if I could be baby where you are if I could see what you see then I would know what you
00:04:58.360know just to be and it kind of loops and circles like that and about where if I could go where you
00:05:08.520go if I could know what you know if just to be where you are and it just really feels to me like
00:05:15.820this song about time travel, world travel,
00:05:20.580about being able to see through each other's eyes.
00:07:03.560that we learn to love each other by traveling to each other's worlds.
00:07:09.460And it's so strange to me that I stumbled on those two things. Although I do think that that is kind of the message in everything all the time. You know, that there's like, there is a way through love of traveling into each other's worlds and seeing the ways that we are our ability to see is constrained, that our ability to imagine possibilities is constrained by power dynamics.
00:07:36.920and that our abilities to really like see the other as a subject like as someone who loves
00:07:43.760and who plays and to be able to play with them and to see them like in their full joy and their
00:07:49.340full power but that takes some world traveling um and it and like it might not be something
00:07:57.420that you and I have as much access to as a woman of color like I really I think that that she's
00:08:04.360right in claiming that that experience gives a vision and that's why like there's so much value
00:08:12.240in in building networks where we uplift and uphold each other so we can learn from what each other
00:08:17.400can see and I think that's why I relate so much to this song right where he's just singing it's
00:08:23.300almost like a lament like if I could see what you see if I could be where you are if I could know
00:08:30.020what you know like acknowledging that we can't that it's imperfect but that loving it and longing
00:08:36.540for it does get us somewhere that does give us some respect and so that's my my prescription
00:08:42.500for this week even though it's not really something concrete is maybe just to listen
00:08:46.760to that song and read the works of these feminist philosophers if you can and also just see if we can
00:08:54.260travel to other worlds by by by loving those people yes i brought um
00:09:07.360love songs but like like you're saying it's beyond like romantic like you know
00:09:14.960he's so fine kind of love songs but that real desperate
00:09:20.500it. And, and sometimes I worry, worry, I don't worry. Well, yeah, I worry all the time. But
00:09:27.940I consider this like, sometimes we do things out of courage. And sometimes we do things
00:09:36.160out of desperation. I guess I'm thinking about Aaron Bushnell and courage and desperation
00:09:44.540and how those two things are linked and we think of them as opposites.
00:09:49.740But really, maybe they are two sides of the same coin.
00:09:53.780I was thinking about how a few of our covenmates recently have talked about this metaphor of church
00:10:05.220because we don't really have another language for it.
00:10:08.300We're working on it, we're working on a new vocabulary, but we don't quite have it yet.
00:10:14.540um one one of our coven mates always says after or during our meetings that you know this is what
00:10:20.000church should be and another one of our coven mates is like she saves the rx for sunday mornings
00:10:26.680because this is like her version of church and i do miss that i i mean i i i left the church for
00:10:35.800all the reasons that we all did you know the the misogyny and um the the idea that if you don't
00:10:48.760this party line then you know for all of eternity you will be encased in fire and brimstone it's
00:10:55.240like a bullying you know to me it's like not we don't get people to be in right relation by
00:11:03.200threatening them, you know? I don't have children, but I think that that's related to that. Like,
00:11:09.000your kids will obey you because they fear you, not because they respect you or whatever. But
00:11:15.740I was thinking about, like, if we are a church, you know, what would the hymns be? What would the
00:11:22.620hymnal look like? And I think that our YouTube playlist for the RX is sort of the hymnal, but
00:11:29.400I wanted to really bring it into hyper-focus with a band called Spiritualized, and Spiritualized came out of another band, an 80s band called the Spaceman Three, the three refers to the third eye, who were sort of touted as the godfathers of shoegaze.
00:11:48.980So it's all very ethereal and droney and beautiful and organ music.
00:11:59.180And in the 90s, they sort of reformed and created this band called Spiritualized.
00:12:04.780And one of their albums is called Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space.
00:12:11.020And Risa, you know this, listeners, you know this.
00:12:13.720sometimes like it's comforting for me to just think of myself as like a little insect on a rock
00:12:22.300hurling through space and sometimes like if i think about it too much it's a little bit too
00:12:26.920much for me but the title track ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space
00:12:32.480starts like this ladies and gentlemen we're floating in space
00:12:35.840All I want in life's a little bit of love
00:13:05.080getting strong today a giant step each day and then like you were talking about the looping
00:13:14.300nature of the music that you were listening to and this is the same kind of thing this particular
00:13:17.980song is like based on the melody of pachelbel's canon you know that series of chords that just
00:13:25.200loops and loops and loops and different melodies come and go and and in ladies and gentlemen we
00:13:30.820floating in space. Again, different lyrics and melodies blend and overlap. And then their first
00:13:40.140record, I think it was their first record, was called Laser Guided Melodies. And Laser Guided
00:13:47.220Melodies has this song that I think would be like in the opening ceremonies if Missing Witches were
00:13:57.200We're a church. And again, listeners, like, please give us your new vocabulary for this so we can stop using the word church, but still invoke what the good things about what that means to us.
00:14:09.080Like, I have many happy memories before I was like, had a political conscience of, you know, like, we have to go to this place once a week and there's no getting out of it. And we stand up and sing and then we sit down and hear stories. And then we stand up and sing again. And then we sit down and hear stories.
00:14:30.720And ideally, those stories are about how, like, how to be right in the world, how to love our siblings and how to love people and to see people through each other's eyes to get, to get out, get pulled, like, one of our covenmates called it the life-saving magic of pulling your head out of your ass.0.89
00:14:53.040And, you know, the church that I went to is very service-based and we did the 40-hour famine and fund writers and all that. But this song from Laser Guided Melodies is called Shine a Light. And they sing,
00:15:10.260When I'm tired and all alone, Lord, shine a light on me. And when I'm lonesome as can be, Lord, shine a light on me.
00:15:22.040And then the whole rest of the track that goes on for many minutes is just, Lord, shine a light on me. Lord, shine a light on me. Lord, shine a light on me. Lord, shine a light on me.
00:15:38.740And I think that that that's what I am looking for right now.
00:15:44.020And maybe y'all out there are looking for that, too.
00:15:49.520It's it's still winter and it is also like a winter of the soul.
00:15:57.940As we as we look around the world, it's not the promise of spring is not yet fulfilled.
00:16:07.260and so just shine a light on me please shine lord shine a light on me and again it goes on from
00:16:16.380and this looping and the music and lord the pleading the pleading of lord shine a light
00:16:26.540on me so i wanted to add spiritualized to the missing witches hymnal and it's kind of funny
00:16:35.400because like I had this friend of mine he had never heard of Spiritualized and I was like
00:16:40.320I think you'll really like them so I bought him a copy of Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in
00:16:45.180Space on vinyl so it's four sides and he just sat down and like motionless listened to all four
00:16:54.340sides of this record you know and then was like well I just sat down and listened to all four
00:17:00.960of this record and he couldn't even really articulate the feelings that came up for him
00:17:07.200and and so I'm hoping that you listeners will check out these especially these particular
00:17:13.160two tracks ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space and shine a light and if you can try to
00:17:19.800articulate to us what that brought up in you because I feel like for everyone it's going to
00:17:26.280be different and I would love to hear it through your ears yeah and I just want to add like so
00:17:46.360so much love for all of the ways in which we try to
00:17:50.480find a right relation with whatever it is that makes sense for us to call divinity or whatever
00:18:02.120community you can find that helps you and eases you you know keep your keep your wits about you0.97
00:18:11.800do your due diligence there's a lot of fucking cults of various kinds dedicated to money or0.98
00:18:19.240to power out there. But there are also really badass, progressive churches or churches from0.96
00:18:29.280which I think you can successfully pirate what you need if you are in a community where it is
00:18:34.600not safe for you to not be in a church or if you're in a place where it's not safe for you
00:18:40.140to be a witch. I think there are places where you can go and there are many examples from many,
00:18:45.920many colonized and enslaved people who took what they wanted from the colonizers faith took what
00:18:53.520they needed and turned it to goodness and resistance and reenchantment and power so all
00:19:00.380love to all of those versions we love you guys so much and if for you you know the idea of a church
00:19:09.520needs to be burned to the ground there are so many kinds of religious trauma that people in
00:19:14.500our community have lived through. And we love and respect that too. For you, we are always looking0.87
00:19:21.920for words and metaphors and expressions of this that don't duplicate harm. And we're not interested
00:19:29.960really in having a church. It's just kind of a joke. We mostly just like to have a podcast and
00:19:36.080write poetry together. But I've been thinking of them as sacred groves, you know, instead of
00:19:43.100Instead of coming to a church space, but that's because I was in this class recently and the teacher was talking about how, you know, the first things the Romans did when they came and colonized, like, Northern Europe was to burn the sacred groves.
00:20:03.380And so I don't know. I have that in my mind that like if I could trace my ancestors back far enough that they were they were sitting with old growth trees and calling the wind in the same way that I feel connected to that there's an older there's an older sense of faith there.
00:20:21.580So maybe that feels right for you. Maybe you're a total atheist. Maybe you're a scientist, science witch, you know, all of those modes.
00:20:30.880I was reading about entanglement this week and like the way that they understand entropy through time now as being that particles become entangled with their environment.
00:20:45.360So they couldn't really explain why the hot coffee cup cools to be the same temperature as the room.
00:20:50.820And now they understand that those particles gradually are just entangled with the rest of the room until everything achieves a balance.