Missing Witches - Thea Anderson： The Past Is Right Here, It's Pressing On Us

00:00:00.340 We've been missing you. Do you want to find the witch friends you've been missing? Do you want 1.00

00:00:04.480 to participate in these conversations live? And do you want to support the work of recovering

00:00:09.080 a true history of feminist ideas about magic? Do you want to hang out? Do you want an invite

00:00:15.220 to Zoom together with Amy and myself, every new moon, along with our hilarious, diverse,

00:00:21.720 wise queer creative anti-racist science and awe-loving coven you must join the missing

00:00:30.420 witches patreon it's pay what you can and we can't wait to meet you there patreon.com 0.96

00:00:37.180 slash missing witches you aren't being a proper woman therefore you must be a witch 0.91

00:00:41.680 you must be a witch welcome welcome missing witches coven risa and i are so excited today 0.95

00:00:54.300 to make good on a promise that we made during our astrology panel which is to bring back those

00:01:01.460 astrologers for one-on-one so we can really dig into their work and today we're starting that with

00:01:08.080 Thea Anderson you might remember her from the astrology panel that we did a little while ago

00:01:17.540 and I'm gonna let you describe your work for those people who maybe didn't hear that episode

00:01:24.940 or just learning about you for the first time thank you so much and I'm really excited yeah

00:01:31.060 we're so excited to have you here and we're just excited to hear like where's your brain at today

00:01:35.260 like how are you what are you working on what are you inspired by whatever date it is when this

00:01:40.940 right now I'm thinking about spring and I can't wait to get together with the amazing women in

00:01:52.200 my community so I'm reporting from the Berkshires in Massachusetts and it just feels like I'm

00:01:59.520 starting to see people and I'm connecting with people you know other mothers other people who

00:02:07.240 have the same interests as me and it it's really funny because to back up a little bit I spent

00:02:13.380 about 15 years in Brooklyn and moved out basically to the woods in 2020 and can I back up even further

00:02:23.500 i i actually had a feeling that we should move and thanksgiving 2019 so we did a little stint

00:02:32.260 in connecticut we were living in brooklyn and i was like i i kept having all these dreams

00:02:37.620 i kept having the sense that something really weird was shifting um and i i have a practice of

00:02:47.800 journaling my dreams. I'll wake up with the journal before I start thinking about the day

00:02:54.860 and write down the dreams and like first person present tense. So I could see that something was

00:03:02.820 yeah sort of like that there were weird images being sort of like shown to me and I was just

00:03:10.960 like practically speaking I had just had my second child and I was like I think practically

00:03:16.440 we need to move it feels time for us to get more space that was the sort of argument I made to my

00:03:22.820 partner and we did we moved to his family's house in Connecticut which is also in the woods and

00:03:30.300 that was just that was on Thanksgiving in 2019 and then as we know a couple months later the

00:03:37.800 pandemic hit and I was so grateful for being able to make this crazy case for having a partner who

00:03:44.660 listen to me to have us move and to to be in a place where we could have some sense of grounding

00:03:52.200 have some sense of something that anchored us when everything just felt so uncertain at that

00:03:57.420 like really weird time loop that still doesn't even feel like it happened okay so that's where

00:04:03.360 I'm at and how I got here my name is Dia and I am an astrologer with a magical practice as well

00:04:12.140 and I am the director of production at Chani and that has been such a privilege and to just do like

00:04:22.300 my sort of mercurial problem solving I've had that sort of in every role that I've ever done

00:04:28.740 and this really lets me bring together the astrology and the sort of logistical mind

00:04:34.520 mapping that I love to do and the team is amazing and I learn so much. I am also a writer

00:04:41.840 so I've been working on my first novel which is a slow marathon slow drip but keeps me tied to

00:04:53.940 how I was saying the dream world I am I also like to have sort of research projects going on at the

00:05:00.680 same time and I guess the kind of astrology that really interests me start with my teachers first

00:05:06.780 of all, I first started to learn with Samuel Reynolds. He's an amazing teacher of traditional

00:05:12.480 astrology. And I've studied with Austin Coppock and Nina Griffin and devoured every book. And

00:05:20.620 just, I mean, I could live several lifetimes. I always had an instinct for astrology, right?

00:05:26.020 Like it was always with me. And I think I said in the panel, part of that is because I grew up,

00:05:30.500 I grew up in Houston and our relationship to space and NASA, and I just thought it was so amazing and that the stars were there every day, whether we thought about them or not.

00:05:42.680 I actually wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to be there. And I still sort of, I think I found my way to be an astronaut is what the kind of astrological practice I have now.

00:05:55.920 I love astrology for the purpose of helping others see their gifts and talents, but I also, I love it for looking at the past. And so that's sort of where I'm at today. It's just going back and seeing parts of history, parts of my history, parts of our history in a way that it's like, it's as if it were written down.

00:06:18.840 And so that sort of historical storytelling is just a really big part of my work and something

00:06:27.020 that I return to. Even though I'm looking at historical events, I'm sitting in almost the

00:06:35.260 same place as my fiction, right? Like, sort of like, what happens? What's happening? And it does

00:06:42.440 become something that's not in the past but something that's here right now the sort of

00:06:48.640 present tense that I was talking about I have so many follow-up questions I have so I have a list

00:06:55.600 of questions from your little introduction there okay so me too I'm gonna maybe they'll overlap

00:07:01.760 we'll see Risa um you say you wake up and the first thing you do is you journal your dreams

00:07:07.240 in the first person present which is so interesting to me because I find that like the first thing that

00:07:14.520 happens is I forget or we I can probably say we forget and then you try to articulate it to

00:07:20.480 someone and you're like I was in this thing and I didn't and all of these and I feel like your

00:07:26.100 method probably help allows you to remember your dreams better because you're centering yourself in

00:07:32.340 that first person present is that why you do it that way yes and i feel like i i must have picked

00:07:38.860 that up somewhere along the line that that from different people who do dream work and i i do find

00:07:45.500 that that works whereas it's not me standing in the top side world trying to retrieve something

00:07:50.620 that's happened in that weird you know liminal space i i still i almost pretend that i'm still

00:07:57.140 there and it, it works and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes, yeah, I'll try, I'll, I'll even

00:08:03.220 sense my brain reaching for the day and I'll go, no, and I'll just start writing. Sometimes I just

00:08:08.880 go, I don't remember, but it helps me actually, you know, I don't usually reread them either.

00:08:17.500 And that's, you know, that's part of the practice of the artist way morning pages that I've been

00:08:23.180 doing for about four years now and so I just am doing it for the process of bringing that magic

00:08:31.560 to my present tense to my like to my now when I was doing this a similar practice people told me

00:08:40.900 you know it'll take it'll take like days or even weeks before they they stay with you longer

00:08:46.940 and that was hard to like hold out for was that similar for you no I think I um I think in the

00:08:56.360 beginning it was just like oh my god it's a it's a place for it to land but I do go through dry

00:09:01.300 spells and sometimes I get a little I do get frustrated and I'm like no I know I dreamt

00:09:07.520 I want to write it down and I feel that's my rational brain wanting proof that that existed

00:09:16.300 yeah um instead of just saying right now there's a reason that that that stayed there and to just

00:09:24.480 trust that sometimes it'll be available for you to have here and sometimes it won't so sometimes

00:09:31.100 i just write i i know i dreamt and i don't remember but the the feeling was terrible or the

00:09:35.880 feeling was thrilling or the feeling was like i was in water but i had no idea what else was happening

00:09:43.560 and I love the notion that you you don't return to them you're not trying to craft

00:09:49.500 poetry or fiction or like quote-unquote good writing it really is just like a morning ritual

00:09:56.120 that you do yes that's yeah that's right that's wonderful because you said you said something I

00:10:02.860 love that you your brain wants to start reaching for the day and you're like no and I love that

00:10:09.920 is a way to like open open your your day is to like say no I'm not gonna start grasping for all 0.60

00:10:17.400 the shit I gotta do today I'm gonna like stay in this liminal space for as long as I can and bring

00:10:22.800 it into the material world that's that's a beautiful way to start your day listeners I'm 0.99

00:10:27.920 gonna try this are you and then okay this is kind of maybe like silly because obviously we recognize

00:10:33.980 that astronomy and astrology are obviously very related, but not the same thing. So did you find

00:10:40.400 when you moved from the big bright lights of Brooklyn to the woods of Connecticut that your

00:10:47.380 relationship with the stars changed just based on their visibility?

00:10:53.020 Yes. Well, so here's what I'll say. Even when I was in Bed-Stuy and walking along the streets

00:11:01.020 of the brownstones me and my oldest willow I'd be like there's a full moon let's go look for it

00:11:08.720 and we would just go us two and just like walk around until we could get a clear view and sometimes

00:11:16.300 try to see the stars so so the stars didn't reveal themselves but at least the moon was there right

00:11:20.660 and the moon to me we would you know we would make little moon water jars and we would do we

00:11:27.760 would still try you know we there's still a relationship even if I couldn't see the stars

00:11:32.400 just to look at the dawn and look at the sunset like our closest star you know what I mean it

00:11:36.900 still reveals itself that that the the time is always moving that there's always movement

00:11:42.000 but yes being here and being able to find constellations I did take a course in and fix

00:11:49.860 stars and one of the big things is to to to put our relationship to the stars like to put the

00:11:57.020 stars back in the sky and that's that's something I said that's something that Bernadette Brady says

00:12:03.160 um yeah I just want to repeat that put the stars back in the sky please please expand

00:12:09.680 well she was teaching Bernadette Brady was teaching to a room full of astrologers

00:12:14.660 and basically if you're looking at a horoscope it's it's very limited right it's it's mapping

00:12:21.700 everything on the ecliptic on a circle if we were to look at you know the sun all the way to saturn

00:12:28.480 like the big seven and then we can go a little bit outer and get the three outers and then maybe

00:12:32.440 we can capture some asteroids the fixed stars would be like and i'm stretching my arms like

00:12:37.220 beyond my bookshelf but they still have a relationship and i say fixed stars because

00:12:42.620 i mean the the constellations right i'm talking about spika sirius these stars that almost seem

00:12:49.200 so ancient and so distant, like titans compared to our relationship to the other planets. But

00:12:56.480 they're still so bright in the sky when you go out and you look for them. So like right now

00:13:00.700 where I live, it's winter. I can see, well, the time change messed me up, but it's about 9 or 10

00:13:09.800 p.m. and I can see Orion and I can see a little bit to the left Sirius and I can see the stars

00:13:19.860 that make up Orion. So I could see that's the great hunter. I could see the star Beetlejuice.

00:13:25.940 I could see the star Bellatrix and they're right here. And it's it's so amazing. There was actually

00:13:31.200 a part a couple months ago where I could see after my kids went to bed, I would sit on my couch

00:13:36.320 And I would see Sirius, I do have a relationship to Sirius in my birth chart, rise.

00:13:42.580 And it would almost be like speaking to me because I would be in a quiet space the day

00:13:48.520 had left and I, I would just be either reading or scribbling some something. 0.99

00:13:54.180 And then I would see Sirius rise and I'd be like, God damn it. 0.97

00:13:58.300 Like you're there. 0.99

00:14:00.540 You're there.

00:14:01.300 Yeah.

00:14:01.980 So that, that has been such, such a gift.

00:14:04.680 I had a similar experience traveling very pregnant one summer in the prairies and every night

00:14:11.700 Jupiter was right oh like we would it's not a you know it was wasn't a relationship with a star but

00:14:17.700 that was like an early personal relationship with the planet it was like everything's gonna be okay

00:14:22.580 you know like we're out we're flung far out past my comfort zone but Jupiter is here and everything's

00:14:29.020 going to be okay can you can you dig into what you're talking about in your research using

00:14:34.680 astrology using this language as a way to make the past present when you're digging for stories that

00:14:40.960 that aren't in the archives I find this so exciting this way you're using astrology I'm

00:14:47.360 thinking of your Harriet Tubman piece but I know you also mentioned you're doing other research and

00:14:51.380 writing around that I was thinking about it in relation to what Amy has said about like

00:14:56.580 not knowing her rising sign on when the time she was born and so she relates more to astrology

00:15:03.960 through historic events or the way that astrology can kind of make rhyming patterns in our lives

00:15:09.760 can you can you tell us more about how you do it how it's working for you what you think about it

00:15:14.060 I feel like it's just one of the greatest privileges something I'm so incredibly grateful

00:15:19.280 for because maybe I'll just tell like an example so like with with Harriet Tubman you know we learn

00:15:25.780 about Harriet Tubman in school. I know that she was looking to the North Star. Oh, that's

00:15:31.280 interesting. I know that she helped free all these enslaved people. How'd that happen? That 0.99

00:15:36.760 seems unlikely. I know that she did that by herself. I know that she worked alone. I know

00:15:40.880 that she went into enemy territory. So I think, first of all, it started with kind of like

00:15:48.000 annoyance or frustration. You know, like you get a part of the story and you're like, but I know

00:15:52.940 there's more there and and I want to see for myself what what makes sense so of course you

00:16:00.060 know I'm reading all the history I'm reading what has been written what started to reveal itself to

00:16:05.800 me as I sat with the time period was that so first what popped up to me was that my my whole name of

00:16:15.160 the piece is that Harriet Tubman had this sort of like that she was a child of Mercury that through

00:16:20.760 Her ability as a prophetess, as a diviner, as a person who relayed secret messages, who could enrapture people, right, all the abolitionists that she gave to donate to her cause with her tales, this sort of storytelling, this sort of knowing when she needed money, she'd go to the right person and they'd have the right amount.

00:16:43.660 it was so clear to me that that was Mercury sort of being embodied in those ways. And so

00:16:49.500 it was frustration with what I had learned, the information that was available, and also

00:16:54.960 not knowing, not having reliable data, birth data. And so if I'm mentoring stories that have to do

00:17:03.860 with Black folks, enslaved people throughout history, I'm not going to have reliable birth

00:17:09.500 data. And so that was me knocking my head against, against my desk for a couple months. And even just 1.00

00:17:16.960 looking at the date of death to me, I wasn't getting it. I did it. I couldn't, I couldn't

00:17:23.840 see it through the lens that I wanted to, the story that I wanted to tell. But then when I came

00:17:28.200 across the event charts and luckily, because of again, how history is written, people love to

00:17:34.900 write about battles and war. And they love writing about the precise time that these battles took

00:17:41.700 place because someone has deemed that to be super significant. And so because I had that,

00:17:49.020 it was like all the puzzles started to come together. And I could see in the chart

00:17:55.520 all the important role that Mercury was playing, right? Moving away from the square to Saturn to

00:18:03.000 aspect to Uranus. So Saturn is, you know, the limitations, obstacles, confinement,

00:18:09.380 and then moving to Uranus, which is the archetype of Prometheus, the fire giver,

00:18:15.660 the liberator, the reformer, the, this is about to pop off planet. And, and like,

00:18:23.300 then a couple of weeks later, sorry, I'm so long-winded, but then a couple of weeks later,

00:18:27.600 I'm like, what is this Jupiter and Libra retrograde? Like, what is this? And then all the things that I

00:18:34.020 had read about Abraham Lincoln, I was like, oh my God, that's Abraham Lincoln. And it was just so

00:18:40.520 clear the sort of, well, is he going to, or is he not going to? And is he playing both sides or is

00:18:46.400 he going to do what's, you know, is he going to bestow justice? And this Jupiter is retrograde

00:18:53.560 and Libra, the sign of the scales, the sign of justice. And Jupiter is the greater benefic who

00:18:59.640 wants to bestow blessings, right? And to resolve conflict, however, was delayed and really without

00:19:07.460 much dignity. And so it's basically holding up until finally, finally, he issues the Emancipation

00:19:16.700 proclamation. So now the Combahee raid was after that was issued. So these enslaved people were

00:19:23.560 being held technically illegally, but it's, it definitely showed the sort of delay, the sort of

00:19:30.380 justice withheld until it was politically advantageous. So seeing all those details pop

00:19:37.680 off and seeing sort of like these characters come to life through the astrology has been

00:19:44.460 so beautiful. It's like the greatest gift, but it really does take, it's not a fast process. I don't

00:19:51.140 look at the chart immediately and see that story. It takes months, if not like a year or two of being

00:19:57.040 with it. So that's where I am right now with the practice of convict leasing that happened in

00:20:01.700 Sugar Land, Texas. But what's interesting about both of those is that the discovery of this mass

00:20:07.880 grave of enslaved people through the prison labor system, that discovery that happened in 2018

00:20:14.180 happened the day after an eclipse. And then the Combahee raid happened hours after an eclipse.

00:20:21.740 And so I thought it was really interesting that in both of these, that there's some sort of

00:20:27.160 cataclysmic, you know, this eclipse is like, it's high voltage, right? It's like what was before,

00:20:33.980 now we're going to flip the script and we don't know what's going to happen. And of course,

00:20:37.640 people in these historical events aren't working with the astrology it's just revealing and and

00:20:43.020 showing itself so beautifully can you tell us more about that project that you're working on now

00:20:48.860 this is something that when you mentioned it in the circle i was like i need to know so much more

00:20:53.960 what is the project going to be for you you know how how does this play out for you what is it that

00:20:59.700 you offer to yourself or to your readers after you spend so much time with a story like this

00:21:05.120 that's so violent and needs so much telling yes thank you for asking i when i was in the first

00:21:13.000 grade i went on a field trip to the imperial sugar factory which was this is like 1990 1991

00:21:19.420 it's still at this point in operation like they're actually refining sugar within the building and

00:21:27.380 I am one of three black children in my class and we're being led through the refinery first of all

00:21:37.260 the smell it smells like like dried fruit but like it's like that fermented sweet it's so powerful

00:21:43.700 so I can even still smell it and because of where I grew up and so Sugarland is named after it's a

00:21:51.120 factory town originally back in the 50s so it gets its name for from the sugar that they refined and

00:21:56.700 Imperial is the name of the refinery. And so I remember just looking at everything. And then

00:22:04.140 on the wall, they had like sort of a makeshift museum and all of the picture on the wall

00:22:11.400 was entirely black convicts in the black and white striped outfits. And I remember just being,

00:22:19.780 feeling a mixture of just unsettled and ashamed because there was people that looked like me

00:22:28.940 who were I knew were imprisoned and had contributed to the place that I was at now

00:22:37.020 but was not being talked about was not being pointed to we had a little tour guide and at

00:22:44.600 the end they all gave us like sugar packets they were like isn't this great and then

00:22:48.820 and so that always stayed with me it's it's it's a weird thing to grow up in the in the 90s in the

00:22:56.180 early 2000s right because you're as a black person you're told that you know all that stuff

00:23:01.000 happened in the past all the photos are black and white and even that anything is possible and yes

00:23:07.660 that's all true anything is possible but the past again this is what i'm saying the past is right

00:23:11.760 here. The past is, is pressing on us, especially if it needs to be told. And about 2017, this is

00:23:20.620 when I left the law firms that I was working at as a paralegal. I'm a little infulsive. I was just

00:23:25.780 like, I'm going to leave and like start my own thing. And I also want time to write. And this

00:23:29.800 isn't making me happy. Everyone's like, what are you doing? And I had a lot of time to sit in my

00:23:36.420 office. And I just, I went back to the story from when I was in first grade and I was like,

00:23:42.960 what is this about? And at the same time, an individual named Reginald Moore, who was a prison

00:23:50.400 guard, he's in the nineties working as a prison guard. And he's like, something doesn't sit right

00:23:55.100 with me here. This feels like all of the black prison mates are being, are laboring under the 1.00

00:24:02.580 supervision of mostly white supervisors who are on these horses, they have guns. So he starts to 0.99

00:24:09.200 explore the past and he starts to wonder what happened to the convicts who labored there

00:24:13.700 shortly after enslavement. So what happened in the town of Sugar Land is that after slaves were

00:24:20.880 free, most Black people, rather than share crop, went into the city of Houston. This happened in 0.93

00:24:27.200 a lot of city centers, right? Begin to learn trade like domestic labor, blacksmithing. In

00:24:33.320 Houston, we had longshoremen. That was like a big one. So people are learning other trades to be

00:24:39.100 able to, you know, it's one thing to be told that you're free. It's another thing to figure out what

00:24:43.460 you're going to do. Okay. So you've got like a mass exodus of families from the like rural areas

00:24:50.360 to urban areas. But lo and behold, all the former enslavers are like, well, what do we do about

00:24:56.820 labor. We still have these same economic demands and we still don't want to pay anyone. And so

00:25:02.340 they invented something called, this is all purposeful, the pig laws, which were making 0.78

00:25:09.200 minor crimes into felonies so that through the prison system, they could get inmates who would 0.86

00:25:18.660 become laborers. So the crimes that they would be accused of and imprisoned for were things like

00:25:25.920 slaughtering a pig, which was a common black practice because black folk ate, they ate the 1.00

00:25:31.520 hog, they ate all parts of the pig. So that became a felony. Idleness, right? What are you doing out 1.00

00:25:37.780 here? You don't have your papers or maybe you do. We'll see about that. So then you get this sort of

00:25:43.600 funnel of people who are trying to now make a life being sent back to work on the Brazos. And that was

00:25:50.160 known as the hell hole of the Brazos. And sugar cane is the most brutal crop because you get

00:25:57.080 yellow fever. The climate that sugar cane needs to grow in is something like, you know, it's

00:26:03.280 tropical. So in Houston, you get, you know, the unbearable heat plus the humidity in the summertime

00:26:09.520 and you need, you need people who are going to work there. So a lot of folks just died where

00:26:14.300 they stood right and so this is about all the people who died in that practice this was all

00:26:21.180 intentional right this was all masterminded uh with the texas state treasurer with the prison

00:26:27.560 system with colonel cunningham who owned the farms at sugarland and needed labor and was really like

00:26:34.960 let's let's get this process going and and so when i looked back at it so from the last like

00:26:42.620 five years, it's changed so much because it's been Reginald Moore, who has now since passed,

00:26:49.280 spearheaded a grassroots movement, basically harassed the town of Sugarland City Council

00:26:55.900 to acknowledge it, to issue an apology. For many years, they said they did not owe their legacy

00:27:00.440 to Black people at all. So that was before the discovery. So then on February 1st, 2018,

00:27:06.760 you get the discovery that there are bones in the ground, right? They're breaking ground trying to

00:27:12.340 build a school and they hit human remains. Then they, they pause the construction of the school

00:27:18.000 and they bring in archeologists who are able to identify initially 95 men, women, children,

00:27:26.700 you know, folks of all ages. And then they get to what eventually become hundreds of remains.

00:27:33.600 And so what happens is, this is also really the astrology of this time is that Saturn is in

00:27:39.200 Capricorn with Pluto. And so you can feel it, right? This is like 2018. We're having sort of

00:27:45.380 a reckoning of our past in the United States. And you're getting like, sort of like that the

00:27:51.460 bones are speaking to us. So I'm sitting in my little office, right? I've left my job. I felt

00:27:56.680 like I was in conversation with the ghosts of the past. Not always, I don't even think I was

00:28:05.300 fully aware of it at the time I just felt like I needed to tell the story and to be able now my

00:28:11.400 astrology is much better to be able now to tell the astrology through it it's almost like it was

00:28:17.340 waiting for me to have this skill to be able to retell it in a way that feels personal but also

00:28:24.200 like it gives something to people a way to look at why this discovery is important what it means

00:28:30.720 and to tell the stories because that's that's what I want to do I think uh Minty I prefer to

00:28:37.420 call Harriet Minty because as I've said before that was the name that was on her wanted posters

00:28:43.880 and I think it's like so important for us to ground these conversations about Harriet specifically

00:28:52.240 in the fact that she was an outlaw you know we talk about her being a hero in our contemporary

00:28:58.280 society but she was you know pursued for us she was an outlaw and so it's so interesting to me how

00:29:07.880 reality is based on how we're perceived harriet is an outlaw harriet is a hero you know a hundred

00:29:18.100 years have passed her story didn't change you know that you're looking to the fixed stars for

00:29:24.400 for her story her didn't her story didn't change but our perception of her and what she was doing

00:29:30.700 is is the only thing that changed and I I think that it's and for people like you who are going

00:29:37.560 back into the archives to find histories of people who who didn't qualify to have their their their

00:29:44.460 actual history recorded obviously listeners I'm using scare quotes like this word qualify you know

00:29:50.340 based under like colonial patriarchy and hegemony their stories didn't count their

00:29:55.820 numbers weren't counted and you have found this way to reclaim those histories to recover those

00:30:04.020 histories even if the names and the the numbers weren't necessarily written down and I think

00:30:11.960 it made me laugh a little bit that you went from like being a paralegal it's like very straight

00:30:17.460 you are quote-unquote successful and you're you know your parents are proud of you and you can

00:30:22.760 go out into the you know the real world with like legitimacy and you instead decided to like

00:30:31.040 seek the freedom of a different kind of knowing I just I can see that relationship between like

00:30:38.340 you being an outlaw you know what I mean like yeah come this outlaw of like taking back and

00:30:45.700 reclaiming. And I love that. I really appreciate that you're doing this work. And I do want to say

00:30:51.980 for those listeners who want a little more background, I always recommend Ava DuVernay's

00:30:57.660 documentary, 13th. Please take a look at that documentary. Go and watch it three times. If you

00:31:03.200 think that the Emancipation Proclamation was the end of the story, it certainly has not been the

00:31:10.380 end of the story um you said the the bones are speaking to us how do we yes I want to go back to

00:31:16.900 this yes how do we relate both of us are writing down bones and stars how do we relate bones and

00:31:24.780 stars yes well you know sometimes with astrology you can get so heady with it right it even start

00:31:30.200 to feel that if you're thinking about planets and I have a daily planetary ritual that that is so

00:31:35.820 far and you can feel a little like pulled, I don't know, energetically, I'm like reaching with my

00:31:40.820 head. And so if I think about the earth, a lot of times I'll just have a practice where I just try

00:31:47.240 to ground and just remember that like I'm embodied in the earth here. And then I'm made of blood and

00:31:52.940 bone and material that is of the earth. And it puts me, it sort of anchors me. And so to be able

00:31:58.840 to, when I talk about the bones that are speaking to us, it's that same relationship that like

00:32:06.340 there's a connection to the physical matter, to the, to the lives that were lived and that

00:32:15.580 the spirits have a story to tell. So when I, when I write, you know, it doesn't always happen.

00:32:23.480 Sometimes I'm reaching with my head, right. I'm like, Oh, let me figure it out. And then

00:32:28.680 And sometimes something will happen where I'll just get, it's more like I'm sitting back in my chair. It's like, and it's a grounding force. And that's sort of the relationship that I have to being able to be like, why am I interested in this? Why am I interested in telling the Sugar Land story? I'm not an archaeologist. I'm not a historian. I mean, I've interviewed people. They're like, why are you, what are you writing about this? What do you have to say about this? Especially men.

00:32:53.760 And I think for me, it's like, no, I'm in relationship to the bones of the past.

00:33:01.120 I mean, you could, as recently as 2017, walk into like, say the Marriott, the Sugar Land

00:33:06.780 Hotel, and in the middle of the courtyard, they have a copper kettle.

00:33:12.040 So it's like the vat that the sugar was refined in.

00:33:14.940 And it's like, look at our history, but it's not the whole story.

00:33:17.900 Do you know what I mean?

00:33:18.660 And so I think being able to be in that time period before the bones were discovered to feel that like they were speaking, it's almost like they wanted to be discovered and to be seen.

00:33:31.020 And it's ironic is that it's the construction of a school that leads to the discovery.

00:33:36.180 And education is so tied to this.

00:33:38.780 You know, in the state of Texas, if you enter the public school system, you have to learn Texas history one and two.

00:33:45.620 and the way that I was taught is that enslaved black people were taken care of as if they were

00:33:51.760 family and they were fed and they were taken care of I mean I always knew that wasn't true

00:33:56.600 but the point is is that there is an agenda and so to fight the agenda I think we all have to find

00:34:03.220 our own skills like what is our own work and so if my work is as astrologer to be able to look at

00:34:09.500 charts and and see what it's revealing about the past maybe other people's work is the is the

00:34:15.580 digging in the ground and is the building of a museum is fighting Texas legislation is becoming

00:34:22.720 a school teacher and teaching something different so I think that that's like my relationship to

00:34:28.480 being with the bones is to being like how can I in myself do justice do honor to this to this

00:34:36.620 legacy I think it's so interesting that bones don't go away you said like they wanted to be

00:34:43.680 found and it started making me think about in Canada you know we are talking about truth and

00:34:49.400 reconciliation and then of course this like mass grave of children from the 60s scoop they call it

00:34:57.060 which like sounds like an ice cream parlor but really was like a horrible uh you know cultural

00:35:02.440 genocide um and they found these bodies and then suddenly it's like oh okay well now we have

00:35:09.780 physical we all knew like you were saying you knew that part of the story wasn't true about

00:35:14.020 the big happy family like we knew that these stories weren't true but then once someone found

00:35:20.480 bones then it was allowed to be true and I don't know where I'm going with this but I just like

00:35:29.720 there's something about that our flesh goes away and our organs and our you know our blood it all

00:35:36.680 goes away but the bones are just there waiting to be found and I think that that's like

00:35:42.520 literal and metaphorical in terms of storytelling yeah yeah I don't really have a question so maybe

00:35:49.380 if you just like want to respond I'll just say really quickly Saturn is the planet that

00:35:54.600 corresponds to bones in astrology and so I do think it's interesting that Saturn Saturn was

00:36:00.700 in Capricorn at this point with Pluto which is the planet that symbolizes the underworld and so

00:36:08.380 at this point you get that combination of like what's been buried can't be denied or like it

00:36:15.860 wanted to be excavated or be shown or that there would be some sort of reckoning you know everything

00:36:21.720 is painful but like when we start to face it instead of denying it or rewriting it we can say

00:36:28.120 we can be with both right like I like I'm proud to be black and have grown up where I'm from like

00:36:35.340 I love Texas food I love I love my culture I love where I'm from and I can still be with

00:36:44.640 the messed up stuff that happened and I can still feel icky about it and torn and like we can all

00:36:53.240 be with it instead of shoving it back down re-burying it we have our coven here today

00:37:02.040 karen's here karen's the author of a blog called pastor to high priestess i was thinking of you

00:37:09.000 when you uh were talking about renegades people who've had to overthrow overthrow part of their

00:37:16.520 life to claim something new i just wanted to say hi and acknowledge that you're here and invite you

00:37:22.600 to ask a question or share anything. It's nice to see you. Well, so I am actually going through

00:37:29.300 the process of legally changing my name to Karen Wynne-Reed. And now that I'm, and it was one of

00:37:36.180 my advisors at school that advised me to do it. So I'm not writing under two names, even before

00:37:40.260 Karen became like the ugly white lady that wanted you to call the manager. I've been fighting with 0.92

00:37:46.060 my mother over my name for 51 years now. So, um, but, but thank you for, for inviting me to ask

00:37:52.580 a question. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Thank you. I am overwhelmed, um, with the beauty, uh, with which

00:38:02.080 you share this knowledge. And I feel like you didn't have a choice. I don't know if, if that's

00:38:07.200 this relationship with the bones, the Larissa Pinkle Estes talks about the La Lova woman who

00:38:13.600 sings over the bones. It also makes me think about, um, the book of Ezekiel, um, where,

00:38:20.920 you know, Ezekiel says, can these bones, can these bones yet live and, uh, how the bones are

00:38:27.600 then stitched back together. There's so much. And other than Harriet Tubman, um, which I want to

00:38:34.320 learn, I want to hear more about that, but the Sugarland story, have you found, uh, that any

00:38:39.620 individual people that like, or individuals within that story who have called out to you,

00:38:46.680 who have said, Hey, Hey, tell my story because I want my story to be told.

00:38:52.260 So yeah, the, the, the Harriet Tubman with mama Moses, I mean, even today, I feel like,

00:38:58.220 you know, I have a relationship with mama Moses. I, I, um, I feel like she guides me.

00:39:04.840 And even in periods of my life where I'm terrified, I feel like she's, she's with me.

00:39:11.800 So that relationship feels like it'll always be with me, but there were a lot of weird

00:39:17.700 synchronicities leading up to me deciding to do it.

00:39:21.400 So I did feel like I would go to look at a book and I'd see a book, like a bookstore

00:39:26.140 and not be looking for, and I'd be like, oh, what's that book about?

00:39:28.660 It's Harry Temple.

00:39:29.480 And when you read it, so there were a lot of things that I did feel like the story had

00:39:33.320 to be told.

00:39:33.820 You know, I have in my birth chart, just to lead it back to astrology, I have a Mercury square Saturn, which can be a very difficult relationship aspect if you're trying to be a writer, because Saturn is the planet of difficulty, right? It'll give you obstacles before it gives you structure.

00:39:49.100 And so the Mercury, the planet of writing is forming a difficult aspect to that planet in my chart. And yet, I feel like the way that I get around that is by choosing to do work that is difficult, that needs to be massaged, that needs a lot of time, that needs a lot of patience.

00:40:10.620 And when I enter through it that way, I do feel like a story can be told that is better than my little brain could have reached for.

00:40:20.540 But I have felt that there are different figures in history that, you know, I also have a relationship with Zora, Neil Hurston, W.E.B. Du Bois.

00:40:32.240 His son is buried in a cemetery that is like five minutes away from me.

00:40:36.460 I'm in the town that was born in, like his childhood home. And so sometimes I'll go to

00:40:42.940 the graveyard and stand, stand there and just say, thank you. Even though W.E.B. Du Bois is

00:40:48.080 buried in Ghana, just knowing that like his, his son was buried here means a lot. And so I think

00:40:54.240 that the relationship, I don't even want to say it, but the other relationship that I have felt

00:41:01.720 is, is to Frederick Douglass, but I feel like I need a lot more reading on that one. And then,

00:41:06.140 yeah so I won't even talk about that but I do feel like what I'm inspired to write is just in

00:41:11.500 general how you know I spent a lot of time there's so many people who won't have their story told

00:41:17.440 if you go to the Library of Congress you can read the the what they call the slave narratives that

00:41:22.940 were done in the 1930s where these reporters went around to people who had lived during slavery but

00:41:29.120 by this time were in their 80s 90s and older and recounted slavery and that to me when I sometimes

00:41:35.480 when I get stuck I'll just go back and read them and it does feel like that now the work isn't just

00:41:40.440 like one person maybe it might be like just being like hearing the voices tell their story thank

00:41:47.520 you for that and also if I may just one quick follow-up question about you were talking about

00:41:53.880 the birth chart and your relationship with Saturn and Mercury and because so

00:42:01.460 I am trying to write and I find that I struggle and there are some witches in the southeast which

00:42:10.980 is where I'm at that I've discovered their stories and they've all become kind of like

00:42:15.640 Halloween entertainment even though these women were horribly tortured

00:42:20.860 one specifically in South Carolina who was tortured and found someone who would give her a warrant

00:42:29.040 to arrest her torturer in an illegal witch trial and she won in some court and so but like she

00:42:39.660 never got paid so there's all of this like the torture is horrible and people and so it's like 0.77

00:42:43.880 finding this woman and just wanting to tell her story because of course none of that crap happened

00:42:50.500 I mean but it was really just for very practical not practical but like means of theft that she

00:42:57.920 was tortured and like her story is called out to me and I'm having a hard time writing it so I'm

00:43:03.380 wondering like a I need to have my birth chart and see if I have this you know this connection

00:43:10.260 but whenever you said that something in me just went like well you know is there a book or someone

00:43:17.540 you can reference maybe yourself you know who can help someone who is trying to write stories but

00:43:24.160 like gets distracted by bright, shiny objects whenever it gets too hard. Distractions are the

00:43:29.280 path too. I mean, like, I just feel like you can follow sometimes tangents are good. At least for

00:43:36.080 me, sometimes I'd be like, this has nothing to do with what I'm working on, but my brain needs it

00:43:40.280 or I'll circle back. You know, the path is not straight. It is like, for me, a spiral. And I'll

00:43:46.600 find that six months later, that weird spiral was totally where it needed to be. And, you know,

00:43:53.800 I mean, of course, like having a chart read by an astrologer, I like being in conversation

00:44:00.140 about what's the natal promises, you know, and I, and I just have to say, you know, Mercury rules

00:44:05.020 my chart and I have like the most messed up Mercury is making a lot of difficult aspects,

00:44:09.720 but I like it. You know what I mean? Like I, I like my sort of roundaboutness and,

00:44:14.520 and I don't feel pressured to do anything now. I don't feel pressured to show my proof it when

00:44:21.900 the time is ready then it will be out like and so I just this is what I was saying like I

00:44:27.860 I want to I want to know like the story you just told like I want to read it so just know that

00:44:33.720 you know what I mean so whenever it is written I want to I want to know more about it thank you

00:44:39.900 thank you for sharing your knowledge and your process and and and every that all of that keep

00:44:46.580 doing the work like because I want to read your stories that you're writing so yes oh yeah I feel

00:44:53.040 so moved by this idea of the the relationship between bones and stars and so so much of the

00:44:59.280 work that you're doing I'm wearing my cedar eve sweatshirt today who's an artist that we've spoken

00:45:05.940 to on the podcast and I was definitely thinking along the same lines of Amy that there are so

00:45:10.420 many graves out there. There are so many unmarked graves in the United States as well of Indigenous

00:45:16.720 children. So many stories to be told. What are your thoughts on, you know, for all of us? I mean,

00:45:24.020 this is the work of Missing Witches too. We're out there trying to tell these stories, find these

00:45:29.980 stories. Is there something in the stars right now that we can draw on for strength? What do you

00:45:35.440 think about our storytelling these days or in your magic or in your intuition? It's an interesting

00:45:41.100 time. I mean, we know that if I were to focus on one aspect of what's going on in this, in the

00:45:46.740 stars is, is that we have the South node in Scorpio and we have the North node in Taurus,

00:45:54.040 and we'll have that until sometime in 2023. And so it's basically that the nodes moved in January.

00:46:00.640 It's an 18-month period. We may have felt that like the third week of January, that suddenly there was this grief that needed to come out to be released, right? With the South Node and Scorpio, it's that deep emotional pull that you may have been so defensive of, right?

00:46:18.760 Because it feels so vulnerable that we may have held on to it, but it deserves sort of to be drained. I think sometimes that Scorpio can be a bit of a swamp, right?

00:46:30.640 it's a water sign it's ruled by mars and sometimes you don't know what's underneath

00:46:34.840 the dark water i always love that i think of um you know i'm from the bayou city so it's like

00:46:42.460 i'm familiar with just having like ditches of dark water and you're like that's there but

00:46:46.800 what's under there i don't know um and then to have the north node and tourists you know i've

00:46:52.320 wondered if if this means that there will be so that you know the north node is um

00:46:57.880 a hungering for more and points to where we can like our appetite and it's the dragon's head right

00:47:05.620 um and so when we start having eclipses in this fixed earth sign it to me it felt like there could

00:47:10.760 be a promise of if we let go if we grieve what needs to be grieved that things will be either

00:47:17.400 unearthed or that there could be some sort of economic reparations some sort of restorative

00:47:25.020 justice I you know something made real manifest and tactile like we can point to so I I wonder

00:47:33.340 if that's the cycle that we're in now we are I think all grasping at hope straws as as much as

00:47:41.080 we can and so I I like to ask astrologers specifically if you have any thoughts on

00:47:47.580 the dawning of the age of Aquarius I sort of turn to this this notional idea of like the whole world

00:47:54.980 changing for the better or you know and in different ways of knowing and thinking when

00:48:00.020 we get to this like new so rather than point to that um i will point to the great conjunction

00:48:05.100 that happened at zero aquarius in um december 2020 basically that's is that initiated a new

00:48:12.680 200 year cycle where jupiter the planet of abundance and gifts and saturn the planet of

00:48:20.720 rules and structure will meet in an exact aspect, a conjunction. Their conjunctions will now start

00:48:27.320 to happen in air science for like the next 200 years or so. So what that means, that to me is

00:48:33.840 the new era. That is the era of air. So we switched from earth to air. And earth, this is about

00:48:44.220 you know like land and land resources and mapping out territories and conflicts over land

00:48:54.440 and resources and you know unfortunately we had we we used our land like it you know

00:49:02.960 extracting resources and now what's happening the shift is is all about data information

00:49:11.900 that's now the sort of where the power lies even the fact that we can speak like this I mean we're

00:49:18.520 in the era of air we're exchanging ideas over something called the internet or whatever so

00:49:23.740 and and you're my home because of that right so if this air era brings us if we think of Jupiter

00:49:31.140 and Saturn they're also sort of like the two rulers of society right they set the the guidelines for

00:49:35.940 society. And so it's going to be, I think that the structures of the old earth era felt crumbled

00:49:44.780 to sort of capitalism, like that is crumbling, like we can be grateful for that. And then now

00:49:49.040 happening now is like air is sort of dissipating. There won't be one stronghold of power, but it

00:49:55.680 will feel a little chaotic at times. That's what I think. I think it's going to feel a little bit

00:50:01.900 like, where do we look to for leadership? And the answer and the hope that I have is that it's in

00:50:07.600 our community, that the power gets decentralized and that it gets brought down into the covens,

00:50:14.400 into grassroots efforts, into circles on a weekend and to your friends. And that is where

00:50:20.240 power will start to be concentrated around as a sort of dispersion. There'll be good things and

00:50:26.600 also bad things, just like we know that the world is. But I think that's the one hopeful thing

00:50:31.720 with the grand conjunctions now happening in air signs i'll grab that straw of hope

00:50:37.680 swing on swing on it for a little bit that sounds great

00:50:40.760 i just want to sort of say my bumper sticker that i'm going to like slap on myself um that i took

00:50:48.740 from this conversation that spirits bones stars it all has a story to tell and i'm so excited that

00:50:58.820 we've come to a place in our society in our lives where we're actually like giving credence to these

00:51:04.440 stories it's really exciting your work is so exciting and I look so forward to hearing the

00:51:11.540 stories of bones and stars and spirits that come out of your fiction and out of your research

00:51:17.120 thank you so much yeah I'm excited to live in the age where you're in my home

00:51:22.880 right here in my home so nice it's so nice listeners we're in your ears too and that is

00:51:32.900 a strange kind of magic we feel really lucky to be here tucked in your ears it's quite special

00:51:40.320 if you could see the smiling faces nodding they do really truly feel lucky to be here with you

00:51:45.660 in your ears if you have that feeling which i know i have listening to podcasts that uh these

00:51:52.180 people that you don't actually know are beloved kin trust me we feel the same beloved kin so

00:52:00.160 find us reach out to us tell us your stories be a part of this community that we are digging our

00:52:07.680 roots into and find Thea and support her magical work Thea do you have places you want the people

00:52:15.260 to find you. So my website is Thea Nichelle.com. No, no dots in between. So that's Nichelle with

00:52:24.940 an N. My middle name is after Nichelle Nichols, the first black actress on Star Trek. I was a

00:52:32.080 Trekkie. See the stars. And I also am on Instagram at Thea Astrology. And those are the best places.

00:52:41.520 Thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing this insight, this language, your story, the story of Sugarland, Harriet's story. Thanks for being a light for those stories and finding your own ways into them so that we can know them better.

00:52:57.760 thank you thank you yeah I'm not kidding you this is like a dream come true I love listening to you

00:53:04.980 guys I oh man I felt like I could have talked so much more about outlaws but whatever it's fine

00:53:12.320 I because I love that first let's let's talk more about outlaws you got you got 10 more 10 more

00:53:18.620 minutes what do you got for it no I just I just love that idea that like 0.87

00:53:24.100 that in order to do this work that of getting free from this mainframe right this this bullshit

00:53:36.640 that we need to like break some rules and then that there has to be something inward that guides

00:53:42.900 us that is not given to us by society yeah and i and i that is the that's the north star that's 0.98

00:53:50.040 there but it's the north star that's in us and so yeah and sometimes that shit's really scary 0.95

00:53:56.720 because you could lose your life people did you could be in prison for decades you could you know 0.91

00:54:05.080 like torture as we're talking about before that there's and that's why sometimes in my life when

00:54:12.440 i'm like scared about something or nervous honestly reflecting on the gift of strength that

00:54:18.080 that mentee that mama moses had i'm just like okay okay yeah it's such a great mother too 0.96

00:54:27.560 because she's like i mean you know her history she didn't take no shit she was like all right 1.00

00:54:33.080 if you don't want to come die here we're going you know like it was very like mama didn't fuck 1.00

00:54:39.220 around you know she wasn't he wasn't a coddler she was a savior but she was not a coddler so 0.99

00:54:45.300 that and like i i go to her so often because i know she's just going to be like get up go

00:54:52.740 you know and yeah she i think that's why she why she appeals to me so much is because it's 0.96

00:55:02.000 well documented how no bullshit how much no bullshit she was willing to take and 0.98

00:55:08.280 and again like how she was she was a witch of all varieties she was an herbalist you know she was a 0.97

00:55:15.960 conjure woman she was a diviner and when I first started looking into her work it's because somebody

00:55:22.580 told me that she was a witch I didn't know I had no idea that she was a witch and then somebody

00:55:28.060 was like hey and I was like what and then you get into it and it's like yeah she's like all of the

00:55:33.860 hallmarks of being a witcher they're represented so again like for me like you were saying like

00:55:41.120 we were saying like we need to be outlaws if we want to make change when people say like you're

00:55:46.860 going against this you're going against that well yeah because I'm trying to do something different

00:55:52.120 you know and again whether whether that's with your family or your friends like you have like

00:55:58.500 you said you have the north star within you and the north star doesn't go by the laws of man you

00:56:07.000 know amen that's beautiful yeah you're beautiful all right oh my god my whole screen is beautiful

00:56:22.120 I'm honored to have been part of this and to sit at the feet, sit at your feet, Thea, and to hear your stories. It's just so wonderful. Risa, I guess my evangelical, fundamentalist evangelical retentions are like making me feel convicted because I corrected you about my name.

00:56:41.780 but thank you for looking at my blog and letting me know I have not updated my name um so I'm just

00:56:49.980 like oh my god I said something ugly on their front ugly it wasn't ugly it was beautiful 0.94

00:56:56.860 you said the truth that's not my name can you imagine can you imagine how fucking pressed down 0.93

00:57:07.040 we've been that we feel bad for telling someone like oh that's not my name no ugly no morning so 0.79

00:57:15.080 i will talk to my therapist about it yeah because this is again this is exactly what we're talking

00:57:22.920 about we especially as women have been told that like impolite uh correction anything that's like

00:57:31.640 oh actually is ugly like literally ugly this is what we've been taught and so like oh my god

00:57:39.020 no way about everybody if I'm if if Risa you were here in a man's body and you were like hey Karen 0.97

00:57:45.460 I'd be like fuck you friend my name right but because I love you and respect you I'm like I'm 0.92

00:57:52.440 so sorry because you know it's like now I choose who I want to feel badly that I am offended 0.99

00:57:59.500 if you're an old white guy I'm I will go out of my way to offend you just because right yeah 0.98

00:58:08.940 yeah I mean there's a flip side to that too because like I was raised angry feminist you 0.93

00:58:14.800 know and uh and so I've consistently allowed women to treat me more shabbily than men 0.64

00:58:20.100 consistently it's like a reverse you know so that's something that I have to like I have to

00:58:28.120 just like do away with my gender essentialism and allow no one to treat me shabbily regardless

00:58:33.440 of their organs see and this is what I was saying too like just really quickly like I was raised my

00:58:40.140 parents were like you can do anything and racism is like my parents especially it was in the past

00:58:48.020 they never talked about all the hurt they went through and it had a really weird I had no context

00:58:54.680 for what was happening to me most of the time I didn't feel like I could talk about it and I

00:59:01.860 actually realized I blocked I like blocked a lot of memories that happened even a couple years ago

00:59:07.880 my brother was like you don't remember we couldn't go to her I was like what happened to that friend

00:59:11.940 he said her parents said we couldn't go over there because we were black now this is like

00:59:17.240 in the 90s and I'm like oh my god holy shit and I realized this was a dear friend you know how 0.90

00:59:24.460 those childhood friends are lived across the street and I remember too years after you could 0.79

00:59:30.380 see her peek out and like look at us when we get into her car and like peek and so that like not 1.00

00:59:36.680 having contacts or being raised with with good intentions right like angry feminists or like 0.98

00:59:41.760 we're beyond racism can still have you still gotta unlearn like even what the fuck that is 0.96

00:59:48.540 yes yes one thing I've been thinking about is like um noticing my 0.89

00:59:55.880 my my my reaction that I think maybe you know you were anticipating from me or we sort of

01:00:03.360 anticipate from each other the like the I feel guilty for having made a mistake so now I'm angry 0.67

01:00:08.900 at you thing like noticing that and you know you can call it white fragility which I think is pretty 0.95

01:00:15.440 accurate or you know we can call it like sort of a a female defense when we didn't have maybe a

01:00:21.420 strength so we turned to a an emotional strength or whatever but just noticing that and like

01:00:27.540 letting that wave pass through me and be like I just have got an opportunity to grow like I just

01:00:34.680 if if I if I noticed some internalized racism in myself I can't like make that about me and 0.88

01:00:41.380 beat my fucking head against the wall and cry and like make that story all about how I didn't mean

01:00:46.640 it like that's what the story's about like try to be honest like that I learned that from somewhere 0.99

01:00:53.320 it's in the water it's in me if I misgendered somebody it's not I don't have to make that

01:00:59.380 story about me like I got your name wrong I tried I apologize I'm not gonna do it again you know

01:01:07.420 like just i don't have to be so stuck and ingrained and like holding on to the to my pain in that

01:01:14.540 moment like i don't really have any pain comparatively to what the other person who's 0.60

01:01:19.820 taking the moment to fucking correct me as like that's not real so just like let it go try to be

01:01:26.840 better i do want to add i don't know if you listened to this interview with christina 0.97

01:01:31.460 Cleveland she gave me all of us not just me um this notion that her god her black woman god

01:01:41.460 is like interested in our holy mess like thank you yes you know like I'm gonna cry yeah you know

01:01:50.300 like so you now thanks to Christina Cleveland and her you know god is a black woman I'm like 0.94

01:01:57.880 fine with my mess a little bit you know like a couple inches further into at least like being 0.92

01:02:06.080 fine with my mess like we're humans and again it's like weird and hegemonic to convince ourselves

01:02:13.920 that we're not allowed to make mistakes you know even with my husband we got into a little bit of

01:02:18.580 a fight the other day and I was like I need to be allowed to make mistakes yes period you know like

01:02:25.220 mistakes are how i learn stuff honestly yeah i'm a little bit of an experimenter you know

01:02:32.200 yeah and that's what oh yeah i believe christina that that's what god wants from us

01:02:39.960 is to make holy messes you know i'm gonna listen to this at work today

01:02:44.560 because that was been on my radar the book is like anyway

01:02:50.540 spiral Thea because like you know and Amy you were talking about the inches because sometimes

01:03:01.460 like when you said inches I was like you know Paula Abdul in my head you know that you take

01:03:07.400 one step forward I take two steps back yeah and then but the spiral especially whenever you think

01:03:14.300 about healing and grief and everything like that like it is not healing and i think growth if you

01:03:20.780 want to put it in that way is not a straight line it is a spiral that is i think began before we were

01:03:28.340 in this plane and will continue because i think my latest my latest understanding of god is that

01:03:35.380 this we're all part of the universe just trying to work our shit out together um yeah i i just

01:03:43.020 yeah and and back to Risa what you said my my son is trans and so he gets misgendered mostly by our

01:03:52.900 family who has known him as she for 23 years and now that he is 26 and he finally said to the

01:04:00.520 family he goes don't apologize don't apologize to me don't tell me you're sorry because I know

01:04:05.940 you're trying and if you tell me you're sorry I feel the need to have to comfort you because you

01:04:11.100 have you have misgendered me he said so just just if you say she just then say he and keep going

01:04:20.940 like just and then story making about it is seems yes yeah i had read that an exact piece of advice 0.96

01:04:31.420 like that that made me feel a lot better it was like just stop making it into a huge fucking deal 0.73

01:04:36.660 like you've you fucked it up fix it keep going stay in the moment with that person like they 0.96

01:04:42.600 you know they don't expect you to be perfect they want you to try and stay there with them 0.89

01:04:46.760 and care about that you know yeah well that's lovely so i have to go do school work

01:04:53.120 thank you thank you

01:05:00.620 love you guys we'll see you all soon bye 1.00

01:05:09.940 you must be a witch

01:05:16.220 the missing witches podcast is brought to you by the missing witches coven

01:05:22.580 join us right now on patreon.com slash missing witches blessed if I can be

Missing Witches - April 21, 2022

Thea Anderson： The Past Is Right Here, It's Pressing On Us

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