Missing Witches - WF Kenya Coviak： Conjuring Detroit

00:00:00.000 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:06.620 You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:08.100 Welcome to the Missing Witches podcast with Kenya Kowiak,

00:00:12.380 who was sent to me by Dr. Yvonne Chereau, who you heard from earlier in the season,

00:00:19.260 who wrote that incredible book, Black Magic.

00:00:22.500 And when I asked Dr. Chereau if she had anyone that she felt like I should talk to,

00:00:28.080 she sent me this amazing introduction to kenya saying that you're one of the few rare real live

00:00:34.780 black american witches who knows about the old traditions and can speak to you as an expert

00:00:39.240 thank you so much for being here and talking about detroit conjure and folk magic well this

00:00:45.880 should be fun this should be a lot of fun um i wondered if you wanted to introduce yourself

00:00:56.260 to our listeners there's probably so much more about you that you can tell us than what i can

00:01:01.480 tell them well i can uh give you a brief intro i'm a witch who grew up on seven mile that's about

00:01:08.400 it no i'm just teasing um but i am i'm from detroit i was born and raised in detroit

00:01:13.840 and i moved a little bit farther north a few years ago i am the originator and founder of

00:01:21.040 the Detroit Conjuring Folk Magic Festival. I used to be the local coordinator for Detroit's

00:01:27.800 Pagan Pride Day. I used to be on the board, I think I still am, of the Ancient Faiths Alliance

00:01:36.460 Company. It's an organization to promote all different faiths. I am a writer at Pagan Business

00:01:44.980 Network. I am also the founder and originator of the Wandering Goddess Festival Retreat that we

00:01:53.080 have here in Michigan. I am currently the new owner, as of last year, of the Michigan Witches

00:02:00.360 Ball and the Midwest Witches Bazaar. I volunteered for many years. I am also now the person who will

00:02:10.660 be running the Little Witches Ball up here. I at one time served as the administrator of the

00:02:17.300 Michigan Pagan Scholarship Fund. And I am also part of the Great Lakes Witches Council. I'm one 0.70

00:02:23.620 of the founders, along with my husband, Kyle Kowiak, and a few other people. And we run the

00:02:31.420 Good Witch Bafana program in Michigan, where we give food and material gift support during the

00:02:39.280 winter solstice through children in need and families in need. We did not do that last year

00:02:44.240 due to illness. We will not be able to do it because of COVID this year, unfortunately.

00:02:50.120 I was also the person who was behind the pantry here because Great Lakes Witches Council also

00:02:58.560 runs our own secret food pantry of last resort, but with all the food programs, we don't have to

00:03:04.280 do that now and i am a frequent uh presenter at local uh festivals a few conventions i just did

00:03:14.220 uh i did convocation last year uh and i did hex fest this year and i'm really excited

00:03:20.640 i did hex i did a convocation this year too i i get confused and i just did the uh

00:03:25.880 michigan magic and machine uh virtual festival okay i think that's everything for right now

00:03:32.220 i feel like i'm um both tired and inspired just listening to the list i feel like

00:03:42.460 you're you're clearly like a hero organizer which what does it mean for you to to build community

00:03:53.520 in that way like i love talking to organizers i'm i'm obsessed with that and it seems like

00:04:00.360 such an important way for you that you have done your work and spent your energy. Can you just talk

00:04:04.680 to me about that? Okay. So I am, I have scaled back a bit, you know, due to because of health

00:04:12.980 issues as far as the COVID and everything, but I do still keep my hand in a little bit. I keep

00:04:19.360 telling people I'm trying to retire. I've been saying that for five or six years now. So let's

00:04:24.320 see how that goes uh but i think that when i was coming up my dog is getting weird again

00:04:33.180 when i was coming up the way that it worked we didn't have the access we have now it was after

00:04:40.320 this the star hawk and buckland revolution but the way that it worked you kind of had the

00:04:46.560 where the different things were to be able to find community oh somebody would write on a slip

00:04:54.240 of paper go down this street and turn this corner and you will find this magic shop and with the e

00:05:04.080 on the end of course and then you must walk there in and talk to the woman behind the counter who

00:05:10.400 is of auburn hair and she shall open the gates of knowledge to thee and you shall find community

00:05:16.740 and now it's like okay just google it and or like look on the message board and like meet up

00:05:22.000 And you could, like, probably meet, like, some sort of, like, super the Lima group that also has potluck and bowling on Saturday.

00:05:30.440 Right.

00:05:33.280 Just fine.

00:05:34.660 There's nothing wrong with that.

00:05:35.880 I like bowling.

00:05:37.180 I'm not good at it.

00:05:38.100 And I love potluck.

00:05:39.060 I'll change my religion for potluck.

00:05:41.320 But, yeah.

00:05:45.480 Yeah, I love a potluck.

00:05:46.940 but trying to um find community and all that is kind of challenging because again

00:05:56.800 you don't forge those in-person responses you don't form those okay did you have the same

00:06:04.320 experience trying to find this shop let's make that our opening to talk you know the conventions

00:06:09.960 are a way that we get together they call them cons in order to talk to each other but what

00:06:14.780 happens in between you know we have wonderful organizations here most of them founded by gordon

00:06:20.780 ireland in michigan uh he's going to kill me for mentioning him because he tried to retire

00:06:25.660 you'll never retire um and he did though but um we have uh pagans in need which came out of

00:06:33.980 the federation of circles and solitaires here in michigan and they were part of the charities

00:06:39.660 board and they were people who would step up in between those times of just buying things from

00:06:45.660 vendors or going into convocation or things like that they were that missing piece they offered

00:06:51.360 fellowship community and uh they would you know the food flat out food you know you were hungry

00:06:57.440 something happened you don't want to go to a church because you know they may judge you or

00:07:01.880 they may give you a hard time or turn your way outright but they didn't judge and now it's been

00:07:07.400 reincarnated or reformed into pin which is pagans in need lansing and um and it's run by a wonderful

00:07:14.820 man named bill uh ellie and he's um he actually is making it sing but without that kind of

00:07:23.260 community support without that kind of community continuity you know what happens is we just have

00:07:29.780 a bunch of people who come together to shop or just sometimes their circles or covens or groves

00:07:36.820 will overlap and and that's not what the goal is I don't think I think the goal is is to become

00:07:42.880 fully engaged and part of the overall society you know more so than consumers and just people who

00:07:51.520 stay in their houses and read books yes I mean the the the like goal of becoming more than

00:08:01.800 consumers I think is so perfectly said for what all of us are like fighting for our lives to do

00:08:09.100 right now I did want to come back to talking more about Detroit and the kind of magic that you find

00:08:19.020 there and the kind of people that practice there what what the community is like you're so deeply

00:08:25.300 you have been so deeply integrated there and your husband too so I don't know we're we're doing an

00:08:30.440 episode on Yvonne's book on black magic and thinking more about that southern history of

00:08:39.020 magic coming up and I know you and your husband have talked about how Detroit is special in its

00:08:44.900 magic for being this meeting place of southern magic and immigrant magic can you talk more about

00:08:50.240 that yes i can okay so i guess the best way to do it is like this all right so let's just say

00:09:01.680 you're a tip it's a typical typical day in detroit i'm going to make it a non-typical day you decide

00:09:07.360 to fill your day with magic you get up in the morning there's at least six or seven different

00:09:12.960 cultural magical shops you could visit but you decide before you do that you're going to go get

00:09:18.400 a reading. So you go to the Hamtramck area in Detroit, which is a city inside the city, which

00:09:23.320 is Polish. It is very much Polish, but although it's Polish, there's also a huge Bengali and

00:09:29.080 Pakistani population as well. But you go to the Polish city inside the city of Detroit,

00:09:33.640 and you go there and you go up the steps and you wind up talking to someone from the mountains of

00:09:38.480 Appalachia, not Appalachia, Appalachia, and they give you a reading. And her sister's the one that

00:09:44.160 does the reading and she's blind so you have to go in there with your parents and everybody gets

00:09:48.820 their reading one at a time in the back room all right so you leave and you decide okay that's all 0.88

00:09:53.260 fine and good but i need to get a different reading for another person so you decide to go

00:09:57.820 to greek town and you go to greek town and you go in there you get some coffee okay and once you get

00:10:03.500 your coffee you go next to saint peter and paul church which one day i'll tell you the story of

00:10:07.600 that altar because it was a it was a trip it was a the most cursed altar ever but you go to saint

00:10:13.260 peter and paul church and then you make yourself a turn and you go back into the neighborhood and 0.94

00:10:18.120 you go past you go past the the sicilian and the italian neighborhoods and you go past the black

00:10:24.320 neighborhood from the um mississippi and arkansas because different areas come up here some parts

00:10:28.740 are tennessee some parts are arkansas you go past that area past the mississippi area and you talk

00:10:33.760 to somebody there and instead of winding up being able to get the information you need from the greek

00:10:38.520 person they're like oh we're out go over there and you wind up talking to somebody who's baltic 0.88

00:10:43.060 and the baltic person gives you all the information that you need great you decide to take a picnic

00:10:48.220 on the island it happens to be a saturday that's bell island park you go to bell isle park and it's

00:10:53.220 the right saturday because why you're driving on the side of the island on the other side where

00:10:57.660 the lighthouse is you go down a little further and you see a huge congregation of black people

00:11:04.860 in white clothing and it's not a church congregation at all it's just a gathering 0.72

00:11:09.520 of white people who are honoring African traditional religion, and they're making

00:11:14.100 offerings to the water, and they're doing rituals and ceremonies there. And you just happen to see

00:11:19.720 it, walk by, pick yourself some honeysuckle, you know, and it's all good. Grab some black 0.85

00:11:24.600 leaves, you know, because you want to do some money magic later. It's all good. You keep on

00:11:29.360 going. You decide to go sit down near the lighthouse. But before you did, you like, you

00:11:33.980 know, put some stuff in the water because there was a spell you needed to do. But you couldn't do

00:11:37.860 it where you first stop because you put so much so many spells under the willow trees there you

00:11:43.460 can't stop just anywhere because everybody knows that everybody has put stuff on the willow tree

00:11:48.560 under the willow trees on bell isle and you have to remember which ones you used so then you did

00:11:53.920 that so then you drove off of bell isle after having a nice picnic lunch you start on your

00:11:58.440 way back and you say hey i need some candles so you go to oak park which is just outside you go

00:12:02.840 to one of the shops get yourself a couple of cases of candles and everything's fine but your friend

00:12:07.700 calls you on the phone, says, hey, I need you to drop back down to Gratiot Avenue and go to Detroit.

00:12:12.760 I need a case of candles that have been blessed by Oshun or are dedicated to Oshun and some other

00:12:18.440 deity. You go down there and you take care of that. And then you say, oh, let me stop by Eastern

00:12:23.260 Market. You go by Eastern Market and there's some Romanians there, okay? And they're hanging out

00:12:28.620 because you know them and they know you and it's all good. And next thing you know, you say, hey,

00:12:33.500 let me stop off i forgot to get what i needed from there you go to eastern market go to discount

00:12:38.020 candle you go in there there's a new hampshire witch who used to own it but now it's owned by

00:12:42.600 someone else so you go in there you go in there and get a whole different kind of spell work but

00:12:49.700 they don't have everything you need so now you got to go to southwest detroit which is also known as

00:12:53.960 mexican town you go on the other side of town to the luck and booth and you wind up going there

00:12:58.840 and you get your cards read and you wind up buying some stuff that nobody else makes but you know

00:13:04.420 what you've got a problem what's your problem you don't have anywhere to go out with your friend

00:13:09.180 tonight oh wait it's saturday night let me go to the tangent gallery which is where all the hippies

00:13:14.060 and the anarchists hang out and shiva honey who is one of the most well-written satanists in our

00:13:19.320 area who just came out with a book because she runs one of the satanic groups in detroit on the

00:13:24.900 deeper southwest than the other anarchist collective you go down there and you're like

00:13:29.120 hey let's go hang out at the tangent gallery because they're going to have a party all right

00:13:32.680 to go down to the party just turns out guess what there's a whole other witch group that has nothing

00:13:36.960 to do with the one that you usually hang out with and they're all hanging out and they're partying

00:13:41.640 together and doing a ritual good times good times the next day you get up you say hey what do i have

00:13:47.240 to do next week oh i need to pay for my ticket to convocation because convocation they're going

00:13:51.820 to have some black ceremonial magicians there as far as black magic not black ethnicity and they're

00:13:57.180 probably going to have if i'm not mistaken they're going to have a couple of people there who practice

00:14:02.340 mukumi maybe some fairy magic because you know i haven't done fairy magic in a minute oh and

00:14:07.100 definitely the vampires are going to be their house kept through so i'm going to go there because you

00:14:11.420 know i just went to gather because most of the people in this community on this side of town are

00:14:15.100 into that so hey but you know it's not the dvc which is the detroit vampire community which is

00:14:20.320 a little bit of a crossover. So you're going to say, all right, well, you know, let's all get our

00:14:24.680 calendars synced up and everything. You sync up your calendar. Next thing you know, you're hungry

00:14:29.220 again. It's the next day. You want to kind of go out and have a drink. Guess what? If you go back

00:14:34.200 to Hamtramck and make a right and go to Highland Park, which is a city adjacent to Hamtramck,

00:14:39.300 you can go to the Black Hole Collective, also known as Namby's Place, and hang out possibly

00:14:43.760 with the people who used to know the Detroit Witch. Guess what? She does old school hoodoo,

00:14:48.020 but so do a lot of other people too. And you can go in there and deal with comedic magic.

00:14:53.060 And you might pick up a couple of aunks and some other things because you're not far from the

00:14:56.560 Shrine of the Black Madonna, about maybe 20 minutes. Go over there, talk to the Black Christian

00:15:00.660 nationalists who actually do practice old school magic. But now your aunt just said, I need you to 0.96

00:15:06.920 go pick up some holy water. So you wind up going down to one of the missionary Baptist churches, 0.94

00:15:11.900 pick up some holy water and some blessed oil because those practitioners practice hoodoo

00:15:16.460 from bible and they have already blessed everything for you and they probably gave 0.53

00:15:20.380 you a side eye because they know a witch when they see one and then you go home and relax

00:15:24.620 and turn on charmed and laugh

00:15:26.460 um i feel like you just taught a master class in seeing detroit through the eyes of a little witch

00:15:39.480 i'm just gonna like listen and picture myself in your city it was amazing

00:15:44.600 Now, if you're unfortunate enough to be one of the victims of Kenya Kowiak in one of her classes,

00:15:50.820 let's all take a moment and pour some liquor out for them, and you were in her grove, 0.57

00:15:57.060 then you might have the unlucky, unfortunate moment of being outside, walking through the mud in swamps and everything else,

00:16:04.320 pulling up plants and leaving offerings because you need to learn your plants.

00:16:09.520 but in exchange for that you're also learning how to make cordage and you're also learning

00:16:14.880 to make your own magical map of power spots throughout the region on a map

00:16:19.360 and most of the people in the city know where these power spots are because the people who

00:16:26.940 have moved into detroit think people are up to no good all the time when they're wandering around

00:16:31.240 alone at night and i'm gonna tell you right now 50 of the time they're just looking at somewhere

00:16:36.460 to hang to actually drop off an offering or some kind of work without being seen i love that you

00:16:44.020 teach your students a power map of your city i think everyone should do that i think everyone

00:16:50.720 should try to define the power spots and the dead zones if you were to to stop the detroit river

00:16:57.860 which you can't but if you were to stop the detroit river and like have it like dry for a minute

00:17:02.840 you'd find so many bottle spells you could probably make an entire dam out of glass

00:17:07.880 I feel like especially in these crazy COVID times when so many people are quarantining

00:17:12.760 and listening to these podcasts people like me will re-listen to that

00:17:17.000 that story you just told us that walk through of the city and imagine that they're outside and in

00:17:23.100 these magical places and maybe bring them closer to you

00:17:29.560 you have so many activists as well on both sides believe it or not of certain issues in this

00:17:38.900 country right now and they're matter of fact there's a witch in midland and she is now midland

00:17:47.600 is quite a way don't get it wrong it's like over two hours but again you know it kind of spreads

00:17:53.180 out it's its own little pocket but they come down here you know she was at the protest here

00:17:57.080 and she's running a mobile blm memorial project you know that's her baby so and and she also does

00:18:05.500 other things uh she wrote she writes poetry and then we have that overlap between her

00:18:11.080 she comes down from midland to go to pagan fest which is a camping festival here in michigan it's

00:18:18.640 an international festival and then people get together and and meet up there and then they wind

00:18:24.120 up carrying that fellowship onward and when they're at pagan fest sometimes what winds up

00:18:28.760 happening you know there's other community bonds you know people put together uh records they put

00:18:35.220 together listen to me records i'm old they put together cds we've got people who are common

00:18:40.800 um there's a young lady now she's actually one young lady just opened up her own she only did

00:18:48.720 her own book another one did her own graphic novel or comic books she opened up her own

00:18:53.240 publishing company and these are both young witches and they're both uh based from detroit

00:18:57.780 so you've got all of these things going on interconnected to show that every walk of life

00:19:04.660 and society is now in this particular time beginning to not separate themselves from okay

00:19:13.660 this is my mundane life this is my magical life and never the two shall meet no now we're beginning

00:19:19.740 to live fully in ourselves and it's really wonderful to see yeah i'm glad it feels like that

00:19:27.360 there's this movement of something that's wonderful to see around you where you are right

00:19:32.140 can you talk about what how you're doing in detroit how how are you guys this is it's 2020 0.98

00:19:39.220 it's a it's a shit show how are you feeling how are you doing okay so i know you saw the movie 0.92

00:19:46.660 eight mile or heard of it at least so i'm on the other side of eight mile now i move north 0.99

00:19:52.940 but i still most of my family is south so i go to detroit all the time right

00:19:58.280 so here's what's happening i've been down at the demonstrations and i'm going to call them what

00:20:05.800 they are demonstrations you know we're not going to address the police riot situation where people

00:20:10.880 you know can walk in and declare something a riot that's actually a a first amendment gathering i'm

00:20:17.280 not going to make that about this today but i've been down there to document these things and from

00:20:23.440 what i can see it's an amplification of the carpet bagging and the gentrifying that was already

00:20:31.220 occurring in the 90s and because of that pockets of the cut of the city have been left behind

00:20:38.000 and that's caused a greater divide you know when i worked in detroit as in a family service worker

00:20:44.360 assistant uh position we had about a 40 to 45 percent functional literacy rate you know in many

00:20:52.200 of the areas and it wasn't about race demographic you know as far as demographics it was simply

00:20:57.400 about geographical and class location and economic income and that divide has gotten even stronger

00:21:07.100 Because instead of trying to develop the people in the city, they have done a large amount of recruitment to bring people from outside of not only the city, but the state back to the city.

00:21:19.180 Now, how does this affect us as witches?

00:21:21.620 Well, I'm going to tell you, there's a whole new crop of people who are, you know, and then this happens, you know, every generation that are starting stores and practices as is, you know, that's good.

00:21:33.880 But what's happening is we're finding, and when I say we, I'm using the general we from my generation, we're finding that they are being somewhat given pre-packaged kind of ramen noodle magic courses, add water and stir for three minutes and you too can be a witch.

00:21:55.040 and it's kind of like disappointing and you know there are other shops where they've been here

00:22:01.300 forever you know and they're kind of like standoffish so you know where are they going to

00:22:06.260 go you know you got the two extremes luckily we have some shops that have been around forever

00:22:11.400 that that are holding the line of you know this is this is not about an exclusive social club and

00:22:18.520 this is not a five minute lesson this is okay how much of your life do you want to devote to this

00:22:24.640 How much do you want to put in? Because whatever you put in is what you get out. And in that, they are beginning to discover, the newcomers are beginning to discover that, yes, Detroit has different factions as far as cultural contributions to our overall practice of Detroit conjure and magic.

00:22:44.300 And when I say conjure, I'm not just talking about conjuration like I conjure the old creature of art.

00:22:50.840 I mean the whole pharmacy part, the pharmaceutical part about healing, being a root doctor or an herbal practitioner.

00:22:58.040 And because we are an international port, have the blessing and the grace to have so many cultures here that contribute not only their magics,

00:23:09.300 but their folklore and their folk remedies and their other practices to everything and as these

00:23:15.760 young people are finding and not just young in age but young people in the craft are finding

00:23:21.200 places and pockets where hey look there's more to it than just grabbing a random book off the shelf

00:23:27.200 and watching charmed which you know i love the old charmed um nothing wrong with it but you know

00:23:33.460 they're finding that there's more to life than grabbing a smudge stick from five below and and

00:23:40.260 having at it you describe it perfectly there is this wave of people who i think you know like

00:23:48.760 like like myself like many of us like you know dip their toes in because we don't have a ritual

00:23:57.040 to turn to when we need it or whatever it is that brings us first in. But the real

00:24:03.440 fascinating life work enriching stuff is finding those people who've practiced for a long time

00:24:11.100 and getting to meet with them and ask them questions. So I'm really thankful for you

00:24:16.960 being here with us today. Can you talk more? I wanted you to know that when you talked about

00:24:22.660 the Black Lives Matter protests that you're still seeing in Detroit, that we are very much

00:24:30.360 with you in your feeling there. And then you're bringing that part of the story into where you're

00:24:38.000 at right now. That's part of what's happening in Detroit. And after the repeated murders and

00:24:46.180 violence against Black people in your country and in mine, the people that are out there still

00:24:52.160 protesting in the face of covid are heroes for all of us so i didn't want to brush by that without

00:24:58.560 saying that um i wondered if you wanted to talk to us more about your own history and how did you

00:25:08.880 come to know this magic who who brought you to where you are well let's see um i was already

00:25:19.120 born weird so that was the first problem but um but but the thing was is that

00:25:26.740 I was in class I was in a school and you know I was doing little bitty spells when I was really

00:25:38.080 small but I didn't know what they were you know children and I would see things that other people

00:25:43.620 couldn't see that's fine my parents were doing stuff you know I didn't recognize what it was

00:25:48.120 at that age i didn't even recognize it two years later and i was in class and there was this

00:25:52.300 wonderful story i'm still trying to find out the name of the story i can't remember it was a reading

00:25:56.780 list and in this reading list book there was a book that this little girl uh wound up being

00:26:03.000 friends with another little girl who had just moved to town and the girl who moved the town

00:26:08.860 was a witch she was a little girl who said she was a witch had belladonna in her bag was trying

00:26:14.880 to make spells with a little bag like parcel post things like that and i was like and this was a

00:26:21.140 little black girl in a book and i was like that is the life for me and well that's part of it plus i

00:26:29.360 was um reading scott cunningham's books in the in the um the library lincoln branch library

00:26:34.580 and reading health books on lemongrass tea and things i understand i was in grade school but i

00:26:41.180 You know, I used to read way above my level.

00:26:43.800 I mean, I was given the grace to be gifted.

00:26:46.000 So, you know, I could really, you know, I got bored quickly.

00:26:49.120 So the librarian came over and she saw me.

00:26:53.360 I had climbed to the top of the stacks and I grabbed a really interesting book.

00:26:57.060 It was great.

00:26:58.120 And I was having fun and everything.

00:27:00.040 You know, I had my little Llewellyn book next to it.

00:27:02.780 And I was reading this book, having a good old time.

00:27:05.280 And she comes by and says, oh, oh, here, let me give you this.

00:27:08.740 And she gives me a different Cunningham book.

00:27:11.180 the Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs, right? Because the book I was reading was the Hierarchy of

00:27:16.180 Demons or something. And she decided, yeah, we're just going to come in and shut that right on down. 0.99

00:27:21.720 We're just going to shut that down because this is not where you need to be yet. If you're going

00:27:27.400 to go there, not yet. So she gave me the Scott Cunningham book and she let me read the books on

00:27:33.800 Chaldean numerology and whatnot. And she was a really great librarian. The whole library,

00:27:38.360 they were awesome uh i really believe they were witches just because now looking back some of

00:27:44.420 them were crystals but um yeah yeah that was kind of where it started and it went from there and

00:27:50.860 then at 13 i was already doing spells at that point but at 13 i got my first tarot deck and i

00:27:58.040 met a man he was a seek and his name was ollie he owned a shop called the monkey's paw

00:28:03.280 so this Sikh is teaching me and he also had this I believe he was a French and Welsh man there if

00:28:10.800 I'm not mistaken who was also assisting and at the counter she was selling the jewelry for the

00:28:15.840 little shop um she was a necromancer and so she was teaching me stuff too now this is at 13 this

00:28:23.640 is a bit much and but you know just just little stuff that I could understand so they started me

00:28:30.400 with magical oils so let's start here oils and oils and stones we'll start here and that's

00:28:37.840 that's basically when i first started my formal stuff

00:28:40.320 wow i have to give love to witch librarians i was so happy when you said that i feel like so

00:28:51.980 many of the librarians i've met have been secret witches and i love that they just put the right

00:28:56.520 books in your hands and we're quiet that's so rad that's so beautiful um I know about

00:29:03.980 seven witch librarians here in the metro Detroit area

00:29:08.680 oh my gosh I love that and I feel like so many of our listeners are quietly cheering we've had

00:29:17.000 witch librarians write into us before like helping us find books that we were trying to remember from

00:29:22.500 our childhood too so which librarians if you're listening how can you find that book from her

00:29:27.240 childhood writing to us we will pass it on to her um can you can you um share with us maybe

00:29:40.220 and and this is asked with with all respect for the things you can't share

00:29:45.020 but what's your what's your own ritual or practice been like these days um you know we are in strange

00:29:56.640 quarantine times we're we're indoors and we're dealing we're dealing with it at a distance and

00:30:03.580 in our own versions in Canada but you are directly in in the world of of Trump and insanity and all

00:30:10.660 the violence that that entails how have you been taking care of yourself what have your what have

00:30:16.900 your rituals been like mostly i've been focusing on green magic on making remedies teaching uh

00:30:28.500 i found that for some reason my practices are quirky because they go back to weird stuff

00:30:35.160 yeah okay weird but weird in the real way weird and i i like to work with my hands a lot so you

00:30:42.900 know i've taught some classes in clay magic in thorn magic uh making sure the gardens are growing

00:30:49.580 proper magical herbs um helping people learn how to do their own candle magic one things that i was

00:30:58.520 blessed with is that i'm able to craft words well sometimes you know and i like to cover stories of

00:31:06.160 witches who are out there on the front lines so that's one of the things i've been doing to try to

00:31:11.460 to focus on making a difference but some things i've been doing that are strictly magical um i

00:31:18.180 have been very um very conservative in how much energy i'm expending because i expect as we get

00:31:25.980 closer to the end of October, I will need to do some heavy duty, I'll just say works.

00:31:35.160 Yeah, I think right now for all of us, like, protecting our energy feels really important.

00:31:43.240 Something else that I'm looking at, I'm trying to get people into the healing arts right now,

00:31:50.060 but it's not just so much physical healing it's not about the empath or the psychological either

00:31:58.440 it's energetic healing you have to know how to heal a space you have to know how to heal a crowd

00:32:06.560 um i'm not going to talk about how to do it here obviously because it's something i only teach

00:32:12.540 certain people but you can completely change the energy of a crowd and most people will wind up

00:32:19.080 learning how to do this as they go through the craft, but I'm trying to be very, very

00:32:24.580 mindful that we have to begin to deploy people who know how to calm a crowd down. That is

00:32:32.200 something that is critical right now, because things are spiraling out of control.

00:32:37.840 Yeah, I mean, I can relate to that from the perspective of an artist or hosting

00:32:47.840 an event where you do feel those moments where entire like balance or energy of a room depends

00:32:54.960 on you in that moment that that there are those moments that feel like like like tipping points

00:33:02.360 and if you can if you can command that attention of that energy and shift it then i think that

00:33:08.920 there's a possibility for some some redemptive moments there i'm glad you're teaching people how

00:33:14.940 to do that not many though not many anymore um i've been very elusive i'm kind of he's kind of

00:33:23.360 got me bubble wrapped because i'm a chronic asthmatic with other like immunodeficiency

00:33:29.300 issues so he's kind of like my husband's kind of bubble wrapping me so i don't go out too much

00:33:34.420 but you know i do teach sometimes i will say this

00:33:39.980 i will say this very much if you are beginning to look forward

00:33:45.240 through oracular divination and decided to look at our country this country here

00:33:52.160 you'd probably need yourself a jack and a beer back lots of heavy drinking involved

00:34:00.860 I don't know I feel like drinking has been a little bit too much of a coping mechanism for

00:34:10.740 me this year but I can feel how there's darker days ahead with this what do you if you you know

00:34:21.480 people can't maybe reach you as a teacher in the ways they might have before which I think is good

00:34:26.840 You've got to keep yourself so safe with this.

00:34:29.920 I'm glad your husband's looking out for you.

00:34:32.360 But what would you say to the listeners who hear this for how they might consider protecting themselves or becoming those energy workers for peace?

00:34:47.020 People maybe in the United States or in Canada or around the world who want to send you support.

00:34:53.240 Or do you have, we'd like to end sometimes with a suggestion from our guest of a ritual or practice or something people can do.

00:35:04.400 Okay, so one of the things that, and I won't ramble, but one of the things I would like to point out as far as that goes is that the first thing to do is to ward yourself, to seal yourself to a point.

00:35:20.680 I know that people want to be empathic every time is not the right time for that

00:35:26.720 so that's the first thing the second thing maybe invest in a small amulet it doesn't or something

00:35:34.480 to wear around your neck it does not have to be metal it doesn't have to be from a shop

00:35:39.300 you know you can go buy you know you can go find an amulet or create or buy and create a talisman

00:35:45.880 Or even small charms to protect yourself. I highly recommend drawing sigils on yourself if you're going into a dangerous situation. One of my young people that I really admire, he is in Salem right now. And he was there for the riot there in Salem at a demonstration.

00:36:04.720 He drew sigils and protective symbols all over himself so that he would be safe during the action there.

00:36:13.040 So I highly recommend that that's another thing that they can do.

00:36:16.100 And then if they're really concerned, make a light or a lamp, a light or a lamp with something protective.

00:36:23.520 Or if you're trying to make sure that people get away unscathed and are not seen, throw something in there to help with that.

00:36:31.040 maybe some may apple or sow thistle to help conceal them so they don't get harmed

00:36:38.640 okay i just think that we should remember who we are we've come a long way as a species as a people

00:36:45.440 as a series of a group of cultures and and spiritual beings and and souls and we need to

00:36:52.240 remember that even though the person that stands across from us may have hate in their heart may

00:36:58.960 have ideas that we feel are wrong or odious or offensive or even dangerous we have to remember

00:37:05.440 that we are all all of us human and that you know sometimes peace is not the way sometimes you have

00:37:13.040 to defend yourself but or defend another person but at the end of everything you have to continue

00:37:19.680 to hold in yourself that we are all humans we are all people we are all souls and when you get to

00:37:26.960 that part you begin to remember that there's a little bit more outside that physical form

00:37:32.400 that you're dealing with when you're in proximity to those people or to those cultures or to those

00:37:38.540 countries and because of that you definitely can change everything you encounter everything you

00:37:46.680 touch with your own powerful energy and your own focused will and thought hey what do they say

00:37:53.820 she changes everything she touches you change everything you touch too

00:37:58.460 thanks so much kenya i feel like pretty lit up and inspired by that thank you again for being

00:38:10.520 with us and for for sharing so much with our listeners and with me um i really want to extend

00:38:22.240 all of our listeners. We sort of talk about the coven that's made between our ears and

00:38:27.880 the dark between our ears by being in this podcast space together. So I want to imagine

00:38:35.280 that all of our listeners are with us and closing their eyes and sort of reaching out

00:38:42.160 to surround you and protect you. And thank you for everything that you are teaching and

00:38:49.760 sharing and to keep you healthy so that we can be part of the giant bubble wrap that your husband

00:38:54.120 is wrapping you in um i will send that bubble wrap to each other too um yeah stay safe everybody

00:39:03.680 thank you so much and thank you for having me you have a wonderful night and be safe 0.91

00:39:10.040 you must be a witch

00:39:13.940 don't forget to go to foxglovefarm.com 0.89

00:39:18.920 and use offer code

00:39:20.140 missingwitches

Missing Witches - October 21, 2020

WF Kenya Coviak： Conjuring Detroit

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