Missing Witches - October 12, 2026


WF Kim Kitchen - There's No Such Thing As Far Away

MW Queen Himiko - The Sacred Was Entangled With Survival

Episode Stats


Length

43 minutes

Words per minute

140.1

Word count

6,043

Sentence count

435


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch.
00:00:03.140 Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. You must be a witch.
00:00:10.540 Hi, it's Risa. I wanted to offer a bit of an introduction to this episode because it starts
00:00:17.620 even more in the middle of everything than we usually do. This episode was recorded live
00:00:25.180 in North Bay in a little studio of the artist Kim Kitchen. I was introduced to Kim the way you get
00:00:34.540 handed by person to person when you're looking for friends or witches when you travel and I didn't
00:00:43.340 know Kim's work but I fell so in love with her in that house in that moment. Kim is disabled as a
00:00:51.240 result of a debilitating and transformative illness. She explores collective cultural
00:00:56.880 understandings of the female body, its intersections with and presence within the
00:01:01.080 natural world. Her community activism is inclusive, celebratory, exuberant, and has a massive
00:01:08.580 visionary spirit. I wish I had audio of this part, but she told me when she was up north,
00:01:16.820 She talks about her travels and her work in the North in the episode, but she was working on an art project. She wanted to make molds of people's bodies who had experienced mastectomy.
00:01:33.820 and the curator of the gallery space told her I'll circulate the call but I don't think you'll
00:01:45.060 find anybody up here they circulated the call and you know something like within 12 hours all
00:01:51.220 of the possible spots to make these busts these molds were filled and Kim met woman after woman
00:02:01.340 who came forward to share, because at that time when they went looking, there were no
00:02:07.820 images available of what your body would look like after a mastectomy.
00:02:13.260 And as she told me this, I was sitting there, you know, recovering from the worst of the
00:02:23.560 infections that had wracked my body following mastectomy. My breasts sort of weirdly disfigured
00:02:33.600 one dark burnt by radiation the other light both crumpled in different ways. Anyway I'm wearing
00:02:41.900 this weird body under my clothes against my skin all the time on this trip that's how it felt
00:02:49.580 And suddenly Kim, out of the blue, was telling me about all of these women coming to her and letting her make casts to show their versions of these scars to their community.
00:03:04.780 And then Kim made, like, lovingly made sculptures of all of their breasts, all the removed breasts, until they filled the floors of the gallery.
00:03:17.200 That's a piece of her work.
00:03:19.080 She is truly a witch, and she shares stories in this episode about going on travels to meet the sacred feminine.
00:03:28.080 And she invites us to remember ourselves, to claim our space, to feel our rage, to reduce our distractions, and to listen for each other, and to remember there's no such thing as far away.
00:03:49.080 I'm a crone.
00:03:54.500 Still have that going on.
00:03:56.220 And I'm here today with so many sisters
00:03:58.500 who have blessed me in my life.
00:04:03.200 There's no such place as far away.
00:04:05.460 So I have them all around me.
00:04:07.320 All those teachings, experiences,
00:04:10.480 witness to the reclaiming.
00:04:12.260 And now I am very solitary,
00:04:15.620 although my art practice doesn't feel solitary so just really in my creative fire
00:04:23.940 with very limited capacity but my skills of strategizing are seasoned I rested all day for
00:04:34.120 this thank you oh pleasure but you know it's the strategies right yeah and to be so delighted
00:04:44.040 by just that i live in a global space every day say more about that there are so many individuals
00:04:52.580 women who i share time with every day globally that's such an impact on my life and we share
00:05:03.200 messages and stay connected it brings me such hope knowing what women have done and continue
00:05:13.380 to do in the world.
00:05:16.480 As Murray again,
00:05:17.280 Buddha said,
00:05:18.440 creators of culture.
00:05:23.780 It was years before
00:05:25.280 I went to Malta
00:05:27.080 that I was living
00:05:28.560 in the subarctic.
00:05:29.500 What brought you
00:05:29.960 to the subarctic?
00:05:31.920 Adventure.
00:05:32.660 Parian and I.
00:05:33.760 He'd graduated
00:05:34.560 from nursing.
00:05:36.540 It was at a time
00:05:37.180 when hospitals
00:05:38.140 were closing floors
00:05:39.260 and there wasn't
00:05:39.940 a lot of jobs.
00:05:40.780 You know,
00:05:41.060 we were told
00:05:41.620 if you live
00:05:42.780 there and have an address there you'll work so we packed everything up and off you went and you
00:05:49.320 were a practicing artist and writer i've always practiced art but up until that time i didn't
00:05:55.420 have a practice okay i was working in sexual violence intimate partner violence and it was
00:06:02.920 counseling i was doing outreach like public education working with women on the street
00:06:11.600 so off we went six days later arrived in hay river it's on great slave lake it's a 12-hour
00:06:20.760 drive up from edmonton wow can you drive it all the way train stops there okay yeah 12 hours
00:06:27.640 straight up from edmonton which is the northernmost metropolis in the world
00:06:31.140 so start at the northernmost city then drive north for 12 hours okay yeah the mckenzie everything's
00:06:38.700 barged out to the high arctic on Mackenzie from Hay River.
00:06:42.140 Well, it used to be.
00:06:42.880 Now that Mackenzie, in places, the water is sometimes not too deep.
00:06:47.680 So there's been all kinds of changes in that up there.
00:06:51.020 That was many years ago.
00:06:53.160 I worked at the shelter there, and it was the first time that I worked with men.
00:07:01.500 I had no interest to serve men in that capacity.
00:07:05.780 However, there wasn't a lot of men offering those services, and the warden had come from the federal prison to our shelter and asked if anybody was willing to provide service to the men in the federal prison.
00:07:22.500 So workshops and individual counseling.
00:07:25.040 And my hand went up.
00:07:26.500 Very shocking.
00:07:27.480 And while I was, you know, in Hay River doing this work, I was meeting women from all over the high Arctic because Hay River was the safe place for them to be, you know, leave their community, taken out of their community when they disclosed and were needing safety, right? And they would come down to Hay River.
00:07:47.900 I was already really deep into my pagan practices, the sense of the skill of the art of an empath and not understanding culturally what, you know, what are the tools?
00:08:05.400 What does that look like when you step into a completely other culture?
00:08:09.160 But listening and having those, they're always visuals for me.
00:08:14.620 It's like a running film.
00:08:16.160 It's visual.
00:08:16.660 Yeah, it really comes to me, right?
00:08:18.660 Mine's always words.
00:08:20.140 It's always.
00:08:21.400 Always, yeah.
00:08:23.060 These experiences of knowing this 80-year-old Dene woman
00:08:28.740 who is now reaching out to do her work
00:08:32.960 and having that come to me that I needed to take her out on the ice
00:08:37.200 with her machete and her knives and allow her to work that out.
00:08:42.120 Not something I know, but something that came in and said, this is the path for this energy.
00:08:53.280 This is some place you might be able to take this, this pain.
00:08:57.120 No, exactly, right?
00:08:58.340 So having, and I'm not a, you know, I wasn't a textbook.
00:09:02.900 I wasn't a schooled counselor or social work.
00:09:08.260 I had learned through my own experience of years and years of healing work
00:09:15.400 and then connecting with these wild, wonderful goddess women
00:09:20.920 that just transformed everything in a weekend.
00:09:26.340 I love that my children say that.
00:09:29.800 Kim told me this story off camera, but tell it again for everybody else.
00:09:33.840 This past year, somebody said, you know, like, what's your mom?
00:09:37.300 he's like this she's like oh no well she was a witch no no she wasn't and they were like oh so
00:09:42.820 how did that happen when she went away for a weekend it was just really this reclaiming
00:09:49.940 yeah it's what happened it just happened so quickly i just reclaimed everything i needed to
00:09:56.500 yeah it was all right there it's all right there i was remembering i remember reading vicky noble's
00:10:02.980 book shakti women healing fire healing river feeding her fire healing our world and at one
00:10:09.380 point in that book she talks about the rape and the pillage of all the goddess statues
00:10:16.820 throughout the world right you know being just ransacked and knocked to the ground they were in
00:10:24.660 pieces and that our task now is to remember so putting all of the pieces back the body back
00:10:36.600 such a strong visual for me yeah it helps me greatly throughout my life that visual
00:10:43.180 remembering yeah that's so visceral those pieces of her body yeah okay so we're in the high arctic
00:10:52.160 So we leave the high Arctic.
00:10:53.720 Yeah.
00:10:54.200 And now we're in Elliott Lake.
00:10:55.960 And we're there for eight years.
00:10:57.760 North, four hours, a uranium town.
00:11:01.180 The Arctic was difficult.
00:11:02.600 The Christian, it was the Christian oppression of indigenous folks.
00:11:09.480 It was like going back in time, you know, that was still all going on.
00:11:13.840 We made dear friends with Dene folk who were really in the closet
00:11:20.100 because it was only safe to be in the closet.
00:11:23.940 The Pentecostals ran that town, so hospitals, Pentecostals, schools were Pentecostals.
00:11:28.620 It really was like stepping back in time.
00:11:31.600 Elliot Lake was this really incredible grounding point.
00:11:36.460 By this time, I was traveling about the world and I was doing retreats
00:11:41.880 that the title was Birthing Our Ancient Selves.
00:11:45.320 And it was, it really came to me
00:11:47.800 over several years of this reclaiming work.
00:11:53.180 And so this retreat, three days,
00:11:56.520 women were inviting me to their communities
00:12:00.160 throughout Canada and the States,
00:12:01.980 which is when I met Jennifer Barazan,
00:12:04.320 amazing sister, originally from Calgary, musician.
00:12:07.440 and she does these sacred journeys to Malta every year
00:12:13.300 with Joan Marler, who is the protege of Maria Gimbudas.
00:12:17.580 Joan Marler has Maria's library.
00:12:22.100 Joan Marler has continued the work of Maria.
00:12:25.680 Oh, wow.
00:12:27.360 I became very close with those two.
00:12:29.940 Yeah, I had them come to Elliot Lake.
00:12:32.360 Okay.
00:12:33.060 They flew into Toronto and then on a little four-seater up to Elliot Lake
00:12:36.480 and would spend a weekend to do a retreat and Starhawk, Vicki Noble.
00:12:41.380 I had this dream once that I was going to be sitting at a table,
00:12:44.560 and we were all together, and I thought we were having tea.
00:12:48.940 But when it really actually happened,
00:12:50.600 I went to a gathering in San Francisco to celebrate Maria Gimbores.
00:12:56.420 She had died, and this was a celebration of her work.
00:13:02.060 It was like five days. It was amazing.
00:13:04.840 And at the end of that, I stayed with Jennifer,
00:13:07.540 and Jennifer said to me,
00:13:09.500 we're all going to go to this Brazilian bar
00:13:11.720 and have a good time tonight.
00:13:14.680 And we went, and there I was,
00:13:17.140 sitting at this really long table,
00:13:18.920 and we were drinking this dark Brazilian beer,
00:13:21.480 so it wasn't tea.
00:13:22.500 And everybody in my dream was at the table.
00:13:25.120 And I think of all of them, we're all aging already.
00:13:28.620 Some have transitioned,
00:13:29.520 that have done just such an incredible amount of work in their life,
00:13:36.080 whether it be academically, on the ground.
00:13:39.440 It's a massive braiding.
00:13:40.540 I've always felt so interwoven into this global community.
00:13:45.380 Yeah, such a relief to the part of me that feels there's so much to do,
00:13:50.340 to see this history of this work, to feel how vast it is.
00:13:54.600 It's so vast.
00:13:55.920 It's like, and when you sit with such women that have this legacy, it's pretty positive and inspiring.
00:14:05.680 And yeah, it just makes you go home, back to your community.
00:14:10.160 Two more, light the fires.
00:14:12.280 We're certainly not alone.
00:14:14.380 And all of those women in our lineage are standing there too.
00:14:18.200 When I went to Grace in March 2024 for this artist residency,
00:14:22.620 I was funded by the Canadian Council in the Arts Camp Ontario.
00:14:25.580 And it's so hard for a disabled artist to find appropriate residencies, especially in Europe.
00:14:33.440 Stairs, everything's just out of, just barriers, right?
00:14:37.580 So this woman, Annette, and her husband, Adoni, they had built this house in the 80s,
00:14:44.160 and a sister, MS, had come to her.
00:14:47.260 So they built this house, it had an elevator in it, the studio space, everything.
00:14:51.520 It was so shocking to step into a place and be so comforted.
00:14:57.440 I had an accessible washer, like everything.
00:14:59.820 Have your needs understood and loved?
00:15:03.500 And also to feel that other person, the other people who've been through.
00:15:07.240 Yeah, yes, yes.
00:15:08.760 While I was there, Joan Marler had said to me,
00:15:11.220 Kim, you gotta go to Delphi.
00:15:13.160 So the girls, they got me settled.
00:15:15.400 We had a week because I always have to recover.
00:15:17.460 I need a week to recover after flight travel.
00:15:19.720 So we were in Athens, where I was mostly in bed for four days.
00:15:23.980 And Nick and Aaron went out into Athens.
00:15:26.000 And then by the time I rose, I just had three, really, three places I wanted to go to.
00:15:32.380 Two were the museums.
00:15:34.600 And by the time I got up, they knew.
00:15:37.380 They knew everywhere to take me and how to get me there the best way, no barriers.
00:15:41.720 The best dining places below the Acropolis, they just parted the rivers.
00:15:47.420 And then we went to Delphi to stand at Athena's temple, the only round temple, Greece.
00:15:56.420 And there it stood, you know, in these mountains, in this valley.
00:16:00.180 You could see why it was just this perfect way to get into this river and follow it to the sea.
00:16:07.920 And of course, that fucking Apollo shows up and builds further up on the mountain, right?
00:16:13.320 And that's where all the tourists are.
00:16:15.180 We had Athena's temple to ourselves, and I just got arrested there.
00:16:21.800 What did you do?
00:16:23.840 Oh, I took some of the things.
00:16:25.680 Don't ditch, don't ditch.
00:16:27.300 I will obey.
00:16:28.660 And my social justice child, my middle child, said to me,
00:16:31.960 we've got to come down a switchback path gravelly so my wheelchair doesn't work.
00:16:37.720 But they're pushing that, and they're getting me down slowly.
00:16:40.920 and we'd seen this individual sitting over on a stone didn't think anything of it and then i
00:16:49.020 walked over and i was outside the ring you know they have things you don't call in beyond that's
00:16:54.020 fine there was this lace flat stone so i pulled up my bag and i had my goddess sculpture i just
00:17:01.200 wanted to photograph it and i had other items of course and this woman walked over she had a
00:17:08.900 Or walkie-talkie.
00:17:09.960 Like, all of a sudden, she was like, military mama.
00:17:14.180 She's like, put that away.
00:17:17.020 Of course, Erin's looking at me going, oh, my God, I told you this in the car.
00:17:21.140 This is a heritage site.
00:17:22.440 You can't do this, mom.
00:17:24.220 I was like, you cannot worship at this sacred place.
00:17:27.280 No.
00:17:28.020 You can't take things out of your bed.
00:17:29.860 Yeah.
00:17:30.820 And you certainly can't be a witch.
00:17:33.780 So I say to her, because I'm not understanding, I'm like, oh, can I just put it on the ground?
00:17:38.480 she's like no put that stuff back in the bag anyhow so i do all this and she walks away and
00:17:44.800 she's now she's asked my name it's all going on over there and we spend time there and then we
00:17:50.320 leave because the girls think they're gonna be honest we're gonna be stopped on the highway
00:17:56.160 leaving delphi we're gonna be checking all our bags yeah oh last thing my husband said to me
00:18:02.960 before I left for Greece.
00:18:04.820 Don't get arrested.
00:18:05.540 Don't get arrested having Greece.
00:18:08.100 Anyhow, I go back to my hotel room to rest,
00:18:12.620 and Erin sends me this message,
00:18:17.300 and it happened a month before
00:18:19.880 where a woman was arrested for being a witch in Athens.
00:18:24.820 It's illegal.
00:18:26.140 She was doing jail time.
00:18:28.280 I just worship Hakatee.
00:18:29.660 She's one of yours.
00:18:31.420 Yeah.
00:18:32.560 Athena was on the nameplate.
00:18:34.460 Yeah.
00:18:35.400 I'm just paying tribute to the Piscia.
00:18:38.880 Let her speak through me.
00:18:41.520 Okay, back to Manta.
00:18:42.800 Yeah, please.
00:18:43.300 Okay.
00:18:44.080 So Jennifer calls me and invites me to join her.
00:18:46.800 And so I go.
00:18:48.760 22 women.
00:18:50.260 And we were there for two weeks.
00:18:51.980 These vans pick you up at 3 in the morning to go to the temple sites with sunrise.
00:18:57.320 Like all these amazing women, Marlene, who is in one of my films recently, a poet, teaches English at the multi-university, has advocated for the temple sites her entire life, supper at their homes and going to the sites with them.
00:19:16.900 We were in the hypogeum. We were laying our bodies down in the hypogeum and chanting.
00:19:23.560 And there's all these oracles that travel one kind of floor to the other, right?
00:19:28.900 So your voices are just channeling through the hypogeum.
00:19:33.560 That's where Jennifer came to the decision to apply to record in the hypogeum.
00:19:41.220 She got permission.
00:19:42.160 Tell me more about what you know about the altar and the hypogeum and the spaces there.
00:19:49.760 What you know.
00:19:52.200 Why does it light up at the equinox?
00:19:54.300 What is this ancient relationship to the sun?
00:19:56.680 Listen, those folks were so connected, so connected to the Great Mother, to the great sky.
00:20:04.280 in these temple formations there was like these stairs all stone where you would sit on the top
00:20:14.300 of one of those huge stones it was like a lookout the altars on the spring equinox when we were
00:20:19.400 there we got there at three in the morning we laid our bodies everyone just chose where they
00:20:23.600 wanted to be when it sunk it was so incredible just to see it all light up it's the only time
00:20:31.200 it lights up like that, right?
00:20:34.440 And through that door and the altar.
00:20:38.080 When I was in the hyper jam and we chanted for hours,
00:20:41.660 we were in there for hours,
00:20:42.700 I crawled in to where they found this sleeping lady.
00:20:47.720 She's this big.
00:20:49.260 She dates 8,000 years.
00:20:51.700 She's on a couch.
00:20:53.580 Her dress has pleats.
00:20:55.600 Her hips, she's all round, beautifully round.
00:20:58.440 Joan talked about the envisioning of her pregnancy, conception, birthing.
00:21:04.160 And so in this main chamber, there were these little arch dugouts.
00:21:09.320 And so I crawled in there and I laid down.
00:21:12.780 It was just big enough to do that.
00:21:14.980 And that's where they found her.
00:21:17.480 And of course, the drawings, the henna and the red ochre, like it's all there.
00:21:22.360 It's been so preserved, right?
00:21:24.020 And then these oracle chambers that are like cylinder round, perfectly round, that go up and up into another chamber on another floor, right?
00:21:34.680 When you talk or when you chant, it's like you're right next to that person.
00:21:39.200 Yeah.
00:21:39.760 The walls of the hypogeum are all smooth.
00:21:44.420 And they know they were carved with antler pick and obsidian.
00:21:50.240 And obsidian is not found on the island of Malta.
00:21:53.380 It's Africa, Northern Africa, right?
00:21:57.160 And they know that this was a route.
00:22:00.900 I feel so privileged to have been there, just been able to be on that land.
00:22:05.500 I'm so interested in that astronomical knowledge.
00:22:11.580 I want to know what you felt like they were saying with that space
00:22:19.140 when your body was in that space.
00:22:21.900 We can look at pictures, feel very connected to the movement of civilizations and societies, right?
00:22:29.740 But for me, when I'm in those spaces, oh, it's just like, you're just in this no time zone.
00:22:37.560 People have advocated for these temples because they've tore them down to make soccer fields, right?
00:22:46.360 They really didn't want to accept that millions of people were coming to go to these temples.
00:22:54.360 It was like osmosis, right?
00:22:56.100 Seeing the sculpture work and visiting these temples.
00:23:00.140 We were always chanting and doing meditation.
00:23:03.900 I've always been very delighted with my body at all sizes that it's been.
00:23:08.360 And I feel blessed by the Great Mother for that.
00:23:11.460 my parents had a cottage on raven lake in dorset and that's where i spent most of my life i always
00:23:17.460 saw myself reflected in the great mother so i didn't really have those experiences of feeling
00:23:22.580 so ashamed of my body yeah it hasn't been the case at all being in these places of malta and now
00:23:30.500 seeing these women it felt like a coming home because that is their size yeah they're round
00:23:40.200 They're voluptuous.
00:23:42.020 In Greece, too, the women are.
00:23:43.680 They're Diana, Athena, Muffle City,
00:23:48.800 hunters, gatherers, leaders, strength.
00:23:53.220 Oh, the braids.
00:23:54.520 The braids in their hair, in those sculptures.
00:23:57.620 Oh, you can just imagine that woman braiding that hair.
00:24:02.380 The pleats.
00:24:04.440 It's really something, you know?
00:24:06.740 What do they want us to know?
00:24:09.220 About what we do next, those women, the Malta women, the oracle at Delphi.
00:24:20.040 I think the common ground is to end the competition, to let go of the distractions.
00:24:28.540 They keep you like a mouse going after the cheese.
00:24:31.360 I saw this in my work too.
00:24:33.760 We will never make what they want us to be,
00:24:38.340 what they demand and prescribe and dictate.
00:24:42.420 Our nipples will never be the right color or shape.
00:24:46.140 It just, I could go on about every part of our body.
00:24:48.800 And I, it just, it's so sad to see how much energy and time
00:24:55.000 and resources that sisters spent handing that over.
00:25:02.800 Even outside of the body prison, there's the constant noise of capitalism wanting us to constantly produce.
00:25:16.960 That's where my mind went when you said stop the competition.
00:25:20.160 On that level, too, I guess I heard something there about not trying to play by their game, by their rules, to put that down somehow.
00:25:32.800 Does that make sense?
00:25:35.000 Yeah, it's about stepping out of the game, like completely out of the game, like seeing it as such, seeing how they rely on that vulnerability and that weakness and that shame and that disgustingness that women feel they carry.
00:25:55.220 when you let all that go, the potential, the space, like the space.
00:26:04.440 We were like, go with Facebook for a year.
00:26:06.180 You know how much space I had?
00:26:07.680 Yeah, I do.
00:26:09.580 And people are saying, so why are you doing that?
00:26:11.720 Because we're going to miss you on that.
00:26:13.120 And I was like, I'm just making space.
00:26:15.800 And they were like, for what?
00:26:16.800 I said, I don't know yet.
00:26:18.680 I don't know yet, but it's going to come.
00:26:21.280 Yeah.
00:26:21.620 I just had a very productive year, making work that I just really needed to focus.
00:26:27.620 That's what I think our sisters from long ago would say to us.
00:26:31.620 Just step out of that full thing entirely.
00:26:35.620 Just see the bigger thing that we're all still in.
00:26:39.620 To greet your divinity, your sacredness,
00:26:43.620 your individual ways of serving humanity and yourself.
00:26:51.880 Yourself first.
00:26:53.420 Yourself first.
00:26:55.100 Fill the well.
00:26:56.500 What do you think they were saying about the universe?
00:26:59.500 I'm making a space that filled with light on the equinox
00:27:02.800 and that resonated through the whole building when you sang.
00:27:09.420 What do you think they knew?
00:27:11.440 Or what do you know?
00:27:12.560 after being there.
00:27:14.120 I do know that there are consistent, continual patterns
00:27:19.260 of celebrations of birth, death, regeneration.
00:27:25.080 It's all there. It's all there.
00:27:28.520 As they were culturalists, sustainability,
00:27:32.560 like that was just all going on.
00:27:34.380 And the care of each other.
00:27:35.880 On one of the trips into the city while I was still recovering,
00:27:40.320 Erin came home with this leather bag that she had purchased
00:27:45.360 And it was gorgeous
00:27:47.640 It was in a clearance section of this gentleman
00:27:49.980 Who had this beautiful leather shop
00:27:52.400 She loved it
00:27:53.840 We looked at the design
00:27:55.700 But for some reason we didn't see it
00:27:58.480 We really didn't see it
00:27:59.840 And then three days later we are out
00:28:02.420 And I'm in my wheelchair
00:28:03.540 And they're getting me about to a place they want to take me
00:28:06.420 And I'm holding the purse and I look down
00:28:09.480 and there is a goddess in a wheelchair
00:28:12.840 and two women are pushing her
00:28:15.880 on her leather bag
00:28:19.200 like a wheelchair.
00:28:21.040 It was a wheelchair.
00:28:22.720 I was like...
00:28:23.660 It's so fun to be a witch.
00:28:25.420 That's what the moments are.
00:28:27.140 I'm like, stop.
00:28:28.100 Come on.
00:28:28.780 We just gotta stop.
00:28:30.560 We were like astounded.
00:28:32.860 Yeah.
00:28:33.460 This intimacy, this care.
00:28:36.300 Right?
00:28:36.560 When I was doing the birthing retreats,
00:28:38.520 Part of that was engaging women to be intimate and caring with one another again, washing each other's hair in the rites of menstruation.
00:28:50.360 The working out, ritualizing and creating ceremony around the shame, the shame of abortions and the loss and the grief, the shame of losing breasts, wombs.
00:29:06.920 Like, the shame that has just piled up, right?
00:29:11.880 It's so collective.
00:29:13.180 It's like a collective in our lives, right?
00:29:16.120 It's about, yes, okay, doing ritual acts to release that,
00:29:22.940 but then having this affirmative ceremony ritual that adorns you,
00:29:29.660 that adorns you in your monthly blood,
00:29:32.540 that adorns you in making choices to not have or to have,
00:29:41.780 to be a mom or not to be a mom.
00:29:44.520 Like those things that are just so shame, toxic, shame-based,
00:29:49.060 created trauma in so many women's lives.
00:29:51.940 Carrying that forth, becoming a crone,
00:29:55.840 like embracing that time in your life
00:29:58.880 And being adorned in a ritual and affirmed in that place, claiming that which is rightfully yours.
00:30:08.940 The beautiful telling for me is knowing when to name the end of things.
00:30:14.920 It's so helpful, right?
00:30:16.880 It makes space.
00:30:18.680 Something new.
00:30:20.260 Birth.
00:30:21.560 Yeah, it's a wild piece of magic to end something.
00:30:26.920 It's so powerful.
00:30:28.620 Yes. You have no idea what is on the other side of that door, but it's going to be juicy. It's something you can't know until you've done it a couple of times. Been the one to close the door, been the one to end the thing.
00:30:43.180 Women have been crying in their closets for God knows how many generations.
00:30:48.160 And not to say that's just fear or conditioning.
00:30:52.720 It is the most dangerous moment in an abusive relationship to leave.
00:30:57.320 So I understand.
00:30:59.620 We know.
00:31:00.700 We know.
00:31:01.980 Which is all to be respected too, right?
00:31:04.460 Having had the opportunity to go into prisons and facilitate gatherings with women.
00:31:09.860 You have to fill out all this paperwork and you just write down what they want to hear.
00:31:13.180 And then you go in there and you show the trilogy.
00:31:16.020 We talked for months about Maiden Mother Crow and civilizations before and all of this herstory.
00:31:24.320 And then you take in a diva cup and you get them to write poetry about being a diva.
00:31:31.680 I used to take in this music and we would just let loose.
00:31:36.060 It was dancing to all the chakras.
00:31:38.280 And when it built up, we were in this little cell for our group time.
00:31:42.060 Just make this shit up.
00:31:43.500 You give women medicine that they need.
00:31:45.640 We read the vagina monologues a couple of years ago
00:31:48.180 when my mom was up visiting me.
00:31:49.780 We were in a parking lot.
00:31:51.180 A woman came running across the parking lot,
00:31:54.820 and she grabbed me, and she said,
00:31:57.400 Kim Kitchin, I still have a copy of the vagina monologues.
00:32:01.980 And then she started telling my mom all about
00:32:04.440 the work we had done together.
00:32:06.840 For your mom to get to hear that.
00:32:08.940 The reverberations, too, you know.
00:32:11.300 I'm all about the reverberations.
00:32:14.060 You throw that beautiful stone in the water,
00:32:16.440 and yes, you see it reverberate for a bit,
00:32:19.320 but then you don't, but it's still reverberating.
00:32:21.940 And sometimes it's a little overwhelming.
00:32:25.440 The love that is being shared with you and the gratitude, right?
00:32:31.040 I found that when I was in Tanzania and Ethiopia,
00:32:34.940 the gratitude I could hardly, they look you right in the eye.
00:32:38.740 They're not far from your face.
00:32:41.300 And they just lay so much love down that, yeah, shook my ground.
00:32:46.880 It took me a while to really be able to feel that.
00:32:51.560 Yeah.
00:32:52.620 I can't feel it at all when someone says they've read our books or found those things useful.
00:33:01.460 Because when I'm writing them, it's like I'm possessed a lot of the time.
00:33:06.720 Or not quite possessed, but almost.
00:33:09.460 I've always asked my voices to come through when I'm writing.
00:33:15.580 And so I don't really remember.
00:33:19.060 In some cases, I put everything and then...
00:33:22.080 Close up.
00:33:22.820 Yeah.
00:33:23.660 The vessel.
00:33:24.820 I get that.
00:33:25.820 Yeah?
00:33:26.680 Yeah, I get that.
00:33:27.820 However, there is a time will come.
00:33:31.820 A time will come that you will take responsibility for being the vessel.
00:33:38.560 because that's it's also a very key part and as women we need to feel that too we need to learn
00:33:47.480 how to feel that kind of joy delight and accomplishment so now at this time in my life
00:33:56.060 I feel so accomplished oh and what does that look like that looks like the diapers I've changed and
00:34:01.820 washed by hand and I'm on the line that's the children that I still get to hold that's hanging
00:34:07.700 my clothes on the line which yesterday first time it's been a hell of a long winter yeah
00:34:12.520 putting the bedding out on the lines crawling into that bed last night my art practice my
00:34:19.720 steadfastness in serving women in this country and other countries and my ability to step out
00:34:29.300 into this community and then my ability to say yeah no I'm not doing that yeah I'm not here with
00:34:35.600 you all yeah no yeah and at this time in my life i make that publicly now yeah the transparency of
00:34:44.440 that yeah this is why they invited me this is what i was willing to do this is what they expected of
00:34:51.860 me and this is what i did i'm no longer a part of that there's no negotiating enough for me now
00:34:58.780 i don't mean that in any way but i don't need any more friends we certainly don't need bullshit
00:35:04.840 friends. We certainly don't need fake friends. I think for a lot of people I know to let go of
00:35:14.720 that piece and also just to accept that I'm going to keep home really safe. I don't have to do my
00:35:21.760 work and be known everywhere and be out of the closet everywhere. You don't have to. So many
00:35:30.160 women i know in this country are in solitary practice so many and in the states in places
00:35:38.640 where they cannot practice and in parts of the world where it's totally illegal that's bullshit
00:35:46.280 and should change but also you can deeply fully completely practice all on your own yeah in your
00:35:55.360 gardens. In their garden. In your body. Your body exactly as it is. Exactly. Is there anything else
00:36:02.480 you want us to know about your work or about our work or about their work? Well, may you
00:36:13.580 return to the well and see your reflection, you know, and know however it is you serve,
00:36:22.900 humor enough and you know our herstory it awaits us all it's all there there's nothing we can't
00:36:31.980 know now and may you find your community it's so important you know and I really believe we
00:36:40.220 should never assess our story alone you always need somebody to tell your story to because in
00:36:46.140 the telling of your story, affirmation, celebration of your story. Sometimes when we're alone
00:36:55.280 and we tell our story, it's all the negatives, right? But when we're with people who we love
00:37:01.780 and love us, they remind us of all the pieces we don't tell. And that's another form of
00:37:10.880 that being dismembered, dismembered. And when you remember, you remember, you put those pieces back
00:37:19.920 on. That's a claiming to you. And in telling your story as you should, there's been this socialization
00:37:27.060 of your story isn't important. Your voice really shouldn't be heard, still quiet, not seen or heard.
00:37:34.460 So in telling our stories, it's about saying, my voice is worthy to be heard.
00:37:42.860 We need to tell our stories.
00:37:48.440 You must be a witch.
00:37:52.340 Hi, I'm Amy.
00:37:54.240 I'm Risa, voices you may have heard on the Missing Witches podcast.
00:37:57.460 we've been producing a podcast that was really our project labor of love kind of a love letter
00:38:04.440 between us two old hag baby witch friends in Montreal but we went looking for stories we
00:38:12.480 really were coming from a place of longing and missing we were looking for a feminist history
00:38:17.240 of magic and that became a huge many year life mission and somewhere along the way
00:38:27.300 we started our own coven. We're just a couple of besties who 20 years ago started making music
00:38:35.840 together and then making magic together and then making a podcast together and then making books
00:38:41.300 together and making all of the things and we want to invite you to come into this creative
00:38:47.040 cauldron of energy. It's sort of like our own social media for feminist witches. Welcome to
00:38:54.260 the coven. I'm Zoe Flowers. It is a place of, I would say, mutual understanding, mutual learning.
00:39:02.100 We teach each other. We learn from each other. We do magic for each other.
00:39:09.500 Light candles for each other. Encourage each other. Share stories. Create stories.
00:39:17.120 Hi, I'm Reed. I am a member of the Missing Witches Coven. I have been since 2023. I'm an ex-evangelical, an ex-fundee, and so after leaving church, I really, really longed for community and ritual, and I have found both of those things here.
00:39:36.660 I am a member of the Missing Witches Coven. I joined because the podcast lowers my cortisol
00:39:44.020 levels. It's validating, it's affirming, and it's nurturing. Hi, welcome to the Missing Witches
00:39:51.600 Coven. What you can expect in joining is one of the most collaborative, creative, and heart-filled
00:39:58.800 communities that I've ever seen. I love that my activism is welcome here. We are justice-loving,
00:40:07.640 anti-ableist, pro-queer, anti-racist, pro-trans, did I say queer? Queer as hell. Group of people.
00:40:16.220 I wanted to join a digital coven so that I could easily come and go as I please
00:40:21.600 without feeling like I have to do something regardless of my comfort level. This is not
00:40:28.700 the coven that's going to force you to do any of that. This is the longest community I've ever been
00:40:33.840 a part of, which says something. I hope that you'll find it as supportive and loving and kind
00:40:41.600 as I have. I have learned stuff here. I've been able to share my knowledge with people here.
00:40:49.100 Do you like music? Do you like witchy shit? Do you like history? Do you like meditation? Do you
00:40:58.280 like art? Do you like queer spaces? Do you like trans spaces? It's a place where we gather around
00:41:06.400 music in our meetings. There's usually some sort of song, some sort of instrumentation.
00:41:13.420 We also have the Hive where we get online and one Coven member creates a playlist for that month.
00:41:21.360 And the conversations that you're going to be able to take part in.
00:41:24.520 There's a whole archive of content.
00:41:28.400 Do you like anti-ableist spaces?
00:41:30.460 Do you like anti-racist spaces?
00:41:32.200 Do you like the community building through the digital web?
00:41:36.380 Then you can come join our Hive, our Coven.
00:41:39.940 It is the place for you.
00:41:41.640 are you neurodivergent and chronically ill do you have an altar do you not have an altar do you
00:41:48.520 spend a lot of time in bed do you spend a lot of time on the floor do you just need a place
00:41:52.600 to feel like you can be yourself then i think the missing witch's coven is for you it was for me
00:41:59.740 hope to see you so yeah that's what we do here i'm glad you're here welcome welcome welcome
00:42:08.020 to the puppet. Every time I'm frustrated with social networking, I'm reminded that there's
00:42:14.620 already a place for me. So I hope it's also the place for you. Welcome. We love you, even though
00:42:21.160 we haven't met, because we know that you have been missing witches too. We want you to know
00:42:28.120 that we're here. There's hundreds of us all around the world inventing what magic and witchcraft is
00:42:35.140 together and we'd really love for you to join us in that project of re-enchanting the world
00:42:40.200 a home where we all thrive while dancing to the cycles of nature under the phases of the moon
00:42:50.940 sharing stories and helping each other learn from life and life experiences
00:42:58.560 you must be a witch
00:43:05.140 And blessed fucking be.
00:43:06.760 And blessed fucking be.