Missing Witches - WF Mandana Boushee： Knees To The Earth, Every Petal Is An Ancestor

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00:00:50.000 It's just a fact of this terrain of interrogating what is missing.

00:00:55.280 We promise to hold those moments with care. 1.00

00:00:58.580 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:01:01.660 Be a witch. 1.00

00:01:03.020 Be a witch. 1.00

00:01:03.380 Be a witch. 1.00

00:01:04.180 Be a witch. 1.00

00:01:05.160 You must be a witch. 0.98

00:01:07.240 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witches podcast.

00:01:11.240 I am super thrilled and exuberant and excited and joyful to be sitting down with Mondana Boucher, who I, before I let you speak, Mondana, I just want to read a little bit of your bio from your website, because I like fell in love with you just reading this paragraph.

00:01:31.400 So I want everyone else to have that same falling in love moment.

00:01:37.260 So Mondana is an Iranian-American community herbalist, storyteller, land tender, and a joyous member of the mycelial network of liberatory creators and lovers.

00:01:51.940 She is a co-founder and educator at Wild Gather School of Herbal Studies, where she has the deep pleasure of sharing her love and experiences in plant medicine and community care.

00:02:07.960 We throw the word love around a lot around here, but I love that you put this love into your bio.

00:02:17.100 can you maybe like expand on that introduction and tell us about this like deep love and pleasure

00:02:22.680 that infuses your work yeah yeah well first of all hey boo um so sweet to be here with y'all

00:02:32.100 and on under such wild skies we're cruising with a lunar eclipse right now so really feeling just

00:02:42.320 like wanting to, to take that pause and just slow down. And I'm happy to be hiding out with you all

00:02:48.020 here in, in the halls of zoom. So that's super sweet. And yeah, I mean, I feel like so much of

00:02:55.800 my instructions here is to figure out how to just lead with love. I'm always examining and figuring

00:03:04.900 out bigger and bolder ways to do that. And I am a person that was born into a lot of different

00:03:13.800 inherited traumas and at a very young age had to find my way. And while I was immersed with a lot

00:03:22.500 of love and loving potions and loving family, there was also other things at play. And yeah,

00:03:30.440 I feel like a lot of my homework in this lifetime is to is to love myself and find love in myself

00:03:38.100 and find love in in it so yeah love is love and thank goodness for love and

00:03:46.000 they're such a great teacher yeah and how do plants help you love yourself

00:03:52.180 all the time I feel like plants are plants are like our therapists and elders and guides and

00:04:03.080 teachers and lovers and friends um and so of course that's like such a special playground to

00:04:12.120 get to to love into you know just the aspect of loving plants I feel like is just um such a great

00:04:21.480 way to orient towards who I am what I'm speaking about what I'm working towards and you know I

00:04:29.960 don't take it for granted and I also don't I try not to bring too much expectation to it right

00:04:35.640 because it's just like plants are so much like humans and humans are so much like plants

00:04:40.280 and plants carry trauma and plants carry gifts and they carry story and you know so much like

00:04:49.020 our own growing here in this lifetime sometimes we're able to have a full bloom experience in

00:04:55.700 this lifetime sometimes we bloom despite the odds sometimes we get stunted and plants are very much

00:05:04.600 like that too so I feel like it's a it's like going to a dear friend and just talking about

00:05:10.940 your day and having your experiences and getting to have them reflect back their wisdom because

00:05:16.840 And in a lot of ways, they are our elders, you know, so I'm just a kid playing in the garden.

00:05:24.320 You said this on the Smoke Break podcast, and we'll talk about that, too, because, oh, my goodness, it's so much fun.

00:05:31.580 But it's also on your website.

00:05:33.880 Every petal is an ancestor.

00:05:36.720 I mean, that's kind of what you were already talking about.

00:05:38.540 But can you expand on this poetic notion of a petal being an ancestor?

00:05:43.700 yeah yeah um you know it's interesting i think about economies a lot and this idea of inheritance

00:05:54.460 and i think in the world that we have sort of inherited inheritances look like money and it

00:06:02.760 looks like you know it's a very novel idea it's something we are like hey we're gonna put all of

00:06:10.000 our our hopes and dreams into this like coin basket but it's it's such a new idea and I really

00:06:17.300 truly feel like our cultural inheritances are you know they are they've been around for time

00:06:25.160 and memorial way before we started to put everything into like money and that value

00:06:29.180 and so we get to inherit our our cultural stories and in that are our plant sisters and the plants

00:06:37.380 that are a part of our cultural landscapes and so you know when I go out and meet and convene

00:06:45.040 with the roses in June it's like sitting with thousands of my ancestors and it's like such a

00:06:51.140 profound moment to kind of be brought to like the the knees of my heart because it really feels that

00:06:58.100 powerful and it shows me that our cultural inheritances they need to be tended or they

00:07:06.680 can be forgotten. They're living things. It's not like, oh, I've inherited this house, you know,

00:07:12.240 inheriting the stories, inheriting the recipes, inheriting the plants of our homes, um, and their

00:07:20.340 stories. It's something that needs to be tended. And so, yeah, every petal feels like an ancestor

00:07:27.500 and a story to explore and a trauma to heal and a laugh to be had. So you're, you're taking these

00:07:36.220 ancestors and then you're putting your own stories into them when you do these things too right like 0.99

00:07:41.240 you're expanding the the story of a petal and bringing it to a healing place as a real ass 0.93

00:07:49.820 in 2022 so it's like while while I carry like yeah my ancestors uh ancient swag I'm also very

00:07:59.700 much living in the realms of this lifetime um and my life experience and that's you know I live in

00:08:05.660 diaspora so there's definitely threads that are shared and then places where the thread has frayed

00:08:10.880 and i also feel like i very much live in in that sort of ecosystem for sure yeah and so was there

00:08:18.340 a point in your childhood or in your adulthood that made you focus on plants like what what

00:08:24.280 sparked this great love affair oh my god baby i feel like i was born into it irani like people

00:08:31.200 from Iran are like, so in love with plants. They like long ago, we're like, yes, we're seduced by 0.57

00:08:37.340 you. And we're not going to like pivot away from that. So even under the like circumstances of

00:08:43.600 the country now in the state that it's in, it's like, there's still such a love and passion. And

00:08:49.340 there was never like a stepping away from plants. And so in my culture, you know, Iran is a very

00:08:57.260 diverse landscape, but in, in my family, on my maternal side, there's this tradition that people

00:09:04.620 in Yazd do with their babies. And so when they're born shortly after birth, you put the babies in a

00:09:12.420 cloth with all of these flowers and particularly flowers that have a lot of pollen. And you sort

00:09:18.320 of like shake the baby, like they're like a little beignet that just popped out and you're

00:09:21.700 like putting powdered sugar on them and you shake them in the pollen. And, you know, my mom went

00:09:27.660 through this birth ritual. I went through this birth ritual. My child went through this birth

00:09:31.560 ritual. And, you know, you can look at this like timeline of my ancestors. And this is a tradition

00:09:37.340 that's been passed down for quite a while. And it sounds so poetic and sexy and like so seductive,

00:09:43.520 but it's really for a really practical reason. It's like, they believe, and we believe that

00:09:48.540 it will help you not have allergies. If you kind of hit the baby really early on with like,

00:09:54.780 boom, like, look at all this like sex juice, essentially, because that's really what pollen's 0.93

00:09:59.240 about. And then you're enchanted. And so I feel like I fell in love as a baby in that first 0.85

00:10:07.780 ritual. And also feel like, you know, I also am not allergic to anything, which is really wild

00:10:15.940 pollen related. So it really, really does work. Um, and so that technology is, um, a technology

00:10:22.660 I'm really grateful to have and pass down. Um, and also I feel like it was the stirrings for

00:10:29.640 my love of plants, but plants are just so infused in everything. Like growing up, I was just always

00:10:34.660 like taken into this like lavender mist of aromas coming from the kitchen and zaffron, um, blooming

00:10:43.300 and uh rose woven into so much dessert it's just everywhere growing up and so I just feel like

00:10:51.580 how can you not um be seduced how can you not fall in love with plants when it's just like at

00:10:58.520 the forefront of everything I love this this tradition and we find this so much with you

00:11:05.800 know witchcraft and magic that um there is like a practicality it's sort of like there's like a

00:11:13.500 blanket of mysticism and like you say sexy poetry and love but ultimately it's a very very practical

00:11:22.300 spell I'm using air quotes here it's a very practical spell and I think herbalism is very

00:11:28.440 much that too I mean you can go you specifically can go and and harvest your rose petals to make

00:11:36.080 your mead and just that the image of you you know and gathering pink petals and there's like a 0.61

00:11:43.960 beautiful poetry to that but then you take that and you do something real ass to use your word 0.97

00:11:50.700 you take that poetry and you take that magic and you do something real ass with it um can you talk 0.93

00:11:56.380 about that like healing aspect of of taking it from poetry to real ass wow I really love where 0.89

00:12:03.960 this conversation is going really did not expect this but yeah I love this question I love this

00:12:13.680 container to think about that um I feel like it's just always an inner dialogue I have because

00:12:18.780 there's so many aspects of my living body and also my like cultural body and psychic body that feels

00:12:25.740 very much just like in a Pisces puddle of just like, so out there. And then there's these parts

00:12:32.400 of me that are just so deeply rooted. Like I I'm a boo that loves talking about where the stars and

00:12:38.500 constellations were when I was born into this world and plucked into purpose. And I have a lot

00:12:43.520 of earth placements. So there's this kind of like inner dance of me kind of always running from

00:12:50.640 heaven to earth and yeah um I don't really feel like I need to put a binary on those two places

00:13:01.680 I feel like whenever we're uh casting seed and tending plants and um fertilizing the earth and

00:13:14.400 stewarding and being in relationship we are involved in ceremony and we're involved in

00:13:19.920 prayer and we're involved in, uh, all those spiritual aspects. And at the same time, we're

00:13:25.640 also, you know, knees to the earth and doing something really tangible, um, and with a lot

00:13:32.480 of just like grounded purpose. And then there are all the invisible parts that live within

00:13:37.920 that whole dance too. And so I really feel like it's just something that feels very open-ended,

00:13:43.700 and feels flexible and that there isn't like a, a necessary like orientation to, and, and yeah,

00:13:53.420 that's why I think I, I feel so in love with the practice of, yeah, getting to just like be with

00:13:59.940 plants and, and make medicine and care for friends is that it's just so in touch with all that I

00:14:11.160 desire out of this lifetime. You know, I really feel like we are here living in our midheaven

00:14:16.060 and my questions are always like, how can I make that feel more holy? How can I make that feel more

00:14:23.080 honey drenched? And working with plants is like my midheaven.

00:14:30.560 I love that you use the word holy because when you said, um, most, most of us will use

00:14:35.960 terms like uh feet planted firmly on the ground or something like that you said

00:14:40.200 knees to the earth that that's so holy sounding to me it's like there's a humility to it um putting

00:14:49.860 our knees on the ground instead of our feet um whether we think of that as like you know this

00:14:56.760 this um that's humble prayer or we think of it as just getting as close to the ground as we possibly

00:15:04.000 can oh knees to the earth I'm keeping there are so many things that you've already said in fact

00:15:09.940 knees being the theme you said before it brought you to the to the knees of your heart I'm gonna

00:15:18.620 really focus on my knees after we leave here today and think about them as like a holy

00:15:25.160 a holy body part yeah I'm I'm I guess I'm really just working a lot on themes in my own life of

00:15:33.140 yeah, the knee image comes up because it's so much about humbling and, um, presencing and

00:15:41.280 humility. And I definitely feel like I'm in one of those moments in my own lifetime right now

00:15:48.080 where I'm decomposing and we all are always decomposing and, you know, growing from that

00:15:55.040 and seeding again. And, um, but I feel like I'm in an active, like composting moment and yeah,

00:16:01.480 a lot of that work is like coming to my knees in all the ways, you know, and how I'm thinking and

00:16:06.800 how I'm communicating and how I'm living and, and just being open to sort of, yeah. What,

00:16:14.020 what does it look like if I just commit to like always reshaping and, um, and that feels like a

00:16:22.280 sweet spot right now. It's like, yeah, how can I, how can I just keep open to change? Yeah. I think

00:16:30.420 like our our capitalist society is like so growth it's profiteering it's so growth centered like

00:16:36.420 you know more more more more more more more and so a lot of people are like very deeply

00:16:43.580 uncomfortable with this cyclical notion of growing and composting can you dive in a bit more to what

00:16:51.240 a compost phase might look like and and how our our listeners and our coven can get comfortable

00:16:57.980 with our own decomposition yeah I mean when I think about composting in my own personal experience

00:17:07.220 right now I live in I live in um the Mohican Tuck Valley in the northern hemisphere so right now

00:17:13.280 we're in a season of composting it's autumn here and when you walk out when I walk outside my door

00:17:20.660 I smell, you know, leaves decaying. I smell the mix of, um, carbon and nitrogen dancing together

00:17:29.040 and, um, moistness and hard frosts thawing with the sunlight and providing wetness for those

00:17:38.140 processes to, to continue on. And when I think about the composts that I tend on, like the

00:17:45.860 physical land that I tend. I think about all the plants in, in just a season before in summer that

00:17:53.460 were in bloom and multicolored and vigorous and so energetic and just like, you know, cackling

00:18:04.080 with, with joy and just like that supreme time of high sun. Um, and they're in the compost right

00:18:11.300 now. And so that essence is there. Um, but it's just in a different phase. And I love looking

00:18:16.740 out in the landscape and seeing like the colors of this time, but also the skies of this time

00:18:21.660 and the light being so in the middle of the sky and, and letting myself kind of be seduced by

00:18:28.620 that because I am a person that when, when summer comes to an end, there's a part of me that

00:18:34.180 mourns that loss. Um, but I'm allowing myself to be seduced in it because in my composting moment

00:18:40.400 right now I feel like it's so much about repatterning and sort of like how I'm naming

00:18:50.100 it with friends that I chat about with it it's like a physical and spiritual growth spurt

00:18:55.600 and so compost it's there's no end to it it's cyclical and and I like that I like having

00:19:06.040 you know, expectations in how my compost will turn out. But I know that it will be more fertile

00:19:12.480 if I just like allow myself to turn the fork, you know what I mean?

00:19:17.980 Yeah, there's something that I mean, outside of gardeners and farmers that we don't talk about a

00:19:23.180 lot. But when we're talking metaphorically about being compost is the heat that it generates.

00:19:28.960 and again we can we can be real ass about this or we can be you know um poetic um figurative about

00:19:36.720 it but there's something about this again not not the mortal death but the death of uh habit

00:19:45.420 that can that can really generate a heat within us but we're always so busy like got to do this

00:19:51.940 and got to do that and build and that we don't even recognize that we can generate heat by going

00:19:59.120 into darkness yeah yeah we're just we're just poetizing here now so let's come to um wild 1.00

00:20:10.780 gather and i wanted to talk about another real ass bitch you call lauren who's your your partner 1.00

00:20:17.620 your destiny sibling i want to know and i'm sure that all of our listeners want to know if we don't 1.00

00:20:25.760 have a destiny sibling how do we find them and then we'll get into like what is wild gather and

00:20:31.320 what do you do but first i want to know like where do we get our destiny siblings do you have any

00:20:36.640 advice well my like first off let's just go straight into prayer like my deepest prayer is

00:20:42.160 that everyone is like either finding or on their way to their destiny sibling in this lifetime um

00:20:49.140 but I do feel like the destiny sibling like for me Lauren is just like my soul my soul life my

00:20:55.840 soulmate one of my deepest loves and partners and I really I really believe in uh the power of

00:21:03.020 friendship and the intimacy of friendship and allowing myself to like love in all of those ways

00:21:08.640 and yeah Lauren to me is like the kind of person where it's like oh we've been writing for galaxies 0.98

00:21:14.940 we've been writing for centuries like we were definitely kicking it together in like fucking 0.93

00:21:21.260 you know before Christ times um but in this lifetime it's like you know when you just find

00:21:28.220 that person like literally where I found Lauren was we were at this herb gathering and you know

00:21:34.920 in the herbal kind of community, there can be this like purity thing that comes in where it's

00:21:39.620 like, you know, people don't, people don't drink coffee. They drink herb tea only, or, you know,

00:21:46.040 there's this binary of like what it looks like to be an herbalist or, you know, you know, even

00:21:51.040 around how you express yourself with how you dress or in all these like really weird ways. 0.97

00:21:56.360 And I met Lauren because we were the two bitches that were like, I was like out in the dark corners 0.98

00:22:02.560 of the forests and fields like having a smoke break and I was also the hoe that brought like 0.97

00:22:08.780 a coffee maker and coffee and everyone was all like oh I'm just gonna drink herb tea but you

00:22:13.780 know every time I went to that coffee pot it was empty so people were imbibing and we just fell in

00:22:20.540 love in front of the coffee pot and like out in the cut like smoking together and um and the way

00:22:28.340 that we come to plants and the way that we come to our practice and the way that we come to how we

00:22:33.400 you know move walk talk love in the world we share so many similarities like we both have

00:22:38.520 venus and capricorn we both have like so many earth placements um so it feels great to have 1.00

00:22:44.500 like a real ass bitch who has feelings and loves me in this lifetime uh can you tell us about like 0.98

00:22:52.940 what what y'all do oh yeah what like what is what is wild gather no we we did the important part 1.00

00:22:59.640 first and now we're getting into that obviously I'm really bad about um capitalism or like again

00:23:08.040 naming what I do in the language of the world um we do so many things together our relationship is

00:23:15.580 you know the heart mycelium of our work is how we name it is plants um and so that looks like

00:23:21.220 knowledge shares and programs. You know, we were just riding in pandemic times and are still in

00:23:28.460 pandemic times. So we've been doing a lot more virtual things, which has been really sweet

00:23:35.160 because we get to connect with people in different timelines and landscapes. We also have a podcast

00:23:43.640 together that's called Smoke Break. And that's really, really sweet because it's just literally

00:23:49.500 us hanging out on the phone and just like a window into um yeah like our little destiny

00:23:54.980 sibling lifestyle um and yeah we're always dreaming and scheming on how to tend our baby

00:24:02.960 and what it's going to look like and uh right now is kind of the time where we are thinking about

00:24:07.820 2023 and um yeah how we're gonna how we're gonna come together how we're gonna convene so it feels

00:24:15.340 exciting to put some love into it and um take a pause moment and just like a savoring moment of

00:24:21.860 yeah the school is coming into its 10th year and so many amazing folks have come through and are

00:24:28.420 doing such incredible work in the world and have been and it's so great to just like get to

00:24:34.260 build this community through this container you know I've I've made such dear friends through

00:24:41.000 Wild Gather. I've learned so much from the people who come and shape it with us. And so it's so

00:24:47.380 sweet. I want to read something from the website and then maybe you can react to it or expand on

00:24:54.740 it. This is from the Wild Gather. It's just wildgather.com. If you who are listening right

00:25:00.620 now want to put a bookmark on that, of course, we'll put all of those links in the show notes.

00:25:05.680 But in the meantime, this is from a little section called Resiliency for Everyday Moments.

00:25:13.480 So again, this from the Wild Gather website. 0.50

00:25:18.560 Waking up in cis white patriarchal capitalist dominated culture is hard as hell.

00:25:26.060 The effects on our bodies, thought processes, spirits and ways we connect to one another are real and ever present.

00:25:34.060 We need resiliency for our everyday movements so that we can stand powerful in our collective ones.

00:25:44.040 Adaptogenetic herbs, plant spirit medicine, spellcasting, and medicine making are tools for self-preservation, potency, and community wellness.

00:25:56.620 Please expand.

00:25:58.240 well that little memory is from a snippet in wild gathers lifetime that was called dawning into 2016

00:26:08.720 um so there's a lot of stank on that because it was so in line um with you know what was

00:26:17.500 happening in our political landscape and we're very much living in sort of the aftermath of

00:26:23.600 a lot of that impact right now um you know today is the lunar eclipse it's also election day

00:26:29.440 so yes for those of you who have blocked it out 2016 was when trump was elected president 0.94

00:26:34.980 of the united states so carry on yeah so that was a moment of like oh fuck like uh we have a 0.97

00:26:43.740 community that is scared and grieving and we are a part of that community and there was so much on 0.98

00:26:49.520 the ground organizing that was happening at that time. That was just like, when I think back to

00:26:54.200 that time, it's that sort of like traumatized, like I'm trauma bonded to it for all of the pieces

00:27:00.020 that I feel like were seeded in that time. But there, it was also, it feels like very blurry

00:27:05.680 and like, and like, am I really, did I really live through that? It was also a very, in my

00:27:10.620 personal life of really intense time, because it was like, my child was very young and I was taking

00:27:16.480 care of my mom who was passing. And there was just a lot of intensity happening in that moment.

00:27:22.380 But yeah, you know, our sort of response to that was like, we have to care for ourselves. We have

00:27:28.040 to care for our community. We have to really recommit to our agency and our choice to have

00:27:37.740 sovereignty when it comes to our bodies and how we take care when it comes to the food and water

00:27:43.500 we drink when it comes to how you relate as a culture, um, um, and how we act and move as a

00:27:52.120 culture. So yeah, that was sort of a response to the movements that were sort of having that moment

00:28:00.640 of burnout of like, how are we going to get through the next four years? How have we gotten

00:28:05.300 through the past 400. Um, and now it's so interesting to be at this point in time where

00:28:13.420 it's election day and, um, our country is in the state that it's in. And I'm very much also looking

00:28:21.180 like, I'm not just in the framework of like having my feet here planted on turtle Island.

00:28:26.680 My feet also live in my homelands. And I feel like that's a part of diaspora. And so I'm very

00:28:32.600 much also with the movement that's happening in my homelands and there's a revolution that is

00:28:38.060 has been ignited and it's a revolution that really speaks to the sort of like utopic longing that I

00:28:48.920 always have of what would it look like if the people who were painting our lived experience

00:28:55.200 landscape right now were the birth keepers and the water tenders and the poets and the midwives

00:29:03.280 and the healers and you know all all painted by the dancers and the singers and that's happening

00:29:11.860 right now in Iran you know the movement is united around women life and freedom and it's a revolution

00:29:19.640 that is led by women and non-binary folks and queer folks and trans folks, and it's decentralized.

00:29:27.180 There's no leader. It's just people being united. And the way that they are protesting on the

00:29:34.720 streets and the way that the revolution looks is it's rooted in love. It's rooted in dance.

00:29:40.380 It's rooted in poetry. It's rooted in singing. It's rooted in art. It's gut-wrenching and

00:29:48.200 heartbreaking to see how many lives have been lost and you know just the other day they are

00:29:53.280 like you know thousands of protesters have been arrested and they were just that just got announced

00:29:59.060 that they're gonna like be killed um and this is happening and people still go out on the streets

00:30:05.820 and they meet the revolutionary guards with with poetry with defiance with cutting of their hair

00:30:14.440 with with so much power and so it's amazing to say as we take breath right now that's happening

00:30:22.480 it's evening there and they're on the streets and people are dying and I think about our democracy

00:30:27.860 here and that it's election day and that not too long ago there was a movement that was a revolution

00:30:35.320 that was literally a bunch of white men with every sort of rifle and gun and ammunition and

00:30:41.000 protection and gear they could muster and that's what revolution looks like in this country right 0.85

00:30:45.900 now so how do we bring how do we bring how do we orient our north star around a revolution that's

00:30:51.560 rooted in poetry and love and freedom um in justice and in all of that idea of who holds 0.98

00:30:59.520 the paintbrush and it's fucking time for the paintbrush to be passed on it is fucking time 0.96

00:31:06.000 And I mean, I've been thinking about this notion of the guidance patrol, which is basically, you know, the enforcement gang that took Masa Amini. 0.98

00:31:18.520 And I love your sort of, we are capable of creating a new form of guidance patrol that is, you know, that is poetry, that is dance, that is freedom.

00:31:32.820 what would your guidance patrol look like if you were the ruler of the world well I don't want to

00:31:40.560 be the ruler of the world one no I think nobody who wants the job should have it

00:31:47.060 that job on in this lifetime and I also yeah I feel like that's what's so beautiful about the

00:31:55.980 revolution in Iran is it's totally decentralized and you know I think in our culture we're so

00:32:01.880 afraid when there isn't like a leader but really the leader is the many and it's like seeing that

00:32:07.280 in real time and seeing this blueprint is is really extremely powerful um and yeah patrol 0.90

00:32:15.000 I'm like I'm that bitch that's like I don't want anyone to be policed I'm just like you know what

00:32:20.840 does it look like when we just really allow ourselves to be exactly who we are um and to 0.98

00:32:27.860 love each other for that. And, um, and yeah, so yeah, I feel like that's, that's what I'm always

00:32:36.400 trying to fight for. That's what I'm always working towards. Um, and that's what I'm always

00:32:40.980 trying to do for myself in this lifetime. Like I want to just be who I am and, and in all the

00:32:46.120 ways that I am, there are parts of me that, you know, prefer to be in my hidden life and really

00:32:52.460 just like honoring that. There are parts of me that feel very like much the five-year-old me who

00:32:58.480 was afraid and scared and felt like a little furry creature. I want that part to be able to come out.

00:33:04.080 You know, I love talking to my like pretend friends because it's just like, yeah, I want to

00:33:09.880 believe and commit to just allow myself to be exactly who I am. And I feel like we, if we allow

00:33:17.220 that in our culture and our small micro communities then that's just tinder for that that to just take

00:33:23.040 off and iran is very much um a place where people are fighting for that you wrote a book

00:33:31.720 tick magic um you call it a zine it looks like a book to me we'll meet somewhere in the middle

00:33:37.720 but what at first i was like oh that that's an interesting topic and then i saw that you

00:33:43.860 had Lyme disease and so to me I'm seeing this as like you taking your pain your suffering your

00:33:55.660 illness and really grabbing it and using it as a tool to dig in and help other people that's my

00:34:05.780 interpretation of what tick magic is can you tell me from your own perspective like why why it became

00:34:12.500 zine book? Well, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have to go back to this and just everything you just

00:34:18.540 said. I'm like, okay, that's like my new bio. But yeah, I feel like so much of my work in this

00:34:25.220 lifetime, what I came here to do is just like, through my own healing and through my own

00:34:31.280 figuring out my shit, both inherited and what I what I live with in my body in this lifetime

00:34:38.400 is about figuring it out for myself and then just sharing in a consensual way, um, in a way that 0.99

00:34:44.280 feels like an invitation to others, like, yeah, the story and what worked and what didn't, and

00:34:49.840 just trying to be as like deeply rooted, um, in, in that being real to how it happened for me,

00:34:58.220 because I feel like with Lyme disease, um, there's a lot of shame around Lyme disease.

00:35:04.000 A lot of people don't even say they, they suffer from chronic Lyme disease or have had

00:35:09.560 a co-infection or tick related illness, because there's still this sort of like myth in the

00:35:15.100 Western like medicine system that it, you know, doesn't exist.

00:35:20.020 And so I feel like a lot of people aren't fully seen when they say that, like they have

00:35:26.220 been sick.

00:35:28.500 And though my experience was, I was literally in the hospital and I got a diagnosis from

00:35:33.420 a doctor that through the Western inkblatt said I was positive for Lyme, which doesn't happen for

00:35:38.880 everybody. I still felt like, um, there was a time where I felt like, yeah, some of those pieces of

00:35:45.460 my illness, like I keep private. And I, to this day, I don't lead with like, you know,

00:35:50.960 I have hypothyroidism or I have chronic fatigue syndrome, or I have chronic Lyme. I kind of keep 0.95

00:35:57.380 that quiet in a part of my hidden life. And Tick Magic was sort of a window for me to share a

00:36:03.500 little bit of like, yeah, what it looks like to navigate chronic illness in my body and in my

00:36:08.620 experience. And I very much, it's not something I put on other folks. It's really just like,

00:36:14.040 hey, here's a portal into what my experience was like. And if some parts of this resonate,

00:36:18.580 great. And it's really more a book around like preventative care, because when I was really

00:36:25.960 sick in bed healing. I just kept thinking about so many of the like spiritual and energetic

00:36:35.200 relationships with ticks and our ecosystem and how it's changing with climate crisis and how

00:36:42.780 that's also so connected to ticks and their population. And also, yeah, this like bigger

00:36:50.540 inquiry on like this silent um epidemic that is like very present here in the mohican tuck valley

00:37:00.000 but also all over turtle island um and yeah so it felt it felt really profound to get to

00:37:07.620 sort of share my tricks and tools and experience and yeah yeah um it's on your etsy shop which is

00:37:17.880 flower binch that's not bitch binch b-i-n-c-h flower binch so i i would recommend because the 0.75

00:37:25.320 thing is i think like we have become so alienated from nature and it almost felt like tick panic

00:37:33.880 was just like another way to keep us out of the forests and another way to keep us out of the tall

00:37:40.060 grasses so even you who you know was was bit um you're you created this thing that's like you

00:37:48.460 don't need to be afraid of these spaces you just have to like ground yourself assess where you're

00:37:55.020 at and so on but I do have to ask did you said you have hypothyroidism yeah yeah I have hypothyroidism

00:38:02.900 so I'm going to center myself for a second and ask for uh like a consultation while I have you

00:38:09.000 here. Like what are your top, um, herbs or plants that you have found helped you in your

00:38:15.880 hypothyroidism journey? Yeah. So quickly just to give context, cause I feel like context is very

00:38:22.000 important. Uh, so I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism when I was 18 years old and I grew

00:38:30.780 up eating a very traditional, like a Persian diet. And when I became a teenager and was like

00:38:37.720 out with the friends, riding in the cars, getting into all the shit. Like I started to just like 0.73

00:38:43.540 rebel. And I like, that was like, when I just went super hard with like American culture, like

00:38:48.300 hanging out in Dunkin' Donut parking lots, like, you know, drinking Dr. Pepper. And immediately

00:38:54.820 my body just was just like, nope. And they were like, we're shutting this down. And it was really

00:39:01.040 truly because no one in my lineage had steered away from eating a traditional Iranian diet.

00:39:05.840 And I was sort of this like, um, experiment of like, this is what it looks like with epigenetics

00:39:11.960 when you don't have, um, you know, a few generations of eating, um, more of like that

00:39:17.900 Western diet.

00:39:18.660 And so when I went to the doctor, you know, they basically were just like, there's nothing

00:39:25.220 you can really do.

00:39:26.300 You can take this pill.

00:39:27.340 And then literally eventually you might end up having Hashimoto's because it's just like,

00:39:32.720 um it's a very hard uh thing to treat and at that point in my journey and in my life I was starting

00:39:40.400 to like travel and um really heeding the call of wanting to explore and work with plants

00:39:46.460 and so when in my like late teens and early 20s I was traveling around um in very like

00:39:55.500 non-traditional ways um majoritially like in turtle island landscape and I was meeting all

00:40:03.640 these healers and herbalists and folk tradition plant stewards um who would just send me off to

00:40:11.600 like another place and uh homestead to go to and learn from and in sort of that exploration I started

00:40:19.020 to, uh, work with plants to, uh, treat my, uh, hypothyroidism. And I healed that shit in terms 0.97

00:40:31.880 of, um, I, my like TSH numbers are normal and have been normal since I was like 24, 25. 0.97

00:40:40.760 Um, and so every year I, you know, I get my blood checked twice just to see where it's at and just

00:40:46.060 to keep up on that. Cause I really love a balance of like, um, non-traditional ways of healing and

00:40:53.560 medicine and knowing, but also like having a lot of respect for, um, the modern medical system

00:40:59.640 for the gifts that it has, like checking my blood and reading that story for me and translating that

00:41:05.020 for me. Um, but in the deeps in like the deep sort of journey of my healing, I really relied

00:41:11.180 on seaweed medicine. Um, also obviously pulling away all of those, um, Western foods that I was

00:41:21.620 going really hard on, which was, you know, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, processed foods,

00:41:27.840 um, you know, all the Gnar that we know exists, which I'm not against. Like to this day, 0.86

00:41:33.660 if I get a like hungering for Coca-Cola, I'm like, I will have it. I will take it. Coca-Cola

00:41:39.400 is also medicine. There's a lot of cultures that when you're like dehydrated or, um, have a headache

00:41:45.720 Coca-Cola with lime is like the cure. So I'm not a purist when it comes to that stuff, but when I

00:41:51.280 was deep in the, like, I really want to focus on my healing and work through this, I cut all that

00:41:57.260 stuff out. I was doing no sugar. I was doing a lot of, um, seaweed broths that were infused with,

00:42:04.380 dandelion and burdock and really sort of loving up on my whole metabolic system and my organs and

00:42:18.260 you know within a few years of focusing on that like diet wise lifestyle wise

00:42:27.340 incorporating herbs my TSH really balanced out

00:42:31.500 i love your balance of traditional and non-traditional how you'll be like i'm

00:42:39.000 making this you know tincture but also i'm listening to madonna's holiday while i do it

00:42:44.660 i do want to come back because you sort of talked about this like food as medicine

00:42:49.940 um this is from your web website too you said i wrote i remember as a child when i'd come down

00:42:56.440 with a cold, my mother would infuse sheep's milk with loads of garlic, white onion, and honey.

00:43:03.040 Taking our medicine in a food-like way can take away the fear and apprehension around taking

00:43:09.100 medicine, which inevitably shapes how we take care of ourselves. Please expand. Yeah. Well,

00:43:19.440 I mean, when we think about medicine in the Western culture and lens in the very like

00:43:26.700 traditional modern way that it has sort of been operating as, I think a lot of people

00:43:32.980 see a pill bottle or they see like the cherry cough syrup, like the codeine like syrup.

00:43:41.560 And it very much looks like these pills that come in different colors that don't have names

00:43:47.720 that are really hard to like connect to and recognize and say, oh, like this taste reminds

00:43:52.740 me of fennel or, you know, this really looks like a rose petal. And I think when, when it's given to

00:44:00.600 us in that way, there's a deep part of ourselves and our, our beings and our spirits that really

00:44:06.600 don't connect with it. Also the fact that it usually tastes like shit and feels otherly is 0.98

00:44:14.400 really scary. Like as a kid, I feel like, you know, I grew up in a household where I didn't 0.98

00:44:20.020 have health insurance as a kid. I had a single mother. My mom was, you know, a refugee and like

00:44:26.340 family came here as refugees. So we didn't go to the doctor's office. Like the only time I would

00:44:31.300 go if there was like a serious emergency. And so I was a kid that because of that didn't end up

00:44:36.600 taking a lot of antibiotics. I never got like the chronic sinus infection that I feel like so many

00:44:44.160 of my generation did. Like so many of my peers don't have tonsils, but I think because I was not

00:44:49.320 in that system, I didn't have those encounters, not saying that they weren't necessary, but that

00:44:55.160 was just my personal experience. And then I also think because my grandmother was an herbalist and

00:45:00.620 healer and my mom inherited sort of that tradition of using soups and foods and herbs to support the

00:45:09.460 body when it's not well, um, you know, I got to have these like really delicious medicines.

00:45:16.720 And so my relationship to medicine is one of like, Ooh, excitement and joy, you know,

00:45:21.620 and we have this one medicine it's called Nebat and it's basically like rock candy. Like it's,

00:45:28.660 it's, it looks like rock candy and it's a sugar medicine that's infused with different herbs.

00:45:34.020 and the most classic common one is saffron and so as a kid when I would get nauseous or I wasn't

00:45:41.620 feeling well or when I was a teenager and I was starting to bleed for the first time and had

00:45:45.740 cramps my mom would always give it to me in tea and you know for anyone who's ever tasted saffron

00:45:52.380 it's just heavenly it's like ambrosia and it's so floral and intoxicating and you know so when I

00:45:59.860 think of medicine i think of uh cardamom i think of zaffron i think of barberry i think of turnips

00:46:08.000 um i think of that sheep's milk infused with garlic and honey which for some people they 0.95

00:46:13.460 might be like that shit sounds nasty but there's something really special about it um when it comes 0.97

00:46:19.100 together yeah i mean it doesn't sound any more nasty than like the you know factory syrups that 0.99

00:46:27.620 we that we drink to to accomplish the same goals right not to me anyway what's really interesting

00:46:34.960 is that you know cough syrup in the western medical system is always cherry flavored but out

00:46:41.540 in nature the wild cherry trees are also a cough medicine and you can harvest the bark in the spring

00:46:47.760 and the fall and decoct it and make a syrup where you infuse it with sugar or honey or maple syrup

00:46:53.400 or whatever your sweetener of choice is.

00:46:56.780 And I preserve mine with brandy

00:46:58.220 and it tastes just like wild cherry.

00:47:01.020 And it's really wonderful for spasmodic coughs.

00:47:05.380 So coughs that are really dry and hoarse

00:47:07.100 and kind of like the running engine

00:47:08.500 that are relentless

00:47:10.680 and you sometimes wanna let them slow down

00:47:13.840 so you can rest.

00:47:14.840 It's really great for those coughs

00:47:16.120 where you can't sleep at night

00:47:17.200 so you're not getting the rest you need to get better.

00:47:20.140 It's definitely not for like the mucusy wet cough.

00:47:23.400 because it has that antispasmatic quality but there you know that union is there it's just

00:47:30.760 like we need a bridge um to sort of remember the tree that the medicine came from um and how

00:47:38.640 delicious it is and effective yeah i i want to open the floor to questions i'm not sure if any

00:47:45.660 of you have questions so if you do you can unmute yourself and in the meantime i want to

00:47:50.040 take one more thing from your uh website mandana um it's a little excerpt um from a persian poet

00:47:59.340 and hafiz um sometimes pronounced hafez anyway stay close to anything that makes you glad you

00:48:08.700 are alive i feel like that so much like encompasses this like buoyant joyful exuberant 0.98

00:48:17.360 glad to be alive real ass bitchness that you that you bring to herbalism that you bring to 1.00

00:48:26.520 you know your writing that you bring to even like you design gardens as well which we didn't get to 1.00

00:48:31.200 um how how do we do that

00:48:37.540 well that's like a whole like you know five week version where we all come together like

00:48:47.380 you got any tips I feel like I'm always trying to you know reimagine and learn what it feels

00:48:53.440 like to embody my life and my body in this lifetime I feel really fucking fortunate to be

00:48:59.400 alive it's a really fucking crazy time to be alive but um you know I try to just marvel at 0.76

00:49:06.520 the tiny things and I think when I was little my mom gave me this book that was called how to have 0.97

00:49:13.140 the most perfect day and it follows this like little bear hag living truly their best life 0.83

00:49:19.560 it's like a hallmark book so one of those really tiny like pocket books and we would read it 0.98

00:49:25.660 together often and I really feel like it seeded in me this like you know fucking dedication to 0.96

00:49:32.280 just trying to have the most perfect day. And it doesn't mean that like, yeah, bad shit's not 0.99

00:49:36.360 going to happen. And it doesn't mean that right now, like in this moment, I have so much joy 0.96

00:49:41.160 being here with you all thinking about these themes while also feeling really heavy in my heart. 0.99

00:49:48.560 That's a thousand miles away in Iran. And so, yeah, being alive is dynamic. It's it doesn't

00:49:56.060 live within have nots and should nots. And, um, I'm always just sort of, yeah, trying to just

00:50:02.320 savor it really like savoring it and just allowing it to feel voluptuous and, um, and allowing myself

00:50:10.100 to be voluptuous in it, even if I'm crying. I just want to keep talking to you for the rest

00:50:17.260 of my life. So, um, for our listeners who feel like me, um, what's the best way to reach out

00:50:23.400 to you get in touch with you um hear you speak read your words take your classes

00:50:29.260 so all the ways all the ways i do this like really cute newsletter that um you can find

00:50:37.360 through my website which is just my name london abuche and it's very ephemeral it doesn't happen

00:50:42.960 like every month it just happens when i'm feeling it and i just feel like it gets to be this like

00:50:47.980 little love letter that I put in the virtual mailbox. Sometimes there's playlists, but it's

00:50:54.180 always like musings and there's always some sort of, you know, plant moment recipe experience.

00:51:01.820 And then yeah, wild gather is like a very potent vessel to come kick it at and listen to the

00:51:09.540 podcast or come to a knowledge share. And, you know, I'm always, I'm always lurking in and out

00:51:16.400 of reality and hidden life so you'll you'll be able to find me especially if you like to lurk

00:51:21.200 you'll find me there yeah again i i just i want to keep talking um but i also want to respect your

00:51:28.580 time so maybe you and shabina can come and next time we talk we'll talk the three of us because

00:51:36.460 i know you're also involved with seed soil and spirit which we will talk about next time

00:51:41.420 but in the meantime i really appreciate your guidance on how to have the most perfect day

00:51:48.980 i really feel like that could be a title for this episode you just teaching us how to have 1.00

00:51:54.100 the most perfect day on our knees with our knees to the earth in humility and real ass bitchness 0.72

00:52:01.300 um i've just enjoyed this time so much thank you so very much as a goodbye if you were to cast a 0.79

00:52:10.020 spell on our listeners, what would it be? Ooh, you're just going Scorpio deep here. Wow, wow, wow.

00:52:17.360 Um, my casting of a spell to the listeners would be a place where we could all gather with food

00:52:28.400 and the drink of our choice and, um, be in love together and be in community together and dance

00:52:36.280 and laugh and make love make love in all the ways um yeah so may that prayer be

00:52:43.960 thank you so much mandana it's been a real genuine pleasure thank you again i hope to

00:52:56.240 talk to you again very soon yeah so sweet to be here with y'all and bless it fucking be 0.99

00:53:06.280 You must be a witch. 0.98

00:53:10.020 The Missing Witches podcast is created by Risa Dickens and Amy Turok

00:53:14.180 with insight and support from The Coven at patreon.com slash missingwitches.

00:53:20.780 Amy and Risa are the co-authors of Missing Witches,

00:53:23.780 reclaiming true histories of feminist magic,

00:53:26.700 which is available now wherever you get your books or audiobooks.

00:53:30.540 And of New Moon Magic,

00:53:32.280 13 Anti-Capitalist Tools for Resistance and Re-enchantment, coming Fall 2023.

Missing Witches - November 24, 2022

WF Mandana Boushee： Knees To The Earth, Every Petal Is An Ancestor

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