Missing Witches - WF Maria Minnis： An Invitation To Explore

00:00:00.000 Join us this Saturday, October 14th, for a virtual communal spellcasting Witch and Stitch book launch.

00:00:09.760 Find all the details on our website, and if you want to support The Missing Witches Project, find out how at www.missingwitches.com. 0.99

00:00:19.080 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:22.040 Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:26.840 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witchers podcast. My name is Amy, and I'm so pleased and delighted and filled with warmth to finally be sitting face-to-face through a computer, but face-to-face with Maria Minnis, aka Feminis. 0.93

00:00:46.100 Maria is a Black, Jewish, queer, and autistic tarot worker of 20-plus years

00:00:51.280 who teaches about blending spirituality with everyday magic, liberation work, and sensuality.

00:00:58.540 She believes that the end result of all magic should be to cultivate a more equitable and empathetic planet.

00:01:07.140 I think of you Maria as the Audre Lorde of tarot like age race sex class intersectionality

00:01:19.460 but all through this lens of tarot but before we get into all that

00:01:25.140 what a compliment sorry I just thought I for the listeners I'm just sitting here with my mouth

00:01:34.720 totally ajar and what a what a nice thing to say thank you yeah I mean it's it's all there right

00:01:41.680 but then you've like you've put on these glasses of tarot through which you you view all of these

00:01:47.300 some might say disparate but in your work very blended ideas so that part of that was the your

00:01:57.060 like from your bio from your website so what do you want our listeners to know extra about you or

00:02:02.480 like, who are you today? Why are you today? Yeah, that's a really great question. So yes,

00:02:13.360 my magic is centered around everyday practice. I love my altar, but I think my most magical

00:02:21.460 spells happen beyond the altar. And I think that's the case in a highly interconnected universe.

00:02:28.040 like your magic is never just about yourself because as you evolve and your magic evolves

00:02:34.440 the way you present yourself in the world evolves as well and that ripples outward and so on and so

00:02:41.140 forth and so I'm just thinking like why why wouldn't my magic be more than just about myself

00:02:51.240 um if we let's say hypothetically we did everything to reach a point of self-satisfaction

00:03:00.560 and then we die it's like well what what was our witchcraft for in the first place um and so yeah

00:03:09.180 so I'm just teaching folks how to blend magic um and their spiritual side with everyday life

00:03:18.360 and realize that the two don't have to be um completely separate um there's a lot of opportunity

00:03:25.580 for them to be blended together and I think that there is a lot of opportunity for both

00:03:34.540 personal and collective growth when we consider um integrating all of those things into how we

00:03:42.320 show up every day yes and and whether or not we show up every day you're right yeah you said you

00:03:53.780 love your whoa yeah you said you love your altar can you tell our listeners a little bit about like

00:04:01.180 the the physical manifestation of what that space looks like yeah so my altar has always

00:04:09.560 just looked like the living situation I've been in when I got back into working with altars like

00:04:19.500 I don't know five seven however many years ago um I made this really fancy altar with like

00:04:29.240 you know I had my own space and so I had all of the like crystals and the flowers and I would

00:04:36.700 change it with every season and such. When I moved into a one bedroom, a tiny one bedroom with my

00:04:46.760 ex-partner, my altar was a shoebox. And some of the most powerful spells have come and have been

00:04:58.340 inspired from that place. Currently, my altar is a tiny table beside my desk. And instead of being

00:05:05.440 filled with um so many like uh symbolic things well never mind let me take this back yes there

00:05:15.780 are things like crystals and tarot cards and such on it but there are also things that make me feel

00:05:22.840 connected to the divine within including a ceramic cat that my friend hillary my friend i say friend

00:05:32.500 but she's like my sister that she has had with her since childhood she gave it to me last summer

00:05:38.300 and it's the pinnacle of my altar because my love for her is boundless and infinite and it just

00:05:47.120 reminds me of the spaciousness there is in this world and every time I try to box myself in or

00:05:55.460 feel like I've made choices that have put me into a corner I can glance over there and remember

00:06:03.340 one I'm loved two my life is spacious three I can take up space and four my inner child deserves to

00:06:11.200 dance well I I you said I could ramble you said I could ramble that was not a ramble that was like

00:06:21.640 poetry my heart has stopped like especially you know the the big ending there the my inner child

00:06:29.320 deserves to dance like please expand right so i am working through a lot of c ptsd stuff now um

00:06:44.720 Some of your listeners may know that I tend to share a lot about my personal life, because I think it's a reflection of the magic I do. And it also helps me feel like I can connect with people in a more profound way than just being like, hey, it's Monday. This is the moon sign. This is how you're supposed to feel.

00:07:09.520 I'm just like, this is how the hierophant is showing up in my life.

00:07:12.800 And I don't like it.

00:07:14.880 And so going back to your question, inner child, I've been working with a lot of this

00:07:24.260 trauma work.

00:07:25.360 And I last year exited a almost decade long abusive relationship, physically, financially,

00:07:34.260 emotionally, et cetera.

00:07:35.680 um and I am now at the point where I'm brave enough to face a lot of the issues that

00:07:47.440 arose from that and I am finding that a lot of the issues did not were not just born in

00:07:56.400 that relationship they stem from childhood and now I feel like I am accessing this sort of

00:08:03.480 rage. Like I look at children in my neighborhood and I'm like, you know, like I couldn't imagine

00:08:12.360 them going through what I've gone through. And like, it makes me angry. And so I was talking

00:08:18.580 to my therapist and she was like, anger, isn't one of your emotions, like your typical emotions.

00:08:25.920 Don't worry. I have plenty of other vices. It's just very hard to get me angry.

00:08:30.600 but she told me how can you use that rage productively and so I've just been tapping

00:08:40.440 into the things that make me feel like a kid again whether that's wearing childlike clothes or

00:08:50.600 you know just throwing reckless abandon to the wind and dancing in the middle of

00:08:57.300 street or whatever just noticing in my body where I am telling myself no or noticing in my mind

00:09:06.040 where I am telling myself no and noticing how that feels in my body and how do I want to use

00:09:11.800 that knowledge to heal and by heal I don't mean that life has to be all about healing and growing

00:09:20.380 and evolution but like how can i heal toward more pleasure on the subject of pleasure i feel like

00:09:29.520 um we have to get into kinky tarot but i i first um i have to say like this question of how can

00:09:40.420 you use that rage productively i mean i feel like so many of us are just like boiling constantly

00:09:49.120 and it can be difficult to find ways to to focus rage and and do some shit productive with it so

00:09:56.760 like what's like what's like your bumper sticker of advice for our listening coven on like how to

00:10:03.840 focus and and use your rage productively

00:10:06.760 hmm I think I'm still figuring it out I think that it requires a lot of empathy toward yourself

00:10:18.780 and I think while that can be difficult to cultivate practicing it with other people

00:10:27.680 makes it a lot easier to have empathy on yourself and when you realize you know I am angry that's

00:10:35.940 not a bad thing that doesn't mean I'm an evil person I just have this energy and I don't know

00:10:44.100 what to do with it, take that as an invitation to explore what to do with it. That's not necessarily

00:10:51.340 a bumper sticker, but using your feelings as like kind of a guidepost and instead of taking it at

00:10:59.300 base value, I'd like to think about, I'd like to talk about in my teaching about holographic

00:11:05.200 thinking. And that is all about taking one thing, let's say anger, and then viewing it from all

00:11:15.840 sorts of different angles, levels of light, and noticing the shadows. And, you know, being willing

00:11:24.320 to, you know, walk all around that thing, see, you know, all of its sides, all of its facets,

00:11:30.000 and be like, okay, now I can craft a more comprehensive perspective of this thing than

00:11:40.480 if I were to have just said, I'm angry. What do I do about it? So I guess my, my bumper sticker

00:11:47.420 would be like, study your anger. Like, don't be afraid of it. I was terribly afraid of my anger

00:11:54.540 because like I said, I don't really get angry and I hate being angry. I, you know, like if other

00:12:02.480 people are mad, I'm like, you're just going to be mad over there because I'm good. But it's,

00:12:09.620 it's a new thing that I'm working through. And I just invite anyone who feels like they are

00:12:14.160 bottling up rage to honestly befriend it and not push it away because it doesn't have to come out

00:12:22.540 in, um, physically or verbally violent ways. It's just information. And that's something you can run

00:12:30.260 with. Yeah. And an invitation. I love this. Like this is an invitation to explore. Yes. That's the

00:12:40.060 word invitation. Yeah. When my rage boils up, I will reframe it as an invitation to explore.

00:12:46.800 Thank you. Okay. So back to tarot. Um, again, we're going to talk about sex and tarot. We're

00:12:52.040 going to talk about anti-racism and tarot but first I want to know like how did you um maybe

00:12:58.720 two-parter how or when did you like start thinking yourself as a witch who does witchcraft

00:13:05.860 and how and when did you discover and or start uh working with tarot the cards themselves

00:13:13.880 yeah I when did I consider myself to be a witch you know what you that's a great question because

00:13:26.960 it's prompting this like profound moment that I'm like feeling all over my body right now and

00:13:33.240 all within my body which is I look back in my life and I'm like I think I've always been a witch

00:13:39.420 you know I was a pretty weird creepy child um and when someone gave me um a used tarot deck

00:13:48.060 I didn't have like the little white book or anything and so me being me I was like okay

00:13:55.260 I'll assign my own meanings to these things and so my practice comes from a very um I encourage

00:14:02.860 people to do what I did which is develop a very personal relationships with personal relationships

00:14:08.980 with the cards, the archetype, the artistry, and later I, you know, learned the more collectively

00:14:19.660 shared meanings of each card, and that has been, I don't want to discount the value of collective

00:14:30.760 energy and collective knowledge, because we all have been crafting and evolving this

00:14:38.580 practice this tarot thing for as long as it's existed. Um, and so I don't want to discount

00:14:48.600 all of the work that has been put into it, but for me, tarot has always been a tool for me to

00:14:55.440 stop and sit with the weird, I don't know, the weird like motley crew of characters that sit

00:15:10.840 before me and like string together a story. I am a writer. And when I read tarot, I feel like

00:15:20.880 I am writing and reading and living the story at the same time and so considering who I was this

00:15:29.020 little like 11 or 12 year old with this tarot deck that you know meant nothing more to me than

00:15:35.880 what I had defined it to be and thinking about that and my evolution to now where I'm like

00:15:42.240 teaching people about it I think my practice has always been grounded in

00:15:48.780 self-trust. I was going to say self-confidence, but I think self-trust is the word that I want

00:16:02.180 to use. And I say that knowing that that can be really difficult, but it's like empathy. It's a

00:16:11.620 muscle. You got to practice it. And your intuition, the more you practice it, the more comfortable

00:16:17.140 you are using it. And I'm at a point in my life where I can say my intuition is pretty top-notch.

00:16:24.660 I'm taking care of my energy. I, you know, have my relationship with the cards, but the cards

00:16:32.400 don't define me or how my day's gonna go. It's just information, just like rage. It's just

00:16:39.240 information. And it's up to me to decide what I want to do with it. And that, I think, is the

00:16:46.020 most empowering part about tarot is that I am the most magical ingredient you know when I read tarot

00:16:53.120 for another person they are the most magical ingredient of the spell tarot doesn't work if

00:16:57.960 there are no people involved so I always try to instill that mentality with my clients um and

00:17:08.960 I'll be opening up readings again later this fall I took a pause to write my book um but I am always

00:17:15.680 just like what do you see on this card you know this little red dog may mean nothing to me but if

00:17:23.800 it reminds you of something in your childhood or something that's information and the fact that

00:17:30.080 that information isn't written in your little white book of tarot card meanings does not

00:17:36.220 discount its worth at all because you are the interpreter the interpretation is the art and

00:17:43.180 you are the artist and you are the art itself um all at the same time I know that's a lot but I'm

00:17:51.080 just really into feeling into your personal power and being able to look at the cards as

00:17:59.180 as guides and you can take what information resonates with you and you can leave the rest

00:18:08.580 tarot isn't you know and tarot isn't the end or the beginning of the world you know you take what

00:18:17.420 resonates leave the rest and you make do with the information you have and I hope that

00:18:24.520 at least from my for my clients that they take that information and do whatever work it is they

00:18:33.700 need to do on themselves or their interpersonal relationships or their communities and in ways

00:18:39.460 that ripple beyond what um one person can really ever recognize or realize in their whole life like

00:18:48.200 i'm sure that i will never know the end result of my kind words to a cashier or something but like

00:18:57.060 knowing that I'm doing things that ripple outwardly also give us um like it gives us a

00:19:06.180 sense of power but it also gives us a sense of responsibility and I don't think that we talk

00:19:12.540 about responsibility and tarot very often but um it's it's something to consider because

00:19:20.820 yes you can have the best tarot reading in the world but if you do nothing with it then

00:19:27.120 it's you know it was just a fun experience you have the responsibility to take that information

00:19:34.720 and do what you want with it and if the information in front of you is like a spread and you're like

00:19:39.700 I don't like any of these cards they don't mean anything to me I don't know how to read tarot

00:19:46.260 So that's information in itself, you know, and I feel like I keep coming back to this, like it's just information, but it really is just information.

00:19:55.920 And I hope that my practice inspires people to resonate, find themselves more in the cards rather than seeing them as abstract figures.

00:20:12.880 seeing themselves and the people in their lives or their worlds etc um yeah tarot for me is it

00:20:21.360 comes down to personal power and responsibility and I think that's magical so like in addition

00:20:27.840 to responsibility what else do you think of as like the ethics of tarot

00:20:34.240 I do you mean just like tarot in general or tarot reading I want you to interpret the question

00:20:46.880 however the universe sees fit for you in this moment you answered that question just like I

00:20:53.100 would answer that question. How dare you? How dare you? Um, when I think about ethics and reading

00:21:02.480 tarot, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is projection. Um, and that's going to be

00:21:13.180 like, that's a natural response sometimes. Um, but when you are the reader and you are reading

00:21:19.940 for someone else. I really think the onus is on you to facilitate their mental or emotional journey

00:21:30.780 through the story that you are weaving with the cards, that you are weaving together with the

00:21:35.500 cards. I don't think that it is appropriate to give a top-down reading where you are telling

00:21:43.500 the person all about the cards and they have no input in their reading at all because this is

00:21:50.160 their reading that's what matters um also I think that you shouldn't read tarot for people when

00:21:57.620 you are not in a very I don't know if you're in a in a fragile um angry or bothered or distracted

00:22:12.520 state, I think that that leads to less clarity, not just in your reading of the cards, but in your

00:22:23.880 ability to be present and really understand what the person is trying to communicate with you and

00:22:33.180 what they're trying to see in the cards. I definitely have seen, you know, plenty of

00:22:41.140 tarot readers who I'm like, your life kind of seems like a tornado. I don't think you should

00:22:45.980 be reading tarot right now. But, you know, we, we all got to live. So if that's what they need to

00:22:52.480 do, that's what they need to do. But for me, I think it is for me to live in my ethics as a

00:23:00.140 tarot reader, I have to show up to a reading feeling, you know, as energetically clean as I

00:23:06.020 can be. I will, you know, do the work to make sure that I'm in a good state for that. And I

00:23:16.280 won't over promise if I'm having a really bad week and I'm like, I don't think that I'm, I'm

00:23:24.020 going to be, you know, pretty messed up or like not messed up, but like frazzled all week because

00:23:31.360 I've got this huge deadline on Friday or something or something just popped up I hate to reschedule

00:23:38.160 but I don't think it's ethical for me to read for someone when I am totally distracted because

00:23:44.480 that impacts my role to facilitate their um their learning their realizations etc I want to be as

00:23:54.740 present as I can be not just in tarot but with anyone I am around um and it just so happens to

00:24:05.200 be I'm a tarot reader and that you know ethos sort of applies as a tarot reader um I just I

00:24:13.900 it's like responding to people responding to emails right it's like you can be fast or you

00:24:20.540 can be sincere and that's how I think of it it's like I'd rather be sincere honest clear genuine

00:24:29.540 um then just give you a reading because I you know because that's what you're expecting and

00:24:37.760 this is what you know you need to hear right now blah blah blah you know yeah I do know I feel like

00:24:45.020 we're all working on this new model this new paradigm of like existing and surviving but

00:24:50.980 through an anti-capitalist mode where it's not like do this now but like do this when it's best

00:25:00.020 not do this as quickly as possible and we have an appointment but like when is the best time to do

00:25:05.540 this when am I going to give you the best work it might not be right now it might not be when we had

00:25:10.160 that appointment but you know if you have a couple days when I'm in a better place then we're both

00:25:14.760 going to get more out of it. And again, I think that this is like an anti brainwashing that we're

00:25:20.860 trying to do together. Right. And I've learned so much about this in being public about chronic

00:25:30.020 illness and in hearing about other people's stories and what they need to do to fill their

00:25:36.640 cups and make sure that they are taking care of themselves. I'm doing a lot of that unlearning

00:25:42.640 work you know where you know this is what is expected and this is how I should show up and

00:25:49.720 because you know we feel safety in structure but that's not the way life goes sometimes

00:25:57.500 and I am committed to extending myself as much grace as I would to anybody else in my situation

00:26:06.840 and this extends beyond capitalism and into like um puritanism right like we're trying to

00:26:15.980 unbrainwash all of these like ideas that have been pushed on us and pushed on us so

00:26:20.980 in the anti-puritan spirit um can you tell us about like what kink has to do with tarot in your

00:26:28.800 view? Yeah. Oh, let's see. So I think, let's back up a little. I think of tarot as a sort of

00:26:40.980 analog for all the experiences that we could possibly have in life. I think that there are

00:26:50.120 as many perspectives of tarot as there have been people who have been alive. And so when I'm

00:26:58.340 thinking about um I believe that tarot is you know is unique to each person there's been as

00:27:06.580 many perspectives of of tarot possible as there have been people alive and my magic is about

00:27:15.040 everyday magic and my everyday life and what's a part of my life kink is a part of my life

00:27:21.160 And so I just thought, you know, I want it to, I want to learn more about these different ways that people find and experience consensual pleasure.

00:27:34.000 But I want to explore it in a more embodied way.

00:27:40.840 And while I may not particularly engage in all of these kinks that I'm sharing about, I do find some sort of pleasure in viewing and learning about kink through the perspectives of different archetypes. 0.85

00:28:00.120 And from that, my understanding of these archetypes is, you know, sexual or not is more, more complex. There's more texture to it. You know, I get to see the, you know, king of pentacles as, you know, the sexy being. 0.95

00:28:19.460 And it's like, I don't think of these characters or archetypes or figures as being, you know, I never want to get to the point where I think of that, I just take them at face value.

00:28:34.660 And so my life, I am committed to always, always, always expanding my understanding of what each card could embody in my life and perhaps in others.

00:28:51.660 And I think because I have been so moved and so changed by that work that I shouldn't keep it to myself.

00:29:01.640 And so I was like, you know what, like I am, you know, totally down to like talk more about tarot.

00:29:09.720 Let's switch lanes. Let's talk about kink. And yes, you get to learn about kink, but you also get to learn about tarot at the same time. 0.89

00:29:16.600 And my favorite thing about any of the tarot stuff I put out there, like on Instagram or in my newsletter, is I just get to have, you know, get to help people know the archetypes a little bit more.

00:29:33.300 And I'm proud to be able to do that. 0.53

00:29:37.440 And so, yes, kink, it's, I think, it's just my jam right now. 0.74

00:29:42.580 And that's where I am in life. 0.95

00:29:43.960 And so that's where my tarot is.

00:29:46.600 I love it. And also, like, where you are, you said you're going to be taking appointments for readings in the fall because you've been working on this book. And full disclosure, listeners, the book doesn't come out till January, so I haven't read it yet.

00:30:03.780 But like being familiar with Maria's work, I feel like I can safely recommend it.

00:30:09.660 Word unread.

00:30:12.240 But let me just let me just read the title and then like tell us about that process.

00:30:18.200 So it's called Tarot for the Hard Work, an archetypal journey to confront racism and inspire collective healing.

00:30:28.520 again listeners you can pre-order it now I already have but it won't actually come out

00:30:34.040 till the new year so Maria tell us about this journey well thank you so much for for pre-ordering

00:30:42.480 that again you're going to make me emotional on your show um yes thank you for that tarot for the

00:30:51.960 hard work um it began as a project that lived in my like handwritten notebook back in 2019

00:31:02.200 um I didn't know what to do with all of the you know the rising popularity and um presence of um

00:31:16.760 vocal anti-racism or vocal racism and like all of these news stories and you know

00:31:26.400 etc etc etc and I was just feeling like I don't know how I can help and all of the anti-racism 0.95

00:31:33.980 resources resource groups in my area are geared toward white people and I'm like okay I get it

00:31:42.700 but also I've got, I've got internalized racism just by nature of being, having lived in this

00:31:50.640 country, the U S my entire life. And so I'm like, I've got work to do too, but it doesn't quite

00:31:58.260 look like the syllabi for these groups that are around me. And so I was just like, okay,

00:32:06.380 I want to, I want to be someone who does something and I don't know how to be that person,

00:32:15.480 but I can wear the outfit and see how it feels and see if that, you know, if wearing it makes

00:32:23.740 me feel more capable. And so I started to embody different, different archetypes of the major

00:32:32.380 Americana in my anti-racism work. And I ended up with this journal of 22 sections of just

00:32:45.120 scribbles and scribbles of ideas and things I wanted to do and things I needed to take

00:32:51.520 responsibility for and things I needed to stop doing and to unlearn. I had all of that information

00:32:57.280 with me I eventually turned it into a blog um which gained some sort of like cult popularity

00:33:07.840 which was exciting for me but also really scary um it is scary to put myself out there in a

00:33:20.260 world where there are still a lot of witches who are like do not mix tarot and politics it's

00:33:27.060 evil etc etc and I'm like I don't want to hear this you know like why are you saying that my

00:33:34.060 literal existence my life is politics um but um anyway more people resonated with it than

00:33:45.800 than the number of you know complaints I got and so I was excited about this and then my friend

00:33:53.220 Cassandra Snow the author of Queering the Tarot and Lessons from the Empress um they were like

00:34:01.160 hey have you ever thought about writing a book about this and writing a book and having a

00:34:08.700 published book was my number one life bucket list thing number one more than anything else

00:34:15.540 and I was like sure I would love to and she connected me with someone and um the project

00:34:23.300 went through you know ups and downs and now it's finally coming out January the 8th um it's a

00:34:30.980 practical tarot workbook to um confront racism inspire personal insight and prompt social change

00:34:37.960 I worked very hard on it. It includes over 60 essays, hundreds of activities, and 21 specialized

00:34:45.960 activities for building your own anti-racism toolkit that's customized to your life, your

00:34:50.960 community, your relationships, and also your relationship to yourself. And so I just think

00:34:58.480 that tarot has been a really powerful guide for introspection and inner work. But what if we just

00:35:05.320 took that you know took that lens and made it wider um and so I I write this book I I offer

00:35:16.560 this book for people whether you're a witch or not um to who has that question that I had at

00:35:24.380 the beginning was like what do I even do um it's the exercises are all about everyday things you

00:35:32.620 can do, things you can do in your workplace, things you can do in your covens, things you can

00:35:37.240 do with your families, et cetera. And so it's a very, it's going through this workbook will

00:35:46.000 likely be a very personal journey, but it's a spell. It's my spell for the world that I hope

00:35:53.120 ripples out in benevolent ways. And yeah, the book is the books for white people, the books for 0.99

00:36:00.580 people of color. It's all about action, but no, I want to take that back. It's not just about 0.88

00:36:15.040 action. It's about learning and unlearning and action and reflection, et cetera. And I also

00:36:21.620 think beyond the anti-racism part of it, I just reread it. And I think it's a damn good book to 0.51

00:36:28.800 learn tarot. I do not like reading my own writing. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. But reading 0.95

00:36:37.560 through it, I was like, oh, damn. Okay. Like, this is like a lot of my tarot knowledge, like 1.00

00:36:43.440 packed a lot of my knowledge of the major arcana packed into a book. And there are so many

00:36:49.820 opportunities that I think I offer to help people develop their own personal relationships with the

00:36:57.800 cards. Um, and, and yes, anti-racism is the theme of this book, but honestly, this book's for

00:37:07.040 everyone. You don't have to be a tarot reader or even know anything about tarot to get something

00:37:11.680 out of the book because the archetypes are included, but they're also described. Um,

00:37:17.760 you don't have to be a, you know, super activist person to read this book either. It's for

00:37:27.540 like I said anyone who's just been like what the f can I do

00:37:31.920 that's that's the question that comes up so often you know and and when we have these tools even if

00:37:40.920 it's just something to you know take our focus off of what I call the swarm of bees that lives

00:37:47.460 in my head and sort of focus on something and like cultivate I think you talk about a sense

00:37:52.640 of self-awareness and how self-awareness can sort of like leach into you know your empathy

00:37:58.980 in the world um I pulled some quotes from your Instagram from um anti-racism with tarot revisited

00:38:08.960 um again like this I don't have the book yet but I imagine there's like some overlap between these

00:38:15.500 these concepts and I was hoping like I'm gonna read some of these and if you could like react

00:38:22.540 or expand or tell me what you were thinking when you wrote these and we can do them rapid fire if

00:38:29.600 you like you know or you can talk and talk and talk and it's totally up to you okay here's my

00:38:35.220 first one and I actually I saw someone refer to you on Instagram as their favorite anti-capitalist

00:38:42.540 which just was like oh what a lovely compliment okay sweetheart hello whoever you are

00:38:49.400 so here's a quote i have a few so get comfortable the revolution is ultimately

00:39:01.140 anti-capitalist but asks us to do what we can to shift power dynamics in an effort parallel

00:39:08.720 to the destruction of capitalist regimes our work requires the massive redistribution of wealth

00:39:17.100 And we must do our part by reconsidering where we spend our money.

00:39:24.200 Yes.

00:39:27.960 You know, the fact of the matter is that I'm assuming most of us, most of us listeners live in a capitalist society. 0.99

00:39:37.620 And for better or worse, you know, I will just put it out there that it sucks.

00:39:45.060 this system needs to come down right but what are we going to do to take care of people

00:39:53.860 and make sure that they are taken care of um and can live in lives that they have the opportunity

00:40:01.960 to choose to thrive how can we how can we better cultivate a more equitable world and unfortunately

00:40:11.820 like I said, we live in a capitalist society, thus capital is power. And so when I think about

00:40:20.000 wealth redistribution, I think of power redistribution and shifting where and how we

00:40:26.600 spend our money has a lot of potential leverage in this fight toward this journey. I don't want

00:40:37.800 to always say it's a fight because sometimes there's joy and, you know, in, in, in activism

00:40:43.520 and such. Um, but yeah, I think wealth distribution is going to be one of the more immediate ways that

00:40:51.500 we can, um, help elevate oppressed people of all different kinds. And that's really where I was

00:41:02.220 coming from with that, you know, like, yes, the system needs to come down, but let's be real.

00:41:06.660 it's not coming down tomorrow. What are we going to do as we work to dismantle the system? What

00:41:12.780 are we going to do to, you know, make sure the people who are here get, you know, have equal

00:41:20.220 access to resources and, and like I said, the ability to choose to thrive. Here's another quote

00:41:29.840 from your Instagram and this one like I read this and I was like fuck so tell me tell me tell me how 0.99

00:41:37.960 to process this we we are responsible for taking care of each other at the same time we are not 0.95

00:41:47.180 responsible for other people's feelings you know what I wrote that and I read it to myself over and

00:41:57.220 over again and I was like I don't know if I like the feeling in my body right now yeah yeah it's

00:42:02.940 like it doesn't feel wrong like an untruth but it like is deeply uncomfortable and unsettling

00:42:09.880 yeah um and to be quite honest with you a lot of the things I share um I I mentioned in my book

00:42:19.240 like hey I don't have all the answers I'm doing this work alongside of you I'm undoing

00:42:25.460 internalized racism and ableism and so on and so forth like I am doing the work too I'm just

00:42:32.940 sharing what I've learned along the journey and along the journey I have learned that we yes we

00:42:41.520 are all interconnected and we do have a responsibility to take care of each other

00:42:47.700 If there was no such thing as collaboration, humanity wouldn't have, you know, survived, right? We would not have been able to be here today if collaboration did not exist, if care did not exist, collective care, personal self-care, I guess, also.

00:43:08.620 But like, I just think that care is such a huge reason why we are still here.

00:43:17.340 At the same time, I don't think that we are necessarily, let's say this, I think that we are responsible for what happens as a result of our actions.

00:43:39.840 but i think at the same time we ourselves are responsible for our own reactions and our

00:43:48.100 feelings and what we do as a result of them um and it's not like a clear-cut line like sometimes

00:43:56.220 you say something and and maybe you made that person feel really shitty um but their feeling

00:44:05.380 isn't your responsibility your responsibility is to rectify what happened and you know

00:44:13.200 do the work of you know making it better and asking for forgiveness and committing to never

00:44:19.020 doing it again how they feel about it that's their responsibility you cannot change somebody's

00:44:25.880 feelings just by telling them to you know get over it or you know so on and so forth I'm not

00:44:31.040 responsible for your feelings I'm responsible for my feelings but I am responsible for what I do

00:44:36.860 that affects your feelings and I commit to taking responsibility for that and keeping that in my

00:44:43.120 mind it helps me live a more aligned and and ethical life I I'm very I'm a lot of things but

00:44:53.060 I'm very, very, very dedicated to living within my ethical, within my ethics. And maybe that makes

00:45:04.020 me a little bit slow sometimes. Maybe that makes me a little bit too thoughtful or so on and so

00:45:13.320 forth. But it's like a muscle. We practice it. And so I have found really that there is so much

00:45:21.440 value in letting go of like somebody feels this way and I want them to feel something different

00:45:28.380 it's like no that's not that's not what you're supposed to do like they will they will handle

00:45:36.200 their feelings what you need to do is handle the results of what you did

00:45:41.500 thank you for pulling and braiding those threads for me I feel more comfortable in my chair

00:45:50.260 okay last one love and light can look like rage and destruction when directed at supremacy and

00:46:00.020 oppression absolutely I think even now we you know even in this landscape where we do have

00:46:10.560 so many wonderful tarot readers and witches in general who are you know speaking up

00:46:20.240 about the issues in our world like we do have that and I am so glad to see that um that it's

00:46:30.180 become more acceptable to do that but there is still this like veil of love and light that

00:46:37.100 in a lot of areas in a lot of witchy spiritual circles it pervades um and I

00:46:46.760 I think, yes, love and light are lovely things. I want love. I want levity. But because I want those things, sometimes I'm going to have to fight for them.

00:47:02.580 And my rage toward, you know, a structurally racist institution, that's not going to look like me dancing in a field wearing a tunic and long flowing hair and, you know, a tame wolf beside me.

00:47:26.300 You know, like that's not what it's going to look like. It's going to look like yelling. It's, it might look like, you know, putting your physical body on the line. It might look like bringing up facts and stories that people don't want to hear, but need to need to be confronted with love and light.

00:47:46.080 We're all working toward that, but I don't think spiritual bypassing is love and light.

00:47:57.720 I think love and light is taking care of each other and allowing ourselves and other people to use that light to illuminate a more spacious and expansive path for themselves in which they can have autonomy and freedom and be able to chase and create their own love and life and to share light and to share it.

00:48:24.800 that's not always going to look like taking the nice way um that's not always going to look like

00:48:31.820 going through the system but do know that like even though you know people like me might seem

00:48:43.900 angry at the world and like you know you know help out on you know changing it and this and that

00:48:51.260 this is all stemming from love. I just want to see my people doing well. I just want to see

00:49:01.200 collaboration. I want to see mutual aid. I want to see people having empathy for people. And like,

00:49:08.620 I want these things. I love being on this planet. I am so grateful to have this chance to be a human.

00:49:15.220 And would I do it again? I don't know. But here I am. I'm going to make the most of it.

00:49:20.820 I'm so grateful to be here. I know what it's like to, because I know what it's like to have been

00:49:29.560 happy and free and spacious. I want that for everyone else. And toward the people who are

00:49:35.980 making that damn near impossible for many people I'm not going to be a nice lady you know like I'm

00:49:46.080 going to be direct I'm going to be straightforward if you want to have a conversation with me we can

00:49:51.020 have a conversation as long as you are respectful and you know we I can talk to people with different

00:49:58.020 different perspectives but i don't think that telling people because they're witches that they

00:50:06.240 need to take the gentle route and you know pray it away etc that's not going to help if you look

00:50:15.060 throughout history and if you look at just even just going to the wikipedia page and just being

00:50:21.780 like list of empires you will see that it's taken you know uprisings for a lot of them to have

00:50:30.500 fallen and those are not necessarily people showing up to the courthouse you know singing

00:50:38.300 from their you know hymnals or something you know like that can look like so many different things

00:50:43.940 it takes so many roads liberation requires so many roads and so many perspectives and so many

00:50:51.180 bursts of effort that telling everyone else to play it safe go by the rules be be the always

00:51:04.340 take the quote-unquote high road and besides who's defining what the high road is right um

00:51:11.360 But, you know, like sometimes my love and light show up as rage and the will to destroy what is preventing other people from experiencing that in their lives.

00:51:30.760 Listeners, I'm just sitting here like getting a sore neck from deep nods and fist pumping in the air.

00:51:41.360 Let's take a question from the coven.

00:51:43.600 Hi, I'm so happy to ask you a question.

00:51:47.000 First, thank you for your Instagram.

00:51:48.820 It inspires me to be a better person, a better witch, and to like really sink my teeth into

00:51:57.560 how authentically be challenged and grow.

00:52:02.340 And I need more in my life of that.

00:52:05.340 And so you light the way for me.

00:52:07.720 So thank you.

00:52:09.840 Thank you.

00:52:10.800 i do have a real question too so you read a lot of tarot me too and like what card has changed for

00:52:20.860 you you know like we have these relationships with cards and some light up right away and

00:52:28.220 we are attracted to them and then others kind of go to the side and as you read more and more for

00:52:34.560 me at least I see I had my relationship changes to some cards is there any card or cards right now

00:52:42.120 that speak to you in a different way or that really light you up yeah most recently I think

00:52:50.680 my relationship to the emperor has shifted um the other week I had this lovely day where I got to

00:53:01.800 talk with my mother and then I talked with my brother and did some other things that felt

00:53:08.460 really grounding and foundational and the card I ended up pulling that day

00:53:15.600 was the emperor and it made me really rethink whose rules of like foundation am I am I using

00:53:28.220 because that talk of my mother connected me to like, it grounded me to my foundation of love

00:53:37.120 and familial support. And that, that's kind of a launch pad from which I go out and act into the

00:53:46.480 world i i'll just tell you now my my big three are leo sun scorpio moon and taurus rising so i have a

00:53:59.760 lot of fixed energy and so where i see a lot of other them which is kind of turn away from the

00:54:07.380 emperor i've always kind of leaned into the emperor because i like structure i like you know expecting

00:54:15.640 things, et cetera, et cetera. But those conversations I had and considering them in

00:54:21.740 the context of what is foundational for me made me realize that I've kind of been

00:54:28.340 saying that my foundation is my to-do list. Like that's the foundation for my day. And that's what,

00:54:38.600 you know, pushes me to do anything in the world. And I just like, when I pulled the emperor, I was

00:54:47.160 like, oh, I haven't even written my to-do list today, but I do feel like a sturdy foundation

00:54:53.200 beneath my feet. I feel connected to the earth's core. I feel connected to mortality and so on and

00:55:02.400 so forth. And now I'm in a phase of re-examining my relationship to the emperor. I think I'm not

00:55:12.440 trying to plug my book again, but I think I give a really generous perspective of the emperor in my

00:55:18.060 book, which clearly I need to reread. But yeah, I think instead of the emperor being something to

00:55:32.400 to fear for its rigidity you get to it's an opportunity for you to remember that you are

00:55:39.840 also the like builder here you are a construction worker and you get to build that foundation however

00:55:46.840 you want and what makes you feel safe what makes you feel secure what makes you able and one thing

00:55:55.100 I wish more people would talk about the emperor for about is what makes you able to hold space

00:56:01.060 for other people. Like those structures don't just exist to exist. They exist so we can coexist

00:56:09.040 and live our lives in this shared world of ours. And how can I have a sturdy foundation

00:56:19.260 enough where I feel safe enough to go out into the world and create space for other people,

00:56:26.960 create maybe they're not like boxes like the structures just because the emperor is the four

00:56:33.660 doesn't mean the structure has to be a rectangle or a square you know it can be very amorphous but

00:56:40.600 as long as you feel safe and you feel sturdy I think you're more equipped to hold space for

00:56:45.480 other people and and honestly more able to hold space for yourself and in that space you have a

00:56:52.060 container where you can develop, where you can cultivate, further cultivate the gifts of the

00:56:59.300 empress in a way that, in a way that feels, gosh, I don't know. I'm just going through so many

00:57:15.220 thoughts right now. But like thinking of the emperor as not just what makes my life feel like

00:57:22.840 it's in order, but what makes my life feel sturdy, safe, grounded, and capable of bringing people

00:57:30.860 into my little structure and holding space for them. And like, how do I make sure that those

00:57:36.740 walls are those walls those boundaries are um are strong but also flexible and be able to be

00:57:46.500 permeated when they need to be permeated um i'm just i'm just moving away from thinking of the

00:57:52.840 emperor as a box and more like uh i don't know i keep thinking of like a stretchy play-doh

00:58:00.660 circle cloud looking thing on the table like that's that's my structure um yeah so i i love

00:58:09.180 the emperor i think that i think because that archetype has been so pushed into a masculine

00:58:20.020 um perspective um i don't think we think about the emperor as a potentially soft

00:58:29.380 archetype and I think absolutely the emperor can be a soft archetype the emperor can be my family

00:58:36.060 you know I cannot wait to read your book hard same I mean Maria you said oh I'm not trying to

00:58:45.500 plug my book again I am so tarot for the hard work an archetypal journey to confront racism

00:58:53.080 and inspire collective healing by maria minnes is available for pre-order right now um but it

00:59:00.880 won't be in your mailbox until the new year so order it now and this i do this all the time

00:59:06.300 where i pre-order a book like months in advance and then i get like a surprise gift that i bought

00:59:12.160 for myself that i had forgotten about so do it by the time this comes out the sort of like

00:59:19.140 Yuletide gift extravaganza and let's be anti-capitalist about that too and not go over

00:59:26.880 the top and be ridiculous but when the sheen of that has worn off you may have one more gift

00:59:32.120 coming if you pre-order yes yes absolutely thank you so much for having me this was I've long been

00:59:41.400 a fan of the podcast when you added me on instagram i was like oh and now i'm sitting

00:59:50.180 here talking to you so thank you for this space and thank you for the opportunity to reflect and

00:59:55.380 to share some sort of digital connection with your listeners um many of whom are some of whom

01:00:03.140 I know and we just gush about this podcast um yeah yeah it's very loved hard same I think it's

01:00:15.000 so fun that we all are sort of wowed by each other and we all are like oh you know Maria's

01:00:22.040 so much cooler than me and you're like whoa I can't believe Amy's faltering you know we all

01:00:27.720 have this like excitement and reverence and irreverence that we yeah that we are all playing

01:00:33.680 with together um I want to end by saying you called yourself happy and free and spacious

01:00:42.500 and that just fucking emanates from you and I want it for all of us so thank you again so much 0.77

01:00:51.660 for being here with me 0.98

01:00:52.920 and for being, period.

01:00:56.820 Thank you.

01:00:57.780 And likewise,

01:00:59.400 thank you so much.

01:01:00.200 I cannot thank you enough. 0.99

01:01:04.680 And bless a fucking bee. 1.00

01:01:06.960 Bless a bee. 1.00

01:01:09.800 You must be a witch. 0.99

01:01:12.660 If you want to support 1.00

01:01:13.920 the Missing Witches Project,

01:01:15.560 find out how

01:01:16.280 at missingwitches.com.

Missing Witches - October 12, 2023

WF Maria Minnis： An Invitation To Explore

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