00:00:10.300Hi, friends. Hi, Sarah. Happy full moon. Thanks.0.96
00:00:14.280I want to just say hi, Risa, and thank you so much for having me. I feel really honored. This
00:00:20.840podcast is very special. I'm sure you know that. So I feel honored and delighted to be a part of
00:00:29.620My name is Sarah Faith Godestiener, and I am a queer Jewish witch living in Los Angeles.
00:00:41.580I have two dogs and a beloved sweetheart that I live with, and I identify as an artist,
00:00:51.840a creative person. I've been teaching about the moon and tarot and energy and other things for
00:01:04.320a minute for about five years. I've been a professional tarot reader since 2012,
00:01:11.000and I've written something like nine self-published works that center around collaborating with
00:01:23.920the cycles and rhythms of the moon and the seasons in the northern hemisphere and I just
00:01:31.080released a book an evergreen book about the moon shockingly called the moon book which is
00:01:40.100a guide to, yeah, I know it's, I'm, I'm really creative here, which is a guide to working with
00:01:48.320energy and rhythm and cycles and lunar magic, as well as self-development and practical, uh, tips.
00:01:59.820and yeah that's what a lot of my sort of outward facing work has been about for about the I don't
00:02:10.420know five or six years it's been about energy intuition mad and yeah that's the I don't know
00:02:17.980five or six years it's been about energy intuition magic tarot and lunar living
00:02:25.420which is not something I ever planned by the way like I never thought I'd be saying
00:02:33.700I never thought I'd be saying that like you know
00:02:36.280um well I want to come back to that because we had a listener write in recently about
00:02:45.760sort of the fear of of coming out um as someone who works for coming out as a witch and
00:02:53.780so I want to come back to to that how that transition was for you but but can can you
00:03:00.240start because I'm so curious about this with talking about um how your relationship with the
00:03:05.980moon started yeah I think every single human has their own relationship with the moon with the sun
00:03:15.540with the elements. Mine began because I was a witch, because I met witches in my early 20s,
00:03:27.600like real live witches. And they were my friends. And they really started teaching me
00:03:35.140that lunar magic was really potent. And I sort of put it away for the first three or four years
00:03:46.520of my magical development. And I came back around to it. And I decided to begin working with
00:03:55.500the moon in my own particular way which is well it's holographic there are no end to the different
00:04:07.320ways we can work with the moon but for our listeners purposes it's around working with
00:04:14.640one intention around one lunation so that would be new moon to new moon or full moon to full moon
00:04:23.600or dark moon to dark moon around one specific intention and flowing with the traditional
00:04:34.500suggestions of light and energy accumulating and light and energy dissipating, going external,
00:04:46.720going internal breathing in breathing out it's very natural to all of us it mimics the seasons
00:04:55.440and so I tried doing that and pairing that with my magical practice which before that had been
00:05:03.120mildly undisciplined and the results that I got was like couldn't even believe it and so I worked
00:05:13.940through the lunar phases with a variety of different intentions. And I was like, wow,
00:05:22.720I'm onto something here. The moon is onto something. And it really opened my intuition.
00:05:29.820It opened my healing. It opened up so much for me. And after about five years of praxis,
00:05:40.100I began teaching about it and for me the moon is an illustration of the earth the sun
00:05:52.220in the moon it's an illustration of fire water earth air it is a correspondence that is a
00:06:04.300correspondence to our subconscious our unconscious and our conscious all in one and i find that an
00:06:13.820incredibly potent site of reclamation of healing and of influence and that's what i teach and that
00:06:27.700is what I continue to sort of base a lot of the core healing different levels of consciousness
00:06:38.300you know this is what witches do and so you know the moon is one of our besties
00:06:45.200in this regard so that's a little bit of how I I view I view the moon
00:06:51.760yeah i love that i mean one of the things i love about your book the main book lunar magic to
00:07:02.420change your life um i got really really into it i was really enjoying i got a digital copy and then
00:07:09.020i got my hands on a beautiful hardcover copy that you designed and was beautifully designed
00:07:15.080um it it there's something that's so practical about it which is so funny to say about magic but
00:07:22.860um I just for me I I'm always thinking about time and our experience to time and as a person
00:07:32.260who menstruates I feel like I'm pretty I'm pretty like and I like you know painfully you know like
00:07:39.260I'm really painfully aware of time and marking out my relationship to time in a more concrete way
00:07:47.400this moon cycle has been a part of my practice that's that's like really given me a lot of power0.92
00:07:53.040and so to get my hands on your book and be like oh shit like there's this whole range of work0.61
00:07:59.860you started out by saying it's holographic there's this whole there's this whole scape of work that I0.87
00:08:05.560can do around each stage of the moon and for me that's a really empowering idea i'm excited for
00:08:12.380our listeners to discover that can you talk a little bit about i guess just the relationship
00:08:18.960in in you know with bodies of water with our own bodies like how do you feel like we're sort of
00:08:26.520physically being written on by the moon that's such an incredible question
00:08:31.500And you talked about it a bit when you shared where, you know, the moon is about bodies because we are anywhere between like 50 and 70% water, which depending on, you know, what's going on, babies are more water and then we become less water as we age.
00:08:57.980and you know for folks who for folks who mention it's true no really like babies are most watery
00:09:05.360and then as we get older uh elders are less watery um for folks who menstruate there can be
00:09:15.360a real specific correlation between menstrual cycles and the moon and i don't mean oh you
00:09:26.860bleed on a full moon or, oh, you bleed on a new moon. I just mean a process of energy building,
00:09:35.020feeling like you have more energy, and then bleeding and sort of feeling like you have less
00:09:41.440energy or maybe need to go more internally. Folks who menstruate can probably understand
00:09:49.420what I'm talking about, especially when there's these sort of emotional tides, as it were,
00:09:56.860that also imprint on the body as well. You know, I think like just to sort of zoom out,
00:10:04.720I feel like the stars, the sun, the moon are imprinted on all of us because since the dawn
00:10:14.380of time, human beings have worked with the stars, the sun, the moon in order to situate themselves
00:10:23.740to cast rituals to cast spells in the realm of folklore lunar and solar and star-centered deities
00:10:36.660we've been dancing with the sun the moon and the stars for as long as we've had a consciousness so
00:10:46.420we have this imprint of the moon in the sense that risa your great great great great great
00:10:52.300grandparent who you don't know their name and you don't know where they lived had a relationship with
00:10:59.400the moon they looked up and they saw the moon they saw the sun they saw the stars and there's
00:11:06.240this really rich in my opinion accumulation of awe and wonder and enchantment that we have with the
00:11:16.840elements in particular uh i think you know the the moon and the sun and the stars so there's that
00:11:26.000right there's this really long history also or hurt or herstory of the moon and agriculture
00:11:33.940and herbalism and doulas and medical workers and sex workers and ritualists and witches and shamans
00:11:44.640and other magical practitioners because so many of these folks dwelled and dwell
00:11:54.860in the realm of night and the moon is the queen of the night so there's that relationship as well
00:12:03.960and then of course we have our own energetic ebbs and flows you know the moon controls the tides
00:12:14.360in all bodies of water, the water tables, oceans, and ourselves. So lunar gardening has long been
00:12:25.680a practice. The moon has really been linked to agriculture for thousands and thousands of years.
00:12:32.280There are still folks who garden with the moon and we are nature. Our bodies have water in them.
00:12:39.980We are sensitive to light. We are sensitive to rhythms. Whether you menstruate or not, you are an emotional creature. So you are going to have your own particular relationship with the sight that the moon helps us discover, uncover, and flow with.
00:13:03.560and it's a lovely way of thinking about change in our lives too right like there's such this
00:13:14.880sort of forward impulse impetus sort of around this and this this pressing stage of capital
00:13:23.340that we're in but the way you talk about moon work is so kind of liberating from that because
00:13:28.720it's like well we're gonna do something for one cycle no i'm gonna do another cycle i'm just gonna
00:13:35.160keep kind of going in these beautiful spirals and that's okay you know i love that yeah i mean
00:13:41.960that's the whole thing about lunar living it is in direct opposition to capitalism and to
00:13:53.000linear time into bad or good on and off alive or dead all of these binaries the moon is not a
00:14:03.540binary there's you know the other planet that we can see light being reflected off of or well the
00:14:12.760moon isn't a planet but the other celestial body that we can see light being reflected off of is
00:14:18.580venus and i find it really interesting that the more traditional celestial bodies at least in like
00:14:27.160a western pantheon way are feminine um and that a lot of times the binary can sometimes be
00:14:36.360correlated with a patriarchal way of thinking and you know as well as i do everyone here
00:14:43.360with us today knows that capitalism, it ain't it, you know, and it's been embedded in us
00:14:53.380from feeling guilty when we rest or feeling shame or comparison because we're not
00:15:02.300doing enough or we're not, you know, as this or as that, as someone else.
00:15:09.400it's not natural I don't think that the binary and I don't think that capitalism
00:15:20.680is a natural state for us and the seasons and the cycles and the patterns of the cosmos and
00:15:33.660the stars and the sun and the moon is this reminder that what is completely natural is for us
00:15:41.440to go through processes of dynamic change and to move into different states of being.
00:15:51.560And these different states of being are not bad or good, best, or feeling like you need to move
00:16:00.140through you for a month or a few months is not bad, but we put these prescriptions and these0.99
00:16:10.080judgments on rest, on, you know, indies. And that's really harmful. And for me, so much of0.99
00:16:25.720doing lunar work is this reminder that we're in different phases and then sometimes it's time for
00:16:35.460us to run a marathon it's time for us to that production and creating things and connecting
00:16:42.720and pollinating isn't natural it's completely natural and also so is rest so is grief
00:16:50.980can you talk about what you feel like the role of magic is right now
00:16:59.920wow that's a big question Risa I'd like I need to hear what you're gonna say after I talk you
00:17:07.400promise yeah will you go just like think for a sec but so there's so many there's like so many
00:17:19.060different. So I'm just going to kind of riff and then I'll pause and maybe we can sort of build a
00:17:25.560cauldron together. The first thing that came to my mind is, okay, great. The first thing that came to
00:17:36.380my mind is that, you know, as he says, magic helps us re-enchant the world. There was a time
00:17:45.840when we were children although not all of us had the privilege of a supported childhood
00:17:53.340but there was a time at least for me when I was a child and what was first and foremost
00:18:03.300was imagination was going to different lands in my brain with my helpers with the stuffed animals
00:18:13.760I would, you know, create in my bedroom and have stories with.
00:27:45.360or if you never feel ready, that's totally fine.
00:27:49.760um there's a lot of like stigma and a lot of projection and a lot of shame
00:27:57.220that is accompanied with the word witch all of that being said what i really love actually that
00:28:06.280came to to mind was i do this many moons planner and i ask for contributes to practitioners
00:28:16.200And the full moon suggestion from one of my teachers, Sid Yang, is to create, to call in support and to call in help.
00:28:29.420So this could be a full moon, feel called to make support, help, community, your signal as it back to one or more people who are also magical practitioners.