00:03:59.800apparently that's not what the people want so anyways we can talk more about that later
00:04:05.200i was just gonna say my i'm i go by sharky and working with melissa has been really incredible
00:04:11.520i think like in a way the fact that it's not a commercial project is what makes it so special
00:04:16.840and the fact that we you know we're just invited into people's spaces as they were doing these
00:04:23.200ceremonies and spells and trying to understand their own worlds like i could watch so much more
00:04:29.500of that stuff of like Dakota in his world and I feel like it's beautiful to see a short piece but
00:04:37.600our desire I think at the beginning was to see something much longer come together to really
00:04:42.260showcase the the passion that people have the effort to show magic as this antidote in a way
00:04:50.020to living this painful modern existence that we all share you know like it just really that's why
00:04:57.320it's emotional for me right now anyway you know my name is nick dickinson i'm a witch out of
00:05:01.960salem massachusetts you saw tiny bits of me in that clip but there was a lot more that was
00:05:06.300happening behind the scenes and one of the things that stands out to me the most right now is the
00:05:11.280writing of the spell and maybe matthew and and michael can speak to this too because i actually
00:05:17.260looked at it today for the first time in a long time and some of the words are definitely mine
00:05:21.540but they they bleed into other people's words in such a way that I don't know whose words were
00:05:27.700whose and you know I started writing that spell after what I now know to be a really bad COVID
00:05:34.780infection I had the alpha variant very early on and there's sort of like missing memory that's
00:05:42.380associated of course with the brain damage I had from COVID but like it overlaps with the writing
00:05:46.480process in this really interesting way for me looking back but it's still so meaningful so much
00:05:52.340of it still informs what I'm doing even right now with my students and with my rituals of the
00:05:58.560cauldron black and it just reaffirms that witchcraft at its heart is rebellion and that's all I have
00:06:07.060to hold on to right now it feels like I'm sorry you were so sick and but also I do love that
00:06:15.160feeling of not knowing where one's writing begins and another one ends. And the feeling of having
00:06:19.860made something really collaborative, or as you describe it, an open source spell. I love thinking
00:06:26.720about what we're putting back into the commons. Matthew, do you want to talk about watching that
00:06:33.300film, your response, what was happening behind the scenes? I'm just going to echo everyone else
00:06:39.580and say that was emotional too. I haven't really seen it in its entirety. And it did bring up a
00:06:45.560lot of feelings and a lot of memories because that was a while ago now. So we shot the part
00:06:51.500that you see me and Nick in was shot at the Cauldron Black here in Salem. And with Michael's
00:06:58.280help, Nick, Michael, and I kind of put together the wording of what would become the witch trial
00:07:04.040of Donald J. Trump, which was the ritual that we did. And so that is fascinating to think about
00:07:11.720in retrospect. A lot of what we were talking about, a lot of the work that we were calling
00:07:16.460for things to happen has come to pass in its own ways. There are certainly things about Trump
00:07:23.260having his conspirators and the people that were standing next to him all kind of turn against him.
00:07:27.680so much of his ineptitude being put on display. And unfortunately, a lot of that happened in the
00:07:34.360wake of COVID. I think that if it weren't for his absolute bungling of COVID, a lot of that
00:07:39.260stuff might not have been as highlighted. So it's really unfortunate that that's the way things
00:07:44.320happened. But in the wake of his presidency and so many other things, we've seen a lot of what
00:07:49.080we were talking about come to pass. And so it was a pretty intense experience and a pretty intense
00:07:55.060ritual where the heart of it was largely to call upon those people that were the victims of an
00:08:00.820actual witch trial in Salem and kind of call upon their spirits and have them present for our own
00:08:07.460witch trial of Donald Trump, who was utilizing that phrasing against people who were actually
00:08:12.540marginalized individuals treated as outcasts in their own society. It's also just amazing seeing
00:08:18.100everyone else's voices and faces on that as well. And sorry, we skipped the part of an introduction.
00:08:23.640do you want to tell us Matthew about who you are in your work no it's me because I jumped right
00:08:30.240to wanting to hear everything about how you were feeling I'm feeling feelings I my name is Matthew
00:08:37.240Venus I am also Salem based I have a shop called Spiritus Arcanum that's just outside of Salem in
00:08:43.220Peabody where I do classes and workshops online and and such and yeah that's a little bit about me
00:08:52.100Michael, would you be willing to do an introduction to yourself and your work and then maybe tell us how you're doing?
00:08:58.560Sure. My name is Michael M. Hughes. I wrote the first Trump binding spell, the one that kind of blew up and went crazy. And for something that, you know, I thought maybe 10 people might find interesting or fun, whatever, it was kind of a shock.
00:09:16.860So it, it's been a pretty magical experience, I have to say. And what, what really, what really warms my heart the most is just seeing how many people have come together in this dark time and this dark time with little brief flashes of light, but still pretty dark.
00:09:38.100And, you know, watching the, watching the film, it was, it was so fun putting it together because it, you know, wasn't really sure where everything was going, but seeing the, just the breadth of, of what was covered.
00:09:52.980And this, this is such a real, and it's such an important spiritual movement. And that's, that's what I think a lot of people might not understand. And I think what, what Melissa and Sharky did was show like the real depth of, of what we've all been, been doing for so long.
00:10:12.920And yeah, it was really emotional for me, too. It seems like so long ago. I remember I was talking to Melissa on a monitor because, you know, it was COVID time and, you know, it was just surreal. But I'm just thrilled that this is out now and it's going to film festivals and things and it's spotlighting all the great work that all the people here and all the people in the film have done.
00:10:39.080And then I want to hear you think about resistance magic. Can you tell us more about what kind of magic that is? How does it work? How can people draw on it now from where they're at with whatever their tradition is, whatever their relationship is to magic? Nick, would you be open to starting to talk to us a little bit about what that resistance magic, what that is?
00:11:03.840Sure. I mean, I think on some level, all witchcraft, like I said, is resistance magic. It is rooted in a resistance to hierarchy, a claiming of our own power in the face of hierarchy.
00:11:16.940I think what it means for modern witches is an alliance, even maybe if they're not completely aware of it, like an alliance with all innocent flora and fauna in the world.
00:11:29.500You know, there's a sort of a natural across the board, this alliance with not just human beings or animals, but also plant life as well.
00:11:37.860That stands out to me in sort of my core practice.
00:11:41.280So what I do with my students through the Culture of Black and other places is we, all the work that I do, every educational session that we have, we start with aligning ourselves to that collective, all the innocent flora and fauna in this world system.
00:11:58.080And for me, that's the best way to get behind the biggest group, you know what I mean, to make the biggest sort of energetic collective that I can.
00:12:06.700And then everything makes sense from there. Once you see, you know, who's harming and who's being harmed, you can line up all the stuff that you do, all your spiritual practice can line up with a form of resistance magic, in my opinion.
00:12:21.000I think that we're still seeing the effects of it. I'm also like, I'm careful to not put human, what's the word, bias on it? It's not that exactly, but like expecting stuff to happen in our human lifetime. Sometimes we're like, I want this to happen right now. We're all beings to be liberated. How come the magic isn't working?
00:12:41.880You know, I remember we got a lot of trolls.
00:12:43.960Michael can speak to it when the behind Trump spell started being very public and people
00:13:09.300And Trump is not only the target, he's like an anchor that is pulling everything down with it. So everything I do throughout the day as a witch, including like work for the community here and online, is lined up with that as an intention. Does that make sense?
00:13:26.860I really felt that made so much sense. I really do. And I have felt that as well, that drawing on that collective is still happening, that that tangling and unraveling is still happening. I feel that too, for sure. Michael, do you want to respond to that? I see you nodding like you feel this too.
00:13:48.540Yeah, I mean, I just love listening to Nick. He's been really so critical and part of this since the beginning. Yeah, for me, the resistance is just integral to who I am and who we are.
00:14:04.720I mean, we cannot watch injustice and not react to it.
00:14:12.960You know, if I saw another kid getting picked on, or even if a teacher was treating someone, you know, disrespectfully or something like that, I always felt the urge to take up for them.
00:14:23.600And I feel like we can't watch, you know, this one human being, but even more than this one awful malignant person, what he represents, what he has, what he has pulled out of other people, what he has stoked among human beings who seemed otherwise decent until he infected them with these mental viruses, you know, or whatever they are, there's no choice.
00:14:51.700We do what we need to do. And that's how resistance magic has always felt to me. It's just, I'm a magic person. I do magic. So, of course, I'm going to do magic for the things I care about, for the people I want to defend, for the planet.
00:15:08.960There were a lot of witches that pushed back and said, you know, witchcraft shouldn't be political. Like, what are you talking about? I mean, witchcraft is inherently political, echoing what Nick said. So we do what we do. And as people who do magic, it's only natural that we do this. We push back.
00:15:28.140we can't watch our society and our planet and people we love being threatened like this
00:15:35.120we just push back and i guess the other thing that brings up is the whole idea you know there
00:15:40.300was a lot speaking of the trolls there were a lot of witchy sort of trolls who would constantly say
00:15:47.040oh it's going to come back to you and the threefold law and all this stuff and they're like
00:15:53.100wait a minute, are you going to not defend your child if there's someone stalking them? Are you
00:15:58.880not going to defend your home? Are you not going to defend a park or a piece of land that you love
00:16:05.300and has a spiritual meaning to you? Of course. So it was really shocking to me that so many
00:16:10.500people in earth-centered spiritual practices were so against trying to defend the things that we
00:16:18.320like that that was strange that i did not expect like i fully expected the trolls the right-wing
00:16:23.780trolls but i didn't expect so much resistance from within the pagan and witch community so that that
00:16:29.460was really kind of fascinating a lot of that's dissipated now but but it was it was a really
00:16:34.500common criticism of of what we were doing which was kind of shocking one of the things i like about
00:16:40.680the idea of resistance magic is thinking about it immediately pushes you into
00:16:46.200Well, for me, but I feel like it's what I experienced watching people do their work is it protects. So you resist and it names something, but it also protects the person doing the work. And that protection is really important when you're sat upon, you know, you're oppressed, it's necessary to like, continue. And so I like the idea of resistance and protection together.
00:17:14.000And it's cathartic. And I think with the Bind Trump spell, there's a lot of catharsis in that where you're taking your power back. And that's what I love. It's like you're claiming power back from who's oppressing you in those moments because you're standing in your power and you're laughing and you're claiming your own space.
00:17:32.840And I think it helps to just revitalize when we feel burnt out and when, you know, you feel like you can't keep living another day in this wonderful world.
00:17:43.200It's something that like the community around it and the private acts of it are like a solved and they help you keep going.
00:17:51.300I think, too, when we started making this film, we had a we had, you know, this lofty goal.
00:17:56.740We wanted to make a feature documentary.
00:17:58.360We really had a much bigger project in mind.
00:18:02.020And like seeing it now, I feel like we captured the energy and the essence of people's practices in an organic way.
00:18:12.800And to us, I think we kind of decided that the film was a spell.
00:18:18.300And that was kind of Nick helped with that as well.
00:18:20.720Nick was a huge guide along the way for the whole project.
00:18:23.480And I think this idea that instead of trying to make a film that might appeal to, you know, a big audience and, you know, cost tons and tons of money and, you know, kind of more in line with projects that we usually work on, this one became much more personal and it's about energy.
00:18:40.540And when I watch it, I feel that energy. And we hope the intention is that, you know, it's contagious and someone else watches it and then it ignites something in them. And in that way, the film continues to work the magic that was in the film continually.
00:18:55.720It's such an amazing group that you put together as the quote unquote cast of this film. Certainly, you introduced me to like Dr. Beverly, for example. So I'm wondering how you connected all of these amazing dots all over all over the country.
00:19:16.160Yeah. And there's so many people on the cutting room floor. Like honestly,
00:19:19.380even the amount of people that we shoved into this short is quite remarkable. That was something
00:19:24.160that early on we were just like, we definitely don't want to focus in on one person. This isn't
00:19:28.800one person story. This is a community. And I think, I mean, we did it very organically.
00:19:34.160I started just kind of reaching out to friends. And one of the first witches that I approached
00:19:38.220was Kuk Teflon, who's in New Orleans now, but was in Seattle, who introduced us to Ilva Redziewski.
00:19:44.820another incredible witch who's been on the podcast and things just grew organically from
00:19:49.880there kook introduced me as well to loretta the death witch loretta ledesma and then we were
00:19:55.340invited to conjure gala and that's when that whole world opened for us which was a world that i knew
00:20:01.800nothing about but it was so welcoming and the community was so strong and the the wisdom in
00:20:08.780that community you know and the fierceness so we were really lucky that in that respect doors
00:20:14.220opened organically through our curiosity and I think our willingness to make something authentic
00:20:19.640and the dots connected from there and I think everyone kind of knows everyone in some in some
00:20:27.020kind of way so I I found that that was really remarkable and like again like a blessing there
00:20:34.380were so many people that we wished we could have included Sharky before you mentioned that you know
00:20:39.880maybe the original intention was for the piece to be a bit longer and people in the chat were
00:20:45.040really like salivating over the hors d'oeuvre of the piece is there is there any chance of getting
00:20:52.220you know the extended director's cut yeah I wonder I mean there Melissa's kind of a genius
00:21:02.100sort of super connector and we do have some really beautiful footage of people because this project
00:21:06.840has become so open source I think there there's definitely a way to share those elements at least
00:21:12.180with the people themselves you know so that they can share them wider even if they don't hang in
00:21:17.980like a a narrative I think yeah there's some I feel like in five ten years someone is going to
00:21:24.240contact me and ask me for all this footage because they're making a documentary and then I just know
00:21:29.760it yeah like i absolutely know this and so i'm just waiting for that to happen i'm keeping all
00:21:36.760the hard drives i mean when i watch the immersive footage too i think that like following someone's
00:21:44.080full journey i would still be interested in making like filming more working with melissa
00:21:49.900more and finding a journey that's kind of has a natural arc where you can really live inside the
00:21:55.400magic or someone's magic because i think yeah i think it's fascinating and there was a lot of
00:22:03.500greed with this project we went through it we struggled i don't know why like sometimes anything
00:22:09.360sometimes i think it's just because of how commercial like what the world how reified
00:22:15.320we are in terms of the way we think of like what is a witch or what you know like none of the
00:22:20.180witches we made contact with in a deep and meaningful way fit into the box of witch for0.99
00:22:24.940like vice or fucking netflix or whoever we were talking to that were super into sexy witches you0.97
00:22:31.060know like we're just we were making a real project about real people and and we stuck with that and0.95
00:22:37.100i think that's yeah i'm happy we did like looking at it now i'm happy we did and like i said five
00:22:42.260years i'll get the phone call yeah it'll be good you'll do soon i'd like to think that we're all
00:22:47.980sexy witches yes good point I'm sorry you know what I mean that's my contribution yeah you are
00:22:56.160the sexiest Matthew don't worry about it don't worry about it but yeah there was it was there
00:23:02.060were so many hurdles and I just feel like this is a blessing and having an audience and being
00:23:07.240invited to present this with a group of people who you know are open-minded and interested in it
00:23:12.320it's just kind of what we wanted in the end so thank you to the two missing witches like and
00:23:17.360thanks to everyone just for joining the conversation too it it's kind of we had to you know kill our
00:23:24.620babies so to speak and just come up with something that we felt resonated with us and that's that's
00:23:30.220what you've got in the end so then maybe there's a reason for that you know yeah and that seems like
00:23:35.880for the right moment to invite folks who are here to think about resistance magic from your0.93
00:23:42.680traditions, resistance magic you've tried, binding magic you've tried, fucking X's you put in your0.98
00:23:48.800freezer. We want to hear the stories of what worked. We want to know a little bit about what0.98
00:23:54.820you think about resistance magic. So plant that seed. But I'm going to ask another couple of
00:23:59.900questions before we move into that. I want to know more what you think about the future of
00:24:06.880this movement. When you see it now, you're looking back at a time that feels like a little bit of a
00:24:11.440time capsule, but we are still in the unraveling. If you could conjure forward a re-enchanted future
00:24:19.940where this spell worked, how do you imagine these communities coming together? How do you imagine
00:24:25.400in this kind of large-scale ritual practice taking life,
00:24:30.320how can it work and how can we be a part of it?
00:24:56.040You know, I think that humans are going to human and, you know, pendulums swing all sorts of different ways.
00:25:01.680But my idealized vision of the future is that, you know, I'll wake up tomorrow in our animists and learn how to love the spirits around us, whether they're incarnate or otherwise, and learn how to tend to each other and care for each other.
00:25:16.260And I think that that can begin in our local communities and our spiritual communities and our communities by recognizing opportunities to help people that are in need of it, our neighbors. And whether this is shared through witchery or just through being good humans to each other, I think that that's the work ideally, right? Is working to support and uplift other people.
00:25:38.720I think that in the broader sense of activism, resistance, I think that witchcraft and magic can serve as a support, as a spiritual support. There are many different workings that we can utilize to help heal, to help support, to help give peace to those that are in the streets fighting, you know, and also to bolster and protect the people that are fighting and to work even on local levels to affect change.
00:26:04.140So I think it just kind of keeps going. But I think that witchcraft and magic, there are so many multifaceted ways that we can be healers, that we can be protectors, that we can be warriors, that we can be resistors, that we can subvert the overculture to try to change people's way of thinking too.
00:26:21.260I think that to see a witch standing up against what we see currently is a powerful thing.
00:26:27.260It has the power to change people's perspectives on a lot of things.
00:26:30.120So I think that not everyone can be visible, but for those of us that find ourselves in
00:26:34.620a position where we can, it's important that we are for those who can't.
00:26:39.380So I think hopefully we're all doing what we're called to do and continue to do that
00:26:44.940work and recognize that it's just, it is the work.
00:26:47.420I completely agree with everything Matthew just said.
00:26:50.260And for me, my spiritual path and the magic that I do is for, yes, is for healing other
00:26:58.800people, but I think we have to keep in mind the importance of keeping ourselves together.
00:27:04.120And for me, what actually made me the most satisfied out of all this work that I've done
00:27:11.400is hearing people say that they had just burned out and they didn't know if they could
00:27:18.280do it anymore they were tired of sending emails they were tired of making phone calls things like
00:27:24.840that but the catharsis that melissa mentioned is so important that burning that image burning that
00:27:33.460ugly leering face and watching it go up in flames and turn to ash and laughing and saying you're
00:27:40.880fired, you know, turning his pet phrase against him. Every time I did it, no matter how beaten0.70
00:27:49.060down I was, no matter how physically tired, no matter how emotionally exhausted, it re-energized
00:27:56.820me. And I think we should always be sure to recharge our own batteries so we can continue
00:28:02.400to do this because there's a lot of darkness ahead. And the really dangerous people that are
00:28:09.780in power are not going to just go away. They're going to fight because the world is browning,0.98
00:28:17.140the world is queering, the world is changing so much, and they will fight tooth and nail.0.96
00:28:26.620So not to bring a dark cloud over what we're doing, but I think we have to realize that it's1.00
00:28:32.940going to be a long, difficult fight. It's going to take a lot of energy. So as much as we help
00:28:40.240others, we have to remember to make sure that we're okay to keep our batteries charged so that
00:28:46.100we can help others. It's the old, put your own oxygen mask on first before you put the mask on
00:28:52.620the person next to you. What's standing out to me is it's collaboration that's going to get us
00:28:58.680through this. It's community that's going to get us through this. I think the reason why I aligned
00:29:03.520so quickly to the bind trump spell, even though it wasn't really the way I practiced magic
00:29:09.220necessarily, was because it was secular. It was completely secular. People could align it to any
00:29:15.500kind of lens or tradition they were practicing through. And I think that's right now to me the
00:29:20.500most interesting kind of magic um collaborative secular across traditions agnostic atheist we can
00:29:30.180all sort of collaborate together and and focus on these goals together and there's a paradox in
00:29:34.800there i would go into the binding exhausted because it's at midnight and i would come out of it
00:29:40.760recharged like like really like i had done cocaine or something and you know it's not something i've
00:29:46.380done in a long time but no judgment but like that's what they would feel like it would be i
00:30:26.620You're welcome to come. Like if you don't want to pay the $5 to get my Patreon, as long as you're not anonymous, you're welcome to attend anytime.
00:30:32.640But every full moon, we do a different version of drawing down the moon than exists in like Wiccan tradition and stuff like that.
00:30:39.160It's my own sort of creation. It can be approached in a completely secular way.
00:30:43.240And part of that practice is focused on innocent flora and fauna in the world system.
00:30:49.800We acknowledge or we assert that the body, speech, and mind of the witch is a place of transmutation.
00:30:56.520So we extract evil and harm from the world.
00:30:59.200We transmute it into medicine or poison when it's appropriate.
00:31:03.040And we put it back out in the form of blessings and curses and bindings.
00:31:08.160anyone can do that aligning your lunar working to planetary healing and empowerment for the
00:31:14.540downtrodden for innocent flora and fauna in this world system i think if we all just did that even
00:31:20.880if we didn't communicate about it that's something that i think can be achieved across the board
00:31:25.400yeah i also like to think about this film as an active collective ritual calling us
00:31:30.960i want to invite amy to talk about the resistance magic you're familiar with i'm honored to speak
00:31:37.960here. Worked with Michael Hughes a little bit in the tarot course, great admirer of him,
00:31:43.880and just joined Missing Witches today. My experience with collective resistance magic
00:31:52.040is through Starhawk and the Wiccan reclaiming tradition. In the 80s and 90s, I worked with
00:32:00.340Greenpeace and I had the honor of spending quite a bit of time out at the Nevada Nuclear Test
00:32:07.720site which is where I met up with Starhawk and experienced her for the first time and that was
00:32:14.580in the 80s quite a while ago and I think that and and I've studied with her and I think that kind of
00:32:22.000collective magic is incredibly powerful there may have been some binding involved but you know I
00:32:30.100wasn't anywhere near ready and I'm still not to lead some kind of ritual on that but I just remember
00:32:36.180being just completely overwhelmed with emotion and with that sense of feeling like I had come
00:32:45.920home. But it was so powerful and galvanizing the thousands of people who are at the early
00:32:53.180gatherings at the test site. And I know Starhawk and other people did that same kind of thing
00:33:01.000in San Diego or in California against the nuclear plant out there. If you've read Witchcraft and
00:33:08.160Marxism, which I highly recommend, the author talks a lot about this kind of resistance magic
00:33:15.460that's done to galvanize the people who are protesting. And the protests out at the nuclear
00:33:21.760test site in the 80s, this is before underground testing had been stopped in 92, but there were
00:33:30.300several people who went out into the test site or onto the test site where these below ground tests
00:33:37.320were going to be done and they would be out there in their presence the whole point was that their
00:33:43.920presence was to stop the test and some of these people several of these people are no longer alive
00:33:51.320because of the cancer that they got from being out there but and that may sound really shocking but
00:33:58.820And I worked, I worked as support on some of these actions, these backcountry actions is what we call them. And without that spiritual connection, without the ritual that went with it, I don't think any of us could have done it. That's just my opinion.
00:34:16.340And so that was like the backbone of these incredibly powerful actions.
00:34:24.940And eventually in 1992, George H.W. Bush said, OK, that's it for underground testing.
00:34:32.420So, I mean, I could go on and on, but I don't want to bore anybody.
00:34:41.540I remember one of the first actions I went to, one of the first gatherings I went to out there, I was like 88, and it was Reclaim the Test Site 2, and I remember walking into the women's camp.
00:34:53.420There were a lot of different camps, and the women's camp was like walking into, it was my first connection with witchcraft, and it was like walking into a Jungian dream.0.60
00:35:04.220I mean, I thought, whoa, this is where it's at, you know?0.93
00:35:10.020So anyway, thank you for letting me ramble.
00:38:03.840I brought up some of the people earlier who helped along the way.
00:38:06.760kook teflon loretta ledesma everyone the entire cast of the film doc beverly i just want to
00:38:13.920highlight how much of a community project this was and we facilitated it it's a special thank
00:38:21.180you credits and i think you're also both in there because there was a time when we couldn't keep
00:38:26.940going with this and we were just feeling like we can't keep making this film and and that energy
00:38:33.060that, you know, y'all brought when you had me on the on the podcast the first time, which just
00:38:38.700reinvigorated me. And it made me realize that, you know, this is important. And this is something
00:38:42.680that people are going to watch. But I can't stress enough just how grateful we are that everyone
00:38:47.240participated and how many people had to come together in order for this tiny little project
00:38:52.900to exist. We're so grateful. I do want to chime in real quick on the on the subject of connective
00:38:59.220tissue because melissa we originally met through a mutual friend shout out sandy so i really love
00:39:06.560the idea of like introducing your witch friends to other witch friends again like i said we
00:39:12.440we met loretta and dr beverly through a connection that you made for us and now tonight we're meeting
00:39:20.700michael and matthew and nick in fact you made a very generous donation to our fundraiser one year
00:39:27.440So in terms of connective tissue, yeah, like, let's just try to keep weaving and weaving and weaving and weaving that together as much as we can.
00:39:37.980I think that's why we tried to include as many people as we could, even though we had to crown them into such small, you know, it's a lot of people to feature in 12 minutes, but it was that idea.
00:39:48.300I want to ask just quickly about the actual process of making the film from the perspective of a ritual leader or a magic maker. Did anyone feel having the cameras there made it more powerful? How did that affect it?
00:40:04.520I'll say I did feel it was more powerful because it felt like the film was capturing something that would live forever.
00:40:18.680I feel like when I'm in the room with people, there's a magnifying effect. I think when the camera's in the room with people, I feel like there's this acceleration or magnifying effect that witnessing people in a real way has.
00:40:33.100Magic and ritual in many ways is performative in and of itself. Ritual is performance in many ways. So when Melissa, I think it was, you said this, the film feels like a spell. In many ways, it can be that, it is that, right? And a lot of people are talking about how it evokes something in them, right? That's magic. That is the magic of performance as well.
00:40:58.080Here's to witnessing each other in an ongoing way and amplifying our magic.
00:41:06.680I also feel really, like, so thrilled to have all of you here with us who came because you were electrified and excited or maybe just, like, brokenhearted and terrified and wanted to be together because I come to this space in both those modes.
00:41:24.960And I'm really, really thankful to meet you here.
00:41:28.080michael will you will you take us out with one last for this moment sure sure so just take a
00:41:38.160nice deep breath you close your eyes or keep your eyes open hear me oh spirits of water earth fire
00:41:49.040and heir. Heavenly hosts, demons of the infernal realm, spirits of the ancestors, I call upon you
00:41:59.540to bind Donald J. Trump so that his malignant works may fail utterly, that he may do no harm
00:42:10.000To any human soul, any tree, animal, rock, or sea, bind him so that he shall not break our polity, usurp our liberty, or fill our minds with hate, fear, or despair, and bind to all those who enable his wickedness and those whose mouths speak his poisonous lies.
00:42:39.460I beseech thee, spirits, bind all of them. Bind their malicious tongues. Break down their towers of vanity. I beseech thee in my name, in the name of all who walk, crawl, swim, or fly.0.69
00:42:58.320of all the trees, the forests, rivers, and seas. In the name of justice and liberty, love and
00:43:08.560equality and peace, bind them in chains. Bind them in chains. Their tongue, their works,
00:43:21.200bind their wickedness now with your eyes closed imagine donald j trump burning in flames
00:43:32.060turning into ash as we say together three times you're fired you're fired