00:03:06.520And I'm so grateful to be looking at your beautiful smiling faces. You are emanating like a joy and a connection that is, that's wonderful to behold. Thank you so much for, for being here today. Now, something that is very much a part of your practice, and I think even, let me get it exactly right, the tagline for the living altar, and we can get into the living altar, of course, but.
00:03:31.500I didn't even introduce the living altar.
00:08:24.660need space to cultivate those relationships and we do need space to get
00:08:28.580the work done in the ways that it needs to get done and that's not always an easy
00:08:32.340place for others to to meet us you know um so i think like there is historic precedence for the
00:08:40.120witch as um a lonely figure but the witch is able to maintain sovereignty and um exist within a
00:08:53.980state because of their connections with others their connection not only to nature the spirits
00:09:02.220of land and place the spirits of our ancestors but also as as a gift of resource to our relationships
00:09:10.040with community members and so when i think about um the the radical altar of magical resistance
00:09:21.300that the living altar sort of uh came into being as it really is something that um externalizes an
00:09:33.620internal uh dream i think that kiki and i both share which is that the witch returns to collective
00:09:42.840that the wisdom of the witch return to collective and that the witch returns to a seat of council
00:09:51.440in collective and that it doesn't have to be anything so profound like the most powerful
00:09:57.280magic is the most silent and subtle most often i think about that in terms of like my ancestral
00:10:03.880heritage of being a person of balkan and roma ancestry but also and also being slavic
00:10:10.500um like in the polish witches the traditional healers are called whisperers and a lot of that
00:10:18.400is a means of survival you know the assimilative practices you don't go around talking about stuff
00:10:24.920but also like um you don't need to you don't need to uh talk about your power in order to wield it
00:10:36.620You know what I mean? So I think the radical aspect of modern witchcraft that the work that we do represent is the subtlety and helping to provide space for the individual to return to collective in subtle ways and letting those subtleties of character be profound gifts of generosity.
00:11:03.100um like you don't have to be a celebrity which you don't have to to have power or have impact
00:11:10.140you know you don't have to be um you don't have to be loud about things for the impact to be
00:11:17.400substantial and you know half of the things most i think most of the most of the blessings we
00:11:25.820offer to our lives um through living are moment are silent and subtle moments that even we might
00:11:35.360not recognize i know that um a lot of the witches i speak to are still in the quote-unquote broom
00:11:43.560closet and um something that i've been thinking about a lot um as someone with like a witch
00:11:49.820weather vane on my house who has been you know and a very out and loud since birth um but I tell
00:11:57.840them you can be a secret weapon yeah you know and your magic can be a secret weapon and you know
00:12:03.680maybe it's just once again this late stage capitalism that tells us that we need to be
00:12:07.500loud and profiteering you know off of everything but I also made me think of something that
00:12:13.280white feather hunter said to me once we were talking about ritual and white feather was
00:12:19.960talking about you know the the energy of community and raising this energy together and so I asked
00:12:26.360you know what about when we're practicing alone and everything you were saying made me think of
00:12:31.140her response which was like a blanket that I cover myself in she kind of kind of scoffed
00:12:37.480she was like well you're never alone when you're doing ritual
00:12:40.520and i mean it's so obvious in the speaking you know we are we are contacting our our ancestors
00:12:49.120or as you say the land spirits this notion of a witch community being community even in solitude
00:13:00.660i agree i want to clarify too like as a as a white person who is a colonizer on uncedish
00:13:12.960unceded territories indigenous land in so-called united states um and where i'm talking to you
00:13:22.080from i'm on uh point elliott treaty land the coast salish duwamish territory in seattle
00:13:28.000So when I talk about working with land spirits as a white person, as a colonizer on land that's not my ancestral home, I'm talking about working magic in a way that puts me in a place of understanding that this is not my home, that this is not, these spirits owe me nothing.
00:13:56.380um i'm not entitled to a relationship here but i i must do what i can to honor and respect
00:14:05.160indigenous-led land sovereignty movement with everything i do it must be in my mind it must
00:14:11.740be in my actions and it like the idea of radical witchcraft is one that says this isn't just about
00:14:22.060breaking intergenerational curses this isn't just about addressing and combating systemic level
00:14:30.460you know colonized settler colonized curses through hierarchical systems of oppression
00:14:38.300like battling those systems but it's also about slowing down and being quiet and doing what you're
00:14:48.520told and being asked to do um by by indigenous led movements who are stewards of land and place
00:14:58.100and as a witch we have to understand that our magic you know our magic comes from lots of places
00:15:06.720but it's borrowed magic is borrowed energy it moves through the world magic doesn't belong to
00:15:12.480anyone um and the point of the practice of magic or the practice of a witch isn't to access power
00:15:20.360or to raise and gain power for self it's to place ourselves in that current of of magic as it moves
00:15:26.740to the world and uplift it and direct it and to be a conduit in service conduit in service to
00:15:34.400what is already naturally occurring and so that either looks like being in service to disrupting
00:15:43.040what's actually occurring presently being in service to redirecting energy towards more
00:15:49.040beneficial outcomes but our magic is borrowed and without relationship to the elemental forces
00:15:57.660uh which are our ancient ancestors and those elements exist everywhere on this planet
00:16:04.680um and and the universe i mean my god let's talk about the cosmos for a second
00:16:10.200like geek out about that um cosmic sexual here but um i'm sorry i have never heard the term
00:16:20.120cosmosexual before i don't know if you invented it just right now on the spot but i'm putting it
00:16:25.100in my notes carry on you can't i talk about this a lot um we just geek out about space um but i i
00:16:34.360just i i want to i just what i'm trying to say is um when we're working with the elements who
00:16:43.480are our ancestors we must understand that where we exist in time and space in corporal form
00:16:49.240um the spirit exists as well and they borrow they borrow the corporal forms around us
00:16:59.560and we can work with the land we can work with the spirit that are here
00:17:04.920and the ancestors that are here to connect us to our own ancestors the ancestors of our lineages
00:17:12.060the ancestors of the land where our bodies um were born from but also where our ancestors were born
00:17:18.220from um and so i i don't know i don't i guess i don't know really how to like frame it except to
00:17:27.440say um if you're a colonizer on unceded land and indigenous land on turtle island especially uh
00:17:35.880when we're working with the spirit to show up for the work um don't take for granted the fact that
00:17:47.200are there and don't stop at at at their presence like sometimes when we call out to a spirit
00:17:54.740they'll show up because they hear us and they're like you okay like what's up baby and then and
00:18:01.080then we're like oh you're my helping spirit and it's like oh no no i'm sorry i was just in i was
00:18:06.360just in the next room and i heard you and i just wanted to check on you can i call your grandma
00:18:11.960for you like can i help you find your own spirit connections like we have to understand like
00:18:19.280we aren't entitled to these relationships i can't say it enough like these are relationships they
00:18:25.060are they require work and i think a lot of times because we are so disconnected from culture of
00:18:31.420origin especially of colonizers that and and we exist within a forced separation of culture um
00:18:39.240like we we literally exist in systems that that cleave indigeneity from the the the stewards of
00:18:47.360land and place who are here who are fighting for their lives um that we take for granted that
00:18:53.240uh yeah we we we're owed something so i i just like that's also what we mean by like
00:19:01.160a radical practice of witchcraft it's just being honest like
00:19:05.220nobody owes me anything here in fact you know even having this conversation with you across
00:19:12.100the border of two colonized lands and false nation states like we're being permitted by
00:19:18.460the spirits to do this and we're taking up a lot of space that isn't ours to take up and having
00:19:23.440these conversations but they're they're needing to be had so even in this conversation we have
00:19:28.880to acknowledge the immense privileges that we are um leaning into and and and the way that that
00:19:38.660perpetuates even further uh colonized settler uh colon the settler colonialism that we benefit from
00:19:47.160so uh when i say spirits of land i'm also talking about that and i'm also talking about like the
00:19:57.740constant the constant intention of reconnecting across oceans and across diaspora i also am a
00:20:06.600person who comes from uh lineages of diaspora and um so i'm talking about connecting through
00:20:14.380those histories to the places where my family recognized the spirits and they and the spirits
00:20:24.220recognize them and you know as somebody of roma ancestry it's like we have no land we have no home
00:20:33.280so the ritual of reconnecting is one that's constantly returning to my body
00:20:38.320yeah and honestly i think one of the most important parts of my practice as i you know
00:20:47.660evolve and season as a witch is that recognition of a colonial mentality that still exists you
00:20:55.940know buried deep within my heart and brain um what i'm entitled to um and working through
00:21:03.400all of that i think is an excellent you know continual first step in in practice
00:21:09.380i treat it like i treat my practice of witchcraft like i would um my practice of just being in
00:21:18.920relationship with friends lovers family you know it's like i i don't know i i have to work
00:21:28.400so i have to work on these relationships i have to work for safety i have to work
00:21:32.740to like trust and and that that's something that i think is so uh often left out of the
00:21:42.680conversation particularly particularly with like a more social media driven contemporary culture
00:21:50.320like there's not a lot of room for a nuance unfortunately but there's a lot of space for
00:21:56.860connection which is great but just like remember to slow down in our in our world our world is so
00:22:03.240um our modern world is so uh manipulated by the the illusion of meritocracy so rooted in
00:22:15.260capitalism which is crumbling and superiority which is shattering that it wants us to speed up
00:22:21.920It wants us to work harder, fight harder, move faster so we don't recognize or see the cracks in the veneers, so we don't recognize the facade as a facade.
00:22:32.800So I think the more we slow down and bring intention, even to the soundbites, even to like the immediacy of connection that is so often a salvation for so many across social media, like just understanding that we can take a moment.
00:22:52.640Like we, the urgency of the fall of late stage capitalism is not our crisis.
00:23:18.220I, I actually wrote an endorsement for the book in which I said that I've
00:23:22.640I think it would be equally useful for like a quote unquote baby witch as it would be for a seasoned crone.
00:23:27.920There's so much great, great stuff in there.
00:23:31.780Do you want to talk a little bit about the process of writing the book and why you chose to be to sort of cast a wide net with the with the topic of your book?
00:23:40.740And then I'll get to my quote that I wanted to read.
00:23:44.880um you know a practical guide for witches um is a book that i wrote um okay i'll just be
00:23:54.260i'm all about honesty and intimacy and i'm working real hard on that so i'm gonna get
00:24:00.560sappy for a second um virgo sun aquarius moon over here uh but i wrote this book at a time
00:24:10.800in my life where, uh, things, things were really, uh, changing so quickly and being held together
00:24:19.100with such, um, uh, with such a, with so much, so many miracles. Um, it was a wonder I didn't
00:24:28.540collapse. And I wrote this book during that time of tremendous heartbreak reevaluation and on a
00:24:36.340deadline right so i'm healing i'm healing from some pretty intense like stuff that's going down
00:24:43.640and i'm like i have a deadline baby we gotta like i know i know that you've been crying at 3 a.m but
00:24:49.560like it's 6 a.m it's time to write you know i need to i need to stop you for one second would you
00:24:55.260recommend healing on a deadline because it sounds like it was kind of a kind of a positive and
00:25:01.200fruitful experience for you but to me it sounds counterintuitive oh it literally was uh so painful
00:25:09.480and the reason i say that way because like i i had i had to get i had to write this book i was
00:25:15.680under contract right i'm like okay i have to i have to write this book you know what it's like
00:25:20.640when you're when you're contracted uh your book is amazing um and so it's like when you're on a
00:25:27.160when you're on a deadline and you're and you're asked to share um when when you're asked to share
00:25:36.240wisdom and insight um you know for me as a witch when i'm asked that when i was asked that of the
00:25:44.600book i thought okay well i'm going to do this generously and i want to be very earnest about
00:25:49.460it so i wrote this book to feel my heartbreak and as i was doing that i also started to understand
00:25:57.140And like growing up, I needed a different kind of resource.
00:26:01.760And so I wrote this book for the younger parts of myself who didn't have access to, you know, I grew up poor.
00:26:09.460I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Florida, in the swamps of Okeechobee.
00:26:13.860And I grew up just not having access to a lot of the information I had to learn.
00:26:20.200And I was generous with myself around that.
00:26:25.080So I wrote this book as almost like an invitation to my younger selves to accept aspects of our craft and aspects of our identity through magic.
00:26:41.280And I did so in a way that I hope is also an invitation for other people to, again, slow down and be reflective.
00:26:49.900I wrote this book to help soften the need for self-reflection, re-examination, and hopefully to provide resource for folks to reassess our value system as witches.
00:38:12.200Where we can meet and share relationships with ideas, energies, concepts, memories, broken promises, failed efforts, dreams that are no longer
00:38:42.200no longer viable for corporal manifestation dreams that have manifested and we've moved on
00:38:49.320from the future like it's whatever we are needing to find uh or wanting to find or wanting to connect
00:38:57.620with in order to find comfort to find strength to find resilience to affirm identity um creating
00:39:05.620portals is an opportunity to create an intentional connection through planes of existence so that we
00:39:12.020control upon um the energy that meets those expectations or meets those intentions and i
00:39:18.580think anytime we pray for creating a portal i think that anytime a portal of access if i think
00:39:25.360about portals as points of access right every time i say hello to a friend you know that's creating
00:39:32.760a portal of access this conversation is a portal you know it's creating another opportunity for
00:39:38.040relationships uh across our communities between you and i between our life experiences um it's a
00:39:45.240way i see it portals i see portals as like uh the way spiders weave web i see portals as the way
00:39:52.860like ocean currents meet um i see them as like this um almost like magical wormholes you know
00:40:02.460like we kind of like they they're doors that open quite naturally into uh energy veins that
00:40:09.940are already in motion um possibilities that are already in motion um sometimes these portals have
00:40:16.640to be forced open sometimes they have to be forged anew um but it's again there are these
00:40:24.220access points to possibilities and access points to relationships um and then when we open portals
00:40:31.640we have to tend to them right so if we're creating an access if we're creating a connection
00:40:36.280we're responsible for it um and it doesn't mean we have to be sitting there every day
00:40:42.220talking to it um but it means that when we're not there talking to it we close it
00:40:47.120you know like we close the door we lock the door um you know it's a sacred thing we want to make
00:40:54.960sure that it's held in sacredness and we also want to make sure that we're not just like cleaving
00:41:00.040uh cleaving reality i'm saying cleaving a lot cleaving must be the word of the day
00:41:04.300i don't even think i'm using it correctly we can't just be like rending the veil and then
00:41:08.800walking away and being like bye y'all and then i might get mashed up and you know it's uh i think
00:41:17.220that ultimately the natural world has a way of course correcting but we don't want to leave
00:41:22.600messes we don't want to make it more difficult in already difficult times yes yeah and and
00:41:31.700this notion of leaving the door open for lack of a better term is is something that you think will
00:41:37.300make things more difficult i think that it depends i think that it can you know i think uh you know
00:41:45.020we can leave doors open for um oh god okay so i think where it could be appropriate to leave
00:41:53.460a door open is in relationships where um misunderstanding has occurred where harm
00:42:03.560has been or hurt has been done i think that's appropriate to leave a door open um and i think
00:42:10.360where it's also appropriate metaphysically to leave doors open is um in conversations
00:42:16.840inner world conversations between myself and my my best self or my uh i don't want to say like
00:42:25.760highest self or most exalted self because i think like that's also it's something i'm trying to
00:42:30.180really um understand as a form of meritocracy that i don't like that i've internalized like
00:42:38.560it's not about the best self the better self the higher self the perfect self that doesn't exist
00:42:43.200to me that's not real but it's like the part of us that really aspires towards honoring
00:42:53.080the fullest picture we have access to i think that's an appropriate door to leave open
00:43:02.120but i think like when we're opening portals to say the ancestral realm meaning literal
00:43:09.980gateways for the ancestors and spirits of the dead so to commune with us or to pass through
00:43:15.160this into this world there are other ways that spirits can enter the world and so i don't think
00:43:21.180necessarily that a witch accidentally leaving an ancestral portal open is bad um because the
00:43:30.680spirits are going to find access anyway but I'm a Virgo so I like things to be tidy you know
00:43:37.440I like to be and I'm also very flighty because I'm like what's next so I'm like I want to make
00:43:42.960sure that this is my protocol to open and close you know so I can I can move on I'm the kind of
00:43:48.360person that when I leave my house I'm like knowing full well I didn't cook anything that morning
00:43:52.860I think did I leave the stove on and I'm like honey you didn't even turn the stove on like
00:43:57.820I left it on like I'm that kind of person you know so it wreaks havoc instead of me and I think
00:44:05.520that's also something true like when we open portals we anchor them so if we aren't closing
00:44:11.420portals we've opened then the havoc that's wreaked most likely is just internal chaos right there's
00:44:19.380something um on the living altar website I don't know if it was you specifically who wrote these
00:44:23.700like couple sentences or if it was kiki or if it was something that you two did together
00:44:27.380but um it seems kind of fit with what we're saying i am the eye through which the ancestors
00:44:34.220thread their potential i am precision my ceremony emboldens liberation for all can you like unpack
00:44:44.720that last sentence for us again i don't know if it was you or kiki specifically or but my ceremony
00:44:50.260emboldens liberation i think that's kind of what we've been talking about this whole time but
00:44:54.380That's a nice sentence to sort of boil it down to.
00:44:58.780My ceremony emboldens liberation for all.
00:53:15.620uh decided to grant access to the city capital uh the the mayoral capital offices um she granted
00:53:26.500access to known white supremacists proud boys and the uh the patriot people i forget their name the
00:53:33.220uh proud boys and like um oh yeah i think it was i think it was the proud boys and whatever
00:53:43.060affiliated group they were with it and it just it didn't it wasn't right and so we had been
00:53:50.120organizing privately in our community to constrain the mayor and like we were trying to work with the
00:53:57.100offices through communication but nothing was being no communication was being responded to
00:54:03.680so we decided to go and make a declaration um and yeah revoke her authority at a magical level
00:54:13.660as best as we could to say something be like no you like why are we don't agree with you welcoming0.99
00:54:21.460white supremacists and nazis to the steps of city hall like the fuck is wrong with you like that's1.00
00:54:28.860not literally not what we want i mean so much of it comes down to like what the fuck is wrong with1.00
00:54:38.360you like i find myself just like you know there's the old not old um the saying that's like i don't0.88
00:54:45.520know how to teach you that you should care about other people i think about that one a lot you know
00:54:51.040like don't have white supremacists in your um you know political party or in your offices like0.99
00:54:58.220duh what the fuck is wrong with you but here we are and it's 2021 and we're still shouting about0.99
00:55:04.500this i mean i think i wanted to say like um uh first is that um sometimes we want to say like0.99
00:55:13.020uh duh about things that are obvious we can just say obvious because otherwise um it does count
00:55:20.320come across as being ableist so just fyi thank you thank you it's tempting to cut this out of
00:55:27.400the episode but everybody who's listening yeah that's something that i had never considered
00:55:31.380and noted noted and going forward everyone i'm leaving the ableist language in this episode
00:55:37.720simply as a learning moment for myself and for everybody who like me never thought of it obvious
00:55:42.920thank you yeah yeah and i want to thank my colleague uh twembley borst for those conversations
00:55:49.760with me as well um because i had a hard time uh kicking some of those words out as well
00:55:57.080And, um, as somebody who lives with chronic mental health stuff, um, I, I try really hard
00:56:06.920to, um, it's a, it's a, it's a very, it's a thin line between reclaiming words of self
00:56:16.120empowerment that have otherwise been used to alienate and harm, um, folks with mental
00:56:23.340health stuff like crazy um it's something i really struggle with historically um as an insult to me
00:56:32.580and people i love but also understand that even reclaiming that word is uh something that
00:56:39.000should be left to people who have been experienced in or who have experienced like institutionalization
00:56:48.320as a result of it so we're all learning you know well i to be a kind person like
00:56:57.180it should be obvious to someone don't invite nazis to my house like
00:57:01.560yeah and it was the first time you know i have a tremendous amount of social anxiety
00:57:11.500And I don't, as public as I am about things and as loud and as approachable as I am, I'm pretty reclusive.
00:57:22.260And it was one of the first public rituals of, yeah, rituals of public activism that I facilitated at such a level.
00:57:32.940And I chose to record that and post that recording because I thought it was important for people to understand that we can take even small actions in our own local communities and that it doesn't have to always be about targeting big.
00:57:53.320it's not about the big target it's about like understanding if we're fighting fascism as
00:57:59.140witches we fight that at every single level of political authority from city council to mayoral
00:58:08.700to gubernatorial to president and without and this was also at the time where everybody was like0.96
00:58:15.220heck donald trump which cool baby get it like do your thing whatever like be responsible
00:58:20.260understand the limitations that you have in your practice work within your scope do do your be
00:58:26.660blessed be responsible um virgo witch mom but also like if we're hexing the if we're hexing the
00:58:34.760president understanding like we're attacking a seat of power the presidency that is built on
00:58:42.180hundreds of years of bloodshed enslavement genocide we're battling blood magic
00:58:50.260And in order to truly, and the president of the United States is not the big boss, you know what I mean? One of them. And in order to truly affect change at that level, we have to undermine the authority of the minion seat, you know, the minions around the country.
00:59:13.640We have to undermine the governor's seat, the mayoral seat, the city council even. There's not a true system of collective governance in colonized cultures and among systems of settler colonialism or in the perpetuation of imperialism.
00:59:40.660like it's not possible so i i chose to um in collective with a few like a dozen witches
00:59:50.120from community we just we and we acted fast you know because as soon as we made those
00:59:55.760declarations we broke the staff we laid down our um judgment on the steps we turned walked away and
01:00:04.460as we literally as i walked away i was the last person i handed off my bag to someone i said
01:00:10.100take all of this just go walk away because i have a cane i had to walk slow
01:00:14.460and i said if i'm gonna get if somebody's gonna get arrested it's gonna be me i'm the
01:00:18.800i'm the slowest one everybody run so um but as we walked away literally turned the corner
01:00:27.080five police cars rolled up the city hall onto the sidewalk and we just cloaked and just kept
01:00:34.140walking the police kept trying to like cut me off as i was crossing the crosswalk i just put my hand
01:00:39.540out and i had my cane and i just kept walking i was like you're not gonna what's done is done
01:00:45.720you know what i mean so um i just wanted to let people know like it's possible to it's possible
01:00:54.040to take up space in meaningful ways and it's possible to take up space without taking up too
01:01:00.960much space and that's a negotiation that i think a lot of us are are doing figuring out how to take
01:01:09.980up space without sucking the air out of the room you know and and not learning anything from the
01:01:16.060experience it was one thing that i and the witch's temple at the time when i had the witch's temple
01:01:23.280that was a public witch's space gathering space it's something that i knew that we as a local
01:01:28.260community could do to take up some space to leverage our privilege, leverage our resources
01:01:35.640during a time where there was a lot of other really important things happening that needed
01:01:43.340more, that didn't, would have been compromised had other efforts been reallocated by other