00:00:09.200Listeners, welcome, welcome to the Missing Witches podcast.
00:00:13.380Welcome home to the part of the Missing Witches podcast that is Witches Found.
00:00:18.060I'm holding my arms in the air and tipping backward in joy and delight,
00:00:21.900just soaking in the glory that is Zoe Flowers, our guest today.
00:00:27.260we actually jumped on this zoom call with like the brilliant colored glasses and the brilliant hair
00:00:34.060and the smile that just shines light and if you've seen her ritual work on instagram you've been sort
00:00:41.080of basked in this light before and if you've followed her work in equity and on behalf of
00:00:47.900women and people who've experienced domestic violence and violence you've basked in her light
00:00:52.940before and her fierce resilience and the gift that she is sort of giving with her with her craft and
00:00:59.320her rituals so we reached out and she was willing to talk to us and not only willing but she knew
00:01:03.780who we were I was stoked to be here so you're joining us at a moment of just sort of mutual
00:01:09.280glee I think and we're both in the woods and the crux of our conversation I mean Zoe I would love
00:01:15.600for you to just introduce yourself in whatever way feels right for our listeners and I think
00:01:20.580the crux of our conversation at least as a starting point because it keeps coming up is how and when
00:01:26.340and what why do we come out of the broom closet we'll circle back to that yeah thank you thank you
00:01:33.180so much so yes I answered right away I was so happy so excited I've been following your work
00:01:41.720also for so long and have wanted to you know as I said before we started been wanting to connect
00:01:47.820with you all. So I am Zoe Flowers and I am here in the, in, you know, New York state. So the home
00:01:57.280of the Lenape people and so many more, you know, Native American folks, tribal nations. So I just
00:02:05.780want to say that first and gosh, how to explain myself. So I'm a person. I like to call myself a
00:02:14.640hoodoo person, a conjurer person. I'm definitely an artist. I am a person who has survived domestic
00:02:22.340and sexual violence. And so just constantly on a healing journey of just moving through this life
00:02:32.100as a spiritual person, as a person that identifies as somebody that practices magic and ritual
00:02:38.460and all of those things yeah I think that's it for now yeah that's worlds and there'll be so
00:02:45.940much more I know you've recently been traveling and bringing the work of understanding equity to
00:02:53.840like the U.S. military so I want to circle back to like being out and a witch and then being so
00:03:00.720far out like being so deep and I mean you were on top of a mountain in Germany or something like0.54
00:03:06.740you were you were far afield as the German writer says so I want to come back to that but um but can
00:03:13.820we start by talking about like do you have a moment when you identified as magical or as which
00:03:21.940or as a practitioner do you remember a moment when you first kind of felt that
00:03:26.120so that's such a good question so I don't know if I know an exact moment but there were some
00:03:37.760things that I knew very early so for example I knew that I couldn't get away with things
00:03:48.040that my friends could. And I probably knew that in my early teens. Like if my friends quit school
00:03:56.960or, you know, skipped school or did something like that, I was like, no, that's something I can't do.
00:04:04.540I just had this knowing that there would be a price to pay for me. And I'll never forget,
00:04:10.160my father gave me a check for something and it was a blank check. And my friends were like,
00:04:14.440oh you need to just make this for you know this crazy amount of money and I was like no because
00:04:19.260I would probably get hit by a car on the way back from the bank it was just like I always knew that
00:04:24.680I was connected to something and I had a specific road to walk I just didn't know what it was I knew
00:04:31.980that I was kind of apart from things I also was giving adults advice which now it's like oh of
00:04:40.640you were channeling information right but back then it would be like I was always the person
00:04:44.820that people would call for advice and even like adults like I said like counseling adults and
00:04:52.240just saying these things that an 11 12 year old typically would not say but because of where I
00:05:01.220grew up, there wasn't, I didn't really have an outlet to witchery. So I was very connected to
00:05:10.680religion and to the church because that was the closest thing that gave me that feeling that I
00:05:17.440needed that, that connection. And then I would say when I was about 20, I went to a metaphysical
00:05:23.900bookstore that had opened in a town that wasn't that far from mine. And I started getting into
00:05:29.800reading books like Catherine Ponder just very metaphysical type books but when I moved to
00:05:35.480Atlanta so maybe there was a time so around 90s 96 maybe 95 96 at that time there were a lot of
00:05:45.580like it was like a bunch of you know spiritual people descended on Atlanta at that time and
00:05:52.040there were these different metaphysical bookstores and that's when I started getting into crystals
00:05:55.740and I would just invite my friends over and be like hey let's just all lay on the ground and put
00:06:02.120our heads together and see what happens so we would just lay in a circle now we know that's
00:06:06.400like chakra work like but I didn't know like the words chakra or anything like that it was just what
00:06:13.500we were doing so we would just do things hey let's go up to you know the rooftop and just watch the
00:06:20.640sunset and and you know just say what we want to experience what we want to feel what we want to
00:06:26.220attract so we were just kind of like doing these things together and so that was around the 90s
00:06:31.920that was around probably like 96 I would say but because I had that religion thing I would go back
00:06:38.440and forth you know I would throw out all my rap cds I would throw out all my crystals I would be
00:06:47.340like oh this is the devil and then I would you know go back to church and like just get really
00:06:53.520into the bible and like do all those things so I went back and forth for a long time well there's
00:06:59.500I have 12 questions I'm going to ask you I'm so excited I mean so I'm going to start with my
00:07:05.400my, my, myself, that's all for our, no, but I, uh, you said you had these moments as a child
00:07:18.180and as a preteen where adults asked you for advice and it just came out of your mouth. You
00:07:22.820know, people sought you out. I so had that experience. Can you talk about what channeling
00:07:29.940is what is that what is that experience for you what does it mean yeah yeah absolutely so
00:07:37.220channeling for me is you know we're just getting messages I'm just I'm just getting messages I just
00:07:44.300hear because I hear so I'm clear audience um I see also um I don't really feel that much when I see
00:07:53.560I see in my mind's eye I don't see like apparitions in front of me I think because my people know like
00:07:58.100that would not want that's not my thing but but I hear so I just remember because I grew up in a
00:08:05.400pretty volatile home so it wasn't that adults were asking me for advice it was that there was a lot
00:08:14.180of violence and there were a lot of things happening and so I was like the mediator to
00:08:21.000my parents. And so I would be saying things like, you know, only you can make yourself happy.
00:08:29.360Nobody can make you happy. You're in charge of your own. I don't think I said destiny, but you
00:08:34.440know, you're in charge of your own life. So I was always like doing these things and like my mom
00:08:39.660would be looking at me like, where is this coming from? And so really channeling is just, I just say
00:08:46.080what I hear and I'm told I was always doing that like I remember specifically the things I was
00:08:53.140saying around 11 but I was saying things before that too so channeling is just your how can we
00:09:00.120say this so you're a portal or you're a cup and spirit pours whatever that knowledge that
00:09:10.480message into that cup I think that's a good way to describe it so I'm like that cup so spirit
00:09:17.980pours it in and then I pour it out let's talk about that coming from the church let's talk about
00:09:27.060like yeah that feeling of like because there's so I I have so much love for the the church that I
00:09:34.100grew up in but so much anger also like so much yeah so much resentment at the church in general
00:09:41.180so much so much fury at the pain the church has wrought you know so I channel my fury into
00:09:47.380into other directions now and other creative directions but the church for me wasn't something
00:09:53.300that made me afraid to be a witch like that it worked on shame and stuff but the church I grew
00:09:59.080been was this like hippie social justice church so when you know it wasn't like that you know
00:10:04.260but I know it is for a lot of our listeners and and for people in our family I know that that's
00:10:09.500like a real painful real thing that I don't really understand I wish that you could you know reach
00:10:15.640through this moment in this podcast to those people in some way
00:10:19.240ad break and ad breaks are sponsored by missing witches um you know we love you if you love us
00:10:38.200and you want to support us there are lots of ways that you can do that one of my personal favorites
00:10:43.280is our Patreon. There's always something going on on the message board there, but specifically we
00:10:49.780do a monthly chat with those of our patrons who choose to join us. And it has been so
00:10:56.180rewarding for me, Risa. I think you can say the same thing.
00:11:00.180Oh my gosh. Yeah. Just come join us. You'll see. You'll just be like,
00:11:04.200oh, I knew when I started listening to this podcast that I found my witch best friends,
00:11:09.460and there must be like a badass gang of them out there gathering somewhere in the dark and you are
00:11:15.820right and it's on patreon and our patreon is pay what you can so it's not like there's a tiered
00:11:21.820system or whatever you know if you can afford a dollar a month or or whatever else we um will
00:11:28.660welcome you with open arms and yeah our patreon circles we just learn from each other and they're
00:11:35.100and you should come yeah and another excellent and exciting and thrilling to even say out loud
00:11:43.020way that you can support us is by buying our book missing witches oh yeah you can get a paper copy
00:11:51.060if you're like me and you like to fuck a book up when you read it with a lot of same hard same0.97
00:11:58.900I like to dog ear. I have like a sigil system that I use to annotate my books. But also like a lot of times it just has to be an ebook because I know I'm going to want to search things. You know, sometimes I like an ebook. Also, it's available as an audio book, which Risa and I narrated ourselves. There are musical versions of the carols. Those are two great ways you can support us through Patreon, through buying our book.0.96
00:12:26.240you can review our book on your podcast, on your blog, on your social media, on Goodreads,
00:12:34.540on Amazon. And if you really love this episode, you can tip us at PayPal, paypal.me slash missing
00:12:42.120witches. You know, I was a Muslim for a minute in my early twenties. When I, when I was first
00:12:57.000started going to church, I was going to a Protestant church and my family is not really
00:13:02.860religious, but I was. So I would take the bus to another town to go to church. Like this,
00:13:09.620this little, it was a church in Nazarene and the school bus would come to my town and it would pick
00:13:14.720me up and I would go to that church. Cause that's like where my god sister went and all that stuff.
00:13:19.640So I would go because I just loved it so much, but other churches. So then I also went, so that
00:13:26.940wasn't like a Baptist church. I was like a Protestant church. It was mainly white. They
00:13:30.280didn't really talk about the devil too, too much. But when I started going to like black churches,
00:13:35.720is it's a lot about the devil you know it's like some some religions talk about the devil more than0.96
00:13:43.880they talk about God the angels whatever whatever you know and so anything outside of God is the
00:13:53.720devil and it's like you're going to hell you know it's very thrown at you and and it's not just the0.71
00:14:03.200black church either I mean it's like lots of churches yeah and so um it just is always there0.96
00:14:13.160it's always there like am I am I worshiping the devil because that's what we're taught0.98
00:14:21.780from so young I mean you go to a funeral you go to a black funeral and you go through the whole0.92
00:14:29.580think you know celebrate the person's life blah blah blah blah blah and then like the last 200.93
00:14:34.560minutes of that funeral is like the call that's when they start talking about the end of the
00:14:39.660world that's when they start talking about like getting your life right and all these things so
00:14:44.520there's always this threat of going to hell so and also it's also in pop culture to roll cards I
00:14:54.800mean when we look at the way witches right are portrayed well you know this you're missing
00:15:01.120witches right so you already know the way witches are portrayed also in pop culture is not good0.98
00:15:07.040is not popular what you know an insult from a woman to a woman is a bitch or a witch right0.98
00:15:13.020and so who wants to be those things so when I started going down this road0.62
00:15:22.420it was there like don't go too far you know I had a friend of mine like there's a whole
00:15:35.740religion that says yoga is the devil yoga is the gateway to the devil so when I was doing yoga
00:15:43.260one of my friends rest her soul she's passed on now she sent me like pages and pages and pages
00:15:50.140of like how yoga was the gateway to the devil but I was already too far I had already done enough
00:15:54.920of history at that point to understand the investment in making people think witches were
00:16:02.160bad right like I was like by then I was like okay sis like you you know this is not true but my one
00:16:10.100of my you know my co-maestra Dr. G Love says all the time that the witch trials were very successful
00:16:17.600they were very successful and i'm a person who believes in reincarnation so i think that that
00:16:24.280fear is also in ourselves this is the first time that we are able to talk about this freely you
00:16:33.760know now it's like you go to stores and they've got you know notions and potions there's like a
00:16:40.240store in like elm state new york i passed it today called notions and potions right so now that it's
00:16:45.280like more popular but that's new this is like the past what five years maybe 10 so there is a penalty
00:16:54.680for being first of all a woman identified person who has a certain mindset so there's already that's
00:17:05.720already you're that's already going to put you outside of things now you want to talk about you
00:17:10.720want to do tarot oh no that's the dead that's absolutely the devil you're conjuring spirits
00:17:15.480you know there are really people that believe that so and a lot of my students have that as well
00:17:23.680they've gone back and forth just like me so there's just been a lot of miseducation
00:17:29.340and so what I would say for folks who are really struggling with that is under read your history
00:17:37.460read why the witch trials happened once I started to understand oh these were women who were had
00:17:44.580autonomy who had land who went up against certain political people this is why they were branded the
00:17:52.800witch this is what this a lot of this had to do with capitalism and control so once I started to
00:17:58.240understand that I was like oh okay it's nonsense so let me go with this this this calling because
00:18:06.980it really was something that was deep in me why am I drawn to these things why the spirit tell me
00:18:14.800how to get a good parking space so to damp down something that is like really really really a part
00:18:22.380of me is violent and so I would say to people I don't want to say stop I don't want to say don't
00:18:32.600I'm going to say, I would offer that you all investigate the violence that you're putting
00:18:38.820upon yourself at this point, because there's too much information out there now. So come out of
00:18:48.380the closet. There might be a cost. Yeah, there might be a cost. Are you out in all contexts?
00:18:58.580do you think people can come out in some contexts and not others oh yeah yeah definitely now I'm I
00:19:06.860mean look now I'm on Instagram doing readings my I mean you know my poem in praise of the witch my
00:19:14.140book in praise of the witch like it took a long time for me to just be like this is this is it
00:19:20.580and I've had family members call me on the phone and say are you a witch are you a witch
00:19:28.100So I just blocked them on everything. That was recent. That was last year. So I think you have
00:19:34.240to gauge what's safe. You know, now I work for myself. It's what I do. You know, there are some
00:19:46.120people where I'm not blatant. If people ask me, I will definitely say, yeah, I do Tarot. I do this
00:19:53.860and that but I pick and choose what I say how I say it right because I am a believer in over
00:20:01.080and over I think that's important me too yeah I think that's important you know to pick and choose
00:20:08.420what you say because everybody doesn't have to know everything no that's right I had a teacher0.91
00:20:13.460whisper to me once an ex-nun don't throw your pearls before swine and it resonated it resonated1.00
00:20:22.440my life and my heart I heard her heard her voice my whole life and I am not for everybody not all0.85
00:20:31.480of me is for everybody yeah yeah and I and now like something shifted so I had somebody um in
00:20:37.800my mother's house doing some work and while my mother was on vacation I bought all this black
00:20:42.280tourmaline so I put some black tourmaline over the the front door so I was upstairs and um my
00:20:49.260mother was like what is that the the freaking ADT guy goes oh that belongs to your daughter that's
00:20:55.320to protect the house I didn't even say anything to him I was like well this was a couple of weeks0.51
00:21:03.700ago that's amazing ADT is security systems right yes so he knows
00:21:10.240that's your daughter to protect the house oh it's amazing I love that so much I wonder
00:21:20.720is in praise of the witch a poem you would be willing to read for us today oh yeah of course
00:21:27.380yeah we can do absolutely let's do it do you want to do it now and then we'll continue from there
00:21:32.380Let's do it. Yeah. So this poem is actually, so I belonged to this, um, women's writers group
00:21:43.060in, uh, women writers in bloom in, uh, the city in New York. It's not just for women though. Um,
00:21:52.060so JP, she's the person who started it and, uh, phenomenal poet and teacher. And she had us do
00:22:01.560this prompt called the praise poem and the praise poem is where you take something that people have
00:22:09.180said about you that has put you down kept you down etc and you flip it and so I thought about
00:22:16.960all the things that people have said about me and I wrote this poem and I and so this poem is the
00:22:23.120name of my book but it's also um so i wrote a play called ashes and this is the poem that closes
00:22:31.740every play earth we are the elements stay close to the ground omnipresent six feet under our
00:22:43.560mother's blood courses through our veins out our wombs down our legs feeding soil hungry
00:22:50.420we are dirty with your sadness different from anyone you know omnipotent we lick wounds and
00:22:57.840swallow sorrows name ourselves goddess are not afraid of the dark call on god angels and0.99
00:23:04.260ancestors when shit gets tight we are round full figured full of ourselves water we bathe in basil0.71
00:23:13.920and sea salt we're shackled but jump ship anyway sharks fed on our flesh we are ocean now you eat0.99
00:23:20.780us unknowingly drink us in believing you can suck us dry and quiet our storms but we are oya
00:23:26.480settling accounts we are ma'at shifting you can't box us in pin us down or tell our story
00:23:33.200fire we eat men whole when given the chance burn sage incense candles tools of the trade
00:23:39.740dance under moons full we are loud alive stretch things out to fit our shape you itch to see us
00:23:46.980put in our place we are witch wise woman and crone burned at the stake air but we are immortal
00:23:54.800reincarnated in the poems of our daughters we are phoenix eyes in the back of our head we are
00:24:00.080sun kofa bird live betwixt worlds float through walls that you build around us blowing cigar
00:24:05.700smoke in your face we are juke joint speak out both sides of our mouths seeing your future in
00:24:10.940eggshells it's not looking good for you familiars by our side we tag miami haiti and nolans with
00:24:16.980chalk circles drink with legva at the crossroads walk on water masquerading as poet artists and
00:24:23.180mama we eat too many carbs fall in love with men who are afraid to love us back and turn our crooked
00:24:28.740noses up at your traditions jazz poetry and chardin are our religions we are black cat
00:24:35.340crossing your path that poem you wish you were smart enough to write the rhyme you're too afraid0.99
00:24:39.800to spit fucking up the mood we are the ejaculation that comes too quickly gas on a crowded elevator0.99
00:24:44.960the uninvited party guests flirting with your boyfriend and eating all your food an inconvenient0.99
00:24:49.860truth we are those shoes you can't afford to buy that thing you hate but can't let go those pants0.92
00:24:54.920that are too tight around your waist now the song that keeps playing in your head that chick you know0.66
00:24:59.420you're not good enough to bang the one your mama warned you about we are trouble urban sprawl
00:25:04.300haunting your daydreams we are muse inspiring you to get your game up teaching by example we are
00:25:09.840root worker obia lady and conjure woman the scary broad living at the end of the road alone1.00
00:25:15.260glamoring you through forked tongues we make miracles and yes motherfucker we do ride on1.00
00:25:19.660brooms you should be afraid of women like us chastity belted we fuck anyway do what we want1.00
00:25:25.560to do walk but make it in the daytime and come to you at night carrying blessings and justice0.99
00:25:30.980in our left hand machetes and curses in our right in praise of the witch by zoe flowers0.97
00:25:38.960oh my god i fucking love you i just want to soak in everything about that poem over and over again0.89
00:25:47.540it connects to so many witches work poet witches work that i've been immersing myself in and0.97
00:25:55.040And I feel like it really stands vibrant in this tradition of poet witches, Diana Rima and Lucille Clifton and people who really understood this history.
00:26:08.620And, you know, Lucille Clifton really working. We're only learning pieces of this history now, but that she, you know, practiced automatic writing and communicated with her mother and her ancestors and brought all of this into her poetry.
00:26:22.200but I feel like from what I understand her poetry I mean two-headed woman she's referring explicitly
00:26:31.340to to channeled work and working with spirit but the poetry is something different than the
00:26:37.280automatic writing and then the channeled work the part is you right can you can you talk about how
00:26:43.280that works for you that difference or if it's yeah that's such a good question so I have two
00:26:49.660examples so when we were working on ashes my friend Sherry Pullum she's my co-writer
00:26:59.320so I would write something I would send it to her and she you know Gemini honey so it just was never
00:27:06.520she always was like I think I just think you have something else that you can give I just0.98
00:27:12.340this is so I would hate to give her anything because her eye she don't miss nothing right
00:27:17.840and so she was so we had this ending that i hated and so i i wrote this thing i sent it to her she
00:27:25.680was like yeah no this is not the ending this i think you can do better i was furious so i went
00:27:31.520home and i was like before i went to bed i was like ancestors give me the poem because i have
00:27:39.280nothing i was just like i have nothing i i you know that's what i said i have nothing else to
00:27:43.540I've written it all. I asked the ancestors, I went to bed, I opened my eyes and there's this
00:27:52.400phone call. Sometimes I hear voices. Boom. I just woke up. They just gave it to me. I just like
00:27:57.760rolled over, sent it to her. She was like, Oh my God, this is it. Right. So that, that was a pure
00:28:06.180channeling I ask they gave it to me that doesn't happen that much with my poetry
00:28:15.720typically what happens with my poetry is I'm responding to something a heartache
00:28:26.040something that's happened politically something that I'm working through or working on
00:28:34.760a movie that I've seen. So, so typically that's different, you know, it's, it's not really
00:28:44.020channeling in that way. I don't really channel my poetry in that way. Now there are other things
00:28:54.360that I work on. Like, so I did a short film called Road, which is about a black witch living0.78
00:29:00.560in Brooklyn that was straight up channeling the character Caroline who's like the great great
00:29:10.700grandmother of my main character Caroline came to me five six years ago boom I'm like meditating
00:29:20.040and I hear this voice first of all I'm not in a witch and I just start writing she's like I'm a
00:29:25.540time traveler I'm this I'm that so I started just reading that in different places as a short story
00:29:33.340then one day I come home I look down my street I live on a very beautiful block so I look down
00:29:40.440my block and I'm like this is such a beautiful street and all of a sudden the whole film just
00:29:46.720starts went in the house I just started writing I just started writing so so they give me
00:29:54.720like stories but the poetry is different and so once that story started coming
00:30:04.720then I was like oh snap is this Caroline because so then I went back into my computer and I see
00:30:11.360care and I'm like oh shit this is your story like so so so they channel stories but the poetry is
00:30:17.840different the poetry is more like here and now i'm thinking a lot these days about um this idea0.90
00:30:25.560of mother trees and mycelial networks so this idea that the forest is one organism and the old
00:30:33.280growth trees are the mother trees but they're deeply connected to every other type of tree
00:30:37.600right and we know now like this incredible scientist suzanne simard has been showing us
00:30:43.420without shadow of a doubt for like 20 years that the trees are passing information between each
00:30:48.660other and they're caring for each other so um i i've been expanding the idea of ancestors for
00:30:56.300myself um into the the biome the biome around me right because for me it's not just i i don't feel
00:31:04.840comfortable with the idea of just these white settler ancestors standing around me with their
00:31:10.840complicated and problematic experiences and big hearts and all of that but that behind them and
00:31:17.640beyond them there's this sort of greater web of life and that's my ancestors too you know the the
00:31:24.460web of inspiration the stories comes from all of it for me is how I've been trying to understand it
00:31:29.680reckon with it um I wondered if you could talk about your poem has such a joyful and
00:31:37.680angry sometimes maybe to embrace of different witch traditions and race of different ancestors
00:31:45.860and I know um some black practitioners have felt uncomfortable with the idea of which you know
00:31:54.820that let's not muddle it up it's who do what I do or you know it's yeah like and that I mean I
00:32:01.020it's totally beautiful and valid these are different traditions but you kind of call them
00:32:05.660all in in that poem can you talk about how you think about that yeah yeah so I definitely have
00:32:13.420been a person who's um the more I got down this path Reiki so I'm a Reiki master so that Reiki
00:32:20.440really opened things up I really began to hear more when I got attuned to Reiki and then I noticed
00:32:28.060that I could put things together like spiritual baths all of a sudden like oh put this herb in
00:32:37.560and this and oh and I can do oils too oh my gosh okay so let me do that then you know a couple
00:32:44.740years ago my hairdresser was like you know my feet really hurt because of standing all day
00:32:48.960can you make me a cream okay I'll try boom boom boom gave her the cream she was like
00:32:54.660my leg my feet don't hurt anymore my knees don't hurt anymore so I've been doing these things for
00:33:00.660like six or seven years now and I never really felt comfortable either with the term which for
00:33:08.180the same reason that the other black practitioners probably felt and so then I started reading up
00:33:16.980on hoodoo is very much in alignment with what I'm doing now it feels very organic
00:33:29.840like I would do pagan things because just like the church that is what I had access to
00:33:37.020when I was living in Atlanta that's what the stores all the stores that was what they catered to
00:33:42.180And it wasn't that it didn't resonate. It just didn't feel like it 100% worked. And that could have been just where I was, too. Who knows?
00:33:57.620but um but i've experienced it you know i've i've i've i've pretty much dabbled in many different
00:34:10.160religions and practices like i was studying judaism for a minute right so i've studied
00:34:17.620so many different things and hoodoo feels very authentic because i do use the bible i never
00:34:24.520stopped looking at the bible metaphysicians talk about the bible as a book of spells so i was like
00:34:31.500oh great so i don't have to throw the bible away i can use it with intention so even before i knew
00:34:38.140what hoodoo was over 10 years ago more than that because i've been in new york 10 years so
00:34:42.380god oh my god like 20 years ago i was walking around my home with the bible going from corner
00:34:51.860to corner like because i because things i was in this house like things were crazy the money was
00:34:57.960funny and i just picked up the bible and i would just go from room to room proclaiming just reading
00:35:04.880different psalms and things like that now come to find out that's like a very popular hoodoo practice
00:35:11.180so it's i i went through all these other things but hoodoo is where i landed but and i like these
00:35:22.720other practices too so let's put let's put the forked tongue let's put the crooked nose right
00:35:29.960because it can't it's a praise poem so it's all the things that people said that were bad
00:35:35.600and let's lift them up you know i practice ifa so i'm gonna put the orisha into that
00:35:44.080as well so you know pretty much what i'm talking about is everything that i've done i do that with
00:35:52.420you know i things i talk about are things that i've done and that's one of the things i say with
00:35:56.440my students like i'm it's not theory like the methods and the things like that that i'm sharing
00:36:02.440these are things that I actually did with myself to heal right and so things that are in my poetry
00:36:10.220these are things that I live you know I'm not one of these like people who are talking theory
00:36:15.480these are like you know things that make me be able to have a smile on my face
00:36:22.440after everything that I've been through you know I wonder if you can share
00:36:30.660sometimes we ask um or i often ask uh which is found guests when we start to get towards the end
00:36:39.000if they have a ritual or a practice or a healing meditation or a spell or an incantation that they
00:36:50.780could share with listeners and i wondered if i can plant that seed with you and then maybe maybe
00:36:57.380this will get us there um but i because i would also like to close with a poem but i i wondered
00:37:04.140if you could also talk a little bit about your equity work and how your own experiences
00:37:12.080and your ritual experiences and you're connecting with spirit and you're connecting with magic
00:37:18.100how does that feed into your anti-racist work your equity work well
00:37:25.420all of it I'm just I'm looking in my uh I have a I have a cute ink I have a cute uh incantation
00:37:34.560okay okay yeah yeah I'm planting three seeds at once and you're like on it you're pulling up
00:37:41.080three trees yeah yeah yeah so um so it feeds it right because the myth of white supremacy0.90
00:37:49.200is the same, the same thing that is, that said that black people are bad is the same thing that0.97
00:37:56.780said women are bad. The same, the same mindset that said witches are bad. So, so mainly when0.99
00:38:04.420I'm going to schools, I'm reading excerpts from my play. That's when I get to really talk about
00:38:13.020by magic so I did I went to Yale I spoke at Yale we did excerpts from my show and then I did a
00:38:21.000presentation called using magic to heal from domestic and sexual violence in like 2017