Missing Witches - Witches Found： Danielle Dulsky - Blessed Be The Tales We Tell

00:00:00.000 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:06.560 You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:10.460 Welcome, everybody. 0.91

00:00:11.860 Welcome back to the Missing Witches podcast.

00:00:15.720 Welcome electrical energy of the spring and the river that I'm near.

00:00:21.880 And of tides changing, elections happening.

00:00:30.000 votes accumulating, black cats circling, and of all the stories that are pushing in

00:00:37.200 at the edges asking to be remembered, I'm going to breathe and remind myself that

00:00:43.700 all of my flaws and nerves and aches are welcome here, and all of yours are too.

00:00:56.100 thanks for showing up in whatever way your body and mind and magic are here with you today

00:01:03.840 and thanks so much to my guest i'm so thrilled we have read danielle dolsky's inspired

00:01:15.180 incantatory writing in our circles before we've we've whispered to each other from bones and

00:01:24.040 honey to shore up our courage and heard stories from members of our circle who studied with

00:01:31.640 Danielle in the hag school and I'm so excited to get to sit virtually through a portal smiling at

00:01:41.780 each other today to talk about this new beautiful book that's been walking with me as I've been

00:01:48.320 going through the strange initiation of radiation here the beautiful night house what an electric

00:01:58.260 book thank you so much for being here how are you and in the spirit of something we remind

00:02:04.920 ourselves of a lot in our coven that we don't have to be who we were five minutes ago who are

00:02:10.300 you today. Wow. Well, thanks for having me. Who am I today? I love that. I don't have to be the

00:02:18.580 same as I was yesterday. I'm not. The new moon dawned yesterday, and I did really feel like it

00:02:24.980 was a threshold moment. So today I identify as a witch, an author, a cat mother, also a dog mother,

00:02:38.260 mother to my sons also but they feel well and whole and also a little bit distant today 0.61

00:02:45.560 so yeah i'll leave it at that witch writer mother i feel that i feel all that witch writer mother

00:02:53.540 magic can you talk about writing this book how was this one the same or different from the other

00:03:02.400 ones? Why did this one feel like it need to be boring now? Yeah, well, so Bones and Honey I wrote

00:03:13.140 very quickly because sort of like when I'm left to my own devices, that's the way I write, you know,

00:03:20.960 in these kind of short, prosy but poetic paragraphs. And then I'm kind of like in and out

00:03:28.100 describing the thing that I find compelling and not going on and on about it so that I had gathered

00:03:35.020 all of these paragraphs of prayers for many years so when it came time to stitch that one together

00:03:41.500 it just kind of like came out really quickly and then this book of fairy tales originally it was

00:03:49.680 going to be a kind of kind of like course in miracles but cooler with fairy tales like that

00:03:56.980 was my intention. That was what it was billed as in the book proposal. And then there was some

00:04:03.200 conversations with my editor and it was like, let's amplify the fairy tales. And then I suddenly

00:04:09.220 was like, well, that's what I've wanted to do this whole time. I just didn't. I know that even

00:04:14.140 with people like us who really love fairy tales, there's still a huge part of our psyches that

00:04:19.740 necessarily takes fairy tales less seriously because they were sold to us as only children's

00:04:25.460 stories and we know how many of them have been Disney-fied. And so, you know, there was like an

00:04:31.500 ache around that because I really want people to take my book seriously. And I know, I know how

00:04:38.400 that word or that phrase fairy tales feels in the body. So, so my mission then was to write a book

00:04:47.300 about fairy tales that also amplified how cool they are and how subversive they are and how

00:04:53.940 they've really been agents of social change for centuries, if not longer. So, you know, once that

00:05:01.480 I always need a kind of like activist mission with my books, or else because I'm Aquarius. And if I

00:05:08.160 don't have that, I feel like what's the point? I'm just kind of screaming into the void. So once I had

00:05:12.920 that kind of angle and fell in love with it and did a lot of research around it, then the book

00:05:19.180 kind of poured out of me really quickly and necessarily so because I had a shorter deadline

00:05:24.480 with this book than any of my other books I've usually had nine months and this one I had three

00:05:29.020 while moving house and basically burning my life down and seeing a new life reborn

00:05:36.400 so this book was really written in in my personal fire also but yeah wild oh my gosh what a tight

00:05:46.820 time frame because there is there's a lot of research in this one like I can see how being

00:05:50.880 able to channel prayers and impressions and responses to the world could come more quickly

00:05:56.200 can you talk about some of the things you discovered in your research that you were like 0.68

00:06:00.480 fuck yes I knew it do you know what I mean yeah well I think I had I might come up with more as 0.98

00:06:10.020 I talk but at least two fuck yes moments and the first one was well I had known that these stories 0.99

00:06:18.700 were primarily transmitted by women collected by men I knew that these stories the so the orally 0.89

00:06:24.600 transmitted fairy tales not the literary fairy tales where we know who the author is but the

00:06:29.060 orally transmitted fairy tales I knew that we don't really know where they come from but what

00:06:35.120 I discovered that was a fuck yes is that there is this strong Jungian idea that they originated

00:06:42.320 in someone's dream. And so, you know, we someone woke up one day like we do and they turn to the 0.92

00:06:50.180 person who's there like, oh, my God, you're not going to believe what I dreamt about. And then

00:06:53.940 the way we still describe a dream to whoever is willing to listen to us when we describe our dream,

00:07:00.800 We tell it like a story. So, you know, we say like, so I was walking down this road and there's this real once upon a time to the dream story. So I love the idea that these weird fairy tales just started as somebody's dream. And then we're just kind of whispered down the lane for centuries, if not thousands of years. And now we have this current incarnation of the story and it may continue to change as we continue to tell it.

00:07:26.240 So that was a big fuck yes moment for me because I'm a huge dream nerd. 0.87

00:07:31.860 So the emergence of the dreams and the fairy tales, that was very cool. 0.99

00:07:36.640 And then the other fuck yes moment was this current of the who I call the warrior bird woman.

00:07:46.220 So there's a story in the night house that's originally called Fitcher's Bird, which is essentially a version of Bluebeard, 0.95

00:07:53.120 But just so much cooler than the versions of Bluebeard that I think that we are used to. And so I was familiar with that story. But what I was not familiar with that came out in the research primarily from the work of Marina Warner.

00:08:06.900 She writes a lot of scholarly fairytale books, and she was talking about how, like, the bird image and Mother Goose, who we're familiar with, and, you know, it was a derogatory way of looking at gossiping women.

00:08:24.480 And these stories were primarily told in like the weaving houses and the birthing rooms. So these were like low class women who were telling these stories. And so they would be looked at as these gossiping bird women that were just like, you know, clapping their beaks when they were talking, but they were telling this story. 0.94

00:08:41.580 And how some of these stories that have these shape shifting bird women in them, that it was sort of a way of striking at that idea that they were being dismissed as these, you know, gossipy kind of low class women.

00:08:54.880 So and not just striking at it, but like taking the power back of that bird woman image.

00:09:02.160 So and there's something there's like some sexual currents to it, too, which is really cool.

00:09:06.540 Like the the idea of the stork coming to drop off the baby, that that is actually the stork being the bird is kind of the sexual act, which I didn't know.

00:09:18.020 So, yeah. So that really led me down a few rabbit holes.

00:09:21.360 But that was another fuck yeah was like this idea of the subversive bird woman that shows up in these fairy tales and how these stories have kind of flown under the radar and weren't hunted or outlawed, although they were in some instances, but not broadly outlawed like we would think magical practices would be because they were able to just be fairy tales. 0.93

00:09:46.580 So when that term fairy tale started being used just in recent centuries, that maybe and we don't know, but maybe that was on purpose to make it look like these stories were just children's stories so that they wouldn't be hunted and outlawed. 0.97

00:10:03.000 So, yeah. So I love things like that. I love I love the histories where like the spells and the recipes were wrapped inside a folk song and it was just kind of dismissed as a song and also fairy tales.

00:10:14.000 so yeah lots of fuck yeah moments around that yeah completely it's taking me a really long time

00:10:22.440 to read this book and I'm usually like an eater of books but because it is there's like there's 0.95

00:10:28.120 work there's a lot of homework yeah which I appreciate it really is like I feel I feel

00:10:35.380 really accompanied where where I'm at right now in doing it through this book I wondered if you

00:10:40.760 could talk about how you were able to sort of find ritual in story places yeah yeah first I'll say

00:10:51.800 yeah the book is dense because again originally it was this court you know we were meant to sort

00:10:57.140 of complete it step by step and then I if I was amplifying the stories I had to out of necessity

00:11:03.160 get away from that a little bit because the stories do have this energetic current to them.

00:11:11.440 And so, you know, if you're familiar with energy medicine, there's an old idea that the medicine

00:11:16.620 always goes to the wound no matter what. And so when you're sitting in a circle with people

00:11:21.440 in real life or virtually and you're sharing a story and then you share a reflection at the end,

00:11:27.260 you can instantly see that everyone saw something different everyone is sort of landing in a

00:11:34.820 different place inside the story there's often very intense and heated conversations because

00:11:39.800 some of these stories cause visceral reactions in people but you can always see at that point

00:11:45.000 that the medicine did go where it needed to go and it's different for everyone so so so it was

00:11:52.780 you know digging out certain rites rituals and spells and small personal ceremonies

00:11:59.380 where not every single one of them is going to fit everybody and the landscape of everybody's

00:12:06.300 life is different so it was trying to figure out three different rites for every story there and

00:12:13.460 there's there were meant to be 13 but really there's 14 stories because I kind of tucked

00:12:18.500 two inside one chapter. There's 14 stories and each of them have these three different rights

00:12:24.000 attached to them. And so as I'm writing, I'm knowing and very conscious of not every single

00:12:30.120 person that reads this book is going to do every single thing that I'm inviting them to do.

00:12:35.360 And then also because of that, there's like some of the stories that are in here, say the German

00:12:43.140 version of Cinderella the Asheville that's in in the night house and I love that version of

00:12:48.380 Cinderella there's a whole manifestation spell that is inside that story that I didn't put there

00:12:55.900 because I was already there and a lot of the stories are like that a lot of the stories

00:13:01.340 already have this spell and even like a spoken charm that were tucked inside this story and so

00:13:08.820 So another fuck yeah moment that I have, though, not really while I was writing the book, it came a little bit before, but still was this this understanding that, yeah, these stories have been translated. 0.67

00:13:21.860 So the so the charm that's in Cinderella, shiver and shake little tree, silver and gold rain down upon me. 0.97

00:13:27.800 That was translated from the German, but it's still so cool and that it has been transmitted at least for centuries.

00:13:35.240 So at least for hundreds of years, if not longer, because again, we don't really know how old these stories are or where they come from.

00:13:42.060 And so the accumulated wisdom and the accumulated power that is now wrapped inside that charm because it's been spoken over the centuries and so many generations.

00:13:52.220 So some of the stories already had the magic wrapped inside them, and I just was amplifying it in the nighthouse.

00:14:00.180 And then there were other stories where it was just kind of looking at the guiding theme and what the different life areas that it might illuminate for whoever was receiving the story.

00:14:11.140 And then, you know, what can be done to mark different thresholds or rites of passage.

00:14:16.060 and then also for purposes of divination,

00:14:20.040 which I think is maybe the easiest

00:14:22.020 and most accessible point for people

00:14:24.320 is just to simply look at,

00:14:26.680 if you're looking for a place to start

00:14:28.500 and you're not going to bury the branch

00:14:30.920 and burn all the things into the things

00:14:32.960 that I was inviting you to do is totally fine.

00:14:35.260 All you need to do is when you hear an old story

00:14:39.500 for the first time,

00:14:41.180 or maybe it's one you've heard before,

00:14:43.040 but you're hearing it now as if for the first time.

00:14:46.060 Then you just kind of listen to that story. Now, the end of the story, you name what feels to you like the missing piece or like the frustrating part of the plot line or like the thing that the character did that upset you so much.

00:14:59.700 You name that thing as in the form of a question, like why did her father do that to her or whatever? And then you ask yourself, well, what's underneath that? And why did I ask that?

00:15:11.820 Like, how is that the very question of my life? I could have asked anything, but I asked that. And that is something that especially in a circle of people where, you know, there's 20 people that are sharing these questions, they are always all different.

00:15:26.420 and so that really reveals a lot when you're hearing like and you're like yeah I kind of

00:15:31.720 wondered that but not really that's not but what about this and it's always like that's your thing

00:15:37.840 that's the very question of your life so in that way the stories if nothing else they're oracular

00:15:44.740 and they sort of point you toward like what the next step is on your journey like maybe that's

00:15:50.940 the next thing that needs to be healed maybe that's the next thing that you're meant to teach

00:15:55.440 but it always shows you like what that next step is just looking at that one question that you have

00:16:01.740 that's apparently just about the story it's never just about the story so yeah I don't even remember

00:16:09.340 what your original question was it doesn't matter no I found that so exciting I was gonna ask you

00:16:15.620 about that exact bit so I'm so happy you brought that up because I do find that that was such an

00:16:22.340 interesting piece for me to add to my own way of working was like why why am I troubled by that

00:16:28.620 one thing why are fairy tales in particular like that for me where I hear a story and I'm annoyed

00:16:35.080 by something or like I'm troubled by something do you know like there's something that feels like

00:16:39.220 this makes no sense or like what is this story for where does this come from you know why did 0.95

00:16:44.520 she listen to the fucking wolf in the first place or whatever it is but I found that really juicy

00:16:51.000 i really loved that idea from you thank you so much can i read you a bit of your own book yes 0.96

00:16:56.600 please hey where was this piece i wanted i want to talk about archetype and i think i'm gonna get

00:17:06.920 here okay i want to talk about archetype but i also want to talk about this idea that you offer

00:17:16.060 us in the swan maiden so you've invited us to sort of hold a personal paradox across our bodies

00:17:25.200 one one on each side and then to sort of rock with it and then to begin sort of shape-shifting

00:17:33.180 back and forth between the two as the rhythm quickens you might begin to sense that a third

00:17:37.500 energy is present a third road opening between this and that an energetic invitation to hold

00:17:44.180 the tension of both roles at once take care with yourself as this work can be intense but begin to

00:17:50.400 sense the both as the power source you are not this and then that you are both at once you are all

00:17:58.580 i want to talk about the third road this is something we talk about so much in our coven

00:18:04.200 the possibility of both and that witchcraft kind of invites us to move between two to not get stuck

00:18:09.340 in binaries. And I was so excited to hear it described as a power source. Can you say more?

00:18:15.240 Yeah, that the raising of the paradox, which is what I call that, is something I've done in my

00:18:22.300 work for, I don't know, at least 15 years and didn't share it with other people for a long time

00:18:29.560 because it was something that I kind of arrived at and nobody really taught me how to do it. I

00:18:34.380 just kind of arrived at this through certain embodied practices and working with energy

00:18:39.560 medicine and energy healing. And then when I started sharing it with other people, you know,

00:18:46.460 seeing the kind of weepy visceral reactions that people would have because and the way they would

00:18:53.620 describe it is, you know, we're so socialized to think that we must be in a pure form all the time.

00:19:01.120 And so, you know, the idea that like, well, I'm only this or I'm only that. And then we know that that's not true. We know that we are this this convergence of all of these different energies and roles and parts and characters and archetypal energies also.

00:19:17.620 So so there's sort of often a sense of being defeated or like that's like a source of weakness that, you know, we're just this kind of energetic mess.

00:19:27.920 But being able to frame that as actually a power source, you know, it's not really doing anything different because it's just sort of naming like you already know these roles converge in you.

00:19:39.540 But now let's look at that as actually the power source that is, if you raise the paradox in that way where you are consciously shifting between this state of being only this and then only that, and then you go quicker and quicker and quicker.

00:19:55.640 So if you are, if we're talking about swan maiden, then the paradox is sort of the tame, civilized self, which is likely very palatable to the, well, maybe not very, but it's at least more palatable to the overculture.

00:20:11.420 It's the part of you that you show the world. It's, you know, what you list on your taxes, your career or whatever. And then that's fine. And we need to be that. But then there's this wilder, uncivilized, more creaturely self.

00:20:25.640 That's probably less palatable to the overculture and not just to the overculture, but maybe even to your people and in some cases also to you sometimes. And so being able to be like, okay, I'm only the civilized self. How do they spend their days? Where do they find meaning? And then I'm only the wild self. How does this creature find meaning in life? What would it be like to be only that?

00:20:49.240 And generally there's a feeling of like, well, I don't want to be only this or only that ever. And so you're just shifting between the two energetically and you try to raise the paradox by going quicker and quicker and quicker until this third thing that generally transcends language.

00:21:06.960 Usually people struggle to describe what this third road or third way is, but it is the all, like I say in the book, it is the convergence of this and that until this third thing emerges and then that becomes the power source.

00:21:22.260 So in a spell container, you can then use that as the power source to infuse the intention.

00:21:28.640 You can also use it for divination where you sort of feel like you're looking through that portal that opens up that is that third road or third way.

00:21:37.740 So those are the two different ways that I use it.

00:21:40.180 But yeah, almost always when you ask people to name two roles that they play in life that they know they're both, but it feels like they can't be both at once.

00:21:50.980 That if they are going to be the wolf woman on the mountain, they can't be the banker. Right. And and then vice versa. But when you raise the paradox, you realize, well, I am the wolf woman banker and that actually that is a power source and not something that should be a source of defeat.

00:22:09.080 So, yeah. But the stories really illuminate that. The old stories really illuminate that idea, especially the shape-shifting woman stories, because they almost always have this kind of land self that is more civilized where they are maybe the wife or the mother for a time, but they never remain that.

00:22:30.040 And so often these stories have endings that seem sad because they're kind of love stories that don't have the happy ending. But really, at the end, she's returning to her bird form in the Swan Maiden or her seal form in the Selkie stories or her fox form, if it's the fox woman story.

00:22:48.620 There's all of these different sort of shape-shifting woman stories where the initiation, the cave, isn't the sky or the water. It's the house. And, you know, being housewife and doing the mundane task, that that's sort of the underworld cave. And then the emergence comes when she returns to the animal form. So I know that that's relatable for a lot of people.

00:23:12.580 yeah completely can you talk about being a witch in the fascist era yeah we're all doing the best

00:23:24.080 we can i think at least as as i am witch and getting older and so you know i'm really thinking

00:23:35.460 about I was born in 1980 and seeing the way the world has changed you too oh well so yeah so we've

00:23:42.960 seen a lot and and if we didn't see it ourselves we heard about it from our grandparents and our

00:23:49.700 parents and so thinking about the parallel between our own personal myths and you know the stories

00:23:58.060 that we really identify with that we personally have lived and our initiations that feel like

00:24:03.220 part of the smaller story, but really the way that has mirrored and reflected the world

00:24:09.580 story and the global underworld journey.

00:24:12.280 I think most people can name, for instance, in 2020 and 2021, a big personal initiation

00:24:18.960 that was going on that kind of seemed a little bit independent of the gnarly world story

00:24:25.180 that was going on.

00:24:26.220 So I think a part of me as which, yes, there's activist and there's rage and righteous rage and all of that. And then there's also being able to kind of step back a little bit and not anymore for me be so in awe that I get to be here for this. I still have that.

00:24:49.300 But in 2020, I used to cry all the time, like, I can't believe I get to be here for this. This is obviously a wild moment. But now there's this, which is still a wild moment, but in a different way. And I do feel in a weird way lucky to be here for it.

00:25:04.800 Like, I don't really know how the story ends. I don't know that I'm going to get to see how the story ends. But I feel privileged that I can step back and kind of behold the narrative, which, yeah, my witchcraft helps me do that, but so does my storytelling.

00:25:21.880 like that this narrative intelligence which is sort of being able to step back and behold the

00:25:27.900 larger arc and plot line in the story is is helpful because then you're like well what

00:25:34.560 character am i in this weird story so yeah i don't know if that answers your question that's

00:25:41.940 what i have today yeah how do you think our personal stories work with the energy of the

00:25:50.180 of the over story of the larger story. I think you're so right when you point out that

00:25:54.620 everybody went through a transformation that felt really personal and somehow separate

00:25:59.700 from the crisis. Why does that happen? How does it work together? What do you think?

00:26:07.600 Yeah, I mean, in the end, I don't know. But I do think that...

00:26:13.840 I mean, how could you? But I'd love to hear what you think.

00:26:15.920 Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's fine. I love to tell people what I think all the time.

00:26:21.560 I love having opinions. And I want you to just have a big caveat around all of my opinions.

00:26:29.360 I think, you know, the simple answer is that we are co-created. You know, the characters that we

00:26:35.940 are in the story that we are living, we are co-created not just by our families and our

00:26:41.660 people but and our local communities but also from this global community at large which we

00:26:47.260 if you were born in 1980 you know we were born in a time where we weren't really connected

00:26:51.400 to the global community not in the same way and you know went through all of school before the

00:26:56.580 birth of the internet so having this this this kind of weird you know connectivity all over the

00:27:04.420 world and yet complete lack of intimacy in some instances you know via social media doesn't

00:27:10.400 necessarily feel that intimate to me so you know I think the reason why sometimes our smaller

00:27:16.580 stories mirror the larger story is just because of the way we are communicating and we're able to

00:27:22.080 to kind of see our role in this story that's so much bigger than us that started before we were

00:27:28.560 born that you know won't be over until long after we're dead in this incarnation anyway so

00:27:33.460 yeah so why does it happen I don't really know but I know that it happens it really does

00:27:40.380 Okay. Can you talk about archetypes and magic a little bit?

00:27:45.680 Yeah. So archetype means high form or original form.

00:27:50.520 So an archetype is essentially the original blueprint of a particular energy, a particular thing.

00:27:58.380 And so one of my favorite quotes about archetypes, Dr. Esty said in a training that I did with her back in 2019,

00:28:05.320 which was, and she kind of like said it as a one-off and like didn't really expand upon it,

00:28:10.640 but I wrote it down and I underlined it because she said, archetypes don't understand our human

00:28:14.820 needs. And I do think when you are in need of a medicinal archetype in your life, so for instance,

00:28:23.260 the sovereign archetype, which is so common in the old stories, the king, the queen, the princess,

00:28:29.540 the princesses, that you sort of get so attracted to it. And there's sometimes an unhealthy

00:28:36.740 over-identification with that archetypal energy. And, you know, it's coming from a good

00:28:42.040 impulse. It's coming from this place like, well, I need this medicine. Let's say you've just gotten

00:28:47.740 out of a relationship where you had no power or control whatsoever. Then there's this craving to

00:28:53.220 be queen and put the crown on. And yet, if you become only queen, if you invite that archetypal

00:28:59.920 energy in and that's sort of the story you are living day in and day out, then, you know, you

00:29:05.820 might be stepping into a place where you're not just getting your power back, but you might be

00:29:10.660 exerting that power over other people and getting more into the shadow form of the ruler archetype.

00:29:16.520 So archetypes are kind of these bubbles of meaning that are very like small gods.

00:29:23.820 And I know that lots of witches argue with me about that.

00:29:26.760 And I know that there are traditions where that wouldn't make sense.

00:29:29.640 But to my mind, it's like a deity would be this deep well of power.

00:29:37.820 So an example that I often give, I work a lot with Queen Maeve in my witchcraft and my entire mother line is Irish.

00:29:46.520 So I have ancestors that have paid into this deep well of power that is Queen Maeve.

00:29:52.760 Every time I light a candle for her or put some wine or honey on her altar, which she likes, then I'm putting a deposit into that deep well of power that is Queen Maeve.

00:30:02.760 So that when I call on Queen Maeve energy in a manifestation spell or something like that, I'm kind of making this small energetic withdrawal.

00:30:10.640 But I can do that because I've paid into it and my ancestors have paid into this well of power.

00:30:15.160 Archetypes are the same.

00:30:16.520 Archetypes are this well of power.

00:30:18.640 And every time somebody tells a story with a king or a queen in it, it's getting amplified

00:30:23.260 in that particular way.

00:30:24.860 So archetypes can be medicinal or they can be problematic depending on, you know, if

00:30:31.780 we're already swimming in that archetypal energy, which we know that king energy, we've

00:30:38.420 been swimming in that energy for hundreds of years.

00:30:40.940 So this but the stories that have kings, queens, princes and princesses in them, I know that that's often a core complaint about fairy tales because it's like we don't care about these royal people showing up in the stories, but it's the sovereign archetype.

00:30:57.100 So if there's a king or a queen in the story, remember, these were told by the midwives and the weaver women, they were never told by the kings and the queens. So, you know, the things that happened to the kings and the queens in these stories, it isn't usually like they start in power and then they're still in power at the end of the story.

00:31:15.160 There's some great transformation that the kings, queens, princes, and princesses are going through.

00:31:20.940 And we look at that then as mirroring what our own inner sovereign is going through.

00:31:27.420 So the inner sovereign is the part of you that sets your rules, that remakes your boundaries and takes down the old ones when they don't make sense anymore.

00:31:35.840 So we can always see that the archetypes that are showing up in the old stories, they are meant to teach and transform and maybe be embodied and understood for a time, but never forever, because then you'll be dreaming about them and you'll start dressing like them.

00:31:56.520 And, you know, if I was only Queen Maeve, she was she was a badass, but she was often at war.

00:32:03.600 There was a weird relationship with her sons and I have said, so I don't want to necessarily she died by getting shot in the head with a piece of cheese.

00:32:10.280 I don't want that. Not ideal.

00:32:15.000 I mean, she is maybe better than other things, but right.

00:32:18.940 So archetypes are cool there. I know they're compelling.

00:32:22.040 There's a little bit of like, what's the right word? Attention around them. You know, they aren't soft. They are these kind of sharp energies that are just the purest form of that thing. So sometimes we need a little bit of that medicine and sometimes it's not particularly great.

00:32:38.860 yeah that's so interesting way of thinking about the sovereign I have a little kid and she's like

00:32:50.480 really heavy into princesses but like they're superheroes you know yeah yeah it makes sense

00:33:02.440 like princesses and princes and stories they're the maturing sovereign so you know i think that

00:33:10.500 it's a healthy thing to identify i know the disney version of the princess might have weirdness

00:33:17.440 around it but it's a healthy childhood impulse i think to identify with the prince or the princess

00:33:23.680 archetype and especially developmentally like that you're so accurate about that that like it's

00:33:30.240 a sense of control for her of her own sovereign self yeah yeah exactly right she's figuring out

00:33:36.640 what she can get away with where the boundaries should go what you know what can I say to this

00:33:41.180 person and not say to that person that's the inner princess and we still have the inner princess

00:33:46.800 yeah even just developing an eye like an eye separate from you separate from your parents

00:33:54.320 or whatever that that piece of identity I want to know more about so there's this sort of I

00:34:01.860 question that I always have with people who are powerful it's the like

00:34:08.500 in a just phrase it in a joking way but you'll know what I mean it's the like

00:34:12.880 who gave you permission do you know

00:34:15.160 yeah who gave me permission i know i think about a student in one of my yoga classes forever ago

00:34:25.780 and i forget what we were doing some ritual you know something that was not of traditional

00:34:31.940 yoga and they were like are you allowed to do to do this in here um i grew up in this weird

00:34:42.640 household where, and I know that we all did, but my particular brand of weird was my mother,

00:34:49.080 especially at certain phases of my childhood, was very born-again Christian. She kind of renounced

00:34:55.400 Irish Catholicism that she grew up with, and she was this born-again Christian. And I was enrolled

00:35:01.200 in a Christian school and also went to church twice a week. And then my father, who they were

00:35:09.300 they were married and divorced three times it was a very volatile relationship they had

00:35:14.720 married and divorced three times before i turned 16 so it wasn't like over the landscape of my

00:35:21.500 entire life just to each other over and over again yes wow okay each other making and unmaking your

00:35:28.000 world over and over again yeah yeah and he was this kind of atheist outlaw vietnam vet biker

00:35:36.640 And so he was godless and was proud of it. And so, you know, and they they raised me. And then half of the time when because they also were both involved in their individual addictions, so they weren't able to raise children for a lot of my childhood.

00:35:54.260 So I was at my paternal grandparents house, which was totally different cookies in the oven, loving household. You know, how was school today? You know, I didn't have that parents house. And so so this this the father that I had being really a criminal in a lot of ways.

00:36:14.720 I mean, one of my favorite stories about him, which is alive because it's an Easter story, is it was like my mom was a night nurse. 0.96

00:36:22.940 She was working Easter Eve and my dad has a 2 a.m. oh shit moment because he was supposed to get the Easter baskets and stuff for my sister and I.

00:36:33.240 So he calls his biker friends or maybe they were already at the house. 0.83

00:36:37.020 I don't know. But he gets on the motorcycles and they go into town and they throw a brick through the toy store window.

00:36:44.360 And they steal the entire Easter display of like the stuffed bunnies and the candy.

00:36:49.180 And they're like driving through the town with the stuffed bunnies under their arms.

00:36:54.100 So it was illegal.

00:36:57.100 And yet my sister and I remember that Easter morning just being like the greatest Easter morning ever.

00:37:03.300 So so I grew up with this parental figure who was really if I had to like distill one lesson that my father gave me.

00:37:11.080 he died in 2007. It's like, figure out how much you can get away with always and do exactly that

00:37:18.180 much. Like, don't don't be too timid and step back. Like, you know, go to that boundary line.

00:37:24.320 So your question about like, who gave you permission? My father gave me permission

00:37:28.920 because it was like, you know, he wasn't a witch in any way, but he was very, you know,

00:37:35.780 he lived his life the way he lived his life and he got away with it most of the time and I live a

00:37:41.820 very different life from my father I'm not robbing toy stores in the middle of the night but I do

00:37:47.120 kind of feel especially now when there are technically legal things that are going on that

00:37:53.620 I know are not right you know the legal or the illegal whether it's what I'm allowed to do as a

00:37:59.280 witch or what I'm allowed to do and not get arrested it's the same for me it's like I'm

00:38:04.400 going to do exactly what I feel is right. And if I remember a teacher in the past that gave me

00:38:11.760 permission to do it, great. And if it's something that I just feel from my own gnosis is the right

00:38:18.580 thing to do, then I'm going to do that too. I don't know that I would have answered that question

00:38:24.940 the same way yesterday, but that's how I feel today. I feel that. I do. I remember walking

00:38:32.520 with my dad I would stay with him for like a week in the summers and I remember walking with him

00:38:37.540 through Kensington Market in Toronto and walking through all the red lights and sort of hesitating

00:38:43.320 because that's not really how things were in the rest of my life and him telling me like you got

00:38:48.260 to practice breaking small laws so you don't get used to authoritarianism okay okay good good

00:38:55.580 important note yes exactly like go back to the suburbs with that information

00:39:04.700 trying not to be like so so good all the time I mean that was a huge part of my upbringing and

00:39:14.700 then like having the tension between the Christian school where you just had to be a good girl or you

00:39:19.880 would get punished and then having my father be like you know that's not really true yeah

00:39:28.540 yeah i really get that especially now i'm staying in montreal again and i take the metro to

00:39:34.100 the hospital to do radiation every day and i go by my old private catholic girls school

00:39:40.460 and the girls get on and off and i see this reflection of myself you know no hair my breasts

00:39:46.700 have been cut and removed like I'm moving through layers of time and I I'm just very aware of the

00:39:53.140 fact that we all are you know that we're moving past these versions of ourselves and and and that

00:39:59.320 it is invented in a way that like my will matters it's not the only thing that matters otherwise I

00:40:05.460 probably wouldn't have chosen this but it does matter I'm participating in shaping this you know

00:40:11.840 You're right. Yeah, absolutely.

00:40:15.820 That does bring me to, can I read a little bit from right the very end?

00:40:19.860 Is that okay?

00:40:20.880 Wait, nobody ever reads my own books to me.

00:40:24.580 This is very special.

00:40:26.780 I really enjoy reading these out loud because there's a lot of really powerful magic in them, but also the language is very juicy.

00:40:35.200 Thank you.

00:40:35.860 All right, so this is really towards the end, and it's an invitation and such an exciting one.

00:40:45.760 You write, the rooms you visited in the nighthouse in these pages are an invitation to become a tale tender.

00:40:53.360 To initiate means to begin, after all, so begin now.

00:40:58.080 Initiate the new story.

00:41:00.200 Tell a tale that troubles the systems in your world that you would like to see fall.

00:41:05.860 That wakes the very beast that will swallow the outmoded structure's hole.

00:41:10.660 That dismantles the old beliefs and burns their house to the ground.

00:41:15.480 That bewitches the kings to lay down their swords and amplifies the sound of the bones' song.

00:41:22.020 Bring others to the night house.

00:41:24.320 Now you know the way.

00:41:27.060 Yes.

00:41:28.380 Shall we unpack more of this invitation for us?

00:41:32.140 How do we leave here and use stories to dismantle what's dangerous and violent in the overculture?

00:41:40.360 I think the simple, well, I guess I don't want to use the word simple, but the most accessible way to go about it is to, for me, if I'm looking for a certain story that's going to like give me all the answers or whatever, I almost never find it.

00:42:01.320 I have to start from this place of just being open and looking for the story that's coming for me or usually returning for me.

00:42:12.480 So usually the stories that I feel I'm meant to tell and tend are stories that I've heard, that I've known maybe for a very long time, and they've shown up in many different ways.

00:42:25.860 So if I look, I can see that, you know, Cinderella shows up in the movie Anora, for example.

00:42:34.760 So, you know, these these old stories, the plot is the same and it just keeps getting reincarnated and certain different details get amplified.

00:42:42.540 But it still shows up in these accessible places like the Netflix series that we're streaming and also more mystically in sometimes our dreams.

00:42:52.700 Again, if we sort of look at our dreams like a story, then we can sort of be able to become more open for a guiding story to find us.

00:43:03.900 And an important point, and this comes from Joseph Campbell's work, he emphasizes this in several of his books where like you almost always kind of feel like you're dancing around it.

00:43:15.480 Like you're never going to feel like you're doing it right.

00:43:18.820 You're never going to feel like I found the exact right story. This is totally mine, because there's always going to be something in the plot that doesn't make sense or that you think is too weird.

00:43:27.720 And then you want to just kind of throw out the whole story. Don't do that, because sometimes it's just one image in the story that gives you the answer.

00:43:35.720 So you can almost look for that most vivid image. So this is my recommendation.

00:43:40.820 you you sort of let's say you feel like sleeping beauty is a thing because you kind of remember it

00:43:46.760 from childhood and maybe you've been seeing roses over and over again and for some reason there's a

00:43:52.320 meme that you saw on instagram that you ended up saving so don't necessarily only look to the

00:43:58.040 magical places because it can be the relatively mundane places that the story shows up so let's

00:44:02.440 say it's that and you're like i think maybe sleeping beauty is a thing read at least three

00:44:07.540 different versions of it or watch if you watch the Disney movie that would count but you try to read

00:44:12.920 at least three different versions so that you can then see what the bones of the story are you can

00:44:18.280 then see what doesn't really change if you can find original collected versions of the story

00:44:24.040 then that's good but they can also just be somebody's blog that you know they decided to

00:44:28.800 revision this story and then you kind of let it sit so you read different versions of it you kind

00:44:35.020 of let it sit you ask yourself what is the loudest image in this story so say it's a rose you go find

00:44:41.780 that in nature so let's say you find a rock that looks like a rose you put it on your altar and you

00:44:47.520 just let it brew you let it sit and then you'll know when it's time to speak the story out loud

00:44:54.980 maybe it's like three days maybe it's like three months or a year but you'll get to a place if you

00:45:00.480 have the altar for the story especially you'll get to a place where it's time to speak the story

00:45:06.160 out loud and importantly let it be witnessed if only by your cat and your dog and your ghosts

00:45:12.160 ideally there's a living person that's listening to you because it does change it a little bit but

00:45:16.520 you you allow that you have this sense of i'm not just telling it alone in the dark i'm speaking to

00:45:21.700 my ancestors or to future me or to someone and then when you and only when you speak the story

00:45:28.740 out loud do you realize that it is oracular because there's going to be something you say

00:45:35.460 that you didn't expect to say there's going to be a character that you describe in this weird way 0.94

00:45:40.500 and you're like where the fuck did that come from it's as if the other world is just speaking right 0.96

00:45:45.220 through you and you don't really get that proof for yourself until you take the leap and try to 0.98

00:45:52.460 tell it it'll be imperfect you'll forget bits and you'll have to go back and it's okay still

00:45:57.600 There'll be these moments where you as the teller realize why you are speaking this story out loud.

00:46:04.780 And once you get to that point, you can't help it.

00:46:07.620 You're going to tell the story again and again, probably for the rest of your life.

00:46:11.580 But you don't get to that place until you speak the story out loud for the first time and you have that witch's proof that like, oh, there is something in this story that I didn't get until I let it spill from my tongue.

00:46:24.900 so yeah bring others to the night house now you know the way that's what I meant by that

00:46:32.600 does telling it to others how does it change them do you think or like what is it about

00:46:40.960 stories that the way that they travel that has some kind of power well I think it has I don't

00:46:49.040 No, but I think it has something to do with a story is always co-created by the teller, the people that are listening to it or reading it.

00:46:59.700 And then this other thing that I'm just going to call the other world, or sometimes I call it the wild unseen.

00:47:06.440 It's the implicate realm that's less visible to us where all the visible things are from where all of the visible things are sourced.

00:47:15.520 so when there's more people that are listening to it then we have more of these variables that

00:47:20.960 are coming in to change the story and let it become something new so that's what I think I do

00:47:26.640 have a knowing in my experience that like if I'm if I'm going to tell a story for the first time

00:47:33.800 to a group then I'm practicing it in you know while I'm curling my hair or the while I'm just

00:47:39.820 talking to my cat or going for a walk and I'm you know getting to the point where I'm familiar

00:47:45.260 enough with the plot that I feel comfortable to tell this story but I still know that when I speak

00:47:49.900 that story in the room with all those people there's going to be something new that comes out

00:47:54.500 and I also have a knowing that it doesn't always seem to be for me like that new thing that I

00:48:01.860 amplify I'm thinking of this moment when I told the Handless Maiden story which is a story I've

00:48:06.200 told 10 million times and I was just getting so into describing the devil and I don't usually

00:48:13.540 Like I usually like write off the devil as this weird character in the story and I'm just so into describing the devil. And then at the end, someone came up to me and revealed a story and I'm like, that's why I was doing that.

00:48:26.260 You know, it wasn't just me. It was I was doing that unconsciously for them describing the devil in this particular way. So I think it has something to do with that. There's just more energetic hands afoot when there's more people. And the story is going to become what it needs to become, regardless of what I'm intending as the facilitator.

00:48:47.140 that's such an exciting way to describe it and i know that you're right especially as a mom of a

00:48:53.740 kid that has like told remembered you know she's asking the origin stories for mermaids and i'm

00:48:58.300 remembering a story about melusine and i'm sort of making it up and things are coming instead of

00:49:02.640 me she's like weeping and it's really emotional for her and trying to understand why it's hitting

00:49:08.440 her so much you know and just something spun between us that the idea is like going back to

00:49:15.540 the magical world or or being or leaving your family behind because they didn't they didn't

00:49:20.420 trust you behind the closed door you and your magic or something you know right yeah yeah and

00:49:28.620 like I think in in modern witchcraft something that we don't readily have at least not often

00:49:36.140 is proof that our own words are powerful you know I think maybe that's especially true for newer

00:49:43.700 witches but you're reading out of the spell book and you know maybe it's a charm that is was written

00:49:49.620 10 years ago and not one that was written 500 years ago but you're still repeating it and it

00:49:55.500 feels a little bit rote so we don't often encounter in our witchcraft these opportunities

00:50:01.460 to not only allow something else to kind of speak through us because we know that that's scary but

00:50:07.380 if you're just telling a story it's a little bit less scary and it is still happening and then

00:50:12.220 And proof that like, oh, those words really mattered and they came out of me, but also not really.

00:50:18.860 We don't have a lot of places in our witchcraft where we allow that to happen, I don't think.

00:50:23.520 And so storytelling, and I teach this sometimes, like storytelling can be a backdoor to any number of magical practices, especially working with a deity.

00:50:34.840 Like if you're feeling called to work with a particular goddess, for example, and you aren't really sure how to do it, and you've got all the old church wounds, and you're like not wanting to pray to anybody and all of that. I've heard all of that, and I've lived all of that. And so find a story that's part of their mythology and just begin to kind of map that story and speak the story out loud. Again, build the altar to the story.

00:50:56.420 and you know you're just telling the story of this particular goddess but you're not like there's

00:51:02.440 something else something much bigger that starts to come through you and you know it can be the

00:51:07.740 beginning of a lifelong relationship and kinship with that particular goddess so yeah stories can

00:51:15.080 open all sorts of magical doors thank you so much for opening these little doors for us in this

00:51:21.700 conversation into your practice and your way of thinking and your life opening a little bit of

00:51:27.700 the night house I really invite anybody listening to this to get your hands on this beautiful book

00:51:33.560 and spend time doing this magic decades of life lived in magic that are woven and centuries that

00:51:40.660 are woven through this beautiful book do you want to tell folks where they should go to find you

00:51:46.100 the most exciting ways to get involved in your work these days? Well, I have two websites.

00:51:53.800 Actually, I have three websites, but you can just go to danieldolsky.com. That's the main one.

00:51:58.900 And then that will open these other doors to these other websites if you feel called to go

00:52:03.380 that direction. I teach writing a lot. I teach, you know, traditional book proposal writing and

00:52:09.600 how to script that. And so I have a program that's open for registration right now. And then I also

00:52:15.280 have virtual cubbins and longer year-long witchcraft apprenticeships so yeah i do a lot 0.97

00:52:23.540 she does it all folks join the hag school this year up for it all right thanks everybody 0.95

00:52:31.720 thanks danielle all blessings be thank you thank you you too we say blessed fucking be blessed 0.95

00:52:38.560 if I can be 0.99

00:52:39.540 you must be a witch 1.00

Missing Witches - June 12, 2025

Witches Found： Danielle Dulsky - Blessed Be The Tales We Tell

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