Missing Witches - April 24, 2025


You Are Larch Kin： Wild and Rising

Topics
clinical trials and cancer hope larch kin
You Are Chamomile Kin - Gentle Does Not Mean Weak Beltane 2025 w Amanda Amour Lynx, Granddaughter Crow and Patty Krawec： Now Our Bird Has Flown

Episode Stats


Length

25 minutes

Words per minute

116.13

Word count

2,980

Sentence count

155

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

20

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 When the time comes, Larch are an overwhelming, undeniable presence all across the landscape,
00:00:08.540 glowing gold down every hillside, demanding that every witness recognize that the times,
00:00:15.800 they are a-changing. 1.00
00:00:18.000 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00
00:00:20.780 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:22.120 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:22.440 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:23.300 Be a witch. 1.00
00:00:24.380 You must be a witch.
00:00:25.680 much of the year you can almost forget they're there they blend in with the evergreens in summer
00:00:34.540 and with the deciduous in the season of the sticks walking in a kind of lockstep growing
00:00:42.540 to the same height as other larches in their stand growing in poor soil pulling carbon out
00:00:49.100 of the atmosphere and making sweetness in their very marrow bones partner dancing with ice wind
00:00:55.560 and fire, they quietly flourish. And they do it together, sharing sunlight. Larch trees grow best
00:01:04.880 when they have plenty of space. If they're too crowded, they don't grow wide very well. So larch
00:01:10.940 pull back to share the light so every tree can grow. Survival of the fittest just doesn't sum it
00:01:18.900 up. Larch demonstrate a species-wide wisdom. If we grow together, we all can grow tall.
00:01:28.860 Listeners, we insist upon this. We are Larchkin. If we go together, we all can grow tall.
00:01:39.920 Understanding a little bit now that there is more to this place than can be seen on the surface.
00:01:48.900 I started chemo last larch season.
00:02:06.340 I drove down my little mountain highway, and they stood bright yellow and waving.
00:02:11.200 I did four rounds, two months of biweekly dose dents, adriomycin, and cyclophosphamide chemo,
00:02:19.740 before starting my three months of weekly taxol.
00:02:23.180 That first round consisted of a combination of a drug developed from mustard gas,
00:02:28.340 yellow warfare in my veins, and a drug developed from red soil,
00:02:33.220 bacteria specific to an ancient Roman fort on the edge of the Adriatic,
00:02:37.560 blood-soaked, an older war consumed and consecrated by the living soil. All this injected in me,
00:02:45.100 even though the tumor that had taken up half my breast and the secret tumor on the other side
00:02:49.620 were gone. Lymph nodes, too. Clear cut, clear margins. You don't have cancer anymore. You just
00:02:57.220 have a high probability of future cancer. Secret microscopic seeds of future death.
00:03:04.560 Warfare was brought to my cells as we battled possible futures.
00:03:09.240 What strange magic is this?
00:03:13.320 You have to believe in a future to keep going in cancerous times.
00:03:18.680 To do the work that tips the probabilities.
00:03:22.280 You have to believe in a beautiful future.
00:03:25.360 Not a perfect one, but one where your chance of being alive to see your kid finish elementary school
00:03:31.040 is the same as the next parents waiting in the snow at after-school pickup, looking out eagerly
00:03:37.360 for their small downy head, their own little flicker of love. You have to believe you both
00:03:43.940 will survive and you have to show up for the beautiful future they represent despite the
00:03:48.580 heartbreak and terror of the world. Breathe and believe in possible beautiful futures.
00:04:01.040 a future where a tide rolls through human hearts that says it is possible. It is possible to awaken
00:04:09.320 loved ones lost to rhetorics of loneliness, lack, and hate. It is possible to end poverty even. There
00:04:17.660 is wealth enough here on this blue, glowing, flickering, fertile home. We can choose a life
00:04:24.280 like a stand of trees, an ecology of aid, instead of endless garbage, endless war, 1.00
00:04:32.440 endless falling for the greedy manipulation blaming Jews, Arabs, immigrants, black folks, 0.99
00:04:38.280 Asians, Indians, endless others for harm caused by wealth hoarders. 0.96
00:04:45.200 To stay alive, I had to believe in beautiful concatenations of centuries of effort,
00:04:51.240 tipping towards breakthroughs like the one I am living in. Because even though chemo and radiation
00:04:58.800 and mastectomy are grim pathways to drag your life force through, the glittering reality of it is 0.99
00:05:06.060 they fucking work. Breast cancer used to be a guaranteed death sentence. The black tumors would 0.99
00:05:13.580 eventually push through to the surface of your skin, showing the cellular psychopathy that had
00:05:19.740 eaten its way through your organs and bones and then you'd die. We hardly ever see it now,
00:05:26.560 so it sinks into our subconscious. So many people I met told me they feared the cure
00:05:33.060 more than the disease. This is the privilege of our perspective in the bell curve of cure,
00:05:39.340 but I get it. I want to be rocked by gentle breezes, held by branches. I'd prefer all my
00:05:47.060 medicines to be natural. That sounds nice. I am suspicious of cures that seem to have
00:05:52.800 so much in common with the lurking, unclear causes of the disease, poisons and plastics.
00:06:01.700 But humans and everything we make are inescapably part of the natural world.
00:06:08.860 We are of this planet and we're not the first species to overproduce.
00:06:13.660 If we shift from seeing ourselves as other, maybe we could learn a little about growing together.
00:06:27.140 And the fact remains, after filtering our cancerous selves through every recommended step of the protocol,
00:06:35.020 we breast cancer patients have a strong statistical likelihood of arriving on the other side alive,
00:06:41.040 with the same probabilities intact as the average non-cancerous person.
00:06:48.060 We drag our bones and veins and lymphatic systems through death passages,
00:06:54.040 following the labor of countless researchers, nurses and technicians, 1.00
00:06:58.760 mostly women of color,
00:07:00.240 and of all the patients who did anything they could to grasp at life,
00:07:05.740 put their hopes and body parts on the altars of countless clinical trials,
00:07:10.620 moving the needle step by step,
00:07:13.620 carving the tunnel through the dark, death by death,
00:07:17.420 the ground a soft hummus of fallen yellow needles marking the years.
00:07:23.380 I'm in a clinical trial,
00:07:25.560 and I am dedicated to playing my part in the dance of discovery.
00:07:29.700 I feel protective of the scientific method these days,
00:07:33.600 as it's under attack.
00:07:35.580 And it's part of my craft to dance with the moment I'm in.
00:07:40.720 We take the medicine that shows up. 0.96
00:07:43.980 Witches are pragmatic and strategic.
00:07:47.640 We waltz with the world as it is in order to conjure beautiful futures forward,
00:07:52.880 like wild buds on reaching branches in the spring.
00:07:58.040 To stay grounded against the tide of brutal injustice in a political context where the cruelty is the point,
00:08:05.480 you have to put your back against a tall tree sometimes and breathe within.
00:08:10.040 remember and believe that gentle dark will follow garish day and then after deepest dark the dawn
00:08:19.260 will come again and that it will go on like this as it has done for millions of years
00:08:25.400 love and tenderness and laughter will outlast every dictator to make magic here in the cancer
00:08:34.740 present, you have to root yourself deep at the cliff's edge in the knowledge that generations
00:08:40.400 before have discovered medicines, shed cruel beliefs, taken apart unjust systems, and made
00:08:47.560 them incrementally better. Among our complicated, complicit kin are also all those who cultivated
00:08:56.040 hope, courage, resistance, and kindness, out of the soil, out of the blue, and we can too.
00:09:04.880 You've traversed the underground network upon which your city is built,
00:09:09.960 understanding a little better now that there is more to this place than can be seen on the surface.
00:09:19.460 There have been countless heroes, and they didn't know they would be,
00:09:22.800 and we mostly don't know their names but when the cold time came they showed what they were made of
00:09:29.700 which is we are larch kin
00:09:33.740 quote its thick bark resists ground fires and its open crown architecture allows the heat of a fire
00:09:43.760 to pass through rather than ignite the foliage
00:09:47.100 Larch is a pioneer species in that it is one of the first species to come in after disturbances
00:09:55.160 such as fire, landslide, flood, or clear-cut harvest.
00:10:01.240 Larch's deep and extensive root system enables it to withstand high winds.
00:10:07.000 The lack of foliage and light branching causes winter gusts to filter through the crown,
00:10:13.000 further reducing the chance of windbreakage or uprooting.
00:10:17.100 larch is able to withstand ice and snow
00:10:22.700 larch is also relatively resistant to many insects and diseases the wood itself is high
00:10:31.020 in chemicals that help it to resist root rot and many wood rotting organisms end quote larch
00:10:38.060 and their kin are nurturing rot resistance in our very cells teaching us to tailor our shapes
00:10:45.660 and relationships to let the wind and ice and fire
00:10:49.360 flow past our branches, causing no harm.
00:10:54.180 Stepping into places of destruction to reclaim the soil.
00:10:59.460 Even learning to let parts of ourselves die
00:11:02.340 to strengthen our hearts.
00:11:05.900 Quote,
00:11:07.400 Larch effectively translocates nitrogen from the foliage
00:11:10.940 back into the tree tissues before dropping its needles in the fall.
00:11:15.660 And it does this more efficiently than any other tree genus.
00:11:20.400 The needle litter of most other regional conifers has about one part nitrogen per 16 parts of carbon,
00:11:27.240 whereas larch has only one part nitrogen per 50 parts carbon in its needle litter.
00:11:32.300 End quote.
00:11:34.560 Larch is a teacher in the magic not just of letting go,
00:11:38.000 but of taking everything you need from a state of being,
00:11:41.980 drawing all the nitrogen in, and then releasing.
00:11:46.660 What needs to be shed?
00:11:49.920 And what lessons, nutrients, resources can you harvest before the letting go?
00:11:59.520 Larches only light up with their brilliant uniqueness in the fall.
00:12:04.400 You could be forgiven for missing them before then.
00:12:08.280 They blend in with the evergreens.
00:12:10.200 They hide in plain sight.
00:12:11.840 I have in my own life hidden in plain sight
00:12:17.640 I have downplayed my electric instinct
00:12:22.660 and woven it into acceptable PowerPoint presentations
00:12:26.400 kept my flashing needle-sharp edges concealed until needed
00:12:31.380 I have demurred
00:12:34.260 I worked in corporate America and played nice
00:12:38.500 Though my hem and hairs were always slightly askew
00:12:42.500 I seeded community dreams there
00:12:46.180 Insisted upon spaces of inclusion
00:12:48.660 Thought outside the box and read the metrics
00:12:52.240 Like so many tea leaves
00:12:53.920 And drew every bit of value
00:12:57.020 Pirated every learning and lesson I could
00:13:00.540 To add to my quiver and stores
00:13:03.640 I have at times even hidden from myself
00:13:07.900 i have given credence to an internal litany that repeats heartbreaking insults on a loop for hours
00:13:22.400 i am a nothing person who contributes nothing who is a fraud and not even a good one because
00:13:29.460 everyone secretly knows and nods and smiles at you but behind closed doors they speak of your
00:13:36.400 paper-thin successes and they laugh at your arrogance and no matter what you accomplish
00:13:41.740 it will never be enough because the edges of the sinkhole always widen and you are always there
00:13:47.520 slipping in trying to keep up your juggling and your grin and no one reaches for you you are
00:13:54.200 nothing but a reminder of failure and death and no one will miss you when you're gone
00:13:59.880 Bad magic words
00:14:03.760 Making sad shapes of reality
00:14:07.060 I rode out of the mountain last larch season
00:14:18.900 With this branching brain chemistry
00:14:21.340 Worming its way across my identity
00:14:23.760 And the landscape 0.88
00:14:25.100 Larches with their last show of gold
00:14:28.540 Down the mountain
00:14:29.500 confirms the story I told myself,
00:14:32.620 that the season had slipped over the edge.
00:14:35.980 Time to mourn if you haven't yet
00:14:37.940 everything you promised yourself you'd be this summer.
00:14:41.680 It's all gone.
00:14:45.660 The thing about chemo they don't really tell you
00:14:48.720 on the long lists of possible side effects
00:14:51.280 that include heart disease and more cancer
00:14:54.060 is that it makes you chemically depressed.
00:14:56.640 partially that was the hormones out of whack as chemical menopause came on hard
00:15:03.040 partially it was the way chemo kills everything fast moving within you and you lose hold of your
00:15:10.180 quickness it becomes hard to feel the hum of green wood within you i began to feel like a chemical
00:15:18.320 person a new species entirely and only people passed the red warning sign in our wing of the
00:15:26.040 hospital. Only people who are toxic like me, who are bald like me, faces fat with steroids. Only 0.84
00:15:33.580 we are the same species, and we didn't see each other before. But now we're everywhere.
00:15:41.900 Mostly, though, it was just the low end of the swing. It was the collapse that resides in
00:15:51.020 everything. I think you have been to those dark places in the mind. I think we are all more alike
00:15:59.000 than we ever realize. I wrote my feelings all over the trees. While the whole mountainside glowed
00:16:08.020 golden, I made up a story that was all about sadness and dying. And it's true, the wheel will
00:16:16.560 turn and we will have to let it all go. It's not even a choice. You will get brought bare at some
00:16:23.760 point in your life. You will leave who you thought you were behind. Shed everything you don't need.
00:16:31.260 Even the trappings of your triumphs. Even your most beautiful accolades or salaries or golden
00:16:37.600 gowns. At some point we will put it all down. But it wasn't death for me then, and it isn't now.
00:16:50.580 Though so many of our loved ones are gone, and we were startled into the wide awake at night
00:16:56.000 knowledge that death is a close glancing thing coming for us all in a time frame so tight it's
00:17:02.380 like a speeding train. The Larch story isn't about that, not exactly. It's about how we remain the
00:17:12.460 ocean through the tides of change. How we get to live seasons. Relativity exists, and here on the
00:17:22.800 speeding train, we get to watch the buds grow gently. We live still in the tree world, one breath at a
00:17:31.780 time we witness a million rebirths the great choral wisdom of the cycle itself
00:17:40.020 marching in undeniable collectivity a riot of yellow a celebration of all we are and have been
00:17:50.220 when it's time pulling our resources into ourselves so effectively each death season
00:17:57.160 makes us better medicine, more brilliant caretakers, a golden tide of fierce and tender survivors.
00:18:09.960 Witches, I am here with you in the green grass and birdsong, in the cracking pavement and on
00:18:16.860 the picket line. The spring still comes. Larches are fully, newly adorned, and that's us too. 0.98
00:18:27.160 We are still under no obligation to be who we were five minutes ago.
00:18:35.600 Larches brim with medicine about the cleverness, the irresistibility of change.
00:18:41.860 They are alive with adaptation.
00:18:46.320 Most trees only do free growth when they're young, usually for the first 20 years or so.
00:18:52.840 But larch trees keep doing it even when they're old.
00:18:55.520 all their lives they can push past what was planned to surge into new heights
00:19:01.940 i'm still alive my community is still here still needs me we need each other so like a larch i'm
00:19:11.980 still growing still shedding determined to make lamp light instead of poison from the sap of my
00:19:18.640 magic understanding a little better now that there is more to this place we can be seen on the surface
00:19:26.240 Witches, we are larch kin
00:19:47.600 We show the world our brilliance 0.80
00:19:49.980 And when the time is right
00:19:53.880 we signal the turning of the tides.
00:19:58.940 Maybe the depression went with the hormones 0.99
00:20:01.340 or maybe it was the fuck-it-all fire of surviving. 0.99
00:20:04.900 Either way, I'm not going to play with that bad brain magic anymore. 0.99
00:20:11.140 I'm determined to shut it as I walk through every door.
00:20:15.980 I've been repeating a spell adapted from Robin Wall Kimmerer in the Serviceberry.
00:20:21.100 I am flourishing, and all flourishing is mutual.
00:20:27.780 Repeat it with me.
00:20:29.900 Join me in muttering this at subway turnstiles, gates, and crossroads.
00:20:35.460 Every doorway, every gate forming a portal to better brain magic.
00:20:41.320 I am flourishing, and all flourishing is mutual.
00:20:45.120 I am flourishing, and all flourishing is mutual.
00:20:51.100 I am flourishing, and all flourishing is mutual.
00:20:58.700 Quote,
00:20:59.960 Planted as a bulwark against avalanches, rockfalls, and erosion,
00:21:04.760 they are one of the main species in mountain protection forests.
00:21:09.460 Firmly anchored by powerful roots, they fix the forest floor,
00:21:13.180 which efficiently absorbs water from rain and snowmelt.
00:21:17.200 climbing the highest mountains they seek the light uniting heaven earth and the land of the dead
00:21:24.600 it is the cosmogonic tree for many civilizations and one of the most sacred in eastern siberian
00:21:32.220 mythology where it is used as a ladder to visit the divine powers end quote
00:21:38.020 larch is a teacher in the magic of reaching for what is divine within us by showing up for each
00:21:45.820 other. Larch, also known as tamarack, is a, quote, nurse tree, which allows it to produce shelter
00:21:54.600 and biomass to allow other shrubs and smaller plants to grow in otherwise inhospitable conditions.
00:22:02.560 Tamarack is also a favorite nesting site for great gray owls, end quote.
00:22:07.680 i stop in the door and push my arms hard into the frame do it with me pushing repeating
00:22:17.220 i am flourishing and all flourishing is mutual i am flourishing and all flourishing is mutual
00:22:25.480 i am flourishing and all flourishing is mutual push with all your strength into the hard resistance
00:22:34.340 and then step out of the frame.
00:22:49.820 Feel the way your arms rise of their own volition.
00:22:54.660 Feel the way uplift just happens.
00:22:57.940 Trees grow like this and so do you.
00:23:01.100 We will dismantle the cages of the world that insist upon the lie of poverty and inequality, and we will flourish.
00:23:12.120 Hold up your arms.
00:23:13.840 Imagine the great gray owl, fierce and wise, finding safe nesting place in the open space.
00:23:23.780 Above your mind, between your arms.
00:23:30.260 When the time comes, Larch are an overwhelming, undeniable presence all across the landscape,
00:23:40.920 glowing gold down every hillside, demanding that every witness recognize that the times
00:23:47.940 they are a-changing.
00:24:00.260 we are Larchkin
00:24:15.860 keeping a flame of gold
00:24:19.020 in our secret hearts
00:24:20.380 we are wild
00:24:22.900 and rising
00:24:24.700 this or better
00:24:27.520 forever and ever 0.97
00:24:30.240 Blessed fucking be. 1.00
00:25:00.240 You must be a witch. 1.00
00:25:22.800 This kinship episode of the Missing Witches podcast was written and produced by Risa Dickens.
00:25:28.780 The Missing Witches podcast is listener supported.
00:25:31.900 If you'd like to support the project, share this episode.
00:25:35.640 Check out missingwitches.com to find out more.
00:25:38.340 I love all you people.