Participant #1:
Welcome to episode eight. If you’ve just joined, I am Maria At. Maria thercan on Instagram, and Robin At, a tired witch on Instagram. And today we have a special guest, Stephen, from a witch’s path on Instagram. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, sir? Hi, guys. I’m Stephen. I am a witch. I’m from England. I’m terrible at introductions. I’ve been practicing since I was a little kid. I made a witch’s pass in 2017, I think, in November, just to connect to other witches online. And since then, it blew up. And recently, me and one of my friends started a witcher shop, which is just at a witcher shop on Instagram as well. And this is my very first podcast ever in the universe. So there you go. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you for joining us. I’m so glad to take your podcast virginity. I’ve got a cup of tea. I’m ready. We can do this. So British,
Participant #1:
if you guys are just joining us, every week, we talk about the upcoming lunar phase. Well, the most recent one or most closest. Yeah, English is my first language. Thank you, guys. The upcoming lunar phase is going to be the new Moon of Cancer on June 20. And this particular new moon is focusing on emotional clearing. So new moons are the whole new moon, new me, fresh beginnings, new starts, that sort of thing. And when you take that and apply it with the energy of cancer, we’re looking at our home and our interpersonal relationships and kind of how we interact with them and how we can improve on that in general. We want to be focusing on our emotional help during this time and kind of how we can kickstart, I don’t know, a new chapter in that respect. And I know a lot of us right now, because of the current climate of just the world in general, might be experiencing a lot more anxiety than usual. I know I’m getting a lot of messages and emails that are asking for magical guidance through that. And you are alone if you’re feeling a little anxious right now. And because of that, we should utilize this new moon to kind of focus on magic and energies that can potentially focus on our emotional health. We might want to look at things like meditation and other forms of grounding and centering during this time and really just prioritizing our mental health during this because it’s a struggle. A lot of us are going through it. I’m just going to sit in the bath and cry and let my tears fill up. The bathtub. That’ll be my cancer,
Participant #1:
just like Tuesday. I’m not really understanding. I guess everyone do that. But honestly, I’m ready for a good cry and emotional shake up, because as you said, things have been intense, and a lot of people have anxiety, and the anxiety is valid. There’s a lot going on right now that is uncertain and a little scary, and growth is painful, right? And with that growth and the painful growth can come uncertainty. And I think that recognizing a need to ground and recenter is perfectly valid
Participant #1:
if you just started listening to us. Every podcast, they talk about a random Tarot card. We go over the universal meaning and then our own interpretation of the cards. Having others opinions helps beginners form their own opinions, or even those who have been practicing for a while, expand their views. On other meetings last week, we talked about the full, and as I said, we will go over how it is connected with the card, the world. The universal meaning of this card is all about completing the cycle and reaching the end of a certain journey. Now, my interpretation is the same, but I also pull from the full. When this card comes up, when the full or our sales start new journeys, we have so much to see, to learn, and accomplish. I really see the world as a report card or a review of the journey we have gone on, specifically reviewing the progress we made in the four suits of Tarot which are represented on the quarters of the card. What have you accomplished emotionally? What have you accomplished when it comes to growth? What have you accomplished when it comes to your goals? And how did you expand your mind during that time? You now have all this knowledge to move forward with on your new journey. If you remember in the last podcast I mentioned the full little knapsack. His knowledge he gained from the last cycle is in there so he doesn’t repeat the same mistakes and is all the wiser moving forward. The world is always turning and going through cycles, and you will too. It really shows us that even though we’ve accomplished something, it isn’t the end all. So what are you going to do next? Okay, so what is your opinion on this, Robin? Well, personally speaking, I actually never get the world ever in readings, because my life doesn’t have any kind of accomplishments. I’m kidding. Or am I? Maybe I really don’t ever get it. I never get it. Not once. Never heard it, never seen it. I don’t know her. But the world for me is very much a signifier of accomplishment and chapters coming to an end, like you said, like the fool. But instead of a fresh face, fresh new start, it’s like the life’s journey, and it’s the end of a life’s journey, and it’s the wise old man on the hill who accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish. And if you actually look at the symbolism of the card, the laurel wreath around the dancer in the middle is kind of a universal symbol of accomplishment. Do you think of winning a race and you get the laurel wreath, or when you graduate high school and you get the flower wreaths, those sorts of things, it’s all just a symbol of accomplishment. And even though I’ve never accomplished anything and I’ve never gone the world, I’m sure other people have
Participant #1:
on the world too. The four suits, like you mentioned, in the four corners are also the four cardinal zodiac signs. So I literally just wrote a whole piece on the world the other day. So this is actually very fresh in my brain. What a coincidence. So, Steven, what are your views? Well, I mean, I’m with Robin on the fact that actually I very rarely pull it part of me actually it’s one of those you get that one card that you just don’t really connect to. Yeah, I don’t honestly connect to the world that much in terms of my own personal, which now I’m thinking of it and I’m like, does this mean never get fulfillment? Is this what this means to me? But it doesn’t actually often come up in readings when I do them for people. When it does come up in readings, I actually connect the energy a little bit to the wheel of fortune. I see similar. The feeling is kind of the same to me. And when the world comes up often in a reading, that actually is denoted travel for a client. Yeah, because I tend to see the world in terms of traveling, but it’s not necessarily you traveling far. It could actually be just expanding your horizons in the place you are, because that’s something it feels to me, especially if the world is paired with the native wands. I could totally see how that would suggest travel. And travel comes in many forms. Yeah. Again, back to growth, right? Yeah. I tend to see if it comes out, I always think it’s a positive sign if when it does come out in a reading, it’s the over the top card for me. So if things don’t look great or if there’s a lot of work to be done, or if it’s not a great situation and suddenly I pull the world, I always place that above the other cards. Always if it comes out, because I feel like it has that energy that the sun might have in terms of illuminating the spread and adding that kind of fulfillment goal like harmony and that sense of just feeling like it’s complete to it. And it kind of gives a purpose sometimes to like the mundane aspects of a reading and adds what I feel is more of like a fate element to it. Like this will lead to something great. So sometimes that’s the angle that I come at it from. I like that.
Participant #1:
So this week we were going to talk about lipo, which is coming up, but because of current affairs, just like we’ve done historically in the past, we have decided to change what we’re talking about. So this week for our little topic of discussion, we are talking about Black Lives Matter and kind of the witchcraft community and being an ally. An ally in training new expressions. Steven just enlightened us too, which is just kind of where our role is in that, as witches, and especially if we are such as myself and Stephen and Maria, white or white passing, what that kind of looks like it’s complicated, isn’t it? But it is an important thing that we recognize and talk about. It’s important to talk about. It is important to talk about. In my personal opinion, witchcraft in general is a political statement. Yes, it is. Acceptance and embracing, et cetera, sort of I don’t know the word I’m looking for here, like going against the grain and standing up for things that you believe in, et cetera, et cetera. And that falls under a lot of branches and looks different for a lot of people. It’s nonconformity. Right. It is a tricky subject because at least from my standpoint, and I know Maria Stevens is, we’re not black. We are not African American or black. And therefore, what I don’t want in general is for people to kind of see this or hear this or see us posting and think that. I don’t want people to see it and think that you should get steam on being a white person who’s going to save the day, because that’s not our position. Our position is to listen and elevate black voices and that’s what’s really important here. Yeah. And we all need to keep in mind that black people aren’t a commodity. They should have always been acknowledged. It is amazing, don’t get me wrong, it’s amazing the amount of people that in companies who are acknowledging it, but the ones that are just now acknowledging it, it is gross. And I feel that once things air, quote, calm down, they will flip and go the direction they’ve always gone. And that’s like, completely missing the mark. We all need to just keep going. Like, let’s not lose momentum and let’s keep holding people accountable. Yeah. I think from my perspective, what I’ve seen is obviously, like you said, it’s incredible that we’ve had so many people suddenly speak up, but what we’re also seeing is an incredible amount of white guilt just kind of coming out like bile everywhere in every direction. And I think that that can also be an extreme. It doesn’t help what’s happening right now. It’s something that we need to be finally focused about in terms of listening and having those uncomfortable conversations with each other and taking that pressure off, because obviously it’s a rhetoric that’s been going around. But I’m going to emphasize it again, like, people of color, black people, any kind of black and ethnic minority group, they’re not here to educate us as white people. They’re not here to educate. So that’s the conversations we need to be having amongst each other as well. Absolutely. It is our place to educate ourselves. It is 2020. We have access to the Internet to free resources and articles, et cetera. It is not black people’s responsibility to educate us on how to be decent fucking people. It is our responsibility to step up to the plate and educate ourselves. They’ve done enough. It’s not their responsibility to make us better people. It’s our responsibility to make us better people, period. Be a good human. It’s really not that hard to be a good human and to be a supportive one. If we’re talking about the spiritual brands and witchcraft brands, et cetera right now. This is something that has really irked me, kind of going back to what Maria said about paying attention to brands that are suddenly speaking out and they’ll go right back to the same bullshit in two weeks. I want to implore you, listeners, and just people in general, that if you are seeing suddenly this crop up of hex the fucking racist and stuff like that, in theory is like a T shirt or something that sounds sick, right? Like, we all see that and we go, wow, great. Pay attention to where that money is going to. Is somebody profiting off this by exploiting your spirituality as well as the Black Lives Matter movement to make money? Are the proceeds going to charity or are they doing one of that bullshit thing where they say 10% of proceeds are going to charity? Like, you’re profiting off them, you’re profiting off of a fucking situation that is unacceptable. And I’ve seen it, like, in three brands. And I’m not going to call people out because I’m not in a position where I want to start a fucking flame war. But pay attention. Use your eyes, use critical thinking. And if you see a T shirt or a tote bag or fucking mug, whatever, and it looks really cool, and you’re like, wow, amazing. I’m a witch who supports Black Lives Matter. Pay attention to where the money is going. Absolutely. I’ve seen on Facebook ads and stuff like that through companies that are definitely profiting off of both witchcraft and what is going on right now. They have hex races, but it’s from one of those mass producing T shirt companies. Such bullshit. What in the hell? It’s just so messed up. I know it looks cool, guys, but don’t give them money. And they’re probably stealing someone else’s art. Exactly. Especially if not 100% of proceeds are going to charity. That’s how I look at it to me, I’m sat back just browsing instagram being a consumer, right? And I’m like, wow, you came up with that design real quick, and you fucking got that to printing press real quick. Like, I see you and I think it’s pretty gross, to be perfectly honest with you. I think it’s pretty fucking gross. And I think people who do that are pretty fucking gross. They’re gross. I hate them. I want to hex them. That’s what I want to do. I was going to say on that note, something I’ve been speaking about a lot lately is how people need to protest with their wallets. I think that’s super important in terms of branding. Like we are spiritual focus, which is a lot of companies now market to us. A lot of companies market to us because we’re a niche market, but we’ve got a lot of money. A lot of modern witches love buying crystals and tara decks. We do as well. And there’s a lot of money to be made in that. And I think that it’s very important to be able to be part of that movement and be part of that protest by choosing where to and when not to spend your money. But on top of that point, something that I’ve been doing recently since reading a lot more and listening a lot more, is actually asking companies what they’re doing in a polite way at first because I don’t think we realize on the whole, and I don’t think a lot of white people realize just how much power we have over brands. That’s part of our privilege. And so for me, especially us in this room, we have larger followings. A lot of people have larger followings. People ask us to promote things, for example, and, you know, if somebody comes along and they ask me to promote something now and I’m going to ask them, so what did you do for Black Lives Matter? What did you do for this? Talk to me about your ethics. And that’s going to be questions that I ask and when I actually want to buy something, I was asking people about ethics in terms of, say, crystals because obviously there’s a minefield around that. But when it comes to what I’m doing now and if there are brands, there are a few brands that I’ve actually really loved and really supported for years that have done nothing that I’m so disappointed in and actively messaging those people and being like, what are you going to do? What you’re doing for Black Lives Matter? Are you doing a charity auction? And if they turn around and say they’re not, I will actively tell them, well, I’m not going to support you anymore and I’m going to leave them with that. It’s not rude to tell someone that you’re going to not support their shop anymore for those reasons. I agree. And I think it is important, though, on that note to recognize that all people support who are supporting causes they believe in also have different abilities of what they can and cannot support. So, like, for example, I have a shop right, I literally cannot afford, especially with Coronavirus going on right now, to donate any extra money than what I donate every year for Pride Month. And that’s not a pat on my back. That is I literally don’t have the funds. Like, it’s Coronavirus. I also don’t have the resources to create a new product at which I could donate all the proceeds to write as much as I really wanted to. And I looked into it. I don’t have the resources. So then taking that note, having that recognition for myself, it was like, okay, so what can I do, right? And by what can I do? Like you said, I have a large following. I have the privilege and access to share links, share people who are doing petition or not petitions, excuse me, auctions, et cetera, and getting the word out there and doing the best I can to still drive money to places that can help and do have those resources. And I think it’s important that we recognize that not all brands, some brands are like me, right? It’s one person who was heavily affected by other current events going on where I can’t whip out a bunch of money. But what I did do was what I do have accessible to me. And I think it’s very important that we recognize that some people have that simple accessibility, where you have a platform that you can share petitions and swipe ups information, elevating black voices and amplifying other shops that are smaller scale, that are black people of color, et cetera, and amplifying that because this is the time to share that information. And I mean, you should be doing it all the time because you shouldn’t be a PDF. But especially speaking, this would be the time to do that, and they’re still choosing not to do that. Come again? I think that when it comes to, like, what you said, I think that’s a really excellent point to raise, because I think that from the outside looking in a lot of consumers, especially across Instagram, when a page looks really lovely and when products and websites are really lovely, you sometimes don’t realize that that might be one person running that entire business. And it’s very small in comparison to something massive, but the Instagrams could look just as aesthetic as each other. So you really have to pick and choose. Yeah, a huge thing also to remember, because a lot of people forget this just because you have a couple of followers, the Instagram does not give us money. I don’t know how many times I have to say this with my last breath. And this is not about me. This is about other people as well. We don’t get paid to be on Instagram in this crazy rumor that goes around that that’s the case. It’s just perplexing. If it was, I would be donating all that money because that’s fucking ridiculous. I think I’m lucky. I’m in a position where, like, the shop that me and Zoe run is not actually a main source of income. That’s something that we use as a lovely side project because we’re really passionate about making things. So we were lucky enough to be in a position where we could hold an auction, which, I mean, it’s a blessing in that respect because a lot of people don’t have that. I mean, we have full time jobs outside of that, which makes the shop a little bit tricky to run. But it does mean that something like that is actually quite easy for us to put together. And then you’ve got like but what struck me is that I keep seeing, say, smaller brands and smaller shops doing a lot in terms of sharing things, swipe up stories, post auctions. And I’m seeing bigger brands do nothing. Nothing. They like to say a statement and then that’s it. Yeah. At first, like, the whole muted Blackout Tuesday, I was like, this is great. I love this. I know I was with the majority of regular people of thinking, wow, what a great idea. Like, amazing. But then when I started to think about it and I started seeing other things, I’m like, well, how is this helping anyone? I’m just like making a black screen and stepping away and doing jack shit. And I’m like, that is the most accidentally privileged bullshit I’ve ever done. And I took my post down. I took down my Blackout Tuesday post, and I found a different way to do stuff because having the privilege to be able to say, I’m going to step back and let other people talk and not instead step back and amplify what other people are talking about, that little shift of thought is the difference between recognizing your privilege and not. And I thought it was very interesting that some brands did basically do exactly that. They did the Blackout Tuesday all black screen, didn’t post for 48 hours, and then went right back to their shit without doing literally anything. Like, no sign, here’s a link to petitions, here’s a link to organizations you can donate to. Like, literally nothing. And it’s like, okay, so your privilege here is that you can just decide to step out of the conversation. And I think the privilege also comes is that they’re actually not afraid of losing revenue. They’re not afraid of losing revenue because they’re relying on other people unaware of their own privilege and unaware of what’s going on. And that probably bothers me more than the shop doing nothing, is that they know that they won’t lose a certain amount of revenue for it or they really would have to mess up to lose revenue. Yeah. And then they’re terrified that if they do say something or do something, that they will lose that revenue. Because you have people who they don’t like to feel bad, so they’ll just be like, well, I’m not supporting that brand anymore. And it’s just you kind of want to lose those people anyways. Exactly. I say this all the time. I will say with my last dying breath, if you’re a fucking bigot, I don’t want your fucking money anyway. Fuck you. Fuck off and get away from me. Like, no, I don’t want you having my stuff. I don’t want your money. I don’t want you having my products. I want you to have nothing to do with it. And so I looked at it this way. If I lose followers for continuing to post about this, and it pisses people off, like, bye, the trash is taking itself out. See you later.
Participant #1:
Yeah. I think a lot of people across the platform did lose followers. I did lose a couple of hundred initially, and I don’t usually check it, but I was like, I’m curious. And I was like, wow. I mean, it didn’t upset me from the fact that I lost followers. That doesn’t bother me. What bothered me is that I had those people following me in the first place. I did not lose any followers, but I’m typically very outspoken about my political beliefs. 24/7 I’ve never been quiet about how I feel about things. I’m always sharing that stuff in my stories. So I feel like I didn’t lose any followers because the trash has been taking itself out for quite some time, and I feel like I lose them as quickly as I gain them because they show up and then they go, oh, my God, she posted about trans rights. I’m out of here. And so they don’t really stick around. I’m all right with that. Do we have anything else we want to talk about with this? I think the main thing is that it’s I think I was talking about with our wallet. Like, protesting with our wallet is really important. I think that I think, too, the main thing for all of us I hope you guys take from this that are listening, is that this is not about if you’re white, it’s not about you. And just don’t be afraid to question brands. Like, any brand that’s good, any brand that’s ethical, any brand that has any kind of spine or hard behind it will absolutely be happy to answer your comment publicly if you just ask them the question, what are you doing for XYZ? What are you doing? What are you doing for human rights? What are you doing for Black Lives Matter? Like, anything that is happening in the world at that point, ask them, because it’s your power as a consumer that you’re basically saying, I don’t want to shop with you unless you’re supporting what’s right, and we don’t realize that inherent power that we have. Yeah, I mean, legitimately, no one should be worried about calling other people out right now. I think calling people out in shops out if they say something like, terrible, and that’s completely against Black Lives Matter. I mean, use your voice. Use your platform. Someone I know, his name is John, posted something. I’m going to pull this up on Twitter that it spoke to my core. He posted on Twitter. I think a small part of my frustration with some of the people in the paranormal community stems from the fact that they feel uncomfortable saying Black Lives Matter. But they feel fine saying there’s a demon in your basement or a ghost said someone who’s murdered in your attic. And if that doesn’t come up, the witchcraft community right now, I don’t know what does. We ask ourselves to believe in and accept witchcraft, psychic energies, ghosts and spirits, etc. Deities, but we’re super comfortable about talking about that stuff. But when the phrase Black Lives Matter comes up, we’re like, oh, I don’t know. I don’t want to get political like, fuck you. And as you said earlier, being a witch is political. It is political no matter what. Yeah. Can I move on to the next point we had in terms of yeah, I just did a post and this is one thing that has always bugged me. I’ve always tried to speak out about it. There’s always backlash. And one thing that bugs me, it probably bugs you too, is cultural appropriation and using those traditions within witchcraft. I just did a post, you probably saw it. I was talking about where I showed you. It about not everything coming from, like, Eurocentric sources, us not recognizing the amount of things that may have been appropriate along the way. We’ve got key figures in our cult history, like Crowley, who took so much from other countries, and we just don’t recognize that. And one of the key messages I’m trying to get across to people is some of the things that we’ve taken, we can’t give back. We have them, they’re there. But I’m talking about things like yoga and using chakra systems and things like that. They’re there. We’re not going to get rid of them. They’re firmly placed within us now in the spiritual and occult community. But the point I was trying to make is that we need to recognize those things and where they came from and respectfully honor them. That seems to be so fucking difficult for some people. And they go off on one and they like shout and scream as if they’ve just lost all of their toys. I had a lovely kind message earlier from a new witch. They’re in the UK and they messaged me because they saw the post and they said, I’m so sorry if this is a bad question. I just don’t really know about cultural appropriation in terms of the craft. I’m brand new. Can you just go through it with me if you have time? And I was just like, first of all, that’s great that you’re asking. And I tried to think of the most simple analogy I could, and I brought it back to two children in a classroom and I said, you are sat there and you’ve got a pack of Crayons, but you don’t have all the colors in the box. But someone else does. They have the other colors now. Some of those colors you’re allowed to borrow and you know, some of those colors you’re not allowed to borrow, and you have to accept that you’re not going to get some of those colors. But if somebody has let you borrow one of their colors, even if you’re borrowing it for a long time, even if you’re borrowing it for the rest of your life, you don’t say, this is my color, this is my crayon, this is mine, and always has been. You say, Oh, my friend lent me this crayon, or My friend gifted me this crayon. And you wouldn’t claim it as your own if somebody came to your house and said, I really love that lamp, and you say, Oh, that was a gift from my mum, you wouldn’t say, that’s always been mine. You would tell people where it came from. Right. So it’s not necessarily that I don’t feel like we’re allowed to use some of these systems and some of these concepts within spirituality, especially with Eastern spirituality. So much of it came over many, many years ago. So much of it was taken and included. So it’s not the fact that we have to give everything back, because I think that damage is done. I think a lot of that has been done. It’s more telling people where you got that from, not claiming it as your own. Exactly. I think, though, that there are things that you can’t use. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And I think that’s just all I really wanted to acknowledge on that. Not because I think that you think you can use things that you can’t. It’s more I don’t want our listeners to think that Steven is saying that as long as you tell people where you get it from, then it’s fine. Because that’s not true. There’s still a lot of closed off things that are closed. Like, closed not like, Oh, I just got to use the right password and it’s fine. No, it’s closed. That’s what I talked about. The cranes, some of them you know, cranes you’ll never be allowed to borrow. Exactly. Some of these cranes just live there. You could go on someone’s house and like something that they have in their home, that doesn’t mean you’re going to take it. That doesn’t mean you’re allowed to take that it’s in their house. Right. You can acknowledge it, acknowledge the beauty of it, acknowledge the fact that it’s a nice thing without, like, stealing it. Yes. I just don’t know why it’s so hard to understand. It baffles me that people there’s a sense of entitlement there, and it’s almost like I don’t know, you could compare it to, like, colonialism with spiritual head on. Yeah. There’s a fucking sense of entitlement. That’s why. Yes. People seem to think that anything that deals with spirituality is, like, up for grabs, and that is not true. Even when it comes to magic, some things are just untouchable and you should leave it alone. Like, there’s so many, like, closed religions and stuff like that, and you should probably not be borrowing from said closed religions. Well, on that note, guys, we should move on.
Participant #1:
I did have one more thing about that, actually. When I was talking to this person earlier, the thing that they actually said that they were drawn to was hoodoo, which is obviously one of the key ones, I think that people were like drawn to air quotes. You can’t see who do the air quotes. They feel like they can take it, they’ve watched too many movies and they go, I want to be a who do priests? Well, you can’t. I know for a fact that there’s a lot of hoodie shops, for example, run by black hoodie practitioners who will happily sell anyone the products, who will happily sell you that candle, that floor wash. And this is what I encourage. I said, if you find the right practitioners who have the business and it’s black and you’re supporting that shop, then, yeah, you can use that candle because you bought it from them, you’ve supported them. Right. That’s part of the serial business. So it’s not that some of these systems are so untouchable, it’s that if you actually find the right people to support, there’s elements of that you can take home with you. You can go to a shop in London and buy some hot foot powder if you want, buy a certain kind of floor wash, anything like that. There’s hoodie shops all around Brixton in London, but you are supporting that business. You’re not recreating those things at home, you’re not doing it yourself. Exactly. You’re feeding into that. Yeah, exactly. And then even worse are the people that get their fucking white dreadlocks and then they claim to be teaching and selling fucking voodoo shit online. It makes me gross. It makes me feel dirty just even thinking about it. I’m like, I’m actually getting you myself now. That makes me very uncomfortable.
Participant #1:
So, Stephen, what is stirring your cauldron right now? Well, first of all, I love this and the phrases. It’s just amazing. We’re trying to make that happen. To bring up initially I thought we’d talk about the fool today, and I was super excited, but I’m going to say anyway, so I was in Atlanta’s Bookshop in London, which is a very well established, I think it’s nearly 100 year old, a cult store. It’s run by five generations of witches. Geraldine, the manager, the current I owner, and she was getting really passionate one day talking to me about Tarot, and she turned around and said that she found an old photograph of one of the people in Pamela Convin life. And I think it was a photography that Ellen Terry or Edith Craig, both in her life when she was late, as far as I know, early twenty s. And it was a picture, and in that picture was a tiny little white dog. And then she was like, what do you recognize from this photo? And at first I was like, this is an old black and white photo. What is it? What am I looking at? And she then waited at the top and then she already had from nowhere, just she made it appear was the fool and she just held it up and was like, look at the dog. And she’s been working on a project to kind of retrace Pamela’s life and find all the sources of inspiration that she put into the cards in order to unlock other messages that Terry can give us that were very personal to Pamela that may not be published. She’s running workshops and talks on it, as far as I know. I think that’s probably on hold because of Covet. But yeah, if you are in the UK or if she’s doing any online sessions around his bookshops, geraldine Bestkin definitely look it up because that wowed me completely. I’ll put her name and the bookshop in the bio too, guys, so I don’t know. In case you want to copy paste into Google, it’ll be there. You said that she’s writing a book about it. She’s been writing I think she was writing a big article about it. I’m not sure if it was a book book, but it probably is by now because I think she told me like two years ago and I was just going and passing to the shop, but she’s been running talks around the country and I just missed one she did in Gustinbury a while back and I literally got there the day after and was like, oh my God, why didn’t I know? But, yeah, she’s been running talks on it. So if you’re in and around, like London, UK, you can get there. There might be more talks in the future, but maybe she’s going to run some online ones. Maybe I should email her and ask her. That’s a good idea. Yes. I thought that was great. And the look of excitement on her face and the wow moment. I was like, Oh my God, why is this? This is amazing. What an exciting project. But that’s been stirring my children since I’ve been thinking about the full card and also a very rarely get new Tara decks. I’m a stickler for like, the One deck, but in September they will be launching Gemini.
Participant #1:
I’ve got My right away and that’s all I use completely all the time. But I have been having conversations with my deck and it’s allowed me to get another one because it’s very feisty. I’m looking forward to the Toro Tarot by Thomas. I think hijo is how you pronounce it. It’s published by Inside Editions and it’s based on the Delta films such as The Shape of Water and Pans Labyrinth. And the artwork is insane. It’s amazing. Yes. It’s kind of like old etching. I think the one that stood out to me is that the Lovers card is actually the amphibian and Alyssa from The Shape of Water. I won’t ruin the film for anyone who hasn’t seen it, but people will know what I mean with the iconic scene. I’ll ruin it. They have six. They have hot, sensual sex. Just two gross guys in the water touching each other’s vaginas. Very sexy. I think that’s launching in September in the UK. I’m not sure about the US. I only check the UK. I think it’s the same time. Amazing. So I’m actually going to get that as a late birthday present. So that’s what’s stirring my cauldron. I wish I had a cold and stir. I’ve just got a cup of tea. But the mug does say which on it, so there you go. The cup does count. It is a vessel.
Participant #1:
So, Stephen, what’s not stirring your cauldron this week? Well, you know, I love a good rant, so I’m just going to do it. Hands up if you’ve ever seen some post online, probably a Facebook group or an Instagram page that says something that will kind of bait you. So, I mean, it’s like something has anyone had any weird dreams lately? Does anyone feel anything big coming? Does anyone feel, like a shift? You see that a lot. And I personally like something I’ve been writing about outside of Insta is what I’m calling it. Like spiritual hysteria. I don’t know if that’s the final name, but these kind of posts can be quite incendiary. They get loads of comments, they get hundreds of comments being like, oh, my God, me too. Yeah, I’ve had some weird dreams lately. What do they mean? And then everyone kind of comes together with all these theories. My theory behind it is more to do with someone’s own personal development. You’ve had those times in your craft when suddenly you kind of level up. That’s what me and my friends call it, like a level up. Suddenly you hit like a new prong on the ladder and you’re like, whoa, that was intense. I’ve learned something. You know, you download something, you do a spell differently, or you feel an energy different way and it feels huge, like, it’s so big inside of you in that moment, isn’t it? And people will have those moments along their spiritual progression. Not necessarily. You have to be a witch. Like any kind of spiritual bath. You have those moments where suddenly you feel like this energy that you’re suddenly feeling and connected to is so big because you feel it’s so big that you think it’s not just to do with you. You think that it has to do with the entire world. You think that because you’re suddenly feeling this, then it’s some kind of prophecy. You’re now some kind of guru. And you take to the online world and you say to people, oh, my God, everyone, I can feel something coming. I can feel something big coming. And I think that can be quite dangerous and damaging in terms of, like, some people who may not be feeling that will feel like they’re maybe not included, or they’re not a witch. Maybe I’m not a witch because I’m not feeling something right now. Maybe I’m not a witch because I’m not having dreams right now. But then what I tend to see happen with this is that people create their own narrative. So whatever someone is passionate about, let’s say that’s, like human rights or animal rights, they’re passionate about nature. They somehow write it in that whatever this big thing is, is to do with that. I see this a lot of times with political things as well. People would just kind of add to the narrative, and if something is currently going on in the world, they’ll just add that into their narrative as if it’s part of their story and not something else that’s going on outside of that. And in my opinion, in my experience working with students, like one on one, when I’ve done that before in the past, and when I’ve had circles and development circles, I see these people having the level ups all the time, and I’ve had these level ups across. When you have one, you think, this is the peak you could ever reach. For me, you never know how other people perceive energy. So what I could be feeling now could be something that, maria, you felt your whole life, and I’m really just feeling it. We don’t know if what we’re feeling is someone’s just normal, average Tuesday, but because we feel it’s so big, we as humans in our egos and all that business, think, oh, my God, this is huge. This is so big. I’ve been blessed with something. I need to go and tell the world that the end is nigh or that everything is changing. And in my opinion, and I think that a lot of people would agree that energy is always shifting. Things are always changing. There’s always something coming. There’s always something different around the corner. Nothing stagnant. And we’ve just spoken about the world in Tarot. Things are always moving and turning. So I think that it’s a problem within our community. I see people use these kinds of things to suddenly build, like, platforms upon to try and rally people together. Almost like, I don’t know, like a cult, in a sense. Not like a murderous, evil cult. Yeah, but people rally these people together because it’s based on weird dreams. But it’s always vague. Have you ever seen it? It’s always vague, these posts. Something coming. Can anyone feel it? But if you went on that post and said, so what is exactly coming? And they’re like, something big, something huge.
Participant #1:
I see it like a road. If you imagine a town, maybe if it’s probably easier to marry an American block system. Sometimes people are on, like, a road and they’re the only car on it, right? And you can turn onto a road and suddenly you’re on a load of other other people, and that’s the moment where you connect with something a bit bigger than yourself. However you envision that, whether that for you is like a deity energy, whether that’s like an animist energy, but you connect with something bigger than yourself, and you can also turn off that road and go back into a quiet one. And it’s when we go into that main road that suddenly we feel that it reminds me a lot of something Maria actually said. It was either the last episode or the one before when we talked about love spells. Do you remember him? How the universe oh, I can’t remember exactly what he said. It was like, the universe might have picked someone for you to be your soulmate, but that doesn’t mean that they’re ready at the exact same time that you are. Yes, 100%. And it’s the same sort of thing. Just because you’ve come to this conclusion does not mean that you’ve invented it. Yeah. Now I will say I am guilty of, like, if it’s Mercury retrograde, I’m like, is everything going wrong? Is everything going wrong?
Participant #1:
I’ve done that too. I think we’re all guilty of being like, Mercury retrograde. Am I dying? Or is everyone else experiencing that at least has been on a private level? I feel like that’s different because at least that’s something tangible. Even if you can’t see it, there’s something tangible. You at least know something’s going on. It’s not some hidden whisper of an apocalypse or rise of something. So those Christian groups are like, the world is going to end, like, next month.
Participant #1:
It’s an odd one for me because I just feel like sometimes we do develop as a group. Sometimes we do suddenly come together with people that we’re supposed to come together with in that moment, and we just need to be more critical of what that might be. So it’s like we’re all having weird dreams. Is there anything in common? Are we all dreaming about the color blue? Are we all dreaming about a gold orb? Anything, whatever you want. And, like, you look into that research that, like, find the things in common, but don’t suddenly be like, right, so the three of us, we’re now the Charmed Ones, and we are the only one.
Participant #1:
Does that make sense? I request all of you refer to me as that. Thank you. Okay. I am the oldest, I think.
Participant #1:
I’m not Piper. I am not. I’m a photographer and I collect antiques, so I feel like that is me. I am proud because I feel like I’m the least likely to be successful. Thank you. Oh, my God. Wasn’t Phoebe the most successful? Was she? Yeah, she had, like, her own TV station and stuff, right? Like a bunch. No. Yeah, in the first season. Right. And then she went on to be, like, a talk show hosting. She went to be the most she was like, a millionaire by the end of it. She ran a newspaper. She helped run a newspaper.
Participant #1:
And this is the part of the episode, guys, where we actually all, in unison, block Stephen on Instagram. We’re going to just everybody. And then before you block him, send him a message saying, Robin is not Leo, and then block him. I’ve actually got a screenshot. Any message that anyone sends me and send it your way. I’m just going to be like, No, I got five. Please do. Oh, my word. Okay,
Participant #1:
so before we end this episode, just like every episode, we talk about some creators, makers, shops and Instagrams that we’re digging right now. And to remind you, all, these are not paid for promotions. These are just shops we like. And if you send us messages telling us that you want to be on here, we will block you. Stop it. Don’t do that. Up first is my pick. And this is Yafas Botanica, which they were brought to my attention by Moon Buddy Tarot on Instagram. They’re Botanica. They’re a black owned spirituality and metaphysical store that actually is currently sold out. I just saw that this morning. They sold out on everything, basically, because people were purchasing from them, which is fucking incredible. And you guys should continue to do that. Yes, definitely continue. Don’t let the momentum die down. Back to Stephen’s previous point of protesting with your wallets, guys, we can do it. Yeah. The next one, I think, was the one that I put on there. So if you want some further research to what we were talking about, about Black Lives Matter and what work we can do as white folks in the spiritual and a cult community, there’s an incredible article. I came across it’s by an account called Staywoketer. So at Staywoketer, one word and it’s Rashunda Tramble who runs the page, and she has written an article. The article is actually from 2018, but it’s come up again now. And it’s basically an article called Are You Afraid of the Dark? And it goes over the use of spiritual terminology and where that might be rooted in terms of talking about light, dark, white, black, and how we use them in the community. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but I don’t want to take words out of their mouth. I’d rather you go and read the article and follow that page because it is exceptional and it really gives you a lot to think about in terms of the language you’re using as someone in that spiritual and a cult world. So it’s definitely food of thought and I really want to elevate that. I love that. I pick a car. A Caramara. Did I say that right? Tarot? I cannot pronounce things, guys, please go easy on me. Akamara. AKAMar. There we go. Thank you, Steven. I have been following this Tarot since, like, the Kickstarter, and it’s already on its second edition, which is already sold out. It’s such an amazing deck. It’s beautiful. Yes, it’s a black matte deck with gold foil on the edges and, like, gold foil designs. And it’s beautiful and it’s inspired by African magic. It’s a stunning deck. And, yeah, you guys should definitely keep an eye out for the third edition if they decide to release the third edition, because I have a feeling they will. It’s beautiful. No kidding. It’s sold out so fast, the second edition. And, yes,
Participant #1:
thank you guys again so much for joining us this week. We hope that you’ll join us next time on June 26 for our 9th episode. Keep an eye out on our Instagram and our Twitter. And you can follow us on Twitter at coffeeculture’s for more information or even better, joining us on our discord here, which is First Cousin on Patreon. So we can answer your question for next time. You’ll even get to hear our lovely voices for an additional 30 minutes episode for being a Patreon member. The library tier. And up again. This is Coffee and Cold Drinks with Robin from a Tired Witch on Instagram and with Maria at Maria’s Arcane on Instagram and Steven from a Witch’s Path on Instagram. All right, goodbye, guys.
Participant #1:
I think it gets worse every time
Participant #1:
you.