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Mundane Magic ft. Molly Donlan · Seeking Witchcraft

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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everyone, welcome back to Seeking Watchcraft.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Ashley and today I'm joined by Molly Donlin, the author of Monday Magic, a lazy which is guide to hacking your brain, building a daily practice and getting stuff done.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome Molly to the show.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Could you introduce yourself to listeners and tell us a bit about yourself?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, yeah, thank you for having me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I am so excited to be here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I am what you would call a recovering skeptic of all things who, so I basically, I always say, if you had told me 10, 15 years ago, I would be writing a book about magic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I would have thought it was like a hoax-pocus spinoff or something in the Harry Potter realm.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But...
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[SPEAKER_01]: I really was sort of forced down the rabbit hole of all these different practices of energy healing and mindfulness and working with rakey and crystals and magic and all of these things because I developed chronic hip pain and really extreme burnout as a side effect of a nine year long career working with survivors of sexual violence and so I learned I had
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[SPEAKER_01]: been storing a lot of that trauma in my body and despite going to pretty much every medical practitioner, I could find they couldn't tell me why it was in pain or what to do about it and sort of trying to relieve that is what led me down this path.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And now I am a reiki master teacher.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I've taught
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[SPEAKER_01]: thousands of people all across the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How do you use rakey for their own healing as well as for others?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I am a published author.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I also run a rakey sanctuary in Soko main called the Soko sanctuary.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm very excited to be here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for coming on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess let's just jump right in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to go back.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You talked about a little bit of having chronic hip pain that led you to rakey and eventually that's what got you to where you are now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Can you share a little bit more about that journey.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I, you know, I was one of those people that I was checking all of the boxes around like how to be healthy.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was carrying a gallon of water with me everywhere I went and I had orthopedic in souls and my shoes and lumber support in my car and you know, I was exercising and I was a yoga teacher and I meditated every day and you know, I
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[SPEAKER_01]: Did all the meal prepping and all those things that when you looked up like hashtag health in the early, you know, 2015-ish to 2017-ish was sort of like all the rage, all the things that you were supposed to do and yet I had this pain that would not go away and, you know, I saw physical therapists, I saw massage therapists, I saw
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[SPEAKER_01]: osteopaths, I saw a chiropractors, anything, anything that had a medical degree and dealt with pain.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was in their office and, you know, I even had one doctor tell me that he didn't see this pain outside of his 80-year-old patients and he was totally stumped and I was like, cool, that's exactly what I want to hear at 23.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I loved that for me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it was one of those things where
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[SPEAKER_01]: I would try things and nothing worked, nothing stuck, nothing brought me real relief.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was sort of willing to try anything at that point.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So in 2016, I went on a yoga retreat and one of my teachers, she was talking about how she had very similar stubborn pain in her neck and she had done a very similar job to me at the time and what she had found was
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[SPEAKER_01]: She had stored all of this emotional trauma in her body and Reiki was the only way that helped her really sit.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I thought that seems like, you know, bullshit, but I'll try it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And right after that session, I walked upstairs to the treatment room.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I booked myself a session that day.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember being on the table.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and just not really getting it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, this is relaxing, I guess.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really know.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then at one point, the practitioner had one hand on my knee and one hand on my ankle.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And with my eyes closed, I saw this like wispy white light in the shape of my hip come out of my body, rotate and snap back into place.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I always compare it to if you've ever seen a cartoon character die and then their ghost comes up for one last gag and then they go back into their body and re-animate, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what my hip did.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I just had this deep sense of needing to understand what just happened.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I woke up the next morning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I had significantly less pain.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And a week later, I went to my
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so being the rational logical skeptical human I was, I was like, what a weird coincidence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What a strange fluke.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I was so curious about it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I had to learn more.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I started looking into
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[SPEAKER_01]: The science behind Riki and what I found was it was so deeply tied to nervous system regulation which I had a deep understanding of through my work with trauma survivors and through my work as a yoga teacher that it sort of just became this missing puzzle piece in my practice and through opening up more and more to Riki, it all of a sudden helped me access
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[SPEAKER_01]: and tap into my own sensitivity to energy in a way that I hadn't really explored before, and then all of a sudden it was like, oh, I can feel crystals vibrating in my hands.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what would happen if I brought those into my practice?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And really, those two practices started to blow this door open that would eventually lead to me calling myself a witch,
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[SPEAKER_01]: really bringing these practices into the mundane and bringing it into the day-to-day life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I also have ADHD so it's like, you know, how can I take a hyper focus that I was excited about and actually make it something sustainable that I do longer than just, you know, a 48-hour period.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I found that it not only started to make more sense to me and my hip pain started to go away, but it also just made life a lot more fun.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, that's kind of like the the rabbit hole that I jumped down and never really got out of.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, that is an incredible story as somebody who has suffered with chronic pain the last gosh, like two and a half years of my life that just randomly came out of nowhere.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're now making me highly considered wanting to make a rakey appointment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, come on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Come on over.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My doors are open.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my goodness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I am Long story short.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had my gallbladder out and I have had nothing but pain despite no longer having a gallbladder And it's been a whole mystery.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I've been going to PT and I think that my PT person is like low-key doing some rakey on me Because I'm kind of meant like I've said something to her.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, yeah, it's kind of like that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like interesting
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[SPEAKER_00]: But maybe I should go to a full blown practitioner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I was very inspiring to hear that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But on that note, that also must have been such a powerful moment for you to find a place where you started out as a skip to now calling yourself a witch.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what was that like?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, it was definitely like an accidental process.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I, even, you know, three years ago, I don't know if I owned the title of which as like a badge of honor that I have now.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like now I see, you know, it this reclamation of the word which, but I didn't realize I held so much like prejudice against that word for so much of my life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: until probably a handful or so years ago, like right before the pandemic, I was like met someone who called herself a witch that I really highly respected and I was like, oh, oh, oh, okay, cool, yeah, great.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, becoming a witch has been a very public journey for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I started my podcast demystify magic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Several years ago, with my friend Madison, who is a born and raised witch like her mom so which she owns a metaphysical store like that is she is the witchiest witch of all the witches and started a podcast with her because we thought the dichotomy of like a full blown witch and a not witch would be fun.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And as we went through more and more episodes, I started realize, wow, our practice is really rooted in the same things like we're doing similar rituals what makes you aware to not me and that question sort of
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[SPEAKER_01]: I remember talking about it in an episode and realizing that the only reason I don't claim the title of which is because of all of this belief that other people had told me to put on that word, you know, which is our fake or their scary or they do curses or whatever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like I've done so much sort of unlearning of that and truthfully, it's like been this huge
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[SPEAKER_01]: connector for me again like another missing puzzle piece because I have always been you know a intersectional feminist like social justice warrior that was a big part of what I studied in college and sort of studying the.
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[SPEAKER_01]: the beliefs that I held around which craft through the lens of that was just such an interesting process of like learning more about myself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So through the podcast really and through our community of listeners who were also sort of going on this same journey of unlearning and reclaiming this title, I started to step more and more into that
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[SPEAKER_01]: the shoes of a witch, and now I proudly claim it and invite others too, but it definitely was not something I had on my bingo card, but has been one of the most transformative and healing journeys that I'd been on in my adult life.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So on the topic of being a witch and which leads to which
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[SPEAKER_01]: Some mundane magic is essentially taking the chores and tasks that you already do every day and adding magic to them so that they become a little bit more whichy, and so maybe you actually want to do them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a great hack if you have neurodivergent or you struggle with executive functioning.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You struggle to get started or motivated on things or if you just feel like your to do list is 72 miles long and you never catch a break.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things where you can just sort of start to add these pockets of magic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: These micro moments of magic into your day.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And now you're to do list.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, you still have to do all the things and maybe you don't love folding laundry, but maybe you can find a breath of.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Restoration in folding the laundry or maybe you don't love folding laundry, but you no longer dread it and we can do that through
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a whole variety of practices and spells, but I'll give you one example that I I was doing earlier today because I wrote the book for me because I need it just as much as anyone else reading it, but I had a sink full of dishes when I woke up this morning and just really wanted to keep piling the dishes on I did not want to do them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew that if I didn't do the dishes, then it's like the counters are going to stack up and when the counters stack up, then it's going to be hard for me to eat lunch and if I don't eat lunch, then this recording is not going to go well and this recording doesn't go well, then I'm going to spiral about it right like all of these things that sort of build up when our space doesn't feel.
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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, the way that we want it to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so instead, I, you know, stood there at the sink, and I decided to use the practice of washing the dishes as an opportunity to get really present and to wash away worry that might be in my mind, whether that's worry about.
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[SPEAKER_01]: you know, things on my to do list or worry about the weight of the world that we're in right now, which is giving myself this moment of pots and so while I'm doing the dishes, you know, I'm feeling my feet on the floor, I'm coming into my body and I'm feeling the hot water on my hands and I'm becoming really mindful and using all of my senses, you know, listening to the sounds of the water and
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[SPEAKER_01]: smelling the the suds from the soap, and really just every time I wipe the dish with the sponge, I'm thinking about washing away all of that debris, all of that clutter in my mind and asking, my energy to take that energy down the drain with it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, as I do that with each dish, it becomes more and more clearer in my mind.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it becomes more and more settled into the present.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So by the time I finish the dishes and the sink, all of a sudden, I don't feel that same blah feeling that I usually feel at the end of doing the dishes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because I hate it so much, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So the whole time, I'm usually like, I hate this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I hate this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I hate this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But instead, I found just this little pocket of magic that I could tap into and at the end, it was like, wow, my shoulders are a little bit softer or my jaw is less tense and my dishes are done.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that's really the premise of what mundane magic is taking what you already have to do and adding magic to it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So that magic doesn't become one more thing on your to-do list that you put off and feel bad about putting it off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think it's super important to know that magic doesn't have to be elaborate or ceremonial to be meaningful or impactful or to work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can have small little things to do, but why do you think that so many people feel like they don't have enough time for a spiritual practice?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's honestly like what we see online and in spell books is these big elaborate rituals, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: We just went through the landscape portal and it's like everyone's like, if you don't manifest on this day and exactly this way, you're going to miss it and it's going to ruin your entire year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and or the you know full moon rituals that require 52 crystals and like 17 candles and like a rhyming incantation right i'm exaggerating a little bit but this is what we see online you know we see the the spells that require all these different ingredients and i have to buy new things to do it or i need all this time or i need a beautiful serene altar and i think so much of
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[SPEAKER_01]: what we see online, which is really where a lot of people are going for their information about their spiritual practice, especially when they're first starting, it just doesn't feel attainable or it doesn't feel attainable on the day you really need it, which is the day you feel like shit and you have no time, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: That's what your spiritual practice was built for.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and I often remind people that the goal of your spiritual practice is not to add stress to your plate, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's for many of us to make the stresses of life a little bit more manageable or a lot more manageable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so if that is the goal, why does our approach not match that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think in a
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, have to do more and more and more to gain attention through algorithms, a lot of times what catches wind is the aesthetics or things that feel fancy things that feel elaborate when in reality, you know, I just did a chord cutting ritual on the toilet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: like we can have these moments where it's like it's not glamorous but it's real and it works so much better when we can infuse it into everything than you know the one-off time or maybe I have time to do an hour long ritual.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the other thing too is
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[SPEAKER_01]: When we set our baseline as something that we can never fail at, right, lowering the bar on our practice so that we can trip over it on the days when we really, really need it, that's when your practice actually becomes a lifeline.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then those bigger elaborate rituals, they could be fun.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They can be ceremonious when you feel like doing them, but they don't have to be the bar.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of my students and my readers, they have been fed this belief that in order for something to be worthwhile, it has to be hard, where it has to take time, or it has to take effort, or it has to deplete them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that comes from the capitalist wiring that we're all under in our society.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so in all of my understanding of witchcraft and the history of it,
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's always been anti that, and so I think mundane magic is really this opportunity to come back to the basics and come back to what which craft really has always been meant to be, you know, using what you have connecting to yourself and feeding yourself so that you can support others.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I think that there's so much to be said about the intention and not having to have it be the state elaborate aesthetic ritual and I love that you touch upon how a lot of times that's what you'll see online or like these beautiful rituals, these aesthetic setups and that's really what catches people's attention.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I love hearing about the choreo cutting on the
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[SPEAKER_00]: were definitely times that I've done freezer spells where I've come home from work and I was just like aggravated and still in my work clothes and I ran to my freezer and did a little freezer spell and that freezer spell worked great and it was the middle of the day I still had my work badge on still had my sneakers on like you know there were no aesthetics set up I think my cats were me outing at me for dinner and I was like hold on a second
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[SPEAKER_00]: So no, there's definitely a lot to be said about that.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I do have some questions I want to ask you about the book, but we're going to take a short break and we'll write back in just a second.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, and we're back.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to ask a little bit more about the book.
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[SPEAKER_00]: What can the listeners find inside of your book if they're picking it up for the first time?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Everything.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted this book to be really a resource if you had never dabbled into anything magical or if you have 52 million magical books that you've read, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it really brings you back to basics.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So the first couple of chapters because I was a skeptic, I love to teach the science behind magic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It is my favorite thing ever, whether you are a little bit skeptical or your brand new, or if you are full blown with you been practicing forever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I just think understanding what is happening on a physical and emotional and energetic level.
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[SPEAKER_01]: when we're doing spellwork makes it so much more potent.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I kick off with the science and then I give you instructions for everything that you will need in the book.
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[SPEAKER_01]: How to make moonwater, how to make your own sigil.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What are crystals?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What do you do with them?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: So the beginner practitioners, you are not going into this blind.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You are like you have everything you need in there.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the actual innards of the book, where we find the spells, they go room by room of the house.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We start in the living room.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We work all the way through the house until we get to the yard and eventually outside the house.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And each of the spells are really divided by how often you might need to do them and how much energy you might need to do them.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So we start with everyday rituals.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So these are things like in the bathroom chapter, you'll find spells for brushing your teeth
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[SPEAKER_01]: And taking a shower right in the kitchen, you'll find spells for deciding what to eat, eating three meals a day, washing the dishes, things of that nature.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then we go into more rituals that you might do every once in a while.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe every couple of days or once a week.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So things like emptying the dishwasher or folding laundry.
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[SPEAKER_01]: or changing the sheets on your bed, depending on what the chapter is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then finally, in each chapter, there is a category of deep magic.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So these are spells and tasks that you don't have to do every day, but you probably need to do a couple of times a year or maybe once a month.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And these are things that are really great to fold into your new and full moon ritual.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So things like cleaning the baseboards or organizing your spice drawer, things like that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: and then at the very back of the book is a hugely extensive appendix.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So I am someone that I wanted this book to replace all of the resources that I use in my day-to-day.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like I wanted this book to be the one book that I can have in every room in my house and always be able to substitute an ingredient for a spell.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it has pretty much every spice herb tea blend fruit vegetable that you might use in your kitchen or your day-to-day or in your home.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's organized by the magical correspondences for each ingredient, but then I also flip it and I give you the intentions and then the ingredients.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So if you say,
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[SPEAKER_01]: come across a simmer pot spell in the book and you don't have orange, you can look up the intention behind orange and then you can look at that intention and find all the different things that you can use, whether it's a crystal or another herb or another fruit, etc.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So it was really important to me that the appendix really felt
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like something you could use in all aspects of your practice so that you never had to skip doing a spell because you don't have an ingredient there's always something you can use in place and then there's a ton of recipes in there there's like 50 simmer pots there's
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know how many ritual baths and mopping potions and really easy food spells.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I really wanted it to feel doable and accessible and approachable and something that you can just have fun playing with and experimenting with on your own.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I love the way that you organize the book and I especially love hearing the low energy versus the higher energy, I think that's so smart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I actually have not come across the book that's done that before.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I really love hearing about that because I know there's definitely days where I may want to do something and need a little inspiration about my energies low.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or there's times where I have a ton of energy, but still wants some inspiration, so it's nice to hear that there is something for everybody with that.
23:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Of the spells in your book, do you find yourself returning to one that you do most often?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, my kryptonite in my house is emptying my dishwasher.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why that is so hard for me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's emptying the dishwasher and it's putting away the laundry.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Those are the ones that they will just stack up.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so in the kitchen chapter, there's a meditation where we use the dishwasher as an opportunity to empty the mind of worries.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so as you're pulling out each of the clean glasses,
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're getting clarity on what is my brain actually worried about?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like letting your brain share with you all of the thoughts that you have been kind of trying to shovel away or shove down so that your brain feels acknowledged.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then as we're reloading the dishwasher with the dirty plates and the dirty dishes, we're creating solutions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So, thinking through with curiosity, like, what would it be like if I explored this path?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What would it be like if I explored that path?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Which, you know, from a nervous system standpoint, helps to kind of calm the part of your brain that thinks that whatever you're worrying about is a tiger chasing you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then as we put the soap into the dishwasher and close it up and start it, we ask that the dishwasher and the water,
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[SPEAKER_01]: take away the worries, carry the worries away, and leave just the solutions that makes sense.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a really powerful meditation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I often do it with the audiobook, and then for folding laundry, the practice is really about folding in intentions into each garment.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So say my sweatshirt, I want to fold in protection.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In my socks, I want to bundle them with
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[SPEAKER_01]: And say, my shirts, I want more confidence, so I'm going to fold intentions into that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I find that it makes laundry go by so much faster.
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[SPEAKER_01]: But also now I have a shirt that just is my confidence shirt.
25:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And every time I wear it, I just feel like, you know, the bat is bitch on the block.
25:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's been really fun just to see, you know, the first, the first couple of times I did it really worked and now it's like, oh, that's my confidence shirt.
25:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I know the affirmation for that one.
25:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I end up, you know, saying it as I'm putting it on to, which has been really fun.
25:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So the spell has kind of crept outside of laundry into just how I dress and move throughout the world, which ultimately is the goal of it.
25:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I both need to do my laundry and empty the dishwasher after we're done this recording.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I know how I need to alter what I'm doing.
25:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll even, I'll even tell you, like I have the laundry one is so popular laundry, washing dishes and clearing clutter out of the house is so popular.
26:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually bundled the meditations from those into like a free download.
26:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'll send it to you and I'll give it to your listeners too.
26:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So if anyone wants to try it,
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, the clutter crushing charm is only five minutes.
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: The dishes are only 10 and the laundry is only 15.
26:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can bang all free out within a half an hour and they're rakey and fused too.
26:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're going to make you feel really like relaxed and centered as you do them.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's awesome.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I will put all of the information for that in the episode description.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
26:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to ask if somebody has never cast a spell before and they're interested, what would be one from your book that you recommend they try first.
26:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I changed my answer to this every single time, but the one that just popped into my brain as you said this is there's a spell in the bedroom chapter to help you keep your nightstand clean but also to help with sleep and it's cold you're creating a nightstand altar.
27:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if you're like me, actually, but I am someone that I bring a glass of water to bed, and then I put it on my nightstand, and then the next day I do the same thing, and then at the end of the week, I'm like, where are all our glasses?
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And they're all on my nightstand, like half full of water.
27:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been there.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and, you know, and it's like, you know, sitting there with like old tissues, and the mouth tape, and like the eye masks that I wear before bed, and all of the stuff, and
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So one day I just decided I don't want the first thing I see every morning to be this clutter that I'm stressed about or all these glasses of water that are worried about knocking over while I snooze my alarm for the fourth time.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So
27:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Essentially, to make a nightstand altar, you can have all the same things that are on your nightstand.
27:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just placing them with specific intentions.
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So infusing your lip balm that you heap on your altar with rest or the intentions of self-lover, whatever you want to carry into your sleep and maybe you place a couple of crystals or whatever you have on hand, totems that reflect rest
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And the water as you place it on your nightstand, you're actually going to give it a job.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to give it the job of either maybe protecting you while you sleep or collecting your dreams or maybe you have an intention that you would like to set and you can speak it to your water and then ask your dreams to help bring you clarity.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the next morning, you know, drinking that water or giving it to a plant.
28:35
[SPEAKER_01]: or sending it down the drain, depending on what makes sense for your intention.
28:39
[SPEAKER_01]: But I've found, you know, I just reset my nightstand alter after a couple of months, and there are no glasses of water on that nightstand.
28:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And also it just feels like this really nice, ritual.
28:51
[SPEAKER_01]: that book ends your day, your nightstand is something that you interact with right when your eyes wake up and right before your eyes close.
28:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so creating just a little space that feels aligned with whatever you want to create in your life, you know, whether you need more sleep or whether you're working on intimacy with your partner or maybe you're manifesting something and using some
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, captured in the nightstand altar and I just think it's a really fun one to to start with because you interact with it so often and also it can be completely your own like there are no rules when it comes to what you put there or how you place it or how you use it.
29:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I really loved that suggestion.
29:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of people myself included have suffered from or not suffered, but they have been guilty of having a not as tidy night stand.
29:44
[SPEAKER_00]: As I would like it to be.
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think a lot of people can actually relate with that one.
29:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to also have a ton of bottles there and my solution was getting not it was stopping using plastic bottles.
29:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't used those in a while, but also
29:57
[SPEAKER_00]: having less cups.
29:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I have no choice but to put them back in the kitchen.
30:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, I'm going to have a problem.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that too.
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's smart.
30:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm someone that I've always collected mugs.
30:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I will have 500 cups that I can use and there's nothing I can do about it.
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was my problem.
30:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time I'd go to TJ and Max, I'd always leave with a candle on a mug and I had to stop doing that.
30:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
30:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I say him.
30:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So, as we round at the episode, I did want to touch on one other thing you had mentioned at the beginning, because I also had a very similar upbringing, not the right word, but I was very similar coming into which craft and magic, where I was very skeptical.
30:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I really wanted it to work, but I was very, very, very, very skeptical.
30:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't until I had repeated experiences of things happening where I was like, Okay, I can't say I thought there's something going on here.
30:50
[SPEAKER_00]: like I was seeing things and things were happening and other people who weren't even related were confirming that it was it was it was awesome but it was like a holy shit.
30:58
[SPEAKER_00]: This is weird.
30:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So for those who are curious, but skeptical, what would you say to somebody who isn't sure that they believe a magic just yet?
31:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I'm a big believer in embracing your skeptic rather than pushing it away.
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of times we sort of think we have to be a believer or it's not going to work, and I don't think that's the case with magic.
31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, I'm a huge fan of the science.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I think it can really help quiet at least a little bit of that skeptic so that you can lean into your curiosity That's really like the antidote, right is you can either be a Judgmental skeptic who's like this is bullshit and you can't prove me wrong Or you can be a curious skeptic where you're like I don't really know, but I'm willing to try and make my own call when when the time comes and so
31:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if you're able to lean into that curiosity and just explore, you know, you're curious about this path for a reason.
32:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what if you just allowed yourself to play, to explore, to ask questions, to dive down the rabbit hole, to look at the research, to maybe look for some alternative explanations and not make a sweeping declaration about whether something works or
32:24
[SPEAKER_01]: too soon or ever.
32:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Molly, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast.
32:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's been such a pleasure having you.
32:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Could you tell the listeners where they can find you online and get a copy of your book?
32:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh, yeah, thank you for having me on.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: This was such a blast.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find me online pretty much anywhere.
32:41
[SPEAKER_01]: My handle is the same across all platforms.
32:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Mo Dizzle with a zero instead of a no and have three instead of an E.
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And mundane magic is available wherever you get books.
32:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can find it in ebook, hardcover, or audio book.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The audio book does come with a free PDF download of the appendix.
32:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you were like, oh, I want to listen to it, but I don't want to miss out on all those cool, like magical correspondences, Molly mentioned.
33:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You still get that with the audio book.
33:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I made sure of that.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, you can pick that up pretty much anywhere, anywhere you buy books.
33:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll have all of that listed in the episode description.
33:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Molly, there's one thing I ask everybody at the end of the episodes, and that is if you can give one piece of advice to beginner, it doesn't have to be related to anything we talked about today, what would that piece of advice be?
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: My number one piece of advice is if you, I have your a beginner, you're going to be exploring all these different
33:36
[SPEAKER_01]: avenues in witchcraft and in magic, you're going to be exploring all these different practitioners, all these different teachers.
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And my number one thing to remind you is that you are the magic.
33:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You are the one that makes the spell work.
33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Your intention is the most important ingredient.
33:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And so if there is ever a source, whether it's a person, a book, something else,
33:58
[SPEAKER_01]: that makes you feel disempowered, that makes you feel afraid of your own power, that makes you feel like you're going to mess it up, you're going to do it wrong, you're going to screw everything up.
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I would really strongly encourage you to find a different source, find someone that makes you feel
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: totally capable that makes you feel empowered, that makes you feel like you can do anything because you can and follow those sources instead.
34:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that is such a beautiful advice.
34:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I really love that one a lot.
34:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's really important, especially now, with, you know, I'm always a big
34:39
[SPEAKER_01]: big proponent of like I don't like the fear mongering that I see online in like which talk and all of that and I think so so many people get caught up in in the people who fear monger because that's
34:55
[SPEAKER_01]: with the algorithm serves you.
34:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And so instead, like maybe seek out softer sides of which shock and find the people who really encourage you to explore your own path, because that's really what witchcraft is.
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's no universal authority on witchcraft, like you get to carve your own path and so find people that help you carve it.
35:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that was beautifully said.
35:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Molly, thank you so so much for coming on.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll be sharing all the information that was mentioned earlier in the episode description.
35:24
[SPEAKER_00]: If anybody is interested in connecting with me, you could do so on Instagram at Seeking Witchcraft on Facebook at Seeking Witchcraft podcast, or if you want to support the show, you could do so at patreon.com slash Seeking Witchcraft.
35:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I randomly started a very small side business if anybody is interested,
35:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Molly, thank you again for coming on.
35:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoyed our conversation and just learning more about you and your book.
35:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was just such a pleasure.
35:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so so much for coming on.
35:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I really enjoyed our conversation.
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, I did too.
35:54
[SPEAKER_01]: This was so fun.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
35:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you again and thank you so much everybody for listening.
35:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you all have a great day and I'll catch you next time.
36:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
36:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.