Latest / Women of the Well | Women's health, done differently / Coming out of the broom closet – Reclaiming the word 'witch'

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Coming out of the broom closet – Reclaiming the word 'witch' · Women of the Well | Women's health, done differently

• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Women of the Well.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is a podcast about what medicine looks like when it listens to your body, to your story, and to your own deep knowing.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hosted by gynecologist Dr.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Peta Wright and Dr.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thea Bowler.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: With me, Holistic Counsellor Sam Lindsay German.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: We explore health from a whole woman perspective so you can make choices that feel true to you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is for information and educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnoses, or treatment.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Before we start today's episode, we'd like to acknowledge and show our deep respect to the Jinabara people as the traditional custodians of the land we are recording this on.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: We pay respect to the elders past, present, and across time, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people today.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now it is time to replenish yourself by the well.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm Dr.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Peta Wright.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm Dr.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thea Bowler.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm Sam Lindsay German.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Today we have been emboldened from a few things that we have seen happening in the world around us.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like it's the right time to talk about reclaiming the word witch.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we certainly, we've talked about this a little bit on our podcast, I think, and I don't think that we make a secret of the how we are witchy women.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: But we really wanted to talk about today why and how reclaiming that word for ourselves and in our lives might lead to more health, more magic, more sovereignty, and you know, more joy in our lives.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so just examine that from the historical perspective and what we do and what it might bring, and just an invitation to think about that word and what reclaiming it in your life might look like or mean.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna pull a card actually as a first.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: To start with?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well that's such a good idea.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: Doing it first.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Peta brought us these very beautiful witches' homestead oracle cards.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm opening for the first time.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Homestead because currently I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm obsessed with making salad.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can we show people what to do if you buy cards for the first time and you use them for the first time?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah?
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it because they're yours.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you hold them.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: They're beautiful, they're shiny pink.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then you just hold it into your hand, and because they're new, what we're gonna do is we're gonna knock on it three times.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then we hold it next to our heart and we ask that.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: What would you ask of the cards?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: I would ask them to reveal their wisdom to me.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's beautiful.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for your highest good, my highest good, the highest good of all beings.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's so good.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then from there it just is a really yeah, it's a really good way of clearing cards if you've bought them and um you want to just know what to do.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's long processes, but this is a really good ritual.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Shuffled.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna break them in three?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_02: I just don't feel that I have the space now.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do three.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: One, two, three.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then put them back on in any order.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: How do you want them to put it back on?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: That can be on the top.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then take a top card.
• 4:28
  unknown: Great.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_02: The top card is window seat.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_02: Dreaming is not escape, but the shape of your becoming oh, it's beautiful.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: Man.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: So beautiful.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: Man see the picture.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a beautiful picture of a window seat with lots of books.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: And a lady in a flowy nightgown sitting there.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: You can't actually see her top half.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: You can just see her legs and her long hair and her beautiful flowing nightgown.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love it.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Oh dreaming is not escape but the shape of your becoming.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: So beautiful.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And how many women do not want a window seat like that?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: On a rainy day?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_02: It's so good.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you do, you do.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: It looks exactly like a room.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what is this which word?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I guess there is a lot of um as women, I think I've talked we talked about this a lot, is that clearly there's a h a long history in especially Europe and the United Kingdom of persecution of women who were identified as witches from the 15th, 16th centuries.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we've contemplated before what damage that has done not only to at that time, but how that ripples out across the generations and even into where we are today.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because even now, like the word which I don't know, it's not it's something that we identify with readily, and we're happy to say, although when I first started using it, especially being a medical person and being a woman, and where you're, you know, you when we learn stuff at medical school, it's like, oh no, that's an old wives tale.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's not evidence-based.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think when we the witchy stuff is more intuitive and it's harder to prove and it's harder to measure in randomized controlled trials and things like that.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a lot of if you're not killing women or burning them at the stake, then there's also a lot of the way we invalidate women's experiences and women's ways by saying that well, that's not scientific enough, or there's not enough proof, or you know, there's that invalidation is huge.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a it's kind of a a tricky thing to identify with when you're a woman who's gone through that medical school process.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the other thing is even because I even think growing up with all the Disney movies, you know, where the witch was always the villain, always the scary villain, like it's can actually continued from the witch hunts into the way that we view, you know, the wise woman, the woman who's living outside of the accepted paradigm, the elderly woman, the crone, the healer, the midwives, yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And invariably they are women that haven't got married.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're depicted, and certainly we still tell fairy tales, and in the fairy tales they're depicted in this way normally.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, it's very much they're on the periphery of normal society, which is actually really what gives them their power, because they're women who are ready to be okay with doing that.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it does mean that we have a fear of them because they're standing for something that we're not sure is safe.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's a mirror, you know, that's what we see, that's what we're told as we grow up.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: The conventional way of living is this and to follow this path.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's really fascinating to me because I think when you start to contemplate the idea of, you know, do I want to address myself as a witch?
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: It comes up with this I you have to undo all of this programming that you've already received about what it is to be a ri witch.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And in that programming, as we've been talking about, there's so much, and it's actually now compounded by it becoming an industry and a business.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's very it's about the unlearning of so much in order to get back to our true self.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking to what you were saying about why we don't believe in the the the the the wives' tales and all those types, it's because they're not written down.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: They were never written down in books.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: They were all passed down from woman to woman.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, it and that in itself has been was cut by culling many of those women.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually very it's actually like when you think about it at that level of almost like generational trauma, it's like this very powerful severing of women from their knowing, from their intuition, from their connection to nature and herbs, because these women would have been the healers of the community from the almost like the sisterhood where the recipes and the knowledge was passed down woman to woman, and it's a severing of all of that when actually, if you think about it, our connection to other women, our connection to nature, um, our ability to care for and look after the community, those are all such important facets of what make women so important in the community.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_02: And what make us feel alive and connected and powerful, I think.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I thought about recently was that if we are quite comfortable currently in society, well, we are, most people are actually to follow yogic tradition.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And following yogic tradition means that we'll talk about, and I have talked about on this podcast, Ayurvedic principles.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And actually they're revered and they're trusted, and they also now have evolved to have scientific backing, I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm sure, um, in certain degrees.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, the truth is, I it made me actually think, um, yeah, why do I only have this as a tool?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: What would be my truest tool as someone who comes from the UK originally and was born there?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it it it then occurred to me that actually it would be herbalism.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that is my equivalent to Ayurvedic medicine.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, because of what happened um there and the way that um obviously the witch trials and went through um England and Scotland and Wales and Ireland, it was taken away.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so it hasn't got that same power behind it that we see in Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, which predominantly I don't know, would hold the same the same truths and the same beliefs.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, and the thing is it would have been dangerous for a woman to be shown to be outwardly having knowledge of herbs and ways of healing, because then you could be suspected or reported or killed.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then when people talk about the numbers of women in Europe that were killed in that period of time, it's something, it's always estimated, and something like 50,000 women, which is a lot anyway.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: But thing something I read that always stuck with me, it's not, it wasn't the just the women or the men, because there were some men as well, who were who were killed that did the damage.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was the fear.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: It was the fear and the risk that people could have friends or neighbours who were living in fear and separate and separateness who could report them to stay safe.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that fear really cut off women's voices to speak our truth, to say who we really who we really are.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I like I have I think women feel that now.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: So and I certainly have felt that throughout my life, and you don't know where it comes from, and it's in our conditioning, but it is centuries old conditioning that is in the the air that we breathe and the water that we drink, and that I think you know we ca we have to have that understanding of, and I do think this all the time, like that was a long time ago.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: It was I mean, it's it's hundreds of years ago, but the severance that the severing of connection to ourselves and to the sisterhood community of other women is so damaging that it's so weird to me that we don't talk about it so much as if it was an ancestral trauma that's it's actually taboo to talk almost to talk about it.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_02: We talk about other genocides and other, you know, tragedies like that, but we yeah, it's almost like you can't talk about the witch trials.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think exactly as you say, like it's like a curiosity or something, something not a really affected people, really traumatic event.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think all the time about how pretty much every woman I know has so much trouble speaking, public speaking, and you know, we've done so much work on this, and then I always think back to well, it would have been don't be noticed, don't speak up, don't be different, don't be alone, stay small, be completely unnoticeable, and maybe you'll be okay.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: And like I think that's good be good, be a good girl, and I think that's where so much of it comes from.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the one of the things that really gets me is when you're talking about that is the point where we were made to turn against each other.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was really the weapon that they used to stop women from being able to be in their power.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the moment that they were able to manipulate women through fear of protecting their own families and their homes, to turn on their sisters, their neighbors, the women that they trusted to birth their children, to heal their family, they had to turn on those women.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's the point in which we started putting women against each other.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now that still occurs.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: We still struggle in our society with this, where women are very happy to pull another woman down.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that has come from this sort of yeah, like ancestral distrust of each other.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Which comes from a desire to keep themselves safe.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you can only do that by being small and palatable.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that was all create that all came about, just so we can be clear, that all came about through the movement of Christianity and religion, so bringing this concept of something outside of you being the thing that we should revere rather than trusting that in a knowing.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's very dangerous if the the people understand their own power.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And witches, original witches, healers, midwives, all of those um people that were working in that way knew their own power.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Women who have moved through mid through menopause and are reaching those crone years, they are not afraid any longer to step in their power.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what they're trying to quote.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: They still are really.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they you go.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: And they had a knowledge of uh their own power through the their own cycles, their own nature, and that connection to the to nature around them, like it wasn't a separation, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And God wasn't someone up in the sky, it was the earth beneath their feet, it was the sunset, it was the frost on the crops, the blood that came every month, it was the way a woman's belly swelled when she was pregnant, it was the birthing of a child, it was a woman's first bleed, it was the end of her bleeds, it was the way she stepped into her wise years, that was God.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And when you people understand God to be all around them, and that it isn't some external force telling them they will be acceptable and loved if they are a certain way, then they cannot be controlled.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's um it just actually, if you just pause for a moment and really hear what we're talking about, it's so big that we almost a bit like Theo was saying earlier, we just avoid talking about it for fear of what we would do if we unpack it.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that's the same as dealing with a trauma.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we are talking about this and we're thinking about it, some of us and some of you listening to this may be new to discovering your cycles or understanding what it is to look at the moon and follow the rhythms of the moon or understand where we are in the year.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you've recently started to understand about astrology more than ever because these things are becoming more mainstream.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is that in itself is it is so sad.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: We should know this, it's an innate knowing.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: We are born with these cycles.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that we no longer really are taught this as a young age or it doesn't get passed down to us, we're now learning.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I pass it down to my daughters, and I know that you are too.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they will learn this stuff is so amazing.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: But to think that actually, you know, we moved from when we moved to the Gregorian calendar, the the natural way that we lived, which was to follow the cycles of the moon, was taken from us.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that if we go back through history, which is like a I mean, that would be an amazing podcast to do really, but it's it's so interesting to just look at the way that these things have been chipped away and then to see that gently we're starting to bring it all back in.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that in itself is really hopeful.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you are someone who's recently found astrology or you're starting to look at the moon each day and see where it's at and what it's doing, and you're starting to understand your cycles, you've done some work with these amazing doctors or someone else, then that in itself is an opening to remembering the witch within you.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because that's what I think.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's like a remembering and a reclaiming.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: And like I because I I reckon I come to a lot of things because I want to rebel.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like I I always think, well, why?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_02: Why, for example, coming off contraception, I was like, why do we all have to be on contraception?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: That makes no sense to me.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm gonna stop.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And then you suddenly realize that what you needed was there all along.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's part of it is we have everything we need within us, and the world tries to tell us that we don't, and tries to sell us things to make our to make ourselves better, more palatable, more easy to control.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And the more of us that come back to our truest nature, that come back to that remembering that it's all here, the more difficult we are to control.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: The machinery just doesn't flow quite like.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have to get back to learning to trust this beautiful body, what it's naturally doing, you know, coming back to thinking about the cycles, understanding that if we can if we start to trust what our body is doing, it knows what we're doing.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: If anyone, anyone that's birthed will understand this.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if anyone's seen an animal birthing, watched a cat, for example, birthing, it's the most amazing thing to behold.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Because that that cat has not read a book, it hasn't had anyone tell it what to do at all.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thinking about the cat reading a book and or listening to a podcast is listen to no podcast, or it didn't go to like birth a cable.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It definitely didn't do it.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I've watched a cat do it twice, and it's just amazing.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they know what they want, they guard the space, they create the nest, and then they birth and they know to eat the placenta.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, the whole thing.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just go, wow because we are consumed by fear.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: What if anyway?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: We do know, and I think that I guess it's I guess being a identifying with that witch part of ourselves, it's agreeing that as Thea was saying, that our bodies aren't effective, they don't need to be optimized, they don't have to just be fixed, they are perfect and incredible and magical just as they are, and so um, you know, someone who identifies as a witch or as witchy might have will have reverence for our bodies and our cycles because they are part of nature, and then you've become very difficult to market anything to, yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: But also you're if you have reverence for your body and you are able to see, and this is where it gets like it shouldn't this shouldn't be difficult, but because we're sold the idea that we should be the same all the time, this is about cycles, like we've talked about this a lot, but we're okay if we are kind of like what we are at ovulation, which is like doing and giving and pleasing, pleasing everybody, but it's not okay to be to be a bit more withdrawn or introspective or sad or angry or emotional, and that's not okay because we we're just conditioned that only those sort of very narrow wind window of emotions is acceptable.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Anything that falls outside of that, we feel like we're defective and we need to have a diagnosis and a label and we have to do something about it.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: But if we can be, if we can hold the full spectrum of what it means to be alive in a body that cycles and the hormones go up and down, and there's inflammatory events that happen, and eggs are released, and physical sheds changed.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, and all these m incredibly magical things happen, and egg is released, life is possible, then that dies, then it sheds, and then this whole you know, season of events happens in our body.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And because we Women feel that and experience that.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: If we are, if we were conditioned instead of fearing it or feeling like only certain things are acceptable or palatable, then we could hold this whole spectrum of joy, pleasure, comfort, discomfort, pain, rage, fear, all of this stuff, sadness, all of that.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that is incredibly magical because that is life.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what the opportunity that women have, because we have this cycle, that we be can become masters of this incredible movement that's happening in our bodies that mirrors the natural world every month.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's just it.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: We are that exact thing.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: We are creation in being and we mirror it all.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: We hold it all.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: We are the phases of the moon.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: We are the tides.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: We are the seasons.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Creation and destruction in a month.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: And renewal.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: What's more magical than that?
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like I think it's the universe.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the universe encoded into our body.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: It really is the universe.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've always thought this why we revere the higher chakra up here.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: When I actually think for women the womb is the higher chakra.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for us, it's just not that way around.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if we were to really go in there, then I feel like that's where we have the experience of the universe and of the divine within us.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that's not new, Sam, because that's what people believed before there was Christianity and before Well, we revered the womb and the feminine.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the feminine.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we should talk about, you know, menstrual blood, the way that's been demonized to be bad, so that we actually, yeah, we don't want to talk about our cycles because we've been told not to, because that's not proper and appropriate.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we should keep all of that hidden.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, it's true that the point is it used to be revered.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be used as the highest ritualistic specimen that they could have.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so a woman who was bleeding wasn't treated as someone who should be shoved away and hidden, but she was actually seen as someone who could bring something very worthwhile to the priestess, and it could be used in a sacred ritual.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: But even now, like you see that there are studies being done on menstrual blood, on the benefits of it, on the stem cells and all of those kind of things.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_01: But only probably if they're collected in an incredibly sterile, horrible way in a laboratory.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Not under the full moon.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Still that's acceptable, but if you're collecting it yourself and pouring it on the earth or whatever, then it's still seen as as icky or something like that.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that I think we're we're so lucky because we have it encoded in our physiology, this opportunity to connect with nature, to connect with the natural world.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like our body is offering it to us every month.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: So I invite all women to connect to that if you're still cycling.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think that can be a beautiful place where you can start to discover the magic in your body and in the world.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Or just to even sit with whether you're comfortable enough to sit with your blood.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that in itself is the first practice is just rather than doing what we normally do, whichever method you're currently using, to absorb your blood each month, do you just immediately quickly wrap it up or quickly flush it away?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or can you sit for a moment and just look at it and feel it, its texture, or just notice what it represents?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if when you're listening to this you feel a level of discomfort within you, it's not to say that that's wrong or that's right, but it's an invitation to explore why and to explore w what it is that you feel about something that is so natural for your body to move through that it does it every single month of your fertile years.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it takes a woman to not do it anymore to realize, oh, I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm gonna miss that experience.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's you know, it's it's quite easy to gather menstrual blood, and I really would invite you to explore that.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I would recommend a book called Womb Awakening: Initiatory Wisdom from the Creatrix of All Life, and it's written by Dr.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Azra Bertrand, who's a medical doctor and he's a man, and Saren Bertrand, who is his wife.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And there's this bit in the this book where she she was English and she went to India, and I think she studied with the Tantrikas, and then she was, I think she'd maybe met her husband at this stage, but then she was free-bleeding on like a rock somewhere in nature.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And when she got up, he said, like, how beautiful the print of the blood on the rock was, and then she had felt this huge emotional release of being completely herself in her body and being witnessed by the masculine, by her man, and who all he had for her was reverence and how powerful that was reading this book.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought, like, it is just it is actually just so weird that we just put tampons up our vagina and just get on with it and not allow ourselves to luxuriate on rocks and on the lawn and treated like queens at that point of view.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're like, well, if you can't do your normal mundane duties without pain, then that's a problem.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let's operate on you.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: It really is like a very weird thing.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Very weird, very weird.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: But people might be listening to this and thinking the alternative is weird, but I don't think so.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: Let's face it, like that sounds quite delightful to me.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I think the pendulum probably swung a bit too far in that with feminism, we're trying to just be like men.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's where all of the like, you can do anything on your period, put a tampon in and you'll be fine and act like it's not happening.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's a middle road, which is yes, we can still achieve all the things we want to achieve, but actually acknowledging the beautiful cyclicity of our bodies is incredibly important.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I want to achieve that many things.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm just saying for people who want to achieve things.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to achieve that.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: I would like to achieve that.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's more like actually, I would like to see a period out where a woman was resting during a period.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Watering her garden with her menstrual blood where she was allowing herself to be given a massage by her partner.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And you just had a whole group of women and they just made vulva prints.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_02: That would be great.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that would be actually moving on to a new workshop that will be coming soon.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think it would be good.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, what is that?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm up for it.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um the idea of this is going back to the roots, pagan roots, I guess, of witches, and how we've talked about before connecting to the seasons, the solstices and the equinoxes, and um the harvest, and when we would plant things and having that intimate connection to nature.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, moons and all of that circadian rhythms, and the like it's so I mean, like it's ridiculous that we have to even say that there's evidence for the fact that sunlight and and being in sync with our circadian rhythms and having our feet on the earth and being near a tree, yeah, and growing food that's close to where we live and eating organic and all of that is good for our bodies at at all of the levels.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: But this is where how can we, Sam, from a witchy point of view, connect to these parts of the year, and how can we bring more ritual and reverence into that connection to nature?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's something we do a lot here.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one of the things that I'm Dr Peta Wright, I'm very clear about is the difference between the northern hemisphere and the southern hemisphere, and actually a lot of the original teachings around um the wheel of the year would have actually come from the druids, and so they were very much revered nature and worked with this, and then paganism actually came about a bit later, but all of them connect to this, and I believe that women through the centuries but it and forever will have done this, but unfortunately that has been taken and the knowledge isn't as easily readable for us to gather.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: But it's to say that the simplest way that I teach women to do this is for them to observe where they live and observe in their own garden, or if you don't have a garden, the park that is closest to you, and to start just keeping a gentle diary by hand, because that's always the best way, each day, of what they're seeing and what they're hearing in nature.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So to start to be able to understand the shifts of season, which I understand now from having lived here for quite a long time, that the shifts of season in Australia are very different to the shifts of season in England.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: My girls and I were just talking the other day about how it always looks a bit like autumn as we come into spring here in Australia and how that's fascinating to us.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a knowledge that we have now and it's a knowing of our land.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we actually now notice the colour of the grass because it's very dry right now, the colour of the trees, the crispiness of the leaves as we go for our walks, and various other things, the jacarand is coming up, and that those are symbols to us of spring.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's learning what the symbols are where you live and becoming familiar with the smells, the birds, the bird sounds.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's as simple as just knowing your space in the world deeply, and then understanding that in itself creates a cycle of change and noticing how your body feels within that.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you want to go even deeper in it, it's to watch how you're cycling yourself as a woman through that and with the moon.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like having a diary that can overlap the moon, your menstrual cycle, and then the cycle of nature that is occurring.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were to do that even for a year, that would be the most powerful witch activity that you could do.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is really how to reclaim the witch self and that nature witch for sure is to come back to that.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about reading something, it's not about listening.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not knowledge, it's wisdom.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's knowing your it's knowing your land, it's knowing yourself, it's knowing what's occurring in front of you.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then from that, starting to show others, show your children, show your partner.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: They will be inspired by it too.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Start planting with those seasons, with the moon.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: You will not you won't be able to help yourself but want to live that way and sleep more in the winter, be more alive in the spring.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, just follow the nap eating, exactly as you say, eating, trying to grow something in your garden, even if it's just some herbs and trying to eat something from your garden each day.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had a very failed vegetable recent journey, and I but I did get some carrots, and the other day I was in the garden and I was pulling out some carrots and just I just rinsed them with a hose and then was munching.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And my husband said, What are you doing?
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Just sorting out my microbiome, darling.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how you do it, it doesn't have to be perfect.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Just eat something that you've grown at home.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's so good for you.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: So satisfying too.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, noticing the birds.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like I go for a walk every morning in my pajamas, and I notice the birds and what what's flowering and how the breeze feels and the cicadas.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, when they come out through that the other day.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I always think of you because normally we hear it here and you say it, and you're like, oh, it must be October.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's yeah, yeah, it's the magic of it.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that what Peta's saying, like she's just going for a walk in her pajamas.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like this doesn't have to be perfect.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to don a special outfit and um go for a certain amount of steps.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually about just be outside, experience the difference in the light at spring to in winter.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Feel it on your body.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_02: I take my dog out for a wee before bed and always notice where Orion is in the sky, and I can see it moving from west to east.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_02: I've been writing that down.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: That you see, uh, this is another thing.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: Reclaim astronomy.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just trust what you're being told wherever you're reading it, but reclaim it yourself.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Look up to the sky and start to figure out what's there.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Remember the stars.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's actually what science was.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was observation of our own natural world, and now I think we're so detached from that knowing in ourselves that it's all just like being fed to us, and we have lost that connection.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, I think all of this is really important and has got major repercussions for our, you know, well-being, sense of magic and aliveness in the world.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, I think for the fate of our environment.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because the more of us who actually find that really deep connection to the natural world, the more of us that are likely to protect it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you're also going to naturally start thinking about the things that you're doing, like what am I doing to impact this small area that I live on?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're gonna think about what you're consuming, what you're placing on your skin.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking, you know, even getting to sort of herbalism, you don't even have to again study that.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Just think, okay, I you will all have heard that chamomile is effectively good at calming you down.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just believe me.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Go and find some chamomile and try it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: And do it from a tea that you get at the supermarket, and then notice the difference if you buy it at uh organic fresh stuff from a health food store.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just test it.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: You we have to test this ourselves.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you do that, you start to believe it, you start to trust it, and from there it becomes a knowing.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you're having an experience with it, or you can grow the chamomile and then pick the little flowers, which I do, and dry it and then have it in tea.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_02: Or even like just connecting to a tree, like putting your hand on a tree or your forehead on a tree, or sitting with your back to a tree and just seeing what messages you get, what wisdom comes to you.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: I do it all the time, but my one of my little boys was doing it recently, and he said, Mum, I don't know if it's the tree talking to me or myself.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, It's all the same thing.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's I love that so much.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: And you're getting quiet enough to hear that.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: The other wit thing that's really good about being a witch is the coven.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think having that, like, I love being in a group chat.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: Firstly, our like Instagram group chats called sexy witches or something, and then in chats where people will frequently send you pictures of the moon or happy spring equinox and a playlist and just beautiful things that remind you of like no one's complaining or gossiping, but they're like drawing your attention to the beauty and the magic in the world and in ourselves, and then that is so special, and it's restoring those connections that were broken, and the patriarchy also contributes to, but it's this place where we can witness each other and laugh and grieve and show up in our full fullness, like the vulnerability as well.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a place where we take the masks off, yeah.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And let's be honest, there's only so many places you can do that.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I was thinking earlier when Thea was talking about when she decided to come off um the oral contraceptive pill.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know Peta then?
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was just before.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: So this is what I was thinking.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking, and you went through a similar journey.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I was thinking we have to start trusting that once you start getting back to more of your true self, you will find those women who are gonna help you on that journey.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like when we meet each other again, and this is what happens at Vera all the time, we talk about it and laugh about it.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a remembering we go, we must have done this before.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: We have just found ourselves again, found each other in this lifetime, in this space.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: It cannot be a mistake because some of us, and we've all come from so many different places, it's like a miracle that we're here in this one place.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: That to me is magic.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's when we start to trust that it's like a, you know, we've we've just been drawn back to each other for to remember and to continue the craft that we have and work our magic in the world to support nature and the onward motion of the teachings.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And to me that's it.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_02: I agree, and we always say it about all of the women here that you know, when we're together, it's almost like this alchemy happens and things happen and we make decisions and we do things that we would never do alone and that seem to be happening in a very accelerated way.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's just like the beauty of being with a bunch of women who you can be fully yourself around and who all think in the same way, which is that anything's possible.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's really interesting, Peta, because you said before we're not gossiping, and that was where like the word gossip was actually a good word.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it was godsip, and it was your beautiful female friends in the pre-witchy times were your godsips, and they were the women you would sit around and weave with and and talk to and share your heart with.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: And again, that's another word that was weaponised.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think because it was dangerous to be together.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: Women being in a coven was seen as dangerous because exactly as you said, things happen when women are together.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I even was thinking, you know, you can see it in modern day, like the Taliban has banned women from congregating together or even talking to each other in public.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and what does that say about the way that patriarchy actually sees a group of women as inherently dangerous?
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think yeah, and it's yeah, because it's so much more powerful being together, like things I do things now that I probably would never have dreamt of doing by myself.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is what you know, and it's it's hard because in order to move away from something, that's you know, we have to move away from the group, and that causes us to feel this panic.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: So when we start to feel like, oh, this isn't for me, I have to step out, we have to leave certain safe areas in in our life.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: So once we find another group of women who share those beliefs or can see you for who you are, don't ask you to be someone else, but can really truly see you, and like you say, are willing to have conversations that are not just these superfluous, like unnecessary conversations, but go deep, where you can open your heart within a moment of seeing someone and not feel that it's going to be judged.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you start to then feel safe again, and it's the safety that helps us to develop our authenticity that then means we become sovereign again.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what they're fearing.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because imagine a whole group of women who are here at Vera, just so everyone knows, who are sovereign.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you and it is frightening.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it must be frightening because you can't control a woman who feels like that, or who doesn't feel like there's something missing, or that if they do have some self-doubt, are able to talk about it and doesn't feel like they are wrong or unworthy, and a woman who knows her worth is dangerous because it's difficult to sell them stuff or convince them that they're not good enough, or um you know, that their ideas aren't worth speaking about.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: So and those are the women that are going to create change in the world and challenge the power structures.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And apart from all of that power, it is just very fun to have friends that you can be in t entirely yourself, lift your skirts and wave to the world with.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: Because ultimately, like really ultimately, I think seeing a world or seeing the world as though it is imbued with magic is, if nothing else, such a beautiful way to live.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like feeling the world really deeply, like like feeling the wind on your skin and feeling like it's a message just for you, or seeing, you know, the sparkly light on a leaf on a tree, and in some way um sensing some meaning in that, that is an incredibly wonderful and deeply connected way to live.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_01: I had an owl feather on my windscreen the other day, and I felt that that was very meaningful.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's very meaningful because you also had like an owl dream or an owl card or something like that.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: I had an owl card the day before, and I did a very long three-hour meditation, and it was yeah, very magical.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: I also think that when we were in our last episode, how we talked about this, you know, deliberate way our c society over hundreds of years has taken away our sovereignty, which has left us feeling defective and unsure and seeking answers outside of ourselves, and then talking about the situation where women can end up making decisions about their bodies that where they outsource their own wisdom and power because they don't feel connected to it.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_01: Living in this way and connecting to our sovereignty in this way can ensure that we might take on advice, we might listen to advice, but ultimately we come back to our own knowing to know that's the right answer or it's not the right answer.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so it minimizes kinda harm and it and it helps our own autonomy.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so it's like a really incredible thing for us to do in um as women to ensure that we're not having that that power taken from us and that harm is not being done to us.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a really big So I guess today we would want to say remember that you're not defective, that you're magical, and revere your body, perhaps.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: Free bleed on a rock or make a vulva print out of your blood, maybe.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_01: Make even one ritual.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: It might be the way that you're stirring the soup and a spell.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: We didn't talk about that, but the way that words are, we talk about this all the time.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_01: We say words diagnoses their spells, and it's like really taps into what we know now about predictive coding, how it changes our brain, it changes our nervous system, changes how we feel in our body, changes our immune system, our gut health.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: So words are incredibly powerful, and we can use them for our highest good and the highest good of people around us, which is like magic.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: And just the simple act, you know, what Peta's saying is just blessing the food that you're creating with your hands in the evening before you serve it to your family is a ritual and is a spell.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Blessing the water before you drink it, having gratitude to the earth for offering it to you and allowing you to receive it.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_00: These things change the way that you absorb these nutrients in your body.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it is so powerful to be present.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking earlier, being a witch is really the ultimate in slow living.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: Slow living became like a trend.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: And there's so many trends all the time.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I was thinking it's actually to live this way as a witch is really to ultimately come back to being a bit slow enough to appreciate everything that's there, bless it, sit with it, ask it to provide you the healing that you need if that's what you're looking for, or the abundance, or whatever it is that you require in your life, and to trust that and to start using the tools that are in nature to enhance your life as well as you enhance nature's life or nature's existence.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's really beautiful.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: And to see beyond the veil, to see beyond the conditioning, and to be a woman in total control of herself, which spells out which, which we all like.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we hope that you enjoyed that, and we hope I like the idea of coming out of the broom closet, broom cupboard as witches.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: And um we hope that uh you feel called to bring in some more magic into your life, and we um would love to hear from you about any of your spells or rituals.
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Women of the Well.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: If it resonated with you, please follow the podcast and leave a review so more women can find their way here.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to keep the conversation going, come and find us at virowellness.com.au on Instagram.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: And for our courses, resources, and our training for practitioners, please visit verawellness.com.au, yeah.