In this episode, Amy and Risa are together again, one on one, to talk about the importance of building community. Whether we are grieving the personal or the political (or more likely both), the answer is to build a community of support. Through sickness, floods and fires, we remind each other that we can and will show up for each other!
Risa suggests taking on flying squirrels as guides at this time - flying squirrels whose vision allows them to see and recognize each other glowing in the dark. And we can do that too - find each other in the dark by changing the way we see.
Our community glows in the dark.
And a question from Mary Oliver “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Listen now, transcript below:
TRANSCRIPT
Risa: Hi, Coven. Hi, Coven. Hi, listeners. Jeez, it's been a while.
Amy: Yeah, that's what we were thinking. We were thinking it's been so long since Risa and I just sat down and did a one on one little chat. Publicly, I mean, obviously, you know, we have our little one on one chats on the phone while we sit around and consider the state of the world and the state of our bodies and the state of ourselves.
Amy: But it's a brand new year, so we thought maybe we might need to reintroduce ourselves. We might need to shout out people who have found our coven just by googling online coven and maybe are just getting into the podcast now so... i think we're both exhausted and i think the whole world is exhausted so i guess that makes sense um but yeah we're just here to hang to say hi Ask you how you are.
Amy: How are you, Coven?
Risa: Hi strangers, hi lovers, hi witches, hi friends. How the fuck are you? I will offer my own scoop and update. Um, cause I think the last time, if you are a podcast listener, you heard from me was in the scripted Cancer episodes. And I still am in the cancer, um, but I'm okay. Um, I'm super bald.
Risa: You can't see me, but Amy can. Um, I shaved my head and then it started to grow back a teeny bit and then it all fell out and then the eyebrows went and the eyelashes went. And that messed me up. You know, it's strange how these small lines that make up your face. Are these sort of gestures that you can relate to your sense of self in such a profound way.
Risa: I was okay with losing the hair, but the eyelashes really threw me small things. Um, I am, uh, more than halfway through a six months of chemo or whatever it'll be in the end. And then, uh, 25 rounds of radiation and then one more surgery and maybe that's it. I'm in the land of probabilities. They cut the cancer out.
Risa: I have clean margins. But there is probable cancer throughout. Future probable cancer. That we're attacking with aggressive chemicals now. It's a strange, I have a strange relationship. An altered relationship with science and magic in this new chemo headspace that I've just been trying to wrap my head around.
Risa: And also there's, you know, beautiful fluffy snow falling and it's a black and white world outside my window. And that's sort of a summary of how I am and who I am these days.
Amy: I had, um, an episode where I found that, uh, a prescription medication that I had been given for my various ailments, like it really was not doing what it should have been doing, and quite the opposite actually.
Amy: And Risa and I had a long conversation about like, how our medicines are poisoning us, and, and how do you negotiate that? It, and it feels like, it feels like the world. Right now, that everything that we might find joy in has another side of its coin. And so we have to look even harder to find the joy. I did think of a little bit of potential joy for Risa, but Risa does not like to put shit on her face.
Amy: She's not like a big makeup wearer or, you know, even at Halloween. Which is something that she and I do not have in common. I will glue a thousand rhinestones to my face and not think about it, but I was thinking about, like, your loss of eyebrows. And, and how that was really, like, something that, like, when you looked in your face, made you feel very differently about your face.
Amy: And I was thinking about how so many drag artists will intentionally remove their eyebrows so that they don't have to block them out. And so if you wanted to, you know, paint your face like Divine from Pink Flamingoes, this would be the perfect time to do it. If you wanted to, you know, really get into, you know, Heavy camp drag.
Amy: Now would be the perfect time for you to get into
Risa: that. Totally. This is the time. I mean, I definitely, like, I've had to play with dress up a little bit to sort of shake myself. I don't know, like, back into different ideas of who I can be. Like, access that part, different parts of myself, you know? Like, I really went through a valley of Sweatsuits.
Risa: Dark, dark valley of sweatsuits. Uh, when I really couldn't, I couldn't access narratives about myself. And I told Amy, you know, I couldn't watch narratives either. I couldn't really process. When I was in the sort of dose dense chemo, I couldn't really process narratives. Um, but I couldn't really access narratives about myself either.
Risa: And I said in a coven call that I was experiencing gender dysmorphia or a sense of body dysmorphia just feeling so confused about my body, um, because I have You know, expanders in my breasts just don't look normal. They look really, to me, very, um, cyborg and they feel so strange because all the nerve endings are cut.
Risa: So there isn't this sort of sense of like living sexuality or whatever. Um, yeah, I just, I know when I look in the mirror, like bald and weird cyborg tits that point straight up where mine used to point straight down after many, Years of breastfeeding. Not many. Okay. Two years of breastfeeding. No judgment for anybody who goes a long time.
Risa: Um, many, many, many years of breastfeeding. 12 years. No, um, yeah. And then I had a cabin mate reach out, um, who was going through transition. Who was like, I heard you use that word and just wanted to send you love. From the land of dysmorphia, like I'm, I'm really with you in that. And I think that you have more in common with that experience, even then you realize, you know, and, um, they were so kind to include me in that experience and in that discourse and
Amy: offer me.
Amy: Rather than to gatekeep the experience. Yeah.
Risa: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which if you feel like I shouldn't have access to that, I could understand that too. There, maybe there should be a different word, but there is a feeling of like really being so disoriented by your body, by it being wrong. Um, and I knew, you know, really that I wanted Breasts, even if they were going to be fake.
Risa: And that really helped me understand in my body what it is to know that you needed to transition in a minor way. You know, like I don't have that full experience or anywhere near, but I certainly like I'm, I'm put myself in allegiance with people who have that experience. Um, but yeah, playing dress up helps sometimes.
Risa: Um, and I can see how maybe a little, like, Sparkle eyebrow,
Amy: because you have a blank canvas, right?
Risa: I sure do.
Amy: Yeah,
Risa: I have, um, I have like the, the, the white fuzz. of a post chemo bald head. This is like a known thing to chemo patients, but probably nobody else. But like, you get this, like you, before your hair goes back, you get this like white baby fuzz.
Risa: So I have that now. It's so weird.
Amy: It's cute. I can see it. Just a little like halo of light.
Risa: I can see your halo.
Amy: What are you looking forward to for 2025? 2025.
Risa: What am I looking forward to for 2025? I mean One thing that is sort of daily joyful for me is that we do have people finding us from the gooks, you know, that people really are looking for an online coven that's trans inclusive, that loves science and hugging trees, that people are finding that and seeing themselves in it, um, and making common cause with us.
Risa: That's so joyful, really, it is, because I feel like on our website, we really have been just, and in the podcast, just like so honest about who we are. Like, I feel like this is really a very accurate reflection of who we are and what we think. We're not setting ourselves up to teach Wicca or anything that we don't know, you know.
Risa: We're just sort of exploring what this word means to us and why it means something. Something does
Amy: this word, which,
Risa: yeah, yeah, that word. Um, so yeah, I look forward to that. It's to see the community grow and to see people in our community inside the coven space, that's, that's only accessible to, To supporting members take on, like, sort of step into their roles as co creators, um, and to be creating more and more in that space is something I really look forward to.
Risa: That was sort of the dream and I, especially this week after a Weaver's Call, I really felt like that dream, like, sort of got lift, you know, um, in a totally new way. Also, I would just like to have a year without constant. Crisis, but I don't think that's in the cards. It's
Amy: not looking like 2025 is going to be that year.
Amy: We already, we already lost that battle in like the first two weeks of January. You know, we have a lot of friends and loved ones and relations who are living in California and are just being reduced to tears as always. Um, we have to shout out Amanda Yates Garcia, is, you know, um, not like the love and light, everything's great.
Amy: Like, she called the mayor a cunt in her last newsletter and I was like, that's so real. That's so real. But, um, I would follow, um, and subscribe to the newsletter, definitely, of Amanda Yates Garcia, who is sort of talking us through, um, obviously the fires in LA, but also how she has seen her community come together.
Amy: And I think that that's that's the biggest goal for me for so many of us is just to build and develop communities of care, like real communities of real care where we can go into a place when we're not feeling like putting on the mask of everything's great and don't worry about me and I'll be fine.
Amy: And I think we've all reached that point. You know, those of us with any kind of global consciousness, um, are at that point where it's just like, This is not okay, and I am not okay in this, you know, if you are thinking about Joining the Missing Witches Coven, you know Normally when a podcast has like a patreon or you know something to that effect It'll be like bonus episodes or you know content that wasn't included but for us it really is about building community, about building relationships, about having a place to go when the world seems so scary that we almost have forgotten beauty and laughter.
Amy: And to, to grab that stuff and cling it back and hold it close to ourselves because we need that. You know, Risa and I, we talk All the time about, and that's why our book New Moon Magic, the, the subtitle is like resistance and re enchantment. And we come back to this again and again and again. What are we fighting against?
Amy: We know. Something that has been kind of very interesting, you know, Luigi really helped to bring this idea to the forefront. Whatever you think about that situation is sort of neither here nor there. The point for me is that people are talking about class and how so much of racism, homophobia, transphobia comes back down to capitalism and how the ruling class can profiteer from us feeling fucking shit about ourselves.
Amy: And so that to me is such an important point to make that this awakening, this like people who never thought about class consciousness before, you know, I have a friend who I would probably call like apolitical and I, I envy her that skill to be able to just like go through life, you know, Unconcerned about global politics or local politics or politics of any kind, but even she is at this point where, you know, she's driving past the, the, um, the tent, tent cities that are popping up in Montreal.
Amy: And again, this is Montreal. Like we're talking minus 20 degrees Celsius. Like it's, it's not safe. It's not fair. It's not right. And so I, I said to she, she was asking me like, what do I do with these feelings? And I was like, welcome to your radicalization. You know, today's the day, circle it on the calendar.
Amy: Today was the day that we got radicalized. And of course we know that like the cure for that For that feeling of helplessness is, is action. And what I said to her was like, pick one thing. Pick one thing to care about and one thing to work toward. There are too many. If you try to save everyone, you're, you're not only going to not be able to save anyone, but you're also going to lose yourself.
Amy: It's impossible. It's an impossible task. And when we are in communities, then we can kind of divide and conquer, you know, What's your skill set? What are you passionate about? Okay, then let's, let's facilitate that and let's foster that. And then I'm going to go work over here again. I feel like every time we're in a room together, I bring up the Doreen Valiente story of like her being invited to this.
Amy: event, like a witchcraft event and they were like expecting her to be the keynote speaker and she showed up and they were like, you know, what do you want to do? How do you want to be involved? And she said, well, I could wash the dishes. And that, like, I think about it all the time, how we, and again, maybe that's part of capitalism where everything's got to be big and grand and massive, but life is actually made up of just these tiny little, maybe we could wash the dishes, maybe I could wash the dishes for you, and what a rippling effect that has across people's lives.
Amy: So again, 2025 I think is going to be a big year of class consciousness, a big big year of community building. When we had our, our flood last summer that caused the landslide that took out a chunk of my yard. I remember, you know, the mayor of our little town was like, rely on your neighbors, rely on your friends, which is very true and very beautiful and very good, but also is another way of saying like, we're not.
Amy: We're not coming to help you. You know when the government says rely on your neighbors what they're actually saying is like you're on your own and we can't be on Our own we cannot be on our own and so it becomes so so much more important to like resist that the individualism of capitalism the lie of Self reliance where if you just have enough money, then you don't need fucking anybody and you know and It's just not true.
Amy: When there are no farmers, you can't buy food, even if you have a billion dollars. If there are no farmers, there is no food. And we all need to be fostering community and fostering relationships. Giving each other that place that we talked about earlier, Risa, where you can just fucking cry. Like, you don't have to pretend that everything is okay here, which is super important for all of our mental health, for all of us.
Amy: So that's what I'm really looking forward to in 2025, is like, the raising of class consciousness, the recognition, That, like, so much of identity politics can be really traced back to, you know, capitalism or anti capitalism and, and joining together against people who would hoard enough wealth that generations and generations and generations of their descendants couldn't possibly spend in all of their lifetimes combined.
Amy: That's a thing. fucking mind blowing to me that this has been allowed to happen. And so now hopefully 2025 will be a sea change we started out. And I mean this is me going off on a bit of a tangent here but like for the first time in my life I'm thinking about you know all of my travel plans and I'm not a rich person so I can't just Book a plane ticket whenever I feel like it and go wherever I feel like, you know, I just, I don't have the resources for that.
Amy: But for the first time in my life, I'm thinking to myself, I need to go to this place because it might not be there. It never occurred to me before, and maybe because like it wasn't as, as confronting of a possibility, you know, that might not be there. The Hollywood sign might not be there and I'm thinking about places all over the world that I want to visit.
Amy: Like, when was it? It was years ago when the, when the Cathedral Notre Dame burned and luckily I had already crossed Paris off my bucket list, you know. But to think, like, imagine me, someone like me, who's like, Okay, in five years I'm gonna see this thing that's really important to me. And then it's just not there.
Amy: So I really just, like, I want to snatch as much life as I can while it's still fucking there and available.
Risa: I, yeah, I mean, I, I relate to that feeling from a different perspective. Like, I, I'm really in it's such a bummer to say but like I am so My thinking is so much like what do I want to do before I die?
Risa: Because I might not I
Amy: might not be here not like The Eiffel Tower might not be there. I might not be here. I know!
Risa: I keep telling my friend, you know, I was walking with a friend the other day and she's talking about a complexity in her life with a, you know, uh, ancestor or a great uncle or whatever. And I was like, well, you know, my sort of philosophy these days is like, if you think of somebody, With love you should tell them immediately because people die like sorry, you know, I'm not sorry I I I don't mean to throw it down Your throat but like people die.
Risa: They just die on you Merry Christmas. Happy New Year people die on you You know, I might die like it might not work and I will die. We all will it's such a It's such a heavy thing to carry. And I know from Mark's perspective, it's always been like, um, us rushing to see these places precipitates the dying.
Risa: Like we, we accelerate it with each transatlantic flight by being consumptive tourists, you know, like we accelerate the, the, the process, the capitalist process that's, that's killing it. And so for him, I can see that thought process. Sometimes can almost become paralyzing, right? It's like, well, I can't do things that make it worse.
Risa: But at the same time, I think he manages to, he's trying to cultivate. And I think so many people are trying to cultivate a way of being in the world. That is like less consumptive. That is like more about the joys that we can nourish right here. For this little bit of time that we have, you know, just walking around the lake with my neighbor, who's a retired soil scientist, who's talking about theories of degrowth, you know, that there's been this sort of.
Risa: story perpetuated that like farms always have to produce more, uh, the economy always has to produce more or we're in a recession. We always have to grow, but that's always been a lie. There's only one planet. There isn't infinite growth possible. And so that whole model has to To change, like that, that math just doesn't math for very long.
Risa: And so, you know, it's like, we can't all experience everything. We can't all see everything. Otherwise, you know, our planes collide in the air and we run out of fuel. You know, uh, for me, the great, the great like awakening heartbreak was, was realizing that I probably wouldn't see the great barrier reef, you know, when it had been like the ocean world is like my, my, like.
Risa: dreamscape. It's my like, it's like the world of magic to me is, is the, is the ocean world. And so to realize that that, that is dying, that I won't see that my daughter won't see that was like, it's not still not something I can really look at. It's like a, I think we probably all have them listener. Do you have them?
Risa: The thing that you mourn that you can't really look at that the world is losing. How do we deal with that? You know, we have to grieve together. And then also like, Remember what climate scientists are telling us that like every, you know, every degree that we save saves billions of lives, every, every step that we take towards saving the earth matters.
Risa: It's never too late. There is no moment where it's too late. Every, every moment that we salvage matters across species and throughout ecosystems. So I do, I do take. Not comfort. Uh.
Amy: Bioluminescence. Bioluminescence, yeah. The shine that comes from within. I, I, you know, thinking about the ocean, bioluminescence comes up for us a lot.
Amy: And this, this like, uh, a non metaphorical glow that comes from within. I'm cultivating bioluminescence.
Risa: Yeah, we were talking about bioluminescence in a circle the other day, and I wanted to share this piece, and I'll share it here, uh, from the natural world that is A metaphor for me as these like sort of living metaphors always are, but, um, so flying squirrels, we had some flying squirrels live in, living in our attic this, uh, fall, we sort of had to gently evacuate them, um, and we felt bad, you know, but, um, Sort of tucked a little stick behind and nudged them out and off they flew into the woods.
Risa: And I'd seen them here one other time before but I went back and re read some of the stuff I'd read about them and watched a documentary I'd seen before and it was reassuring to remember that flying squirrels have nests all through the forests that they inhabit. Um, they don't just have one home. They make their homes in many places.
Risa: They have their stashes all throughout the forest, too, of food. And they find each other, um, in a unique way because they see a different spectrum of light than we do. So they can see, um, like a glowing UV light and they are, um, they have markings on their body that glow in that exact spectrum. So to them, The forest is not dark.
Risa: The forest is lit up with these glowing streaks of their family and friends catching air and flying through the woods that what to us looks like sort of these like frail or sketchy night rats. They are
Amy: terrifying. I'm sorry. I only ever saw flying squirrels once and I assume they're nocturnal because it was nighttime and they were very active and I was like, what the fuck are those freaky weasel rats like climbing on my tree?
Amy: Yeah, and their
Risa: huge dark eyes. They're huge, huge black guys, but that's how they can see these, like, it's not bioluminescent. I don't, I'm not going to get the exact scientific terminology, right. But basically they glow to each other and they see each other glowing through the night. And I want to offer that at least to myself and perhaps to you, listener, I am like.
Risa: Crawling around in the dark trying to find what I believe and how to be joyful these days. The call to re enchantment hits me really deep because I need to find enchantment again and maybe we can be on that quest together this year. But I will hold on to this image in very dark times of all of us out there glowing at frequencies that only we can see.
Amy: I think that that's a perfect metaphor with which to conclude, but I will pose a question originally posed by Mary Oliver to all of you from her poem, The Summer Day. What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? This is something that we can think about. Instead of getting consumed by grief, we can go into spaces where that grief is allowed to exist.
Amy: be released. We don't have to hold it in. And once you have released some of that grief to someone who will listen, even just nod along, um, then that makes space for something else. That makes space for the re enchantment part. That, that makes space for us to see differently. To see UV. glowing in the dark, and find our community.
Amy: That's the really, really interesting takeaway for me about the flying squirrel, is that even in the dark, they see in such a way that they can see their community glowing like a beacon that will lead them to each other. I mean, come on.
Risa: I mean. Bless and fucking be.
Amy: Bless and fucking be. We love you, and thanks for joining us for another year.
Risa: Yeah, be safe out there.
