Imbolc 2025: Future Histories Of Black Magic - Revolutionary Dreams w Lilith Dorsey, Loli Moon, Christena Cleveland, Zoe Flowers, Thea Anderson, and Dr Beverly

The halfway point between Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox (also known as Imbolc) is an ideal time to look backwards and forwards - what did we learn and what can we do differently as we start planning the planting of new seeds - literal and metaphorical?

February first also kicks off black history month and these two dates combined provide the perfect opportunity to celebrate where we’re going and learn from where we’ve been. To strategize our revolutionary dreams.

For the past few years Missing Witches has hosted a Zoom circle of inspiring Black Witches at Imbolc for a "Future Histories of Black Magic" special to mark Black History Month.  We believe that all of our guests are creating what will be the future of black history with their incredible work.

Last year we lost a beloved poet, Nikki Giovanni, so we’re taking this year’s prompt from the title of one of her poems, “Revolutionary Dreams”.

Over the past couple years there’s been a lot of rhetoric around the word revolution - both political and personal. So I’ve gathered this panel of brilliant witches together today, Lilith Dorsey, Loli Moon, Christena Cleveland, Zoe Flowers, Thea Anderson, and Dr Beverly to ask: What is YOUR revolutionary dream?

Listen now, transcript below

CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH BY SUPPORTING OUR GUESTS

Lilith Dorsey

Lilith Dorsey (New Orleans, Louisiana) comes from a Celtic, Afro-Caribbean, and
Native American spirituality. They are the editor and publisher of Oshun-African
Magickal Quarterly and filmmaker of the documentary Bodies of Water: Voodoo
Identity and Tranceformation. They are co-host of the YouTube show Witchcraft &
Voodoo. Lilith is also the author of Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism (Citadel,
2005) and Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens (Weiser, 2020).

Find Lilith on their website, on Instagram, their blog, and on YouTube.

Support Lilith's work: Venmo @Lilith-Dorsey - PayPal blackbrigit@yahoo.com - CashApp $LilithDorsey

And check out ALL of Lilith's books: 55 Ways to Connect to Goddess, Love Magic, Water Magic, Voodoo and African Traditional Religion, Orishas, Goddesses, and Voodoo Queens and Tarot Every Witch Way!

Loli Moon

Loli Moon is the modern Jamaican grey witch behind Mystic Moon Medicine, discussing astrology, the occult, magick, African spirituality & spiritual awakening.

Loli is a Professional Astrologer, with 14 years of studying and reading the stars. She also reads tarot and oracle cards, offering channeled readings to those seeking guidance. Loli wears many other hats, including Yoga Instructor, Reiki Healer, ascended and graduated Sacred Woman from the Rites of Passage with Queen Afua, Certified Birth Doula and aborisha.

Join Loli on Patreon. Book a reading. Check out the What's The Brew podcast. Tip her on PayPal. Find Loli on Instagram.

If you're a supporting member of the Missing Witches Coven, you have access to Loli's AstroTea forecast for 2025

Christena Cleveland

Christena Cleveland, Ph.D. is a social psychologist, public theologian, author, and activist. She is the founder and director of the Center for Justice + Renewal which supports a more equitable world by nurturing skillful justice advocacy and the depth to act on it.

A weaver at heart, Dr. Cleveland integrates psychology, theology, storytelling, and art to help justice seekers sharpen their understanding of the social realities that maintain injustice while also stimulating the soul’s enormous capacity to resist and transform those realities. 

Dr. Cleveland holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara, a B.A. from Dartmouth College where she double majored in Sociology and Psychological and Brain Sciences, as well as an honorary doctorate from the Virginia Theological Seminary. An award-winning researcher and author, Christena is a Ford Foundation Fellow who has held faculty positions at several institutions of higher education — most recently at Duke University’s Divinity School, where she was the first African-American and first female director of the Duke Center for Reconciliation, and also led a research team investigating self-compassion as a buffer to racial stress. In 2022, she published her second full-length book, God is a Black Woman (HarperCollins), which details her 400-mile walking pilgrimage across central France in search of ancient Black Madonna statues, and examines the relationship among race, gender, and cultural perceptions of the Divine.  Her work has been featured in a number of major media outlets including the History Channel, PBS, Essence Magazine, the Washington Post, NPR, and BBC Radio.

Though Dr. Cleveland loves scholarly inquiry, she is also an avid student of embodied wisdom. She recently completed the Art & Social Change intensive somatic training for millennial leaders, and is currently deepening her mind-body-spirit integration in a year-long embodied leadership cohort for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

A bona fide tea snob, lover of Black art, and Ólafur Arnalds superfan — Christena makes her home in Minneapolis.

Find Christena on the web and on Instagram. Join her on Patreon.

Also: There are just a couple spots left to TRAVEL WITH CHRISTENA TO VISIT THE BLACK MADONNAS OF PARIS in April and May!!

Zoe Flowers

Zoë Flowers is an accomplished author, advocate, and healing practitioner with a diverse body of work spanning multiple mediums. In 2004, she interviewed survivors of domestic and sexual violence, resulting in the publication of her groundbreaking book, “From Ashes to Angel’s Dust: A Journey Through Womanhood.”

Zoë is also the founder of Soul Requirements, Inc., a healing-
centered consulting company that combines her artistic endeavors, 20+ years of
domestic/sexual violence expertise, and holistic healing practices.

As a researcher, Zoë has conducted listening sessions with a wide range of communities, including survivors of violence, Tribal Elders in Canada, Black students at universities, community members and advocates in the US, London, and Canada about sexual assault and Uber rideshare service, and advocates in the US Virgin Islands about Hurricane Maria/transportation/and the rise of sexual assault on the island. She has spoken at over 300 conferences on issues related to racial equity, underserved communities, art as a healing methodology, and gender-based violence.

As a healer, she facilitates individual and group healing sessions, retreats, and workshops across the globe. As an artist, she creates films, theatrical productions, and books that explore social issues, healing, and spirituality.

In 2021 she published "In Praise of the Wytch."

Check out Zoe's Magickal Candles. Each candle is infused with Reiki energy, attraction herbs, and oils to lift your energy and attract good luck.

Find/Book Zoe on the web, on Instagram and YouTube.

Thea Anderson

Thea is an astrologer and writer. Her ancestors were enslaved in central Texas and various family members have been incarcerated in this country. She writes about historical events through the lens of astrology.

Her recent work has been featured in the anthology Infinite Constellations, the Triangle House Review, as well as The Mountain Astrologer. 

Thea is Chief of Staff at CHANI, Inc. and co-hosts the podcast Down To Astro with Chani Nicholas and Eliza Robertson.

Check out the Celestial Arts Education Library - Thea has written a piece for their journal about the astrology of convict leasing where she grew up in Sugar Land, Texas.

Learn more about Thea on the web and on Instagram then book a reading.

Dr Beverly

Doctor Beverley is a conjure doctor and rootworker, happy to assist you in all your spiritual, magical, and practical endeavors.

Having a lifelong background in both Christian and Druid traditions, she is a firm believer in the power of prayer. "In the Druid tradition, prayer is interpreted as "intention" - a mindful declaration of your goals. The human mind is immensely powerful with untold, untapped resources. Most of us have yet to unlock our full potential. She believes that our "intent" is the first key in achieving our goals. When our goals are clearly identified and carefully prioritized and the power of our intention is applied, the magic of the herbs can more easily assist the efforts. With our clear goals identified and our intentions applied, the rootwork (the plant energies) can more easily manifest the desired results."

She is available for Bone Readings (Ancestor Divination), Setting of Lights (candle magic), phone consultations, and Rootwork in the Hoodoo tradition. Connect via email at info@docbev.com.

Find Dr. Beverly on the web. VENMO her at @missjacksonifyanasty

Dr Beverly read When I Die by Nikki Giovanni.

TRANSCRIPT

Amy: If you want to support the Missing Witches project, join the coven. Find out how at missingwitches. com or buy our books New Moon Magic and Missing Witches. And check out our deck of oracles.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witches podcast. My name is Amy and today we are celebrating the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, also known as Imbolc, and the start of Black History Month. So this halfway point between the winter solstice and spring equinox is the perfect time to look backwards and forwards. 

Amy: What did we learn, and what can we do differently as we start planning the planting of new seeds, literal and metaphorical? And as I said, February 1st also kicks off Black History Month. And these two dates combined provide the perfect opportunity for us to celebrate where we're going and learn from where we've been. 

Amy: Last year we lost a beloved poet, Nikki Giovanni, so we're taking this year's prompt from one of her poems, Revolutionary Dreams. Over the past couple years, especially, there's been a lot of rhetoric around the world, around the word revolution, and around the world. Slip of the tongue, but both work. Both political and personal. 

Amy: So I've gathered this panel of brilliant witches together today to ask, what is your revolutionary dream? What does your revolution look like? How do you imagine a functional future? And who are your heroes of revolutionary work? I'm so excited to welcome back these creators of future Black history and present. 

Amy: Authors, artists, astrologers, scholars, teachers, magic makers, Lilith Dorsey, Lolly Moon, Christina Cleveland, Zoe Flowers, Thea Anderson, and The brilliant Dr. Beverly, all brilliant. Thank you so much for joining me today to talk about our, your revolutionary dreams. And let's start with Dr. Beverly. I think you might want to engage us with some poetry from Nikki Giovanni before we dive into our conversation. 

Dr Beverly: I do. I have always seen Professor Giovanni as. A revolutionary as one of my. greatest role models. I discovered her when I was in college and I discovered this book. This is my first book by her. You can see it's in, it's in pieces. It's it's, it's my house and it's called My House Nikki Giovanni. It compiles a series of some of her earliest poetry. 

Dr Beverly: Most of these poems come from the seventies. This one that I'm going to read That I think is particularly appropriate is from January 7, 1972. And this book of poetry was released in 83, and I bought it new, and it's not new anymore. So, I read this poem in honor of Nikki Giovanni, and it's called, When I Die. 

Dr Beverly: When I die, I hope no one who has ever hurt me cries. And if they cry, I hope their eyes fall out and a million maggots that have made up their brains crawl from the empty holes and devour the flesh that covered the evil that passed itself off as a person that I probably tried to love. When I die, I hope every worker in the National Security Council, the Interpol, the FBI, CIA Foundation for the Development of Black Women. 

Dr Beverly: gets an extra bonus, and maybe takes one day off, and maybe even asks why they didn't work as hard for us as they did them. But it always seems to be that way. Please don't let them read Nikki Rosa. Maybe just let some black woman who called herself my friend go around and collect each and every book and let some black man who said it was negative of me to want him to be a man. 

Dr Beverly: Collect every picture and poster and let them burn. Throw acid on them, shit on them, as they did me while I tried to live. And as soon as I die, I hope everyone who loved me learns the meaning of my death. Which is a simple lesson. Don't do what you do very well, very well. and enjoy it. It scares white folks and makes black ones truly mad. 

Dr Beverly: But I do hope someone tells my son his mother liked little old ladies with their blue dresses and hats and gloves. That sitting by the window to watch the dawn come up is valid. That smiling at an old man and petting a dog don't detract from manhood. Do somebody please tell him I knew all along that what would be will be. 

Dr Beverly: But I wanted to be a new person and my rebirth was stifled not by the master. But by a slave, and if ever I touched a life, I hope that life knows that I know that touching was and still is. And will always be the true revolution. 

Amy: Brilliant. Oh, excellent choice. Thank you, Dr. Beverly, do you wanna tell our listeners who maybe have missed you on the podcast in the past, a little bit about who you are? 

Dr Beverly: Thank you very much. My name is Beverly Smith. I'm known in some circles as Dr. Beverly because I am a root worker in the hoodoo tradition. 

Dr Beverly: Hoodoo is not whooo. And many people do know that, but some people still ask. So just quickly, voodoo is an initiatory religion that was created and is practiced in Haiti and among hate among and of course there are voodoo practitioners in America and elsewhere, but it originated in Haiti. 

Dr Beverly: Hoodoo takes the ancestral memories that the captives brought with them to the new world and is. Herbal magical lore. It's the power and the energetics herbs in manifestation. And the captives were brought to the new world. They learned to work with the plants that were there. Some of the plants they recognized from home. 

Dr Beverly: Some of the plants, they had to be taught how to use it. They were helped in many ways by some of the local native people. And together they devised this system of Hoodoo, which is overwhelmingly African American. The vast Practitioners of who do are black Christians. I am not a Christian. I was however, raised. 

Dr Beverly: In the Christian faith. And so I understand that in all manifestation, all of us who are energetic workers, all of us who perhaps believe in manifestation. Some people call it magic. Some people call it conjuring. However you want to call it, we know that you just don't throw a couple herbs in a mojo bag and call it magic. 

Dr Beverly: You have to bring it. You have to manifest it. You have to work with those energies and, and, and, and bring it forth. And As well as many who were raised in the black Christian traditions. I understand that calling upon the name of Jesus. I get that. I understand how powerful that is to my own parents, my own grandparents, and those who came before me. 

Dr Beverly: So I approach who do in a different way. Using a different source for my power because I've come to understand that when I'm aligned with the powers of the universe, I am God. When I am backed by my ancestors, I understand that I am God. If I am a child of God slash goddess, then I am a young God, young goddess. 

Dr Beverly: In the making, and that is the, that's the fountain of power for which I fuel my manifestations, but I am a root worker and root workers are known to prescribe different Oh, Grover. Greg. Roots for your conditions. Hoodoo is about practical. Hoodoo is about how do I, how do I pay my rent this, this, this, this month? 

Dr Beverly: How do I keep my man from straying? How do I keep my kids safe? How do I continue to, grow and to live in this world that in many ways wants to thwart me. So we provide different prescriptions of different herbal combinations for baths, for tinctures, for mojo bags. Oh, the list goes on and on. And we believe that those herbs through their innate divine given power, bring the manifestation that we see. 

Dr Beverly: So, in a nutshell, as me. 

Amy: Just, you know, a god on earth. Speaking of, speaking of gods, or god, author of God is a black woman. Right, there it is. Christina Cleveland. Tell us a bit about who you are and then please tell us about the revolutionary dream of restorative justice and the Black Madonna. Hi. Hi, 

Christena: Thank you. I have Hello everyone. 

Christena: Can I go backwards? Can I tell the dream first and then share who I'm backwards, 

Amy: forwards around the bend 

Christena: that feels more alive? So I'm my revolutionary dream is for ease. I want a revolution that comes without us wearing ourselves out. I dream of a revolution that is like Dr. Beverly said, already the force that that play, we're just dropping into it. 

Christena: And receiving and flowing. I've been living, living in 1790s Haiti for the last six months because I've been learning all about how the Black Madonna was a part of the Haitian Revolution and empowered it. And one of the things that's really coming up for me is so many people who are revolution, who are the leaders that revolution, whether they are household names or not. 

Christena: We're given by they were given names from the black Madonna personal names, like nicknames, names of endearment. And I say given, but they really took them. They just, they knew that was their birthright. And oftentimes they would strategize. And then when people would say, well, what, how do you know we're supposed to do this or that military in terms of military strategy, they'd be like, well, the black Madonna told me it. 

Christena: I'm like her godson. So, you know. This is, you know, just that, that sense of ownership and being owned but with consent. And so I'm, I'm, I want everyone to have nicknames from the divine. I want everyone to know that they're, that they're sought after and cherished and called, and that there's a, that they're, the work that they're doing in the revolution is divinely ordained and supported and innovated. 

Christena: And I want there to be lots and lots and lots of rest, particularly for people in, who identify as women non binary folks, because yeah, we're the ones who are the mules behind the revolution, yet we rarely ever get the credit. So that's my dream. And a lot of my dreams come from stories about the Black Madonna. 

Christena: And so I right now I'm really just. Living in the energy of Our Lady of Fuck Around and Find Out, the Black Madonna of Paris, who goes around and takes abusers and handles them on behalf of the people who have been abused. I'm thinking a lot about She Who Cherishes Our Hot Mess, the Black Madonna of V. C. 

Christena: France, who doesn't need us to have all the answers or do everything perfectly. We get to be on a learning curve even as we resist. It's okay to acknowledge that we aren't, like, didn't, Walk out of the womb quoting Nikki Giovanni, you know, like we're on a journey ourselves. We're awakening ourselves and It's okay. 

Christena: And I'm also thinking a lot about Our lady of the side. I the black Madonna of this little tiny region of France who has been hearing particularly black women's cries in the face of colonialism for 900 years now, so Yeah calling on these archetypes To guide and to bring us into flow. So that's me spent a lot of time thinking about what the black Madonna is up to, particularly in the African diaspora. 

Christena: And I'm writing a lot about her now in Cuba, Haiti and Brazil. So. Lots of good times. And she's, she's an Arisha, too. So, they're all the same. 

Amy: Thank you so much for being here, Christina, and bringing that energy of ease. Everyone is so And again, that, that's kind of the, this idea of like, the rhetoric of revolution. 

Amy: People are talking a lot of shit about revolution, but like, what it, what's the practical root to revolution and to, and to build rest and ease into that, I think is the, the one thing that's going to make a sustainable revolution, right? Yeah. 

Christena: Yeah, I mean, it's like, I feel like the whole point of colonialism is to just wear us out, just have us turning, like running around in circles, chasing our tails. 

Christena: And There's literally a story about a Black Madonna in Belgium who, when a city, a village was under siege by a colonial enemy she walked out of the church in the village to the ramparts around the, you know, the, the walls of the city and was catching cannonballs with her hand. And that idea of, you know, There is a divine being that is battling with us and for us, and so how could we just like get in like some of the some of the cannonballs were just like dropping into the folds of her dress, you know, she's just she's just catching them all while breastfeeding. 

Christena: Her child at the same time, like she's literally a Virgo lactant. So like, she's one of the two black Madonna's where her boob is out and she has breastfeeding and she's also catching cannonballs. And so like, how do I take that energy? Like, how do I do, how do I, how do I do revolutionary acts from that space of there's already a, the universe is already catching cannonballs. 

Christena: How do I just get into that rather than think I have to be up there on the ramparts all by myself, just like a martyr. And for who? And so, yeah, those stories are powerful. They're, you know, these, these like I mean, spiritual imagination is just so powerful. 

Amy: And I want to thank you, too, for giving me in a past conversation that we had, and it's in your book about this, like, how, how your god or the, you know, goddess or whatever you prefer is, is welcoming of our sacred mess. 

Amy: And I have, I have said that to myself so many times when I'm in that place. The universe accepts my sacred mess. And something else that really stuck with me, Lolly Moon, when you were on the show before, you said that part of how you use astrology is to discover your role, or how we can use astrology is to discover our role in the revolution. 

Amy: And I keep that with me too, because, you know, we're not all going to be on the ramparts. Some of us are going to be washing the dishes. You know, the revolution will not be televised, as Gil Scott Heron said, but it will be babysat. It will be fed. All of these things. So, Lolly Moon, how are you? Who are you today? 

Amy: What's your revolutionary dream? 

Loli: Oh my gosh. I am Lolly Moon going through her Saturn Return. So loli moon's been going through intense transformations and all types of radical revolutionary things. Everything Christina shared about the black Madonna really just made my heart so warm because for the past year and a half, I have been building a shrine to the black Madonna and have been so attracted to just her energy and just really embracing all of the warmth and protection she has been bringing me. 

Loli: So. My revolution when I first came to Missing Witches was very hot, you know, snap, crackle, pop was the energy I was bringing to the table and, you know, I am still her, there is still that sharpening of the machetes, but my understanding of the revolution has shifted a lot as well because so much has happened too, so I am still a natural mystic, I am still Still offering all the astrology astro T. 

Loli: I am still guiding mystics, which is healers all over to empower themselves with their own astrology, knowing how to reach hearts. Not just their own charge and studying, but understanding how to work with the planetary hours and being really intentional when communicating with the universe and how working with the planetary hours can really magnify that. 

Loli: I believe that the more intentions and prayer we put out into the universe, the stronger we are making our auric field. And so if you follow planetary hours, there's at least five hours in the day dedicated to that particular planet that rules that day. So if you align your intentions and prayers. 

Loli: With those hours, you are really working some serious magic, you know, so my revolutionary dream now looks like a regulated nervous system for the mystics, the witches all people of color. My revolution looks like. freedom of pollution that is, you know, this capitalistic, patriarchal, pre and also post apocalyptic world that we are in. 

Loli: My revolution now looks like slow mornings and gentle evenings, and it's a timeline where I completely own my time, and where the collective, we completely own our time, and we can spend that time freely, you know, with our community, building, rebuilding, nurturing. The revolution won't always be televised, but it will be nurtured. 

Loli: You know, and it will transcend and ascend, and that's how it's going to make it through to the end. That's all it's going to be. And more importantly, my revolution looks like the unconditional love of all the great mothers. And that's where I'm sitting right now. 

Amy: Thank you so much for coming today, Lolly. 

Amy: It's really great to see you. 

Loli: I'm so happy to be here. I actually was told there was a wish that, that connected with me last month and they had mentioned that I was in y'all's book. You all quoted for the, for a new moon. And I was like, Oh my goodness. And it was exactly what we were talking about, about the revolution and empowering others to know, like, listen, even just doing this with this skill, this obsession of astrology and whatever, like you can use that to really, really empower yourself. 

Loli: You know, it goes beyond the, as I call it, the fast food astrology. 

Amy: Right, like, I'm a Capricorn, so I'm always late. Yeah, I'm a Capricorn, I wear 

Loli: all black and I'm kind of You know, witchy with a capital B, like, okay, and you also are ruled by Saturn. You can also use a scythe. You can also 

Amy: And Thea, Thea Anderson, your approach is a bit, to astrology, is a bit different too. 

Amy: You use astrology to inform your study of history. So, hi Thea Anderson. Amazing. So good to see you. Tell us, who are you today and what is your revolutionary dream? 

Thea: Hi. First of all, hi witches. Hi Loli. I love, I love, and there's another astrologer on here. It gives me, like, goosebumps. Happy Saturday return. 

Thea: Thank you. Dr. Beverly, Christina, like everybody has shared such beautiful wisdom. I think the dream that I have really feels like our creative imagination, right? That we all get to participate in this shared consciousness. And for me, that looks like sometimes going back into history, sometimes waking up early to write fiction. 

Thea: Sometimes doing readings with people, the, the sense of being closer to presence or the ability to sort of surrender into presence. I've got so many books next to me. Also, too, there's this theme of time, right? Like, I've got a book on time blocking, time wars, focus, like really being intentional about where I give my time and my attention. 

Thea: Attention is currency. And if it is standing, looking on the outside, waiting for something to happen in some future, then I can never be with what is. I feel like, blessed that we get to participate in this, and it's all so real as shit. And, I think both of those, that's like where the knife is, right? 

Thea: Like, it's, it's life or death, quite literally. But it's also play, and it's also joy. And, I think, what I find, What feels revolutionary is to remember that and to bring that into every space, whether or not it feels like it's needed or called for or appropriate. I love this idea of goddess of the, our sacred mess, origin of our sacred mess, like the ability to, our humanness is actually the revolution, right? 

Thea: That we get to put our humanness in it and that capitalism and patriarchy and I gotta make money and I gotta hustle and I gotta be black excellence, which was a lie, you can just be you. That we can, we can take it all back. We can take our time back. We can take our attention back and we can be strategic as hell and also deeply loving and caring and. 

Thea: Community focused and I'm just reminded of it every time I step into a space like this, that this is what the real is. And I'm just, I'm grateful to be able to, to recognize that. I was looking at Nikki Giovanni's chart while Dr. Beverly, you were reading that quote and Nikki had Moon conjunct Pluto and I love this idea about when I die, right? 

Thea: Moon conjunct Lord of the Underworld. When I die, you better come correct. And if you're crying, you need to have shown up for me in my life in this kind of way. So I just, I just wanted to also put that little gem here because I was like, oh, yes. Thank 

Amy: you, Thea. That is a gem. Also, come and correct is Lilith Dorsey. 

Amy: Come and correct as always. Hi, Lilith. It's so great to be in a circle with you again and to see you again. How are you? Who are you? What is your revolutionary dream? 

Lilith: Oh my gosh, I have so many revolutionary dreams, and I want to thank you for letting me be here with all these amazing people today. There's so much wisdom and I think my revolutionary dream is knowledge, you know, I'm not sure. 

Lilith: How many people listening or how many of you know me, but I, I am Lilith and I don't mean that in an arrogant, whatever kind of way my parents named me Lilith. So I suppose there was always this kind of valorization of the sacred feminine and a sacred feminine that's not white. I have a friend that runs the Not White Club. 

Lilith: collective. So I'm very happy to be not white and to honor that in myself every day. And I think that, you know, I am an author. I just published my eighth book. I'm a scholar. I went to school for all of these things. I went to NYU right after Spike Lee left, and I heard a young black man say once, it was so hard to be a black man at NYU 10 years ago. 

Lilith: Everybody in the audience is pointing to me because when I started in 1987, there was nobody there. That looked like me and there was nobody there that wanted to hear me and that's pretty much, I think, antithetical to what we need for the revolution, right? People keep saying, listen to black women. And I wouldn't be where I was today without black women. 

Lilith: If I have a revolutionary, she wrote it, Zora Neale Hurston. I heard Christina talking about us being the mules. She was the first woman who said we were the mule of the world. And we are, there's so many burdens. There's. So many, I love that image of the breastfeeding and catching cannonballs. Cause let me tell you, I breastfed and caught cannonballs for a very long time and it wasn't easy and I continue to do it. 

Lilith: So my revolution for me personally is with knowledge. I'm very honored of all the things I've done except for my girls. The thing I'm most happy about, and I think really makes a difference is my community garden here in New Orleans. I am a voodoo priestess, not a voodoo priestess, Dr. Beverly. I also have initiations in Haitian Vodou and Santo. 

Lilith: And for me, just honoring the land and honoring what we got from the land, our ancestors who worked that land, all the grandmothers that we forgot that had to work that land to provide. And even if we don't know how to do it now, we know that it was done for us. And I think that this concept that we can have the knowledge of really how to take care of ourselves. 

Lilith: On a deep level to nourish, not just our body, but our soul and our mind and our community. That's where the seed of the revolution is going to be. And for me, it's going to be a chocolate revolution because that's what we need. A 

Amy: little chocolate city, a little parliament funkadelic. I think. Lilith, I think, like, the breadth of your educational background, and you're so prolific, I think that that's, like, so much a part of your revolutionary work, is just to keep producing films and books. 

Amy: You said, Tarot Every Which Way, your latest book as your eighth book. Like, thank you. Thank you for just continuing, continuing. And I'm pointing to Zoe, one of Zoe Flowers books here, the Poet Laureate of the Missing Witches Coven, as we call her sometimes. Hi, Zoe Flowers. How are you? Who are you? Tell me about your revolutionary dream. 

Zoe: Yeah, I'm going to mix things up to like somebody else did. So I, I wanted to pull a little, do a little poll for this conversation. And the first thing I got was the wheel of fortune, which I think is very Apropos to this conversation, I think, right? Like changes and faded events and destiny and all of those things feels very real to me. 

Zoe: And I think I want to, yeah, this revolutionary dream, this revolutionary reality, I want to say that I'm co creating also got the King of Swords. So that to me feels like just being very much in charge of my own ideas, my thoughts and things like that. Eight of wands, communication coming in quickly from spirit and then ending with justice. 

Zoe: So if, so I feel that that is the revolutionary dream reality that I'm attempting to live into. I just, I feel like for me personally, this is, this is super accurate, even though sometimes it feels like the communication is coming slower. So yeah, the, the thing that I've been musing on I had a reading, an ancestral reading this weekend with the amazing medium out of New Orleans and my ancestors came through and said they just want me to live and be. 

Zoe: So I was like, check, that's what I'm going to attempt to do. And you know, Amy, we've been having this conversation about joy and like my right to joy. I've left the United States for. Well, I don't want to say too much on the, on the, on the phone, but I'm not in the States. Right. And so I'm experiencing a sense of peace and I've had feelings about that. 

Zoe: Like, am I allowed to have joy? Am I allowed to have peace while so many other things have been happening? And so. When I'm thinking about my ancestors coming through and saying, we just want you to be, we just want you to live. And that's what you need to be showing. And that's what you need to be working with people on. 

Zoe: That's in the forefront of my mind. And I feel like the work. That I've been doing with people, whether it's to row or candle magic, or lowly, you're talking about planetary hours, like speaking my language, all of those things at first I was teaching as a response to capitalism. And I would say that this is a response to capitalism. 

Zoe: This is a response to this. This is a response to that. And Lately, I've been like, maybe I need to change that. Like, maybe I need to change this response to white supremacy all the time and teach it to people in a different way. Maybe it's just about them being, and maybe us being is a revolutionary. 

Zoe: Because I do believe they want us to stay tired, powerless all the time, joyless, woeful. So yeah, those are the things I'm kind of musing on as I sit here and it just keeps snowing. 

Christena: Can I comment on that too, Zoe? 

Zoe: Yes, 

Amy: please. 

Christena: Because that really resonates with me so much. I think we have a right to not just joy, but we have a right to self determination that's not a response. 

Christena: To colonialism. We have a right to imagine outside of that entire construct. And I was recently listening to a lecture by Dr. Bayo Komolade, who some of you all might know is a philosopher and activist. And he was talking about how like the term liberation Is not even a useful term because it's too legible to the plantation. 

Christena: The plantation understands what liberation is, but it's the opposite of the plantation. And so he said, our ancestors went into fugivity. They didn't go into liberation. Like what they went into wasn't even legible to the plantation. It was a whole other thing. And I was listening to that, doing yoga. 

Christena: And of course, my new book is called Our Lady of Liberation. So I'm like, dang it. But I think, I think we can have both and right, because like, but, but I appreciate his point, right, that, you know, we're being invited. Our ancestors had to move into an unknown. It wasn't what they really moved into was an unknown. 

Christena: It was, it was not, it was not understandable or legible to the plantation and the plan. And we get to move into that too. You know, and I think that's why Harriet Tubman had that North Star. That's all she had. She said somehow, some way we're going to make it, but we don't even know what freedom is. We don't even know. 

Christena: I think because freedom is actually, freedom and liberation are beyond what we even can imagine. That's how much our ancestors want us to not just survive, but thrive. They want, they have more for us that we can even understand more than we can even hope for. And so I love the idea of like, yeah, let's not just respond to capitalism or colonialism or patriarchy or white supremacy or whatever that's First of all, boring, super boring, because patriarchy and white supremacy are so predictable. 

Christena: You always know exactly what they're going to do. But also how, what, what does it mean for us to exist on our terms? 

Zoe: Yeah. I don't know yet, 

Christena: but that's where the, I think that's where the magic is in the conversations that we're having about that. 

Zoe: Yeah. 

Christena: And how do we even start to step out of that? Cause I, I'm so trained as an academic to. 

Christena: If you're going to do something that's not in favor of the plantation, at least make it legible for the plantation. That's how you sell books. That's how you get people to come to your things is to say, this is healing from capitalism, because that's what people understand. And if you give a vague, like come thrive with me, people don't find it because they don't know what that means. 

Christena: So it's like, we have to get, we have to paint the picture for them. Yeah, that's where conjuring comes in because we don't even it's just okay. Let me just I'm not an actual visual artist, but you know, let me just brush guide me guide me through this brush because I don't even know I'm I'm so captive to the plantation in so many ways despite all the work that I've done. 

Christena: The deep program so 

Zoe: Yeah, and maybe that's where this Ada Wong's is coming from as you're talking like, 

Christena: I 

Zoe: love 

Christena: that. 

Zoe: Yeah. Yeah. 

Amy: Zoe and I have talked a lot about I'm encouraging Zoe to enter her, her villain era. And I think for, you know, Women and Femmes, but especially Black women and Femmes. The villain era looks like my joy is more important to me than your comfort. 

Amy: And I kind of want to return to Dr. Brevely about this, because we have had a couple conversations about the kind of ethics of magic, and I know you've told me that you work with both hands. I have spoken to so many people who Are becoming increasingly radicalized, witches, who are becoming increasingly radicalized by the, the politics of their, their nation, the world, all of that, and for the first time in their lives, are starting to think about hexing, are starting to think about working with both hands, and we've been talking about this revolution of joy and ease, but what about laying a fucking villain hex? 

Dr Beverly: Wow. I've got to say that I've become conflicted, especially over this last year. The day after election day, I was laid up in bed. Because I was gutted. I am so I was so blown away to learn that black women were the only demographic that voted for this current mess in in majority numbers. They're the only the only demographic views to do that. 

Dr Beverly: The only demographic. And so, I feel very alone and very isolated. Now, since the election, I've been able to process, to get my thought processes together and think of where I'm coming from. Now, I have always been a two handed worker. I believe that I This, this whole do no harm theory is really just to control people. 

Dr Beverly: If you are ethical, if you can walk into your home at the end of the night with pride, with your head held up, knowing that before God, whoever your God is, before God and your ancestors, you have. If you've been true to yourself, you've been true to your own sense of integrity, been true to your own ethics, then you will be comfortable dealing with a situation when it needs to be dealt with. 

Dr Beverly: All right? I have no problem blessing. I have no problem helping. I have no problem manifesting good to come to someone. However, if they deserve it, I have no problems. with laying a trick upon them about, you know, because it's called fuck around and find out. So I have no problem with that. How I am evolving is I'm beginning to feel as my sisters here today are feeling. 

Dr Beverly: I wanted to bring the sword and I wanted to bring the lightning and I wanted to bring the heavy act of justice down on all of these bastards. But I'm beginning to understand that revolution can come from within. That revolution can be quiet. That revolution can be a sense of self that we give to those who come behind us and everyone keeps using the word joy. 

Dr Beverly: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Let's reach for the joy because even if you as I do believe in reincarnation, what I do understand is that when I am in in this, incarnation. This is the one that matters. This is the one that matters. I have to bring joy and I have to bring truth. I have to be true to myself. I have to walk in my own truth. 

Dr Beverly: Liberation is to make free. We need to be free to feel ourselves. We need to be free to nurture our communities in the way that we want to nurture them. Someone earlier brought up rest. Oh my goodness, There is a TED Talk by Dr. Sondra, oh my goodness, I believe she's Sondra Smith, Sondra Smith, and it's called Rest is Revolution. 

Dr Beverly: Rest is Revolution. And she talks about how And I believe Christina mentioned this. They want us tired. They want us exhausted. They want us you know, doing what we need to do while fighting the system. I mean, they want us to burn candles at both ends, both figuratively and, and, and, and literally. We need to rest. 

Dr Beverly: We need to take care of ourselves. We need to nurture our elders. We need to raise up our children with a real sense of, of purpose and a sense of purpose that we don't always fight against the man that sometimes is not worth it. I'm looking at this situation that we're dealing with today. And I'm realizing that a lot of damage can be done in the next four years. 

Dr Beverly: I'm just as shocked and dismayed and as heartbroken as everyone else, that reproductive rights have been put on the chopping block. I can see voting rights going on the chopping block next. I can see all of this happening. And while I'm, I'm still, I still fervently believe in change, I just don't know if revolution as I have envisioned it in the past is even sensible anymore. 

Dr Beverly: I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that 

Dr Beverly: all of us who are adversely affected. By what is going on right now, all of us who are adversely affected need to take care of ourselves and take care of each other. We need to dig deep and ask ourselves what are our priorities right now, especially what are our priorities in making it through the next several years. 

Dr Beverly: Because things are going to get bad. I cannot predict in which ways they're going to go set, go, go sideways, but things are going to get gnarly. And, and We need to have a strong foundation in what our priorities are in what we love and what we cherish and what we want to bring forward. And I think that's really important. 

Dr Beverly: And I think we have to guard our guard our peace. I think we have to guard our tranquility. I think we have to guard our mental health. And I think all of that comes into knowing. what our boundaries are, knowing what our priorities are, and knowing what our abilities are, and knowing what, what our, how far we can take those things. 

Dr Beverly: Let's not burn ourselves out anymore. Let's not, I mean, what did Malcolm X say? Malcolm X said, Something to the effect. I'm not going to be a direct quote, but something to the effect of the black woman is the least respected person in America. He may have said she's the most disrespected person in America. 

Dr Beverly: Same difference. We as black women are perceived. We are perceived as being the bottom of the rung. All right. I don't care what else they say about anything else. That is our perception. When you look at the dog whistles around this last election, how people actually could fix their mouth to say that one candidate had a low IQ. 

Dr Beverly: I don't care. What you think of that candidate, what you may think have thought of that candidate or how you voted. The point is, California has one of the toughest, the toughest law board tests in the country. And people say, oh, Affirmative Action isn't Affirmative Action, Matt. Affirmative Action might get you into that program. 

Dr Beverly: Affirmative Action doesn't take the tests for you. Okay? And so, I'm hearing all of the dog whistles. I'm seeing all the bad old days slipping back. Alright? I'm old enough to remember the tail end of the really bad old days. I'm that last group of kids. that was forcibly bust. And I remember how shitty those days were. 

Dr Beverly: Well, I can see us sliding back into some of that. So right now, revolution for us, for black people, for people who are oppressed right now, revolution should look like self. Revolution should look like do what you need to do to get enough to eat, to get enough rest, to, to, to, to know how to say no, to know how to, to, to, to stand up and be accountable when you say yes. 

Dr Beverly: And remember, we have to honor our elders, we have to consult our ancestors, and we have to raise up. The next generation to understand where we have come from is important, where we are going is important, but let's try to live more now in, in this time in the present, because my, as my New Year's resolution, man, I'm going to take it day by day. 

Amy: And day by day. I want to ask the astrologers, because Dr. Beverly, you talked about reassessing your priorities. Astrologers. Based on the 2025 charts, tell me, what do you think that the priorities should be? 

Loli: Thea, do you want to go first? 

Thea: Yeah, I'll stumble forward. Okay. That's what I'm about to say. So, I, I think, I have thought a lot about this year. And, the priorities, if I were like to huddle up all my activist friends, And we, we gotta be strategic. I'd be like, say, like, protect yourself from the assault on your senses. 

Thea: So, couple of things. We have we have Pluto now in Aquarius. Second half of the year, Uranus will dip into Gemini. So we've got like an air sign configuration. And that's a scramble. of data, information, hot takes, points of view, let's dismantle, dismantle 12 laws in one and a half days. That's all of that kind of frenetic energy coming through. 

Thea: I was reading an article, by the way, yesterday on New York Times that said that this tactic is also Stephen Miller, who was chief of staff for Trump said, this is called flood the zone tactic, and so what I'm thinking about what it means that we have people in the highest office of our country deliberately trying to flood the zone and what it means to get to higher ground. 

Thea: That's what I've been thinking about recently. And Higher Ground might be the sort of strategy that what I would want people to know. Find the thing for the first half of the year as we're in a Mars retrograde, we go through Venus retrograde, then we've got eclipse season. It is like, things are going to be revealed. 

Thea: We know eclipses throughout history have been huge points of revelation, like, Oh shit, I didn't know that was lurking behind that, in that dark corner, and now it's here. So things will be revealed, things will have to be contended with, reckoned with. I feel like it's like, have the thing that prevents your senses from always being pulled in many different directions. 

Thea: And then part two of the year, especially summer to the fall when we have these big outer planetary shifts, that the strategy there is to, is to really align yourself with like sort of a new, whatever we did four years ago, 10 years ago, we're doing way different now. We're doing. Outer planets and to fire and air science. 

Thea: And so there's a much more. I love this idea of not responding to capitalism, which would be more of Earth water configuration that there is a an active way of putting our stake in the ground, daring to imagine something new and following that. As a collective, as a community, so if people want to flood our zones with all this kind of nonsense, that, that we're okay, that we're not doing that game, because that's an old game, and what we said is quite boring, and so that we could do something new and different and I feel like that's the second half of 2025. 

Loli: Lovely. I think that the fact that we started this year as a Mars year in Mars in cancer, right? Mars in its fall, there's this very large theme of this attack on, you know, reproductive health, of course, the divine feminine, various ways, mothers, children, the vulnerable of society. And I think that with Mars in cancer in its fall, as we are in this retrograde season. 

Loli: There's a lot of sorrow and mourning that needs to happen still within the collective and a lot of accepting of, like, this is what it is, okay, so take your time digesting it, but digest it and sober up, because we have to roll up our sleeves as we move further, as you said, into the summer months and beyond, because as we go into the summer months, as we know, we have Neptune moving into Aries, And we have Saturn moving into Aries in May and Neptune and Aries from a historical standpoint brings on ideas of You know, the civil, the, the civil war. 

Loli: Right. And so as you're saying, there is going to be a reactionary reactionary thing. And I almost feel like it's like an avalanche where the snowball is like growing as it continues to fall down a hill and eventually just hits and it just burst into a thousand little pieces. So I think to kind of prepare ourselves, there needs to be this. 

Loli: It's just time of accepting and mourning and releasing and letting go. And especially as we go into Pisces season, we have the lunar eclipse in Virgo and that's going to be interesting, right? And two weeks later, boom, Neptune and Aries. So it's going to be a lot of, yes, a lot of exposure and a lot of truths coming out, but there needs to be, I think, still some acceptance of what is still going on and allowing us to. 

Loli: Be upset and be angry and then shake it out so we can actually start to really strategize when Mars is direct when Mars goes into Leo and start to really move accordingly. I think with Neptune and Saturn and Aries for the little bit. There's going to be a lot of kind of pulling back from the community of individualism really being really high. 

Loli: And while you should have been more prepared, I can't help you. Sorry. A lot of that going on. So I'm hoping that with the South note in Virgo, there is going to be a, so a wave of inspiration that comes through where there is a more focus on not being so responsive, not being so caught up in the tides of the emotions and being grounded and the knowledge that you have the knowledge that you don't have and expanding that with your community overall. 

Loli: So, yeah, I think the 1st step is accepting and morning and releasing and then. Once you can clear that out, then we can actually move forward. 

Amy: And this is the perfect time of year for that, right? Like I was talking about, this halfway point between winter solstice and spring equinox, where we're not, I mean, at least where I am, there's three feet of snow, so I'm not, I'm not planting any seeds. 

Amy: seeds right now. It can't be done. So I really need to not do that reactionary thing that we're talking about of like that, that capitalist brainwashing urgency of like, don't think, just go and blah. But this is that moment of the year where we can take some time to strategize. Like several of you have used this word, strategize, and I think that that's so important. 

Amy: We're so reactionary now. Social media doesn't help, obviously the state of the world isn't helping, but we need to do that, like, mourning, grieving, thinking, learning from the past, and then applying that to us. how we strategize creating our, our next priorities, right? Yeah. I also want to talk to Lilith and Zoe. 

Amy: You're both filmmakers, and I want to know personally, for me, what is the role of creativity in our strategies or in our revolutionary dreams. Lilith, can you start? Sure, 

Lilith: I'll 

Amy: start. I 

Lilith: think I actually even 

Amy: have 

Lilith: a transition. So much of what everybody's been talking about to me has to be this kind of transformation, you know, and my first big documentary was on trance, T R A N C E formation, so that there's a way in which we can enter into this level. 

Lilith: Powerful initiatory transformational state that gets us to where we need to be, you know, and a lot of what I heard these lovely people on the panel talking about was that moment where we imagine things better than they can possibly be, you know, and for us in Haitian Vodou, that's the domain primarily of Ait Auedo, which is the serpent in the rainbow. 

Lilith: It's a story that everybody knows, so we have this transformation from being enslaved and taken from Africa in the new world and blossoming into this rainbow of something different here for better, worse, all these things that came with it. It really was a rainbow because we wouldn't be sitting here talking about it today as much as we don't want to have lived through the storm. 

Lilith: We did live through that storm, and through our creativity, we can come together now and through these things that we didn't necessarily know. Necessarily maybe have access to before we can get our creative works out there. And that's how people learn. Really. Like as much as I wanna, you know, when my grandmother's time would get hit with the ruler, this is the story she used to tell me. 

Lilith: Right? You don't know it. Boom, boom. But that to me is never how I learned. And I don't think that's how most people learn. Most people learn by being able to. See the beauty and also being able to believe it. And if we don't take time to heal our pain, if we don't take time to deal with all these traumas and all these transformations and changes that are going on, we're not going to be able to believe that there's a rainbow coming tomorrow. 

Lilith: And that's what I think is the most important thing. So any kind of creative acts we can do. That also is an act of revolution, right? Because we're choosing not to focus on, oh my gosh, this horrible thing that's happening and make something beautiful that helps us all heal and move forward and be able to act in a positive way. 

Amy: And in your latest book, Tarot, Every Witch Way you mention mysticism and the power of the extreme. Oh, yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit? And then Zoe, if you can jump in with your take on creativity as a way to strategize priority. 

Lilith: I mean, I think if I have a It's a theory about magic or about revolution or about filmmaking. 

Lilith: It really does sort of embrace this shock value. You know, I'm a big fan of Hodorowski. I'm a big fan. We just did a tribute episode on my show for David Lynch. These things that are so shocking that we can't get there any other way. And my favorite piece from Hodorowski, he talks about when you go to an interview or something that's difficult, you should put raw meat in your pocket because that's going to freak you out and shock you into a different state. 

Lilith: face. So you're like, you're not going to be thinking about, Oh, I'm so nervous. I have meat in my pocket, but he says, if you don't want to put meat in your pocket, you could use lavender, which I thought was hilarious. Right? Like, okay, maybe I don't want this nasty bloody meat. I'll have some nice scented, smelly lavender. 

Lilith: But there's this way in which we're shocking ourselves. out of our comfort zone again, because that's where the magic happens. That's where the transformation happens. So for me, the life is going to shock you anyway. And I apologize to my sister. She's watching this because I used to hide in the closet and jump out and go expect the unexpected. 

Lilith: Because there's so this is what I thought was life training, but there's so much in life. That's unexpected. So I thought if I could teach my little sister something that would be good. You don't know. We grew up in New York City. You don't know what's around that street corner. You don't know what's going to pop out at you. 

Lilith: You know, we grew up with a lot of mentally ill people. You don't know what's coming at you. So if you're able to react in that moment, that's going to be helpful to you. And I think that's also the plan about Hodorowski strategy for magic. If you don't know what's coming, you'll be able to react better. 

Lilith: So that's pretty much the explanation of that. 

Zoe: And so Amy, you were saying the role of creativity and strategy. That's what you're saying. I'm still, I'm still stuck on the astrology conversation. I just, I just want to put into the cauldron. For people who do rituals, creating rituals around the things that lowly and Theo were saying specifically this. 

Zoe: Around sorrow around grieving rituals for that in this beginning part of the year and then other rituals specifically to help strategize perhaps herbs for clarity and things like that in the second part of the year and and perhaps that's a part of creativity. Perhaps that's about responding to the unexpected to being flexible. 

Zoe: I think when I think about. One of the things that I've come to realize is film is one of the most successful means of propaganda that we've had and the ways that we have been indoctrinated. Into ways of thinking about who's the other, who's the good, who's the bad. This is what relationships look like. 

Zoe: This is what war looks like, all of these things. And so I think as a, as a writer, for me, it's about telling new stories, right? Like I want to reject being a mule. Like I don't ever want anybody to say that about me again. I don't ever want to like, be like, I'm unprotected. I'm this, I'm that. For me, I want to create new stories, new quotes, new conversations. 

Zoe: And maybe there's like some alchemy in that. Putting our alchemy on film putting our rituals on film. Maybe that's something that we're gonna have to do, like, and pass them around covertly. Maybe we're gonna have to put rituals on film and pass them around to people. Like, I don't know. I don't know what's gonna happen. 

Zoe: I think some things should be covert, and I think some things should be overt. So I think as, as filmmakers and as creatives You know, understanding like in so many ways, we're writing reality. We're writing things into reality. I, I had this idea a long time ago about this woman and women's rights were stricken down and people had to come to her to do all these things. 

Zoe: And I didn't write it. Cause I was like, I don't want to write this into reality. Now I'm like, Oh, Oh shit, maybe that was a download, right? And there's been so many stories like that in history. So it's like, on the one hand, I'm glad these things were written so people can be like, oh yeah, Parable of the Sower. 

Zoe: Like, yes, obviously we can act accordingly. So I just think that yeah, we can write things into reality and we can reframe conversations and we can, we can film our rituals and we can share them, create new languages. We can do all that as creatives. 

Amy: I want to ask about downloads and I guess I'll open it to everyone. 

Amy: Did anyone receive any kind of download? Like, this is a message that needs to come out in this conversation today. And maybe I'll be even a little more specific to say that, you know, Audre Lorde said it was a waste of time to talk to white women about racism because of our, our, I'm saying our as a white woman, our defensiveness. 

Amy: What Is a message that's coming through for you, assuming that white women are not listening with defensiveness, but instead with an openness, with a porousness, to what you might have to say. 

Zoe: I can go. Yeah. So I wanna say a couple things. One, for people of color to understand, and somebody had said this, like when we're engaging in these conversations with white people, we're all, we're also engaging with their like DNA and their ancestors. 

Zoe: And so we're not always fighting the person in front of us, we're also fighting like their own DNA. So I think that's interesting. And then the other thing I wanna say is white people do your ancestor work like. I, you know, it's like I hear so many times, Oh, I have a complicated history with my ancestors. 

Zoe: Oh, I don't want y'all got to do the work. Like it's your ancestors that we are dealing with. So it's like, deal with your shame, do whatever you got to do, your sorrow, your grieving that Lowly talked about, and then be about the business of working with your ancestors. That's all I got to say. 

Christena: I'd love to share too. So I Amy, it's funny that you mentioned that because I forgot that the audience for Missing Witches is mostly white. I signed up for this because I wanted to talk to you all black women again, because I had fun last year. And I've been telling all my friends, I'm gonna go talk to the black women today who were mistakes and healers. 

Christena: And so I, I don't care what the audience I don't do anything for white women, like literally nothing. It's a blessing to them to even be in on this conversation. Honestly, they could send all of us Venmos to even be here. To even be listening in. But I do want to comment on Thea and Lolly Moon. 

Christena: Okay, first of all, y'all are amazing. I feel like what you just shared with us is worth, like, I mean, like seriously. Like that was wisdom that was like deep cosmic wisdom that you both shared and what we need for like literally medicine for today and like white women listening to this, feel free to Venmo both them 100 because like that was legit. 

Christena: And what's so interesting to me is like, I'm not as connected to the astrology world. Just as intimately as you are, but everything you said is like vibing exactly with what I think the black Madonna has been saying to me. And so just to have that alignment feels so powerful because I've been thinking about that black Madonna who like while breastfeeding with catching cannonballs. 

Christena: And my first thought was before we even joined in the fight, we build a monument. What are the cannonballs she's already caught for us? How can we gather the 40 of those and put them in our altar so we can be reminded that these, these like these These resilience practices, these resilience rituals, right before we even turn to the battle, what has she already done for us that can be, that we can ritualize and say every single day, I can go to this and be like, here are, here are the 40 cannonballs she has already caught for me before I even try to trust her to catch more. 

Christena: But then the second piece I was thinking of step two, if you have to put it in a linear step, get that milk, she's breastfeeding. She's breastfeeding while she's catching the cannonballs. We don't even have to join in the fight. We need to get healed. We need to deal with our own trauma. We need to adjust to whatever this, what the disillusionment, the disappointment. 

Christena: But both of those themes are for our wellbeing, for our sustainability. And I think that's the resistance to the patriarchy because patriarchy wants to have us, you know see what you, what you mentioned that like flood the zone. Yeah, 100%. Constantly running, constantly scrambling. And if I'm sitting here building a monument with the cannonballs from the last war, I'm not running, but that energy is protecting me at the same time. 

Christena: And if I'm focused on getting that milk, you know, my little nephew who's four, he's always talking about milkies. He calls breast milkies. Obsessed with milkies. And what's interesting to me is he's no longer breastfeeding because his mom actually has two more kids younger than him. So there's no milkies for him. 

Christena: But I have a bunch of nude images. I hired this watercolorist to make a series of nude watercolors of me when I turned 40. So I have a bunch of these watercolors. It's like a shrine to myself above my bed. And he comes in and is like, Auntie Nina, your milkies, your milkies. And he's like obsessed with my milkies, right? 

Christena: Because he thinks that my milkies are available to him. But what. What I love is like, he does not need milk. He does not need milk physically. He needs milk because of the connection, the spiritual, the spiritual connection, right? He wants to be at his mom's milky at a four year as a four year old, because it's the connection. 

Christena: It's the sustainable. It's the soothing. It's the, Oh, everything's going to be okay. He breastfeeding is not physically efficient. It's just a, it's just a few calories at a time, but, but I love it because I'm thinking of this metaphor. If I only get 10 calories at a time from the Black Madonna, that means I have to keep coming back every hour, just like babies do. 

Christena: I can't just, oh, she doesn't, she's not passing out. Protein bar. She's passing out milk. So keep coming. I can't just take one and be like, see you tomorrow. I have to take a sip and be like, I'll be back in 45 minutes because I need to be reminded again of your truth, your wisdom, your healing, all those things. 

Christena: And so I'm like, let's just go back to infancy. You know, and that also gives us freedom to not be the mule, like I'm just over here getting at my milkies, my cosmic milky and catching my and collecting the cannonballs that have already been caught and building a monument to them so that I can remind myself that I'm held. 

Christena: I'm safe. I'm protected. I'm not a mule. I have, I can dream, you know, all of these things. And so why women, you're welcome for listening to that. 

Amy: You are welcome! And I love this idea of like returning to infancy, not to infantilize yourself, but to do that thing that you're talking about of like, I am allowed to receive. 

Amy: I don't have to be in charge of this. I don't have to be in charge of that. I can take on that like breastfeeding energy of just being given that energy. Does anyone want to add something or respond before we start sharing our Venmos? 

Thea: I listen, I, I was around my, my really good friend and herbalist, her name is Angela Highsmith this morning. 

Thea: And she said to me, Thea, nothing, maybe she was quoting someone, nothing in nature gives more than it receives. And I was like, please, say it again. And this idea of nourishment and going to where the nourishment is, oof. 

Amy: This is the revolutionary dream, right? Lilith Dorsey, how can our listeners and the world at large best support you? Please feel free to share your Venmo. Obviously, you are a prolific author. Go buy the books, and I've said this before, y'all, it's great if you read them, but buy them. Buy them because Lilith is gonna get that royalty check whether you read the book or not. 

Amy: So let's celebrate Black History Month by Venmoing, buying books, all that. All 

Lilith: the dollar and ten cents I get from each book. I ain't getting rich off of that. 

Amy: Yeah, Venmo, Venmo is better. Venmo is better, right? 

Lilith: I'm Lilith Dorsey everywhere. L I L I T H, Dorsey. But yeah, check out my website, my YouTube, all of those things. 

Lilith: There's lots of content. You're right. I am prolific. There's 800 posts on my blog, Voodoo Universe. There's a lot out there, and even my pronouns are they, them, and tired, so, yeah. 

Amy: Hopefully we can bring some of that restorative infant energy to your year this year. I 

Lilith: love it! I love it. I need it. 

Amy: Yeah, may it be so. 

Amy: Dr. Beverly, what's your Venmo? Okay, my Venmo 

Dr Beverly: is My Burning Man name. They call me Miss Jackson. That's a long story, alright? But it's at, and this is all one word, Miss Jackson, if ya nasty. Miss Jackson, if ya nasty. That's my Venmo handle. Alright, thank you. Thank you. 

Amy: Oh! You were like, took a big breath in and then it just became a smile, which is also a message to the universe. 

Amy: Lolly Moon, how can these people pay you to be who you are? 

Loli: Well, you can find me on Instagram while it's still available for free, you know, use the internet while it's still free, that's a message. You can find me on Instagram at mysticmedicine. You can find me privately sharing information about the planetary hours and all things the craft through patreon. 

Loli: com forward slash lowly moon. That is where I have the mystic mother ship, which is a open portal for the black Madonna, where all of her wisdom is poured into me and poured into all the mystics that connect with me there. And thank you in advance. 

Thea: For me I'm on Instagram at Thea Astrology. I am one third of a podcast called Down to Astro. Please check it out and book a reading with me. I give those typically on Fridays but also support the work. I have a. I know this isn't quite what you asked for, you asked for Venmo, but support the work, which is I have a piece that's out in the Celestial Arts Education Library Institute, they have a journal, and I've written a piece that's only in hard copy, and it's about the astrology of convict leasing, where I grew up in Texas, so Sugar Land, Texas, specifically, and I want to share more of that work 

Amy: Christina Cleveland 

Christena: practitioners. 

Amy: Yeah. Christina. 

Christena: Sorry. I was trying to join loving moons. Patreon. I realized it's MUVA. That's why I was like. Okay, in Mova, Mova ship. Okay, cool. I'm there. I found it. So I'm Christina. Yeah. So yeah, I have Patreon too. We're actually, like, doing a series this year on restoring justice with the Black Madonna. 

Christena: And so yeah, come on, join me at Patreon. And I'm, yeah, that'll go in those show notes, I'm guessing. So, yeah, it's just Patreon. C. S. Cleave, C. S. Cleave is. How you can find me. And also if you are available in April and May, I'm taking people to the Black Madonnas of Paris. And we still have a couple spots left. 

Christena: We're doing a trip just for Black folks. That's April 28th through May 4th. And then we're doing a trip for people of all races from May 7th through 13th. And we're going to go see Our Lady of Fuckaround and find out. We're going to see Our Lady of Miracles, who's the Black Madonna, that Joan of Arc. 

Christena: Was deeply devoted to. We're also going to see Our Lady of Peace. And lastly, we're going to see, oh, the Our Lady of the Underworld. And so it's, it's super fun. We went last year and had a blast, and so we're doing it, and this year it's like, yeah, just Paris plus Black Madonna plus beautiful people. 

Christena: Can't lose. So yeah, those are some ways to connect. I also have a monthly Black Madonna community circle that's on Zoom and free, open to everybody. That's super fun. You can go to my website, christinacleveland. com, to get connected to that group as well. And we're starting a black Madonna school this year, so stay, just get on my email list and you'll learn all about how to get free with a black Madonna and others. 

Amy: And when, when is your next book coming out? 

Christena: Summer 2026. Summer. Did you say 

Amy: summer? Summer. 

Christena: Yeah. Summer 2026. Yeah. Yeah. 

Amy: So we'll keep our eyes open for that and you'll come back on the show to talk more at length. That would be super fun. 

Christena: Yeah. About liberation or whatever I'm calling it in the summer of 

Amy: 2026. 

Amy: Title. Title TBD. 

Christena: Yeah. I mean, it's always TBD anyway, as you know, like, I'm like in my head, this is what it is. But then marketing's like, that's not what it is. And 

Amy: I do want to say Zoe Flowers just lost an opportunity because DI is being ravaged in the United States. So, holler at your Venmo Zoe Flowers because 

Zoe: Yeah, what happened? 

Zoe: So my Venmo is soul requirements and it's at S O U dash R E Q U I dash one. I'm still on Instagram for the time being, and it's just, I am Zoe flowers, just I the letter a M Zoe flowers. And I. Because of that federal cut my Principles of Ritual class that I was going to roll out on February 1st, it's pushed back until March now, and my Intuitive Tarot class because I have to cram six months of work to the government by next month. 

Zoe: So more time for people if you want to sign up for my Tarot class or my Principles of Ritual class that'll be coming out in March, so. 

Amy: Thank you all so much. I know a bunch of you have hard outs, like, right now, so I'm not going to ramble on too much. But I just do, I want to say thank you so much. I hope that this will be, like, a fruitful conversation for the seven of you, six of, six of you going forward without me. 

Amy: And I do, of course, encourage you to connect with each other. You definitely don't need me as a liaison, but I am. so happy to have been able to facilitate some of you meeting each other. Again, celebrate black history by fucking paying black women. Let's just leave it at that. And, and thank you all and blessed fucking be. 

Zoe: Thank you. 

Amy: If you want to support the Missing Witches project, join the coven, find out how at missingwitches. com or buy our books, New Moon Magic and Missing Witches. And check out our deck of oracles. The Missing Witches deck of oracles.