For the halfway point between Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox, sometimes known as Lammas or Lughnasadh, we're talking about Rituals. - inventing and creating them, and/or studying and learning from books and traditions. How can we use both modes to cultivate a ritual practice in our lives?
We at Missing Witches are big believers in creativity, invention, improvisation and imagination, but we also believe in a long and tried history of practices that have been passed on from generation to generation.
We’re always looking to create a balance between education and invention, so I’ve invited two wonderful Witches today to help us talk it out: a new friend, author of Muses No More: Portraits of Occult Women, Ùna Maria Blyth AND a dear friend, instructor at RitualCravt, Loretta Ledesma, AKA The Death Witch, founder of the Mile High Conjure Gala, and a Santa Muerte devotee.
We talk about luck, recipes, portals, mental health and physical safety, spirits, making it make sense and so much more.
You can't do this work without it being inherently political - you're seeking change, you're seeking transformation.
Ùna Maria Blyth
Listen now, transcript below
The identity of the Witch, the Hoodoo, the Worker, the Magician is highly political.
Loretta Ledesma
Ùna Maria Blyth is an occult writer, researcher and practitioner of peatbog folk magic. She lives on a small croft in the Shetland Islands, a sub-arctic archipelago between Scotland and Norway. Her first book, Muses No More: Portraits of Occult Women, is OUT NOW with Hexen Press. She has written for a range of publications including Folklore for Resistance, Scavenged Rituals, Sabat Magazine, Doggerland and Reframing Immersive Theatre (published by Palgrave Macmillan). She is a skilled cartomancer too, and leads tarot courses as well as lecturing on the folk magic of the Shetland Isles, with its fascinating melting pot of both Celtic and Nordic influences. A former member of ritual theatre and film company FoolishPeople, Ùna is particularly interested in queer, feminist explorations of magical history, as well as the fine line between magic and madness. Along with her partner. Bella Paloma, she runs the online ritual supply store Church of Squirt.
Instagram: @unaofthepeatbog
Patreon: www.patreon.com/unaofthepeatbog
Loretta Ledesma, AKA The Death Witch, founder of the Mile High Conjure Gala, is a Santisima Muerte devotee, community spiritual consultant and practitioner of Conjure who has a deep relationship with the spirit world and the ancestral realms.
She approaches the work from a Conjure tradition and a close, open relationship with the dead. Loretta walks her spiritual path openly and comfortably with the less freely-talked about workings and brings deep knowledge and experience of this strangely beautiful wisdom to her teachings. She has offered spiritual consultations in the brick & mortar at Ritualcravt behind the counter for the last five years. Loretta teaches at as well as curates the Ritualcravt School in Denver, Colorado. She is a Legacy student of the Conjure man Professor Charles Porterfield. She has learned from and sits at the table with some of the most trusted elders and teachers in Conjure.
Loretta is a maker of conjure provisions including oils, powders, baths & waters.
Instagram: @thedeathwitch
RitualCravt: www.ritualcravt.com/readers/loretta-ledesma
The Death Witch: www.thedeathwitch.black
TRANSCRIPT
Amy: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Missing Witches podcast.
Amy: It's your friend, Amy. I'm so happy that you're with us in the coven we create between our ears. For the halfway point between summer solstice and fall equinox, sometimes known as Lamas Or in some cases, Lunashah, which is so fun to say. You can say it with me, Lunashah. We're talking about rituals, inventing and creating them, and or studying and learning from books and traditions.
Amy: So how can we use both modes to cultivate a ritual practice in our lives? Because we at Missing Witches are big believers in creativity, invention, improvisation, and imagination, but we also believe in a long and tried history of practices that have been passed on from generation to generation. And we're always looking to create a balance between education and invention.
Amy: So, I have invited two wonderful witches today to help us talk that out. A new friend, author of Muses No More, Portraits of Occult Women, Una Maria Blythe, and a dear friend, instructor at Ritual Craft, Loretta Ledesma, a. k. a. the Death Witch, founder of the Mile High Conjure Gala and Ascenta Muerte, de vo. So, Una, let's start with you.
Amy: You've never been on the podcast before. So, again, you're under no obligation to be who you were five minutes ago. Who are you today? How are you today?
Una: How am I today? I've been very, very sleepy and lazy. I'm sitting here in my bed right now. I live with chronic fatigue and it's kind of, I always like doing podcasts and talks from bed because this is where I wrote my book.
Una: This is where I wrote Muses of No More. I wrote it from bed and I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure many listeners can relate to that experience. So yeah, it's, it's the evening here in the Shetland Islands and the sky is bright because we don't really get much. darkness in summer. We're not quite the land of the midnight sun, but it's, it's light out there still, and it's going to be light for hours and hours and hours.
Una: So I've closed the curtains to make myself feel less solar, I suppose. Yeah, coming, coming into, coming into my little cave, so I can chat to you about all things ritual, which I'm, yeah, really excited to get into. One of my favourite topics.
Amy: Northern Scotland is like, practically Norway, right? Well, we,
Una: uh, Shetland Islands are equidistant about almost exactly halfway between Scotland and Norway.
Una: So yeah, we have, uh, a huge melting pot culture. The islands belong to Norway up until the 15th century. I want to say the 15th century my brain goes blank on, on dates sometimes, so don't quote me on that. But 15th century, that sounds right. And so yeah, we have, we have a real mixture of Celtic culture and Scandinavian culture.
Amy: You get Aurora Borealis.
Una: Oh, yes, we do. That's a wintertime thing because the sky has to be really dark. But yes, we do, and it's really incredible. We call it the Mirri Dancers here, which means Oh, cute! Which means, uh, the Shimmering Dancers. Mirri means shimmering. And we have a story that the Trous, which are kind of like Scottish fairies and a bit like Scandinavian trolls.
Una: We have this story that the Trows are having a big party underground because that's where they live. And they're dancing so fast and spinning around so much that they take off into the sky. They zoom up through the earth and into the sky. And then as they, as they sail back down to earth, they shimmer.
Una: And that is the Aurora Borealis.
Amy: Loretta, you seem to have a visceral reaction to the mention of Aurora Borealis. So first off, how are you? Who are you today? And also, why did you have such a visceral reaction to that?
Loo: I'm doing well. I'm Mid unpacking, my family and I just moved so there's a little bit of chaos behind me still but I'm, I'm pretty, all things considered, in the, in the land that I live in, I'm pretty good, it's always been a, a dream of mine to see the aurora. I, it's, it feels, anytime I get to see a video or photo or you know, look into a piece of labradorite and imagine that that might be what it looks like It just, I just, it's got, it's something I've got to try to do before I die.
Amy: Same. And you know, it's not like the Eiffel tower or something where you can just like book a plane ticket and go in there, they're like, you have to have luck and also a plane ticket.
Amy: Let me, let me start with that, Loretta. Do you think that there's a ritual or rituals that can bring you luck? What do you think about the concept of luck?
Loo: Oh, absolutely. In fact, in the traditions that I work in, capturing luck is a really big thing. In fact, I've, I find that in this, like, you know, modern place of sharing information, especially when it comes to abundance or prosperity work, which are two different things luck historically was the first step that was, supposed to be taken and it's kind of been lost.
Loo: There's several different things working with the bones of a black cat. The ethics around that have, have changed. You know, now as we have access to natural death specimens but that's working with the bones of a black cat or something that was, it was commonly. worked in Conjure. Even, I mean there's certain plants that we know those spirits bring us luck.
Loo: There's creating mojo hands around carrying those spirits with us. You You conjure several different spirits and then you put it all together and then that creates its own spirit. And then that's a spirit that you enter into a contract with and feed, and that brings you luck. There is the, the working of dressing your shoes and dressing your feet so that you're always walking in luck.
Loo: So it's, it's definitely that luck work is a big part of my practice and it's, it's historically relevant. It's actually something that I really wish more people would, uh, do because we, there's this, this awareness also that we spend a certain amount of luck, like, For example you're driving down the road, you miss getting struck by another car.
Loo: Well, that's luck spent, so then you've got to go and gather some more of that luck.
Amy: There's something that goes around in my head a lot, and I haven't really come to any conclusions, so I'm, I'm looking to the two of you for your perspective on this, and I guess, I guess we'll start with Una. Do you differentiate between rituals, spells, practices?
Amy: Ceremonies? And if so, how? And, and what's the difference?
Una: That's a really great question. I do differentiate between rituals and spells for certain. I guess it's good to have a kind of working definition of what a ritual is. So for me rituals are like containers. They're containers. of liminal space, uh, space, which is a threshold, which is a, it's kind of like a transformative tunnel.
Una: And it's a space in which we can escape from quotidian, uh, life, the socio economic structures we live in. And we can make way for something to happen. And we don't necessarily know how or in what way we're going to come out the other side of a ritual when we go into it. But it's really a jumping off point.
Una: It kind of reminds me of the, the full tarot card. You know, it's both the beginning and the end. So I think it's really good to have this, yeah, kind of, tunnel tunnel vision of a ritual. And it's also kind of like the athanor in alchemy. So it's this furnace, like an egg. It's an egg in which we keep things, brings things up to a certain temperature, keep them simmering, simmering away.
Una: And we let something grow within it. We go into this ritual and we, yeah, we don't know what we're going to be like when we come out of it. We can set up the conditions for change happening, perhaps in direction, you know, in the, usually in a direction which we want to go. But we can't guarantee what on earth the outcome will be.
Una: And that's kind of the, the really special thing about rituals for me. It's a, it's. Yeah, constructing a bridge. Very architectural. Whereas for me, a spell is something we do to have, uh, that has a desired outcome for us. So we set our sites on an outcome, and we do something often that contains a ritual in order for this thing to happen.
Una: So the spell might contain a ritual, but a ritual doesn't necessarily contain a spell.
Amy: Loretta, do you want to jump in on that? And I'll, I'll, I'll just restate rituals, spells, practices, ceremonies.
Loo: So for me, for the lens that I approach the work through, a ritual is more of something that is done.
Loo: Repetitively. So for like for us you know, in, in Rootwork, Conjure, very traditional BrujerÃa, there is you know, laying down work, which I think a lot of people, you know, where we say work, a lot of people hear To other people that means like spell work. We don't really use spell work that word very often, that term very often.
Loo: So for me, it's like the ritual of spiritual bathing, which is something that I do every day. The ritual of dressing my, my feet, my shoes, my hat. Which is something that I do every day, so it becomes a ritual because it's incorporated in my moving and everyday life where laying down work is something that I, and you know, we don't, we don't really work with within, The calendar in the same way, you know, it's, there are certain days of the week that are good for certain types of workings.
Loo: You know, if I wanted to do some road opening, I would do it on a Monday or a Wednesday, depending on which spirits I'm working in with, but where, you know, laying down work is something that if we need to do it, we do it then and there. I think, you know, conjure, brujeria. root work, those things fall under more of like a folk magic lens.
Loo: And because these are living practices, like these aren't practices that have died and then been resurrected. These are practices that are, they're living traditions. So they, they change as time changes, right? But the, The root is always it comes from our elders. It comes from our teachers. It's word of mouth.
Loo: It's passed down in, even in daily conversation. So when we lay down work, we just do it. And you know, one of my teacher, Professor Porterfield, one of my favorite things that he says is the most effective type of work can be done with a pocket knife and knowing what direction you're facing. So for us, it's a little bit different.
Loo: And a lot of our, our ritual is cunning, you know, it's kept hidden. It's kept secret because that's the way that we have been able to walk in this world, holding on to our traditions while also for survival acclimating.
Amy: And you are an instructor at Ritual Craft, which obviously the word instructor makes us think of someone who's been deeply educated.
Amy: And, and you mentioned word of mouth, but how else do you, you get these sort of like, Otherwise inaccessible pieces of information and how do you see that relationship between education and invention?
Loo: So, books are, so, books through our lens, and again, this is just, you know, through the traditions that I work in books are, it's like a recipe book and there is the suggested formula that goes into the recipe, right?
Loo: But,
Loo: because these are living traditions, and these are traditions that evolve with us it's always, It's good to know the spirits that are being called on in the recipe, and it's good to know what's growing around you, and what spirits of the land, or plant spirits, or non human spirits, spirits that are, I mean, because we believe, because we are in, An animus tradition, which is a word that's become more popular recently.
Loo: We believe that everything has a spirit. So it's good to, to be able to follow a recipe and you know, those recipes are often based have a historical base, but like, let's say I'm trying to do some work for abundance and I don't necessarily have. But I recognize that chamomile is used for abundance because it looks like little gold coins.
Loo: And then I look out onto my lawn, and I see that there's dandelions, and I see that those dandelions also look like little gold coins. So I can make that my own. I can make that work for me where I stand. And in folk magic I think it's important to, to be able to, you know, read the recipe. But then work from where you stand.
Amy: I love this metaphor of the recipe that you can, that you can sort of change things, but from a fundamental foundation of this is what works. Like I'm thinking about baking, and if you don't have some kind of leavening agent, it's not going to work. If you use salt instead of sugar in your cookies, they're going to taste terrible.
Amy: But outside of that, if you want to, you know, substitute. this not for that not or or whatever that we are we are allowed to do that right
Loo: yeah and substitutions make it make sense is really all that it
Amy: Yeah, that's all you really have to do. Yeah, I love this notion. Make it make sense. Una, I want to turn to you for a second because your book includes a section of ritual practices that you wrote.
Amy: You wrote were channeled from the spirits of the occult women who inspired them. So I want to. How did you know about that process and, and, and what practice brought you to this channeling ability? And also, if you have anything to say about education and invention and how we can put those things together, I want to hear about that too.
Amy: But first, how did you channel those, those, those, those ideas? rituals that are in your book?
Una: Sure. I mean, it's a difficult question to answer, not because I don't know the answer, but because I feel really cagey talking about it. But I guess I come from, uh, a Scandinavian folk magic tradition. And as well as that, I have a background in ritual theater, which is much more akin to ceremonial magic.
Una: So we were, we were, uh, uh, Magical, who made theatre. That was secretly ritual. Not so secretly ritual, kind of everyone knew what we were up to on the scene in London. But yeah, I guess with channeling, I learned my channeling abilities through rituals in a ceremonial context. So, I really honed them, well, we would, we would construct rituals ourselves.
Una: The CH group, we had a system and we'd construct rituals ourselves, which were incredibly physical. So, you know, we were there as so called actors in the room together and we would use each other's bodies and props to physically lead somebody through a very somatic experience to move them from their, their own.
Una: self, their personality, et cetera, all the accoutrements of a personality into their character, which was usually an archetypal character. I call it an archetype more than a character. We didn't really use that language of theater. And so I learned my channeling abilities through working on these processes where I was channeling archetypes within the context of a theatrical production that was secretly a magical order conducting rituals for the public to go through.
Una: So that was kind of, that's kind of my background and then also working from a Scandinavian folk magic practice here in Shetland and the living tradition of specifically Shetland folk magic, then channeling usually we're talking about necromancy, so talking to the dead, talking to the spirits of the dead.
Una: And so I kind of used I've used all of my background to figure out ways to channel the spirits of the women I am writing about who have, some of whom have been dead for hundreds of years, some of whom have been dead for not quite so long. And. I just spent a lot of time with each woman I did, you know, a heck of a lot of research when I was writing the book about all aspects of these women's lives, what people had written about them, what they had written about themselves, interviews.
Una: In some of the more, more recent women I was writing about then, you know, had television interviews. Sybil Leake, for example, was often on BBC TV, uh, a great British broadcasting corporation. And so there's a lot of material to work with just to, to get. a flavor of these women because for me you don't want to approach somebody without knowing a bit, a fair bit about them and about whether you even want to get in touch with them, which was a big part of my kind of sifting process when it came to writing the book.
Una: Who do I want to write about? Who am I going to get along with? Who am I maybe not going to get along with? And am I willing to try that anyway? So I'd work for a few months at a time on working with each woman, and I'd just spend that couple of months specifically chatting to, yeah, that one woman who I was building a relationship with.
Una: And, I'm not going to go into the specific methods I would use when I sit down and talk to them because that is feels very private and very sacred to me and not something I can talk about, but I am my background in creating rituals definitely informs what I did. So there's the channeling aspect.
Una: And then there's. The, the putting the, the gleanings from this channeling into a ritual format that will work for people who are practicing magic today. And so, yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on there, mechanically speaking. And I think what came out of it is quite an accessible set of rituals, really.
Una: Uh, an accessible set of spells and practices. I think that comes from just being able to, over time, develop a way of channeling where you can, you can really hone your communication abilities. It's like honing your communication abilities with living human beings, you know. You just gotta be nice, you gotta be polite, and I think the basics of channeling come down to the basics of communication.
Una: In particular, you know, active listening. So I also have some training in counseling and that really helped me, you know, just the real, you know, daily life stuff of, of being a counselor and talking therapy. And yeah, for me, channeling it's, it's not hugely different from just having a conversation with somebody who is, you know, physically manifest.
Una: in this room right now like chatting to you. So that's that in terms of sort of working from traditional texts, you know, grimoires and so on. I would also use the recipe book analogy. I think that's a really good one in terms of you have, you know, I know I'm talking a lot about structure here, but I think that is so important in, you know, that container, that tunnel, that structure.
Una: You thinking about, yeah, using the, the structure of a recipe and then dabbling a bit in the creation of, of uh, a recipe that suits you. So you're using this, you know, grimoire, whatever, as, as the basis of whatever you're doing. And then you're just, Playing mix and match in a way. Sometimes I think it can start off like that.
Una: You just feel like you're, yeah, you're playing some mix and match kind of game. And seeing what works, it's such an experimental thing and I think over time you, you gather your own set of correspondences and you learn narratives of the Plant beings, animal beings, you know, it's so much of it is about Rachel is about constructing a good story, a story that you can tell yourself, a story that you can tell the spirits that you're working with.
Una: And when it comes to creating stories, then you just have to spend a lot of time. Chatting to those plants. Yeah,
Amy: Loretta, what can you add as the death, the death witch about this sort of like cultural fear that we have around, you know, the dead or, or talking to the spirits of the dead? What can you add to that for us?
Loo: It's,
Loo: I think, It's really interesting for me, you know, having grown up truly with death. You know, my sister was killed when I was 12. My father passed when I was 18. And it's, she's always been there, you know. So it, death is something that I've always, I was really forced to get really comfortable with death in my home.
Loo: You know, my father chose to die at home. And it's, so it's, it's always really interesting to me. And, you know, it's, it's not like to shame anyone or to, but to enter into these traditions and, you know, all of these traditions are spirit based, you know, it, it's, there's, All of this work requires us to commune and communicate with spirits, to conjure spirits.
Loo: Otherwise we're missing a huge opportunity to make our work that much more effective. You know, the spirit of, of corn, the spirit of the grass, like, it's its own being. And it's going to do what it's going to do, but it will be so much more effective if you can conjure the spirit and getting to know your ancestors.
Loo: And also getting to know the ancestors of the traditions. So getting really comfortable with looking into death and looking into the information that the dead have to offer us, people don't realize, you know, that when we are, we're reading a text from someone who's no longer with us, that's you're, you're conjuring that spirit, you're seeking information from the dead.
Loo: So the types of, and I, so I love that you brought this up, you know, this learning how to get to know and have conversations with spirits. It just, you do it all the time, even if you don't necessarily realize that's what you're doing. But, slowly getting comfortable with that and easing into it and you know asking for permission and getting to know what spirits you don't, you do and you don't get along with will be really helpful in your practice.
Loo: I mean I, there's spirits that you know the, the, you know, the world adores when it comes to these traditions that I just don't get along with, you know, I, and I don't want to, you know, that's, that's another thing is not every spirit is for everyone and that's okay. Like I've gotten to be very okay with the knowing that the spirit of Aleister Crowley is, is not for me.
Amy: I feel that. Speaking of problematics how, and, and Una wrote in, in her book about doing a ritual to protect sex workers. And I, I want to turn to you, Una, but first I want to know Loretta, like what role does or can ritual have in our political activism? It has
Loo: every role. And this is one of the reasons I think it's so important to, as we're approaching traditions, study the history of tradition.
Loo: I know I sound like a broken record, but history matters so much. You know, the history of, people will find that the history of most traditions is rooted in seeking justice. And seeking justice And the identity of the witch, the hoodoo, the worker, the magician is highly political. And not everybody wants to hear that, but it is the undeniable truth.
Loo: And if we, if those of us who have, because this, this work isn't easy, right? Like I'm conjuring the spirit of the crossroad at 3 a. m. Like that, that's not something that my neighbor is probably doing. So those of us who do To answer that like scream to to engage in this work. I personally believe that we all have a an obligation to enter into contracts to make this world a better place for everyone, but especially for people in our marginalized communities.
Amy: Una, same question, but I want to add ritual as political activism as performance art. How do, how do those three things? Listeners, I'm, I'm just making my open hand into a fist. I don't know what the word is for that. How do we, how do these things intersect for you?
Una: Hmm, sure. So, yeah, when I was, when I was working in Foolish People, the, The Edge Company Magical Order.
Una: Then those things, yeah, were just naturally packaged together for us. Like, yeah, as Loretta says, then you can't do this without work without it being inherently political, you're seeking change, you're seeking transformation in so many minute and massive ways. And to not extend that outwards into the world, that desire for change, then that feels so selfish.
Una: And I think often Beyond that, even if we are, you know, think of ourselves as, I'm in this for me, I'm in this for personal transformation. Then, even unawares, that transformation seeps beyond us, out into the world. We see this even with, you know, some Healthier forms of wellness culture, you know, there's a real nasty tinge to a lot of wellness culture as we know but somebody who's just you know going to therapy and You know, maybe taking odd yoga class here and there to feel calm or whatever, you know They're gonna they're gonna start communicating differently with those around them.
Una: They're gonna be maybe a bit kinder, better listeners. And this is always this ripple effect. Even if we think we're just doing something for ourselves, there's always this ripple effect. And for me, everything is political. You know, you can't be outside of politics. Politics is. encompasses the whole of life, and not just human life, either.
Una: And so yeah, this, I don't know if there's a ritual we can do or a spell we can perform that is not political whether we, whether we, choose to recognize that or not. And I think every tiny, minute decision we make in our lives is political. So magic is not separate from that in any way whatsoever. So for me, the three things really go hand in hand.
Una: Activism, you know, politics, magic, all of this. And, and we're activists. You know, I think in a sense, we're all activists, we're all acting in the world the whole time, and we're activists for, for good, we're activists for bad, we're just, yeah, I think there's no escape from the political, it's not a separate sphere that sits over there.
Una: And the work we did as a, as a theatre company, yeah, everything we did was, you know very, very overtly political, we would stage these huge immersive events in places like, for example Conway Hall in London, for which people did a performance in Conway Hall, which has long been the centre of free thought in London, and it's now the home of humanist philosophy.
Una: Although they started holding lots of different kind of occult y events recently, I noticed. But I think this is in 2012 when the London Olympics was taking place. So, you know, London Olympics, it's got all sorts of political connotations and the way that London was cleansed of you know, litter, even, but also what was thought of as human litter, you know, everything's just been littered.
Una: pushed out to the edges to make London this shiny, sparkling hypercapitalist place. And so, you know, we'd, we'd pick our times and part of, of ritual and spell work is, is picking your moments. And as Loretta said, you know, often that means, you know, making a regular moment for that to happen. So with Foolish People, that performance at Conway Hall, we, you know, we were doing it every night for a month.
Una: And, you know, that kind of magic digs deep, especially when it's group magic. It, yeah it's, it starts up rooting stuff. And, yeah, I think there's also a lot of joy to be had when we take the political seriously, and we do the good work. You can find joy in that as well, and that's what sustains you.
Una: Hope and joy. It's not all grimy, and a lot of it is grimy. But I think a really important thing to mention is that we have to cultivate a joyfulness in our activism. A joyfulness in our hopes for the future. And when we perform ritual spells, magic in general, then a lot of it is about finding the, the kind of inner spark that will motivate and move us, move spirits.
Una: So yeah, I think joy, joy deserves a mention there too.
Amy: I do have a question about a kind of a grimy question for both of you. In terms of our mental health and our spiritual health, even our physical health, I guess, is there a point where rituals can, can be unhealthy? Is there a point that we can get to where we've lost a balance and, and doing ritual work can be detrimental to us?
Amy: Loretta, you're nodding, so. Oh, Luna's nodding too. We got two yeses.
Loo: I feel like one of the, the ways that that can happen is through bypassing, actually, where, you know, people will perhaps convince themselves that that's all that they have to do. I can light a few candles and then that's where it stops for me.
Loo: I think that A, that has to get like actually physically exhausting because you're refusing to engage in the, the physical world. So the spirit is just going to be drained, right? I think that there is, you know, your rest is sacred. And knowing, being self aware enough in this work to know when you have to step back and when you you have to rest your physical body, but also allow your spirits, the spirits that you are in contract with to rest.
Loo: Another piece that I think is really important in that is, you know, this is where being like being like a two headed worker comes in because if you're only exercising the muscle of only justice and while that's righteous and that's, it's justified to seek justice, you know, you, then what do you do to exercise this other muscle, you know, in, like you said, like seeking joy allowing yourself to feel joy because when this, when this is all.
Loo: When this part of history is done, we still have to be able to rebuild. So if we forget to work out the muscles of joy, of abundance, of pleasure, of laughter, then there's nothing left. You will not have the energy to rebuild. Also, there is a time and a place for your voice and your work. And there's a time and a place to step back and let the work and the voice of other people take the forefront.
Loo: So I think that there's a few different ways as far as, you know, mental health and physical health. can go, that it can become unhealthy, when you're, when you're running fully on ego and you're not allowing other people to have a space in the conversation and when you're just like, go, go, go, go, go, and then you forget to exercise or allow the other head to work, or when you're just bypassing.
Loo: You know, I'm just gonna do, I'm just gonna lay down work. I'm just gonna do magic. I'm not gonna engage in the real world. I'm not gonna check on my neighbors. That's not good for anyone either.
Amy: Una, do you want to expand on that idea? Do you have anything to add?
Una: Sure. So this is a really juicy question.
Una: I love it. One of my favorite topics is, is magic and, and mental health or specifically what we, what psychiatrists call and, you know, Capitalism calls mental illness. I live with what is termed bipolar disorder. I, I go through phases with what I prefer to call it at the moment. It's manic depression.
Una: I think that kind of sums up nicely and it has historical connotations that I, I find helpful. But yeah, I love this question. But I'm a disaster when it comes to figuring my way around how to engage as a magical practitioner who experiences madness with a capital M. And I suppose the writing of Muses No More was a kind of, a kind of, uh, hugely messy, chaotic experience for me in which my mental health became Very skewed and bizarre.
Una: So I, I was, you know, I was working and not paying attention to self care and so on. I've always been pretty bad at self care, to be honest. It's something I've really struggled with. And while writing the book, then that went out the window. So my. Partner she effectively became my carer. I'm not gonna and I don't say that lightly you know, I was sitting in bed working all hours and You know doing my magical work in in this bedroom.
Una: I'm sitting in And I I really went pretty pretty off kilter and increasingly manic and a lot of that was fueled by this magical work I was undertaking and it was certainly going into the magical work I was undertaking which became ever more frenetic and the I think it was the week in which I, I'd finished the book and the week I finished writing the introduction I had a full blown breakdown.
Una: I was hospitalized twice in a very short period of time. I won't go into the details because we'd Probably need a content warning on there. But it was, it was really, it was really grim time. And then there was this long, long period of collapse and recuperation. And I needed time away from magical practice because it, you know, this entanglement had become pretty, pretty intense.
Una: pretty dangerous actually. I think my practicing magic can be incredibly dangerous both physically and mentally psychologically. And for me that's often been the case. The same when I was working with foolish people then I. I similarly became very unwell. My mental health went really off a cliff and that's why I really eventually left the group after, after years of working with them and took a long period away from magic.
Una: Uh, and so, uh, Yeah, I have no answers to that one. It's something I explore a lot and I love talking to people about and If any listeners ever want to email me about that. It's a topic. It's like a research topic of mine collecting stories about practicing magic as a Kablem mad person Yeah, I have no answers.
Una: I'm a I'm a disaster. I've certainly heard teachers, certain teachers saying, you know, you should never practice magic if you're, if you're in a, in a mental health episode or whatever, mental illness episode. And I've completely broken that rule a million times and suffered for it, to be honest. So yeah, I'm a real glutton for punishment.
Una: I have, uh, I have very little reliable advice to offer on that one. Right there. I'm learning too.
Amy: Loretta, have you cultivated any, like, checks and balances for yourself in your work that might help Una in her study?
Loo: Yes.
Loo: Because so much of my work is geared towards creating balance, you know, where I stand and also creating balance in, in my own legacy. Something, my, my, my husband actually said something to me about four years ago that it was like the thing that really clicked for me. My birth mother, uh, was, an activist was her entire life and she like walked that way every single day and she died that way.
Loo: And, you know, during the George Floyd uprising here in the States because I am a guest in the magical tradition that I work in, I'm. I'm Iranian and Hoodoo, Rootwork, and Conjure belong to, you know, Black folks. I'm a guest at that table, so I knew that not only was it something that I owed the spirits, but also the ancestors of the tradition, but also just, like, fucking human beings, right, was to be there and to be there every day.
Loo: And You know, I still have scars on my legs from the, from getting shot with tear gas rounds. But something that my husband said to me during that time was, it feels like you are intent on living your mother's legacy and it's going to kill you, just like it killed her. And that, when he said that, it just, it felt like getting, like, punched in the throat.
Loo: And since then, I have created checks and balances for myself in the sense that if I'm, if I am crying from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed because I'm on my phone and I'm like seeking out information and I can't turn off the news and I haven't gone outside, you know, if I haven't tended to my garden, if I have forgotten that there is even more beauty in the world, then I have to step back from that work.
Loo: I have to give myself three days. And three is, is the number. That's the number that I give myself. And I, I've also learned to, to listen to the spirit of my birth mother and the spirit of my father and to really listen to my ancestors. And You know, I'm no good if I'm not here for the amount of time that I'm contracted to be here.
Loo: So really keeping that in mind has, especially in this, this new wave of, of things that we're seeing in, in Iran, And just globally in general, that's, that's something that's really helped me to try to be as balanced as possible. I have my moments. But I also, you know, I have my elders, my teacher, my elders, the, my siblings in our lineage are pretty good at like checking me when I need it.
Loo: And that's an odd thing for me being the, the oldest sibling in our, in our family. in our lineage but sometimes I just need a good old fashioned, like, check,
Amy: you know? That sounds like being in community is like an integral aspect of, of these, you know, working with magic, but also like being a human being.
Amy: Right. Loretta, in an interview you said, hold on, let me get it exactly right. In a different interview, you said the second that you're open to magic, magic will find you. And I want to hear from you. And I want to hear from Una too. What does that feel like for our listeners who feel disconnected from a magical practice?
Amy: What does it feel like when magic finds you?
Loo: It feels like,
Loo: it feels like you, it's like the moment you realize that this life is happening even outside of your awareness. It's a, it's a really funny thing because
Loo: it's like opening your eyes for the first time, you know, it's,
Loo: you know, looking at your house plants and realizing that they come from somewhere, that their spirits are wild, that they're not actually as tamed as we believe that they are. And it's, looking into your pet's eyes and knowing that they're communicating with you and being able to understand that communication.
Loo: It's recognizing that that feeling in your gut that tells you to turn around and walk the other way when you're walking alone, when you realize that that comes from somewhere that's beyond physicality. But once you are aware of it, there is absolutely no way to turn it off. It's life changing.
Amy: Una, what does it feel like when magic finds you?
Una: That's such a beautiful quotation, Loretta. I think it feels like a subtle shift in the quality of your presence and presence. perception, a widening of your perception. So a way I often think about it is, you know, when we're, when we're looking out of our eyes then we, we do have this, It's this way of switching off what's happening in our peripheries.
Una: Whereas if you widen your gaze, it's a very physical, you know, it's really a mindfulness practice. If you widen your gaze and watch out for your peripheries, your whole perception of the world changes. And so for me, yeah, there's There's presence in the arrival of magic. There's a shift in perception.
Una: And also there is an intimacy between you. What is you and what isn't you? And an awareness of the fact that you are many, many different beings. It's kind of like you're saying about, you know, understanding the, the anatomy and workings of a planet. It's like, you know, we're, we're colonies of bacteria.
Una: We spread out into the world. Our breath moves through the air and other people are swallowing it. It's like, yeah, it's a feeling of intimacy with everything all at once, all time spanning back through history, spanning Burning out into the future from going right into the core of the earth and out through the other side into space.
Una: It's like, it's intimacy with all of that. And that's a really astonishing feeling. It's like falling in love. And not the kind of, you know, short term lusty fling, but like, actual, you know, deep love.
Amy: I want to thank you both for underscoring the idea that ritual work is inherently. political and world changing personally and politically, that the personal is political, but that there are workings outside of candle lighting that also need to be done.
Amy: Thank you both very much for that. Before we completely wrap Loretta, what's the best way for our listeners to support your magic? LORETTA LUNGARETTI
Loo: I have a little shop, uh, thedeathwitch. black. I also offer consultations through Ritual Craft both in person and virtually. And just With the spirit of the algorithm being very shy these days, engaging with Instagram.
Loo: I mostly am on there. I don't really post much on TikTok because I'm, I don't understand it, but I enjoy watching other people's posts. Yeah, that's where you can find me. Thanks.
Amy: How about you Una?
Una: So, I have a Patreon where I publish new writing and I'm also pretty active on Instagram. Uh, so you can find me at Una of the Peat Bog.
Una: Uh, nice little reference to the Shetland Islands here. Yeah. So yeah, Una of The Peat Bog on Patreon and on Instagram. You're also always welcome to send me an email if you'd like to discuss anything Magic and Madness, anything to do with my book Muses No More, which is available wherever you can buy books generally.
Una: I recommend buying it from an indie occult bookshop if you can. Getting it from your library. But yeah, my email is It's UnaMariaBlythe at gmail. com and you're very welcome to just, yeah, send, fire off, fire off a little letter to me. I love little letters.
Amy: Thank you again both so much. You know, I'm, I'm going to keep this like the, what Risa and I are, are working on here as a recipe book and you have helped me to add a few pages to that recipe book today.
Amy: Thank you so much Una. Thank you so much Loretta for being here with me today. Appreciate it. And, bless the fucking bee. Totally.
Una: Thank you. Thank you. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch. Be a witch.
Amy: You must be a witch. The Missing Witches podcast follows the wheel of the year, with true histories of real witches in the autumn, and meditations on kinship with the more than human world in the spring.
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