In this interview episode, Risa meets Christopher Marmolejo whose beautiful new book Red Tarot: A Decolonial Guide To Divinatory Literacy is out now from North Atlantic / Penguin Random House (same publisher as Missing Witches! Label mates!!)
This is one of those interviews that — thanks to the generosity and wisdom of our guest — manages to be both magically mind-expanding and also full of the giggles, kindness, and gentleness of discovering a new friend and exploring our biggest questions together. Christopher's insights into the decolonial potential in Tarot open new depths in any understanding of tarot images and how they work.
I use the tarot as a means to repair a ruptured relationship with the past. Me and my people's and all people's divinatory capacity for an intuitive faculty.
The powers, of prophecy, of foresight, of magic that come along with spiritual relationships have a responsibility attached to them, to help liberate others, to help heal others, these powers are bestowed upon you in service towards someone else's liberation and healing, as well as your own manifestation of your fullest potential.
"Christopher Marmolejo is a queer Indigenous teacher committed to radical community healing and building. They bring traditional teaching experience as an English teacher, intensive study as an astrologer, and their personal articulation of the tarot archetypes to their classes, workshops, and consultations as they seek to liberate through critical pedagogy and transgressive truth-telling. Marmolejo has facilitated emotional wellness programs with the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice for the Inland Empire, and has worked with the organization Artists in Solidarity to offer their services to raise money for migrant families and children."
Christopher Marmolejo is the author of Red Tarot:
Designed to be used with any deck, Red Tarot is a radical praxis and decolonized oracle that moves beyond self-help and divination to reclaim tarot for liberation, self-determination, and collective healing.
Red Tarot speaks to anyone othered for their identity or ways of being or thinking—LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC folks in particular—presenting the tarot as a radical epistemology that shifts the authority of knowing into the hands of the people themselves.
Author Christopher Marmolejo frames literacy as key to liberation, and explores an understanding of tarot as critical literacy. They show how the cards can be read to subvert the dynamics of white supremacist-capitalist-imperialist-patriarchy, weaving historical context and spiritual practice into a comprehensive overview of tarot.
Situating tarot imagery within cosmologies outside the Hellenistic frame—Death as interpreted through the lens of Hindu goddess Chhinnamasta, the High Priestess through Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui—Marmolejo’s Red Tarot is a profound act of native reclamation and liberation. Each card’s interpretation is further bolstered by the teachings of Toni Morrison, bell hooks, Paulo Freire, José Esteban Muñoz, and others, in an offering that integrates intersectional wisdom with the author’s divination practice—and reveals tarot as an essential language for liberation.
Transcript
Red Tarot
Hey, Coven, it's Risa for MIssing Witches our annual reparations fundraiser in supportive indigenous women is coming up. Last year, we raised over $10,000, a hundred percent of which went directly to the native support orgs that you all chose. This project has become a collective joyous act of reparations and community building.
And we want to invite our beloved podcast coven to make this year more restorative and fun and fucking magical than ever before.
We'll be doing an invite on social media soon, but we're coming to you first with the opportunity to donate at prize. Aside from the glorious glow of good vibes, prize donors are triumphed and lauded by us all over the internet as we promote the fundraiser. So listen. If you are an artist or healer or an artisan or an author. Or a card reader or a diviner if you teach a course on astrology or tarot or resilience or history or money magic, or if you offer coaching or if you offer services or skills of any kind than you have been resourced at some point by indigenous knowledge and land. We all have. And you have something to offer to the brilliant weaving of repair.
Get in touch at missingwitches@gmail.com if you are in a position to offer a prize and we'll send you more details. And everyone listen and watch for more info on the fundraiser and for our episodes dedicated to exploring kinship and indigenous futurism over the coming weeks. Bless the fucking bees.
You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. Be a, be a, be a, be a, be a, be a, be a, be a witch. You must be a witch.
[00:01:43] Risa: I'm weird today, to be honest. I'm really excited to get to hang out. I just feel weird.
[00:01:48] Christopher: I mean, the moon has been like super void y like last week and will be void this week too. So I feel like that definitely feels apt.
[00:01:55] Risa: I'm just deeply void y.
[00:01:57] Christopher: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:02:00] Risa: Okay. I'm going to take a deep breath.
Welcome friends. Welcome listeners. Welcome witches. Welcome diviners. Welcome pariah prophets. Welcome Whatever is coming through for you in what my brilliant guest has diagnosed for me as a deeply void y time. I hope that we find you in some sense of ease and comfort, and if not that, at very least, please know, that we that you are in the circle we make in the dark between our ears, and we're so thrilled to have you here with us now.
And I'm so thrilled to have Christopher Marmolejo, author of Red Tarot, a Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy. I feel like we're label mates on like a really cool indie record label, except
[00:02:56] Christopher: That's literally how I think of it.
[00:02:58] Risa: Yeah, I'm just so thrilled and in love with this book. I have been unable to read it linearly.
It's my new favorite book for bibliomancy. There's so much poetic prophetic power. When I said pariah prophets, it's a direct quote from this book that I was really struck by today. There's so much beautiful word work and real deep insight into how the practices and praxis of Decolonizing our thought spaces and our bodies and our world will work.
And so I'm just so excited to get to hang out. Thank you so much for being here. How are you? How are you feeling? How are you feeling about this book being in the world?
[00:03:40] Christopher: So surreal. I'm feeling, it feels like a weird time magic. And again, probably because the moon is like being all kinds of void before, before some big shifts happen, you know, in March. I'm feeling excited to be here with you as well. I love that you think of being on, like, I always say that I'm like, we're on the same label.
Like, that's how I tell people. You know what I mean? Like with folks under North Atlantic. And so I feel so honored and so blessed to be welcomed into this space. And to sit across y'all, like to sit across you and like the author of this brilliant work and this brilliant podcast. So thank you for having me.
[00:04:20] Risa: Can you tell me more about how this book came through you, came to you? Were there other books that were, like, wanting to be written, did you feel like? Do you know that feeling?
[00:04:31] Christopher: Oh my God. I mean, yes, it was like I say so much now in like, in just doing kind of the work of being a writer, but a diviner, but also a curandera where I'm helping cleanse. Clients and spaces and homes and things that like I was like, oh, I get it Like you need a holy spirit. Like you need a like you need an ex an extra kind of Guiding force to move through you and to sustain kind of the necessary Discipline of creative output that it was. I have always wanted to write a book. I've always wanted to be a published author. I kind of that's been like a dream come true here. We are at the precipice of it being out into the world and whatnot. And I And I found that like Tarot was this great prism or intersection or like muse of sort that, that facilitates my writing and allows me to blend my passions and my study and my research and my advocacy for decolonization and re indigenizing and reddening the world again.
But also divination, like to, to add the kind of mystical sacred spiritual element to my other interests, of course, which can be very intellectual or heady or, you know, quote, unquote, academic in, in a sense. And, and North Atlantic found me and like, yeah, Ace, Alice Sparkly Kat, the author of Postcolonial Astrology.
I always am in deference to them and their great work and to putting me on, as I like to say. And Jillian reached out and I was like yes, I would love, like, I was already kind of working towards towards the idea of the book . I wrote the book proposal and I was like, okay, even if I don't get the contract, if they, you know, pass, I'm going to write this regardless.
And I had made that decision and literally like the next day or that day. You know, I got the news that they wanted to publish it. And so, yeah, I mean, I, so again, it gave me kind of the traction of being able to write about all of the cards, which was quite an endeavor, but also I felt like it has given me an expanse in terms of like, Themes and topics and styles of voice in a sense to be able to explore that now I feel like I've, I found a writer's voice.
I found like a particular niche in terms of like how I marry and talk about these two topics and it just helped me, I feel mature as a writer as well. So yeah.
[00:07:16] Risa: Yeah, I do feel that. Can you tell me more? I'm so curious. I don't really know your, there's obviously a heavy academic background in the work. Like there's so, there's, which I love to get into
[00:07:29] Christopher: I'm like,
[00:07:29] Risa: tarot book and I'm like feeling these like deep theoretical roots. Where is that? Tell me about your,
tell me about your reading life. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:38] Christopher: yes. Oh, my reading life. I mean, books are my friends, as I will always say, you know, thankfully, that was the aspect of my queerness that was indulged and celebrated and uplifted. And so, yeah. I mean, I have my both of my luminaries and my Midheaven in the bounds of Mercury, Mercury, the reader and the writer.
Right. And I grew up just loving to read and saw education. I'm that millennial generation that they just force fed down our throats like college was the avenue to success and everything. Right. And so. So yeah, I was like an AP student and took all the AP classes and was editor in chief for my school newspaper, which was called the Oracle. I was just too spot on and too perfect. And I only kind of realized, like, I think that we've come here to do when we will see those patterns when we look back and reflect but anyhow, and so I, and I went to Cal State San Bernardino.
I wanted to be an investigative journalist. And they did not have a journalism degree at that school. So I studied communications and then through the kind of variety and under mass communications and public relations was exposed to bell hooks and Angela Davis and critical media theory. And at the same time became disillusioned with like the politics and the changes in in media at that time, especially in like, You know, real mainstream media and lean more into the, to the critical aspect.
And then I was a substitute teacher and a tutor and worked at a charter school for a while. And that really further politicized me in terms of seeking education as a practice of freedom. And then I pursued my master's and my teaching credentials at UC Santa Cruz. To exist within. The, the legacy and lineage of Angela Davis again and bell hooks and others who taught and Gloria Anzaldua and Sherry Moraga and other third world feminists and like to be there and like have that kind of spatial, you know, existence to continue on in as well.
And, you know, and then it became disillusioned by higher education, of course, had to survive the institution, and yet, and that was very, very critical, and still am of that program of higher education, while at the same time valuing and really see throughout, like, I use my education, like, you know what I mean, and still really appreciating, the rigor of research and the rigor of writing and especially that a lot of those women, again, especially like Gloria Anzaldúa and her notions of spiritual activism that are more recently being talked about more, right, or given more focus, but that was always kind of like a central impetus for me to, to write, to divine, and to teach, and to read, was like, there was an aspect of spiritual reclamation that was a part of the work.
And so, then COVID happened, obviously, and like, the pandemic happened, and I, I always say I had like a pre pandemic, and that was like, I taught at Santa Cruz for a year, I taught some of the eighth graders, and I loved them, and it was my Jupiter Return, and like, It was amazing. And I was like the cool teacher and like the only queer one that I literally told I was the token hire.
It was, was insane. And I was like, okay, I'm going to come back to my hometown and teach my, my own kind of kin and community could not get hired because I was very vocal and adamant about my politics and my queerness. And then again, the pandemic happened and I was kind of going through this big tower phase and just lean so heavily on tarot and then just started going from there and saw it as a viable means towards the livelihood and at the same time wanting to, it's been a slow process, I would say, of integrating kind of both of my backgrounds in terms of like, critical theory with like, divinatory theory, if you will, or quote, unquote, in practice and doing so, so that they're, you know, You know, that there's a distinction in terms of what I'm offering or what I'm seeking to do with my divining.
[00:11:51] Risa: Yeah. I get that. And it's so lovely to see smart thinkers braiding the two sort of a divinatory theory, spiritual activism, and, you know, maybe academic sort of worlds. There's so much discomfort there for so many people be like, I don't want to be too woo. And you know, where we I'm always the first that's like, your woo is safe with me.
It's fine. It's fine.
[00:12:18] Christopher: It's welcome.
[00:12:19] Risa: Yeah, you're okay here. But it is a tricky space, middle space to walk in. You write about how there's a phrase I love that tarot makes us, I'm gonna butcher it if I don't look at it, alters our engagement with materiality. Can you talk about tarot as a decolonial practice?
Like, how do you see that set of images, set of cards, as a tool that can make sense from a perspective of indigeneity. Like, how does it connect with that worldview? How does it open things up?
[00:12:56] Christopher: my gosh. I think that
[00:12:59] Risa: I mean, you wrote like a 400 page book about it. So it's a
[00:13:03] Christopher: I know, right? I was like, it's one of those
[00:13:04] Risa: for me.
[00:13:06] Christopher: I'm like, well, and that's also part of the reason of like, why I love writing because it is to use the, the kind of label metaphor again, it's like putting, like laying it down. Like, you know what I mean? Like, a certain articulation, a certain expression, and as much as I, there's, we can edit endlessly and like, desire to at some times, but I'm like, okay, like, this is where it's at now.
But in order to give that, that notion, which we're talking about, about the intersection or how they can even be in conversation indigeneity decolonization with tarot, which is a Western object, a Western tool, right? And do so with respect to both of the practices, but especially indigenous thinkers and using the text as itself as a way, and tarot as a manner for me to fully reclaim my own indigeneity with confidence because I am, I grew up, I mean, I also I grew up in San Bernardino, which is, I always say like, like from Donny Hathaway, little ghetto boy, you know, I was like growing up in the ghetto, And then at the same time , on and off the Serrano Samuel Band of Mission Indians, like, tribal territory and having family and access there, but not formally recognized as part of the tribe.
And yet, acknowledging my own, indigenous ancestry, but the way that gets all fucked up through colonialism. Like, my name, Christopher, I mean, one is Like, colonizer name 101, and then Marmolejo is a city in Spain that goes back to, like, marble makers and whatnot, and so it's like, literally within my name is the history of colonialism, right?
And so, I grew up culturally Catholic, I mean, a lot of Catholics, a lot of Latino Catholics are like, afraid of the tarot, it's like the devil's object and all these things, of course. And so, It just, it, one, it found its way to me. I found a lot of spaciousness in the image to, as Paulo Fierre does, like to use the image as a catalyst to see the mechanisms of the world, like to see a history of a Western kind of imperialism or a Western mode of kings and queens and popes and you know, a, a castle and like all these kinds of orders as a matter to situate how they have been embedded within our world, and then use that as a means to critique, right, use that as a means to open up, use that as a reflection of, like, where we are where those colonized mechanisms exist within ourselves, and then how to do as José Esteban Muñoz does, like, to disidentify, right, and I see, like, the work is I had, I taught a class on Jupiter recently, and like, a student in state after was asking about like, how do we go forward when they're just asking questions, right?
Like, like, how is this sustainable? Like, this liberatory work? And I mean, I think a part of it is being recyclers, like, of just understanding the wreckages of history and like, using the image in the imaginal, using what we stand on. And having to make something with it rather than like just blindly negating a colonial past or an indigenous past or something and just like only putting forth like this purist vision of like what a quote unquote native or Indian is or what those practices or tools look like.
I use the tarot as a type of prosthetic prophecy as a means to repair a ruptured relationship with the past. my me and my people's and all people's divinatory capacity for an intuitive faculty. And so using this as a, is definitely, you know, I love Pamela Coleman Smith. I love that Missing Witches ended with an exploration of Pixie and then of course, at the same time, like so many decks by so many artists. Give a variation and a specificity to the moment that Indigenous artists are making tarot decks, like Black people are making tarot decks, queer people are making tarot decks, and so, again, there's sort of that using a framework or using the history of the cards As a means of, like, acknowledging and recognizing our own place within the history of colonialism and trade and commerce and the hybridity and mixing between practices and, like,, using, tarot feels very spacious to me.
It has always felt very spacious. And then I think as well, like, I still go to the ability to, like, read the image critically and respond to that image specifically and critically, and that brings up issues of representation, right, that are very fraught with indigeneity in terms of wanting to be recognized by a colonial power wanting that validation wanting to fit into the mainstream, wanting to get the big award, the Grammy, et cetera, right? And instead, how do we use these cards with, a lot of my clients are women, are queers, are brown women, and they come at times of crossroads.
They come in times where they need a clarity and they're sort of like at their wit's end and what can the tarot offer them in a meaningful way and manner that is already rebellious, that they're already transgressive, and do so in a way that has heft, and again, acknowledges my teachers and the works of theorists, like, obviously not all of them, like, this is not an end all be all, you know, I did, I did my best, and I, at the same time, I like to go deep with particular teachers, it's the balance between depth and breadth, of course yeah, I don't know, sorry, I'm, if I was going on tangents there, but,
[00:18:41] Risa: There was like seven things in there that I thought were so, juicy, like I wanted to think about and dig into more. I think especially, You know, one, like I hadn't really thought about this until you said it, but that one thing that the tarot teaches you implicitly is about the structures in our world, right?
That, that hierarchy is, is there, it's super present. And there, and it also is teaching about how slipping through those things and about how there's a circle and about how things fall. And I thought also the idea of, is it, did I understand you correctly thinking about it as almost like a prosthesis, as a, as a prosthetic, as like something that connects.
Yeah, that's dope. No question. Just don't know. No, that's a really, really interesting idea.
[00:19:29] Christopher: I mean, yeah, because again, I'm like a de tribalized urban trans native and there's a lot of, and so, you know, and I, in temperance in particular, in the temperance section of the book I talk about these notions of purity and blood quantum in which it's, it's an internalized colonial mechanism of measuring like, If you're real or not, basically right in their means of indigenous people eradicating themselves, and of course it's complicated, it's a big issue, don't get me wrong, like there's a management of like, necessary preservation of culture and of community and intentionality and yet at the same time, again, that blood quantum mechanism is, is but the other side of the coin of like, one drop right for, for black Americans.
Right, in this means of like, either you're, you don't have enough of a blood quantum to be considered like a part of it, or you, or you have just that one, three fifths of a human kind of a thing, right? And you're, and you get excluded. So they're both means of inclusion and exclusion that are a colonial technology.
And so, now, where we're at in history, like, There's so many queers and natives who need that type of prosthetic in order to repair these relationships because they don't, they're not living on tribal territory, formally, or they don't have that recognition, or they've been abandoned, or they're alone.
And so, for me, the tarot is highly accessible, it's like very in vogue and popular, and I think it will continue to be and has been. And so I wanted to offer this book as like, A guidebook of sorts, if you can say that. I mean, there's a lot of things I want the book to be.
But for that use, or for acknowledgment of those particular places, and still in deference to Indigenous people. Keepers and again, like decolonizing, like, you know, I, I think I, I tried to go there with the book, you know, I was like, all, all the shit by the police has to get set on fire.
Like the, if we're talking about the tower, it's like prison rebellion and it's like burning the shit down, like how committed to you are to, you know, to the project. So yeah, I didn't
[00:21:33] Risa: time, you're just saying, and I thought this was interesting to you're talking about, you know, building with what we have, you know, when you're talking about using the cards, like, you know, like, it that we can't have this pure ideal of everything all burnt down. We're going to have to, and I, that's something I struggle with.
Certainly like there's, there's people in our sort of like activist, spiritual activist kind of communities that come to a language of burn it all down. And in some cases probably appropriate. But I, I'm, I'm like a little bit, maybe conservationist. In that, you know, like I just feel like our, our resources are fucking limited.
Like we can't do a lot of burning shit down. I'm, you know,
[00:22:14] Christopher: I mean, especially
[00:22:15] Risa: to keep everything somehow. I don't know.
[00:22:18] Christopher: that's, I mean, you know, that's. There's a lot that I understand, and
[00:22:26] Risa: tell me I'm wrong. This is just an, you
[00:22:28] Christopher: mean, I think it's a real question and conversation in particular in terms of like that, there's a question of inclusion again, and like as a young teacher, my white students, I felt like really held me accountable in terms of like how I was teaching to them and how I was holding them accountable to their own already , like middle school age.
I mean it starts very young. In terms of the internalized racism and hatred and like all of the isms, right? But that they were welcome there and that at the same time like that they had to understand their, they were raced of that. They are raced, of course, and that they are patriarchs are.
Assaulted by patriarchy, just the same. Right? Well, not just the same, but in a different manner, but they are, they, they have a means of solidarity when they can name and acknowledge the sources of oppression that should engender you know, a mode to be in solidarity, and so that, that can be very challenging when, you know, when they're the active, like, affronters of the shit being burned down in the first place, or the things being lost, or, you know, the, the epistemicide, the genocides, like, all of these things, it's like, okay yeah, I mean, I think that they're, they are certainly the, the That is a, that is a heart of a conversation in terms of like the question of violence, right?
Like that's just like such a big don't want to go like straight to there, but like there's you know, that's a big And that's a big, big Big part that we all have to kind of reconcile in terms of how we respond to violence, the place of violence in our lives the violence that already, that has already been enacted towards us, but also you know, that the oppressed have a right to, to rebel, and those may be by violent means, and I think that's where there's a difference between, like, the liberalism of Santa Cruz in particular, which was like, very very on the brochure.
Here is our people of color. Here is the syllabus with all the black feminist thinkers. But then here's all the white students who are going to be teachers to go teach in the hood and like all these things. And like, you know, it's like the, the contradiction between theory and practice there. Right. And so.
Yeah.
[00:24:46] Risa: I don't have an answer for it, even in my own heart, you know, I mean,
[00:24:49] Christopher: Right.
[00:24:50] Risa: I, I rage at violence and feel like I would like to throw my body with the oppressed and always have. But at the same time, I get uncomfortable sometimes with language of burn it all down when I think. What, you know, talking about university, for example, or, you know, that the, that the academy is so sick that the only way to deal with it, or, I don't know, I, I, I like to imagine that there are ways of opening up and decolonizing our existing systems, open sourcing our systems or something in ways that are ethical, but I don't know what that is.
I don't expect you to have an answer, although you're, you're my prophet on the screen today.
[00:25:36] Christopher: I, I, I definitely, I mean, I'm such a person, like a gentle soul. I mean, I've been vegan for like 10 years, you know, and that's something I don't necessarily talk about a lot. Like, and that's from an uncomfortability to just consume any type of violence at all. Like completely, I think that peacemaking and healing and restoring and recognizing it's, it's a matter of like, you know, Again, that question is going to be something that we all at some point will have to encounter and deal with and so, like in the tower section I just had to sit with, I had to sit with that a lot and yeah, I think I feel the same.
And I mean, in a lot of ways, this book is, as I like to say, is like my personal PhD. And in that the realization of my kind of educational thesis of sorts about liberatory literacy about indigeneity, about personal authorship, how to do so outside of the academy, you know, and there's been real cost to that in some sense. It's been a journey to establish a sense of, you know, authority and credibility, of course.
And at the same time, like embracing being freaky and queer and like wild and like foolish you know what I mean? Like all the things like, so like that being, as I always say, failure will free you. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, so I hear you.
[00:27:02] Risa: I do feel like you, you've written your, your personal PhD. It's a, it's a, it's a PhD size. Not size depth project. It's beautiful. It's really great. I hope you feel really, really proud of it. I hope that when you have the distance that you look at what you did and, and feel all the depth that's in there.
It's, I think, north Atlantic. I feel I, I can't feel this about my own work, but I know that they aim to do this and I see it in other people's work. They publish work that they believe will live for a long time and make an impact for a long time. And I really feel that in your book, so,
[00:27:37] Christopher: Thank you for saying that. Yeah, it's a bit hard to have that perspective right now. I mean, I have that hope, but it's still like, it's still kind of nerve wracking for me to share something with the world at this scale, this degree, you know, I'm such a private person.
[00:27:51] Risa: And it's such a weird journey. Like, it kind of feels like it comes out and you do all this stuff and then it sort of feels like it disappears, like that part is so strange too, but then it keeps weaving its way back in to your life Can you talk, it's such a weird segue, I'm so sorry, can you talk about your relationship with the divine?
[00:28:12] Christopher: That's a beautiful segue. I mean, Oh, yes. I mean, I was oh my gosh, my relationship. I've always, Had one, I would say, I mean, my mom taught me to pray before, like say my prayers before bed. And I didn't grow up in a very strict religious, like dogmatic home. I had a lot of spaciousness and I had a lot of books by me.
And so I would just have like in Muscoy in San Bernardino, which is it's like a lot of dirt land, but there's a lot of horses and a lot of just like, there was like a lot of open fields and things. And I think that's my time in nature. allowed me for like communion, like I remember being a kid and like channeling the winds just organically and naturally.
My first year teaching, I was having my Jupiter return. And I had had tarot come to me before, like, literally, like, people giving me readings, like, in a very kind of auspicious, unplanned moment, like, it was not, like, a booked thing, it was very, like, Oh, we're bringing out this as a gift, you know, to, like, receive.
And then friends would gift me decks. And I'm like, okay, I guess, like, I kept wanting to be in my hands. And. Again, during my first year teaching with my Jupiter return, but I also then began my personal study with Tarot. And I would say that Tarot has been a great prism for me to relate to a multi mode of deities in a sense.
But I'm such a priestess, I like to say a prophetess and authoress. Like I have a really rich prayer practice. I feel that is a. A part of doing this work was also to just fully be in the lifestyle of being a witch, or being in relationship and communion with the divine. And that's why I love Divination is because even if it's quote unquote like a mundane thing that I'm divining about or like I do my daily pull just in a devoted manner every morning.
And sometimes the cards will be about something I'm reading or watching or will witness or an idea that I'm thinking about. It's not necessarily like the day I got the book deal or like the day my heart was broken or like whatever, you know what I mean? Or all these like my parents divorcing or something like and I, and I love it for that because there's a manner of like, The real relationship is there.
I will say I'm a devotee of the Black Madonna but I do work with a myriad of deities from various cultures, but like a big part of it goes towards and goes back towards like Ma, towards the Black Madonna, towards an emanation or various emanations and manifestations of the Mother And, and yeah, and I mean, I love, like, gospel music.
I was listening to gospel music all day today. I love when I hear spirit, you know what I mean? Like, when I really hear it and it resonates, I'm like, we're, we're cool. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I can work with it. It's, it's been everything to sustain me, I would say.
Like, it's been, there's being brought to your knees. You know what I mean? In the sense of when you feel that you need to rely upon, like I said, a holy spirit or like some higher power in order to continue on, this book required so much prayer after just so much, I'm sure you know, right? Like so much self doubt and so much critique and at the same time I feel like an active alchemy in terms of reconstituting my own being through my divine relationships and being reoriented towards a sacred mode of living and that divine perspective, bowing my ego and my anger and my hopes, my dreams and my fears and all that to a divine perspective that has it all handled or accounted for, or has some understanding that our limited human mind cannot comprehend.
And that I look forward to rejoining in a sense of totality at some point once I, once I do die. Like, I really look forward to death. You know, not to be so Scorpio about it, but,
[00:32:05] Risa: That's like so lovely for me to hear right now and, and in general, we have a lot of people who come to our community from a place of religious trauma. That's the world, the state of the world, and it makes so much sense. Can you offer some insight from the perspective of Decolonial Tarot? Maybe there's one of the cards that makes sense that you write about.
I found a lot of comfort in your Hanged Men chapter today, but I don't know, does that question make sense to you?
[00:32:42] Christopher: Absolutely. I mean, I think, yeah, for me, the Hierophant comes to mind in terms of like religious trauma, right? I take a polytheistic mode, and I definitely try not to be a colonizer in terms of my interests and, like, a sense of appropriation with, some of these relationships or spiritual practices.
Like, I try and let them find me and, like, choose me and, like, come to me repeatedly and then begin that relationship respectfully and, again, in the dark, in secret, and, like, really, really fortify it and really be in deference to that cultural, final say, and then speak about, Mesoamerican cultures, of course, but also because I grew up culturally Catholic, like being able to talk about with critique and with a sense of like detangling some Bible verse or some gospel sense that like I can parse out the myth or the story or the application that is, Beyond, right?
And I think that the Hierophant, again being the Pope, right, in its traditional iteration, right, a masculine Pope, not the High Priestess, right, as the counterpart, is, is, has caused so much trauma, I mean, the spiritual, quote unquote, father well, it should be the father, you know what I mean, they should be spiritual mother and father for those, who are kicked out, for those who are exiled, for those who have no home.
That's the highest goal. Of course, they get hung up on sexual fetish. They get hung up on hyper commercialization, such as with Evangelical Christianity and the Joel Olsteins of the world, or they become positive thinking above all else, and you will, you know, manifest your dream car again, and it goes back to commerce .
I think that on one level, a healing with a hierophant that I have is in the discipline and in the rigor and in the sense that like to walk a spiritual path, it's not something that you do for like a fad or because it was just like a cool moment or I don't know, it's like some, it's like a way of life, you know, these, these The powers, of prophecy, of foresight, of magic that come along with spiritual relationships have a responsibility attached to them, to help liberate others, to help heal others, these powers are bestowed upon you in service towards someone else's liberation and healing, as well as your own manifestation of your fullest potential. They are, and this is where, like for me in the reading. You know, there's a duty to, to like, name all that I'm seeing I'll offer my human opinion and perspective as well but I don't withhold some sense of like, like, my spirit is compelling me to like, say this. to this person, right? Or like, you need to know this. Like, there's like an ethic to, to relaying that information clearly, because otherwise I think that those gifts would be denied, right? As well, a Hierophant is, is one who has that, that training.
The Hierophant is, is, as opposed to the Priestess, who is, who's a witch in the woods, who's probably veiling herself and, you know, she's not trying to have maybe a whole group of, Of like, followers that know her name and her number and all these things. The hierophant is the one who the lay people can name and call when they need someone to pray over their recently passed.
Is the one who can bless the child, is the one who can help be doula, you know, in a large way. The one for the people, in that sense that's more public, who is translating the word. Which is Friere-ian, which is bell hooks in, you know what I mean? Which is this sense of like bringing a criticality to the text of spirit that the messages of spirit that we're receiving and saying back, the one who knows the prayers, you know, you don't, it's like to learn these systems of any spiritual system and to not be appropriators is to go to the authorities within that lineage.
The Hierophant is an ancestral practice of naming, it's a citation practice. It's like, and my teacher was, and then my teacher was, and then my teacher was, and so you're, you're, the prayers then uttered from those teachers are not only spoken by you in that moment, they're reverberating and garnering and adding to the luster of like every moment that prayer has been said, you know?
And so I think that, you know, there is that sense of record keeping of the discipline that the Hierophant is committed to. And I can also understand the true religious trauma, of course, and through people's like this disembodied, Quality that makes the ritual like the especially Catholic Church. Oh my god is always so boring like that was just always the worst you know versus for me like the black church like the black gospel music like I can that that moves me like I understand the word and there's a sense of of delivery of voice. I, I have Venus and Jupiter.
Jupiter is the planet of spirituality, of liberation. Venus is like the temple keeper. I have them conjoined in Scorpio on my chart. And so, there's a level of like when I deliver a reading, there's a delivery of voice. It is a type of being on stage. There is a summoning of a spirit.
There's like a way that the words need to be expressed to evoke to the person. And so I can understand that the hierophant doesn't necessarily always offer that to the people. And that's where you may need a different hierophant, you know, and you may need to go to the people's whose words or to the traditions, whose words like, Really unlock something for you than like trying to force it, you know, like trying to hit an off note or something.
[00:38:14] Risa: and then for folks who are still, like, working through a syncretic relationship with the church of their family of their community, trying to navigate a way to keep, I guess this kind of goes back to what we were talking about, like, keeping. How can I keep? Sometimes people just like there, there's no way I'm going to lose all of my family, all of my community.
I need to keep this religion. I need to find a way to bring this with me, even though. I reject what is oppressive and evil and violent and debasing and dehumanizing and cruel and aligned with colonialism. Like, I have to, I don't know how, I just know that I have to...
[00:39:00] Christopher: I understand that that impulse for that sense of continuity, again, that sense of belonging that the Hierophant offers, not just within family and culture, but Like as a people, a history of a people. And I think that's where the critical reading and like the, the self authority, like more of the high priestessing on that sense, where you can read and interpret the word for your own.
Like, it's like the priestess is the radical one. Who a literate woman, . You know what I mean? She's the head of the church, like herself, she's the black Madonna. She doesn't need a man to interpret this word to her. She can understand the spells and the scriptures and all these things.
Critique them necessarily critique as a form of love and hold, hopefully those people like hold the community accountable. I can understand that it's tremendous for people to work against conditioned, colonial, gendered, racist thinking especially as religion becomes used to oppress people as there's obviously so much history of that.
And so I think that, the first part is within the self, feeling. that sense of self acceptance from the religion or from the spiritual practice that people exist within, and then extending that outward within the intimate relationships and within the communities and family, because that is the obligation of doing this work.
It's not to exist as an atomic individual, right? So I think a bit more of the high priestess kind of medicine would come in, in that regard. More Queen of Swords, again, more bell hooks, like bell hooks was a Buddhist and queer and, you know, and a Christian, of course, you know, and her and Cornel West talk about the, the Black prophetic tradition and precious memories.
And she was a Gemini rising and like the first Deccan of Gemini. The first 10 degrees of that sign are synchronized to the Eight of Swords. The Eight of Swords, traditionally, or in most decks you will see, is a woman who is bound, a woman in red, who is bound up in rope. And that, to me, is one of the most violent images in the whole deck.
And so that speaks to gender. By naming the systems of power which demarcate and structure religion or any spiritual practice it allows us to have a grip on it and allows us to have distance where we can historicize it and make that distinction between, spirit, or our faith, or our sense of belonging, our sense of, our purity, or, I mean, to get, like, that sense of, innocence within the heart, that aspect of reclaiming and holding on to that, like, true self that is, like, like, I know there's goodness in my heart, I know there's a desire for love and for healing in my heart, and, Then, oh, that's the sexism, okay, we can then critique that, you know what I mean, and, like, bell hooks is always saying, like, I don't serve a punishing God, my God is a loving God, you know, and that's, That's radical, right?
Right,
[00:41:51] Risa: Yes, that is the core of what I believe. I mean, I'm not I'm not religious really, except that I've, you know, also spent since childhood time summoning the winds. But I, but I, I do feel like a kinship with anyone who believes in a loving God, you know, anybody who believes children are sacred, you know, so I can get behind whatever your faith is as long as we sort of have a shared standard, you know?
Yes.
[00:42:18] Christopher: As long as like, I can be queer, you're not gonna damn me for my sexuality. You're gonna allow me to talk back and question, but like, I'm the most, I'm, I'm devout as hell. Like, you know what I mean? I'm
[00:42:30] Risa: Isn't that the point of the idea of divinity is that it's all inclusive? Isn't that, isn't that, why do you have one? Why, why do you have an idea of divinity if you don't think we're all part of it with all our, our weird bits, you know? I don't know.
[00:42:47] Christopher: yeah, yeah,
[00:42:49] Risa: Can I ask you a formatting question? A structural question about the book?
And this will maybe reveal my, my ignorance, but tell me about the decision. To not separate out Major Arcana and the 1 through 10, but to embed them in the count,
[00:43:07] Christopher: I love that. I love this question. I also love like the meta, like I love the meta question about like the work itself. And so, I mean, that is, that's there. There are plenty of books who are, who follow it that way.
It's like a both end, there's a little bit of contradiction here, but like one, the maybe first answer I'll say is that that's not how you read Tarot like when you do a reading. You're not like getting like typically like sequential cards.
Do you know what I mean? Like your reading is a hodgepodge, you're going to get major arcana, you're going to get minor arcana, you're going to get court cards. So I wanted the reading to more accurately reflect the actual manner in which we read tarot.
And then at the same time underlying a numeric organization, right? And like finding that there was I, I know that Mary Kay Greer, I believe does her, her teacher cards and I've taught that and I've worked with that.
But for me, I also just found like scales as I was, like more music or there was an aspect of the minor, like the group of the fives, having some sort of bridge between the five arcanum of the hierophant and then 15 of the devil there is something to uncover there, using it as a mode to uncover new, new connections and to like see them.
And that was also helpful for me. And also it was a challenge I kind of open each section with what this number means, a mini numerology of sorts. But from a critical perspective in a foundational tarot course that I have, I teach in that manner as well.
[00:44:29] Risa: Can you give me an example or talk more about the example of the fives, where maybe in the writing process or just seeing them together, you were like, Oh, actually there's this other.
[00:44:38] Christopher: I yeah, I mean, for me, the Hierophant Which is, again, just the authoritative spiritual leader, yes, we can shorthand say the pope of a people, but it's the shaman, it's the root worker, the curandera against the Devil. Like, do you know what I mean?
Like, those two are clearly in conversation with each other, right? For there to be the one who blesses, there's the one who curses, right? And then when we look at the fives Traditionally, there are cards of suffering, you know, there are cards of challenges, there are cards of being bereaved, being damned, being the walking dead, as I say, like, they are the conflict points.
They are a crescendo of action in a sense, but for me, they're like a pit, you know, they're a type of a pit. They're really like a divot. And so you need like their initiations for that hierophant. From that wounded space, like they're often wounds around placehood with the pentacles.
[00:45:26] Christopher: There's so much grief with the, the cups, of course. The five of swords is, is the act of exile. It is such a rich card about colonial conquest and like conquering of native lands and places and dead naming folks. And then the five of wands is, Oh my gosh, the five of wands, you know, is about this strife over territory and community and again, like purity of identity in these things.
And so for me, the Hierophant is like, where we're dealing with these real historic, social wounds and violence that a spiritual response is called upon and a spiritual response is needed and can help um to to mend right and then the devil is like kind of maybe the the the the weight or the gravity that pulls us into those dark places the history right that like once you you start lifting the veil enough you're gonna be like oh shit there's some fucked up shit in this lineage or there's some really scary things here that like All these layers we stand upon now, and so, so, so then where does like, then where is my faith, you know what I mean, then where is my sense of spirituality.
[00:46:43] Risa: . I just, I really love this book. . Can you, okay, I like to ask, and especially in this case. Can you offer a practice, and maybe it's a tarot practice, maybe it's just a daily, I don't know, something for our listeners who want to engage in this work of decolonization, of the self, of the mind, seeing, seeing the ways in which we are held, you know?
Or maybe it's a different practice altogether, something that works for you
[00:47:19] Christopher: hmm, I mean, I, oh my gosh, obviously the first, oh, tarot, you know, I'm sure all your listeners have tarot cards and tarot, and read tarot
[00:47:28] Risa: come with all kinds of a range. People come with all kinds of a range, because Amy and I are like perpetual baby witches. We're a safe space for people who are really just cracking open their first book, for sure.
[00:47:42] Christopher: Awesome. I mean, I do think that, well, I will say just reading tarot is, is transgressive. I mean, I can be popular or whatnot, but there's a sense of like, no matter if it's in your own private space, I'd recommend having a tarot practice, like a daily pull. I would really recommend in order to become intimate with the deck to become intimate with its stories and its imagery and its language and then multiple decks if like when you're ready for that that helps to attune that divine dialogue and there will be confrontation that will happen there, there may be disappointment with like, I thought this was gonna happen or like my card said this and like then where was it and like whatnot, you know, and then at the same time, if you are reading for others, I always say like a tarot reading queers time.
You know, tarot reading queers a place. It kind of reclaims the place and space that it's being done in. And so even if you're not fully cognizant of like, that's what you're doing, like, that's what you're doing, like, you know what I mean? And people people may pay attention . So that's something to be mindful of.
But I think that there's a, a transgression that I would welcome and encourage in listeners, to tarot read and recognize that this can thereby destabilize people's fixed presumptions and perspectives about their daily commute or like their just daily flow of routine of the day like the mundane and have some space open up where what is what's happening over there, like what are their cards saying? Like you know what is what is that deck? Like what is that image? I would, on top of that, to go beyond the guidebook that the deck comes with and of course, you know, please order my book, but like, I'd recommend , and this is part of how I wrote the book, was to find the interpretation of the image from a liberatory text.
You know, from a text that really sits with and meditates on liberation and white supremacist, capitalist, imperialist, patriarchy, in the myriad of ways.
[00:49:46] Risa: Did you have other books you could look to for that kind of interpretation? Are there other tarot books that you could look to that do this? Because I know that's not really what you meant when you said it. You meant like, like, go to bell hooks, go to the other writers. But is there anyone else who has written, like, did you, were you able to study tarot from that perspective?
[00:50:08] Christopher: No,
[00:50:09] Risa: No, I didn't think so.
[00:50:11] Christopher: No, no, it was, you know, it's I had to write it. That's why I had to write it. I feel, you know, I, that's why I wanted to write it and that's where it was like so much pressure I put on myself to, to hopefully deliver a beautifully written work and like a well researched work and like that it actually, it was like a real pairing.
In a, in a meaningful manner and not just like a superficial like, boom, here, I'm going to put this like black feminist quote, you know, here is like in a liberal kind of sense. I know that there are new books coming out though, like that, like a class, I would say of books that I am very excited But as I was writing it, as I was researching it, I was, was doing it. Definitely, no, and definitely not from the specificity of indigeneity and decolonization. Whether it may be works and books focused on queerness or liberation or like something of that sort, like, Like, making it red, in particular, that's a specific political stance that I think that is at the root for me, you know, and that is, like, very necessary and distinct.
like, There's, of course, intersection Black um, but there's tension between those relations as well. book, A queer typically is written by maybe a white woman, you know what I mean?
[00:51:24] Christopher: And then like, of course intersectional work may be written by a black woman or something of the sort. But where is the native voice in this? Where is the native relation between these figures ? And so I wanted to offer. Offer that.
[00:51:38] Risa: It's so rad. Okay, there's this piece. I'm gonna read a piece of your book at you. Are you ready?
[00:51:43] Christopher: Also, it's like, I don't even my author copies
[00:51:47] Risa: Oh,
[00:51:48] Christopher: like to see oh my gosh, my baby. Like, she has a life of her own. That's what I mean. It's like, oh
[00:51:54] Risa: she's in my house so beautiful She's with us now Yeah,
I felt like I kept turning to this book, you know over the past few days since I was lucky enough to receive it I wasn't in a place to read in a straight line And it felt like that was okay. And I came to it, this section in particular, feeling like really unwell, and then also feeling like I didn't know about the next book.
And like, what? How it works and what it needs to be and should it even and and in our community, we, we sort of stumbled on this phrase and Amy and I say it a lot to each other. And now it's become like phrasey. So it sounds like a catchphrase and it wasn't like that initially, but you know that the, the greatest spell that we can cast is to tell the truth.
We have to just keep finding ways to tell our own truth about. Where we are in systems of power, how we've been hurt, in ancestry and in our own lives in relation to harm caused and harm enacted upon us, tell the fucking truth, we have to just keep unspooling that.
And then I open to this page! We offer all severed selves to be reconciled when we decide to stop lying. Pretending in order to pacify oppressors does not make us any safer. Rather, the harm may be even more difficult to recognize when it's not visible upon the body.
Once we stop the pretense, we step into the hanged one. When we refuse to debase the body, we give birth to our spirit.
This becomes the denial that sets us free. This is our no that affirms our communion. It is an active denial, a letting go of everything we've been dependent upon, enslaved by. Love's all encompassing liberty snaps the rope of our suspension. Poet and political leader José de Diego reminds us that the no of the oppressed has been the word.
The genesis of the liberation of peoples. Loss becomes sacrifice through this reclaiming. Like Nanahuatsin, we sacrifice the body to make it sacred. Sacrifice works upon the wounds of the objectified, the commodified, the colonized. The empty space of stolen selfhood becomes filled with the divine in our acts of sacrifice.
It is thus a generative act. We live not as consumers of objectified others, but as a person among persons. Sacrifice is possible in recognizing all we have to gain once we let go of everything that isn't true. Sacrifice surrenders every space to the divine. When the only witness we need is that of divine witness, we become certain we will be born again.
I want to thank you, especially this week, especially today, listeners, you'll hear this later, but, you know, we watched a young man burn himself alive screaming for the liberation of an oppressed people that he could not be complicit in any longer. And I hope He was welcomed in all the arms of the divine, and I hope his act radiates for peace.
And I just thank you so much for writing that.
[00:55:33] Christopher: Thank you. Thank you for Thank you for this time and for your work. And for your Authenticity and engagement it's, it's chilling in a good way to have this work touch you I was, I was reading as I did the audio book version.
Everything in Palestine was like, outbreaking and actively being inflamed. I felt affirmed in, in the work because I think a large part of being objectified and being dismissed is that dismissal of yourself just continuously. And yeah, I just, it's, it's so much.
It's so I hope I, I hope that you do continue. to write. I noticed these books were very fast, right? In terms of like your own output, like, right? Like they came back to back pretty much.
[00:56:28] Risa: Yeah.
[00:56:29] Christopher: And so that's amazing. That's an amazing feat. That is an amazing feat.
[00:56:33] Risa: We trick ourselves because we write podcast episodes all in between. So then we have a lot of essays that are written. So
[00:56:40] Christopher: that's how you, that's, that's It's working smarter, not harder, you know, it's like how you should do it. Absolutely. I believe that it's important to record our stories and to be storytellers and archivists of the people who sacrifice themselves, who set themselves on fire to free us all. And so, Thank you for sharing the space with me.
[00:57:03] Risa: Thank you. Thank you for being here. And, oh, folks, please go order Red Tarot, A Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy. I, you know, you don't gotta order all the books we talk about in this frickin pocket list cause you'll go poor. But you do need to get this. Go and request it at your library. You know, order it from an indie bookseller.
Get it on Amazon. Get your hands on it, get it, get it into your paws and use it for your work. It's really beautiful. And you can take courses also with Christopher. There's amazing catalog of evergreen courses that go deeper on tarot work and on astrology as well.
And then I think you can also do readings and work one on one. Which I'm sure would be such a thrill. Thank you so much everyone for being here. I will offer an opportunity for questions,
[00:57:57] Kalika: yeah, I'm walking home. I was listening to you guys while I was shopping.
[00:58:01] Christopher: I love it.
[00:58:02] Kalika: so I'm multi ethnic and multi repressed ethnic, I guess, would be a good way to put it. Was very cut off because of how I was raised from all of it. So I'm trying to regain my roots a little and just wondering your thoughts on how best to find them.
[00:58:33] Christopher: So, so rich and thank you for that question. I mean, I, I think a part of what I aim to offer in this is to not simply a manner to, of course, decolonize the bullshit conditioning that has been put on us by intersections of oppression, but to understand how to re indigenize our minds and our relations. And like a part while I was, again, cause I feel like for me, my own journey from using at one point, like the mestizo, the mestizaje To me, it's just like a bastard.
It's just like naming myself to be a bastard. And like, Gloria did a whole lot of, you know, she was at that, she was at a different era and different moment. But like, for me, I'm just like, no, fully the land has always recognized me. Like it always has. The animals have always recognized me. I try and embrace like a sense of pan indigeneity again, in deference, but this sense of like, You are in your roots, in your body, in your home, where you choose to cultivate the relationship to the place and space that you're in, and that your ancestors, like you, you don't need permission to name or claim an authentic root relationship.
And like, I take an expansive view, like for me, where I consider bell hooks an ancestor, likedo you know what i mean? my grandmother for me, she looked like Janet Jackson and Oprah. Like she, to me, she looked like a black woman, now, if you ask her, she would not call herself a black woman because of racism and all the things.
But, like, Tony Morrison is an ancestor, like, Tina Turner became, like, a deep ancestor, and I'm not saying this flippantly, I'm saying, like, they have touched my souls, like, they have come to me, like, we see you, we acknowledge you, and again, there's, like, the birds and the ocean and the elements that will recognize you, even when those names and those specific stories may be lost I would say, you.
Pay attention to your dreams. I would say you can do candle work. I would say you can find tarot decks that call to you specifically working with spiritual relationships and like perhaps taking that expansive view of belonging, you know, and at the same time, of course, through your own straightforward, like ancestral research as is possible.
But again, like, as someone who's had that shit ruptured by colonialism I, I had to forge that, you know what I mean? I had to find a tool that can like repair my gait in walking with a sense of authenticity and rootedness and belongingness. And so, I would just say give yourself permission to go to the ancestors who are calling you even if they're not quote unquote by blood.
[01:01:18] Risa: I think, Kalika, you got a real clear call from an ancestor in the last couple weeks . She shared with us a photo of a early days movie star who looks exactly like Kalika. Like a mixed race, early, early days black and white, like goddess of the screen it was, I was emotional for all of us when you shared that, so I, I feel like there's ancestors coming through for you, love.
[01:01:45] Christopher: Truly.
[01:01:46] Kalika: Thank you.
[01:01:47] Risa: Anybody else?
[01:01:47] Erin: I've got one. Hello. This
[01:01:50] Risa: Hi, Erin!
[01:01:51] Erin: Thank you so much for joining us, Christopher. This has been amazing. So I'm a tarot reader myself and one of my favorite tarot phenomena is pulling a familiar card in a new context and like learning a deeper level or like a new facet to that archetype and so I'm curious if you had any experiences like that during the process of writing your book
[01:02:11] Christopher: oh, great question. Thank you so much, Erin. I love that. As I've been saying more recently is like you're saying like the catchphrase kind of thing maybe not as profound, but cards are like cast iron skillets. Okay. As I would like to say cards are like cast iron skillets. Like they, each reading is adding a bit more flavor, a bit more texture, like a bit more use, a bit more expansiveness in terms of its application, its appearance, its mode.
Once you, once you know that card, like, you know, in a, in a deep, in a deep level, your antenna are up in terms of how it may manifest in a sense, or like what will fulfill it in a, in a mode. But at the same time, for me, it's always kind of new. Like, Oh, that's totally the Eight of Wands or something but like from this deck and this depiction, and then in this moment ...that. That's what I love about tarot reading is that it's like endlessly a renewable source in that sense, like where you shuffle the deck, you get a new deck, you lay different cards together and they're going to change their tone.
They're going to change their expression. That also makes it difficult to write. But at the same time again, I think it's like what's helpful for me in terms of our writing practice. By being able to, like, put a pin in some of their significations and, like, tie some of them together and then have them regenerate in the background while I'm working on a new deck and then, or like a new card or archetype or something, and then like a deeper layer unfolds or something, you know, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, like, It builds upon itself.
It just gets more flavor the more that you work with them. So, yeahi hope that... did that answer?
[01:03:45] Erin: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
The answer I heard was yes, all of them. Yes,
every type, keep going deeper. I love the cast iron skillet analogy. I had not heard that before and I'm going to adopt that. So thank you.
[01:04:00] Christopher: absolutely. Okay, great. Yeah.
[01:04:03] Risa: I have to share a picture with you guys afterwards of the ridiculous amount of cast iron in my house. there's a wall right outside my office hung with different cast iron skillets. We use them all every day. They're all thrifted.
[01:04:16] Christopher: Amazing.
[01:04:16] Risa: We're maniacs. We're maniacs. for the cast iron. My kid named a fish in our late cast iron when she was two.
[01:04:22] Christopher: Oh, wow. I love that. Oh my God.
[01:04:26] Risa: I'm really feeling your metaphor.
[01:04:29] Christopher: thank you. Yes. I mean, like, as you said, you can get more than one cast iron skillet, you know,
[01:04:34] Risa: Yeah. Get all your skillets.
[01:04:36] Christopher: at all of them.
[01:04:37] Risa: Thank =you so, so much. This is just just been incredibly enriching for me. I hope that you felt loved and held in our coven circle.
[01:04:52] Christopher: Yes. Oh, so much. Thank you all so much for, for tuning in, for asking me questions and listening. And thank you so again, so much for just inviting me on again. I'm so proud to be a label mate. I feel very like.
[01:05:07] Risa: We're so rock and
[01:05:09] Christopher: and roll. I'm like, we gotta, we gotta collab, like we gotta work together. So
[01:05:13] Risa: Oh, I was about to say you're going to get 17 more emails from us about things we want to do together.
[01:05:18] Christopher: please, Yes, please. I welcome them. Oh my gosh, this is, this is amazing. Yeah. Thank you. This was such a highlight to, to my day, also into the to the moons in Libra. I'm having my lunar return, so thank you for spending my lunar birthday with me.
[01:05:33] Risa: I'm honored. All right, everybody. Love you so much. Be safe out there.
[01:05:39] Christopher: Take care.
[01:05:40] Risa: here's to being pariah prophets.
[01:05:42] Christopher: Yes, cheers,
[01:05:43] Risa: Bless it fucking me.
[01:05:44] Christopher: Bless it if I can be. Yes. Yes.
