Amy and Risa talk about a few of the moments of strange and beautiful magic that emerged during the last days of Risa's mother-in-love Cathy Simard's life. We cry and laugh and sketch out some tendrils of the mystery that unites us. Here we are in the darkening days, just trying to tell the truth. Love you soon.
For those always looking to relieve a little of the world's sorrow by donating to good causes, you'll find the memorial fund Cathy set up here: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/pages/a-life-of-service-the-living-legacy-of-catherine-s/
The Missing Witches Project is entirely listener supported, and listen. We want you to join us. Do you wanna be part of a community that helps make public research into marginalized ideas? Do you wanna join in interviews with all these magical people and meet other anti-racist, trans-inclusive, neuro queer feminist practitioners of different kinds from all over the world in our monthly circles are, are you maybe just down to send a little money magic towards these stories and ideas and the causes we support? Anyway. Either way, check out missing witches.com to learn more about us, and please know we've been missing you.
And one last thing before we start. The stories we tell require a general content warning.
It's just a fact of this terrain of interrogating what is missing. We promise to hold those moments with care.
This episode is dedicated to my mother in love. Cathy Simard. Who ran towards me, arms outstretched and hugged me tight. The first time we ever met.
After Cathy was diagnosed. She created a fundraiser for the women's shelter, where she had volunteered and served on the board for decades.
If as Amy says you two are always looking for excuses to donate to women's shelters. Then we invite you to look up the Cathy Simard, a commitment to women and girls fundraiser on Canada helps.org. And the link will also be in the show notes. Thanks everyone. Hold your loved ones. Tight. Okay.
On the day Kathy died, mark had spent the night there at the palliative care center. Which is like an incredibly beautiful, magical place. This woman, Teresa d, helped create it and now it's named after her. It's free. There's these beautiful rooms that are Florida ceiling windows with fireplaces and pianos and volunteers come to play the piano.
there's an art room that is just there's a loom in it and all the flowers that people bring to the, to the residents, they dry them and you can use them to make crafts. And there's an art therapist there like every day who's there helping you paint and sew and make Christmas things. There was a gentleman there one day we were in there painting with May cause like she would see CE Cathy for like a couple of minutes and then.
Emotional overwhelm, you know, like any of us, she can't, you know, it's so much. the last time they saw her, we were decorating for Christmas. In Cathy's room, she has all these vintage ceramic Christmas trees with these little multicolored glass lights that you put in to each little spot.
Yeah. So may is like lying on the floor, putting the lights in the tree, and we put them all up in front of, where Kathy could see them. Um, but yeah, she would get emotional, overwhelmed and then just, it's so amazing to have these other spaces. There's a kids' room with games, there's an art room.
One time, there was a gentleman in there, Silvas like riddled with cancer.
But not in pain. And it's affecting his mind a little bit. He walks up and down the hallways and chats with people. So he's in the art therapy room with the art therapist and we're in there painting with May, and he's just watching her like, it's so fun to watch her. Like it's so cool to watch her paint.
She paints like, it's our job. She's like, bang, there's a painting. Bang, there's a painting. What else do you need? I got color fields. Ooh, I got a snowy day. Here you go. Like she's standing up plowing through them, like, I need another
paper Dad. Let's go .
Uh, and she's just like full body in it, you know? She's like, no, that one's done.
I need another one. And he's like, this is so fun. And he's like, I've never painted before in my life, but I wanna paint with me. Like 90. You know? Literally had never held a paintbrush, had never had an opportunity. To paint in his life and he painted this blue man, this figure of this blue man. And then he said, my, my man is crying.
But he was sort of laughing cuz the water was running where he had done the man's eyes. Right. And then he just like did splotches, like may of each color over the man's head. So it was kind of like a mixed up rainbow, but like glowing these colors coming off of his head. And then the therapist asked him what it was called and he said it was called Hallelujah.
He asked her to write it for him. And then in his like shaky hand, he wrote like, and it almost looks like a carving or something. Like the letters don't quite come out, he doesn't have the control, you know, but it says hallelujah across the top of the painting. It was so emotional. It's so beautiful. Yeah.
The whole experience to have these spaces to. Be with what was happening.
Well then we are home. Mark spent all night with her, came home after seven days of spending all night and almost all day and trying to come home for an hour, whatever. He came home that day.
He'd been home for like a half an hour. Got a call from his brother, so Mark rushes back and he's there just in time with his brothers and his dad to hold her hands while she dies.
And they say loving and beautiful things to each other. And then he comes home and. He walks in the room and he is crying, and I know what's happened. And he goes straight to May and he is like, may CE died. And she's like, her little face is cracking. And she's like, I know, I know. Cece told me in my head,
oh, wow.
did she elaborate
on that at all? No. . Mm-hmm. . you know, she's, she's right in between the world of fiction and reality and dream and vision all the time.
Oh, I remember when I wanted to tell you. She, she cried one morning. She woke up sobbing one morning because she said, um, we had opened the door and let all the animals out and all the birds and the foxes and the raccoons were all around her protecting her, and they were her best friends.
And it wasn't a dream. It was real. It wasn't a dream, but now they were gone and we were like, okay. It wasn't a dream. There are other things that happen in your brain when you're not awake. You could call them a vision or something else. And in a lot of cultures they would say that those are your protectors, those are your guys, and they're not gone.
They're still with you. You know, they're just not, you can't see them in the same way now that you're awake, you
know? What was this notion about opening the door though? What? Like the door to the house? The door of perception. The door to the unknown
country. Like, you know, I think it was waking her up opened the door between the vision and the waking world, and they all scampered away.
Right. I think that's what it was. We opened the door. Yeah. To the other, to the weight gang world. And so the,
yeah, there is this like, you know, when you, and I'm not saying ma was having a dream, but you know, for me in my personal experience, you know, like sometimes you're having a wonderful dream and you wake up and it is that feeling of loss.
Yeah. Like, cuz you can't really remember, you remember the feeling of it and you're like, oh, maybe if I go right back to sleep, I can get back there and you never really can. Yeah,
yeah. It totally, yeah. So much of how she experiences all of it is so, helps me understand how I'm experiencing it. You know, like a day, she, uh, my sister set her up to decorate Christmas cookies.
She didn't, they didn't wanna use the cookie cutters so, She just wanted to use all the sprinkles, like she was, we found grandma's stash of sprinkles and she just wanted to taste and pour sprinkles on everything. Totally relatable. Yeah. And my sister was like, I'm gonna let go of any need I have to like tidy or control this experience or, you know, reduce waste of the sprinkles.
You know, like this is a day where may can just, you know, and it, I didn't, she didn't say that to me, but I watched it happen because the two of them just so joyfully, so happily, like pouring sprinkles into spoons, mixing colors and spoons, pouring them across the thing. There's like mountains of sprinkles in the cookie tray,
There's mountains on the chair, there's mountains on the floor. But maybe was just like blissed out and playing with color and just. Laughing and relaxing. But then at one point she just out of the blue, after many like singing songs about how the best way to spread Christmas cheers to make cookies, to sell to the children.
And like all these songs, she's waking up just out of the blue. She said, I'm so tired. It's like my brain doesn't work. Yeah. And we're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Like I'm happy right now and I'm so tired from grief and panic
and running back and forth between
homes, just terrible nights and like just worrying constantly being on like, oh, right, my brain isn't working.
Yeah, thanks. From exhaustion. Yeah. Thanks for putting it in such like, yeah. You know. Okay. Such terms. Yeah, but I'm glad she got to make a sprinkle mess.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. You know she made Plato that day too, like without realizing it. That's what I did with her in the morning. And I did just let her use all the food coloring like, so she made like a million little balls and made each one its own color.
So it was really like color therapy too. In the end we had this like beautiful array of like these different colored soft doze . I was like, yes, you're good at life, kid . It was a good idea. I like this blue compared to blue.
I mean, I was thinking about that when you were talking about. The palliative care space, how there's like a room for children and I, I hope that there are like windows so that the residents can like, look in and get, get a piece of that that we, we used to be able to access, like they can access it like that and yeah.
Adults, it's like you almost need, you know, a, a, a four or five year old. Like remind you of what's important. Yeah. Like
colors. Like colors.
Andrew was visiting a friend of his yesterday, um, who, a roofer guy who also has terminal cancer, and he was basically like, come and see me because there's not gonna be another chance. You know, and he sort of did the same thing that Kathy did. He used, he, he, he knew his time was coming, so he used the last of his time to, to prepare a place, you know, to make sure that like he, he remarried his ex to make sure that, you know, she and their, their child together would, wouldn't have to, you know, fight for anything.
Like, um, just going through and making sure that everyone that he was gonna leave behind was, was gonna be taken care of. He had like, um, basically like his, like suicide juice in the fridge, you know, like he, it was terminal and there, there was no question, like, you know, um, so now I just like think about how one decides, you know, how one decides when that moment is.
If, if you're the one who gets to decide, you know? And you know, my thinking, like, I've had so many conversations with my spouse about this, like, I. Intend to outstay my welcome as it were. You know, like, I don't, and he's, he, he's a fighter. He's more of a fighter than I am. So we were talking about like shared values and that kind of thing.
And I was like, I think the value that he and I share is like the respect for each other's wishes and the respect to like, like I was like, if you had to pull the plug on me, I would want you to do it, but if I had to pull the plug on you, you wouldn't want me to do it. So, so I wouldn't do it. I'm not going to impose my personal values onto, onto what, how, you know, your, your end of life.
I just think about, Daniel who was up on my roof, you know, a year and a half ago, and now he has to choose a moment for himself. I can't imagine.
No, that's, I mean, Yeah, we have medically assisted dying here in Canada. And I just, I mean, to pull out a little bit, there are some major problems with how medically assisted dying is being implemented in Canada. Of course. So I think. There's reason to be careful with that idea and also reason to protect our right to it, you know?
Mm-hmm. , but I think medically assisted dying doesn't make a lot of sense in a country that doesn't have a housing first policy or a basic income policy. Like you can't, you can't be suggesting suicide to people who are terrified that their sickness is gonna make them homeless. Like that just enrages me.
Yes.
Yes. Yeah. Anyway, I just wanted to put that piece in the story. It's something that's been haunting me a lot is these stories about the misuse of, of made in Canada.
Like you say, if you feel like, you know, it's the choice between dying now or dying in pain and poverty, and especially like in somewhere like the United States where there's no universal healthcare at all.
Do you remember like the Terry s Shvo story from like, you know, the early two thousands where the husband was like, let my wife die. And her parents were like, no, we have to clinging to this like shell of our daughter.
And, and so then it became like a court battle that I can't imagine was like useful or healthier or helpful for anyone. No.
you know, Canada has some exceptional healthcare except when you are chronically ill and your disability doesn't cover anywhere near your rent or your medication and stuff. In Ontario, you can't afford to work and you're in pain all the time. Those stories really haunt me.
Those people being recommended made or, , veterans, being recommended medically assisted. Death instead of our community supporting that person in their life.
Just that's like, that's like killed by capitalism basically. It's killed by
capitalism.
And that to the long list of those who killed by capitalism. Murdered by capitalism. Genocide by capitalism.
Yeah. You know, let's go with genocide. By capitalism.
Yeah. This is a fun December episode,
Well, I mean, we are, we are going into that, that longest night of the year and so Yeah, I mean it. It's happening, it's happening around us. People are, are dying. Yeah. You know, um, some people know that it's happening to them and some people, um, are not, or don't have choices. You know, I'm all about choices.
I love life and I'm like, I feel like a joyful person. I, I don't know if some people like, you know, laugh at that because I'm so sarcastic and like so cynical and so jaded, but like, I really
do feel like they haven't seen you at a Santa Claus parade.
Yeah. . They might not get it. .
That's right. That's right. But there's like, there's so much joy, you know, there's so much joy and there's so much joy, and I don't wanna miss out on any of it. But I'm, I'm not gonna stay at the party, you know, because of fomo, , you know what I mean?
Sometimes it's, sometimes it's just time to go home, I guess. Yeah. And I was talking to my space a about this because he's had ghost encounters and I never have, I never have, like I feel the spirit world or, you know, but I've never had like a ghost encounter, an unexplained, you know, something like that.
So we talk about it a lot, you know, I'm like, he's a pretty science minded, you know, we are too. I'm not saying that we're not, but you know, he's that guy and, and so I'm like, well, okay, so what, what do you think happens when you die? Because you have this evidence that I don't have, this is me talking to him.
You have this evidence that I don't have. So like how does that affect your notion of. What happens when you die? And he's like, well, obviously I don't know. I know you don't know. Nobody knows. But like, what do you think? What do you imagine,
you think, please, I know guys write to us at Missing Witch is@gmail.com based on your ghost experiences or your reading or your knowledge of the spirit world or your intuition, or your what your ancestor told you, what happens after we die.
Everybody's talking about this notion that we like exist in a simulation. Yeah, and I'm always arguing with this saying like, whether we're in a simulation or not, how does that affect my life?
Right. On a practical level, what is the fucking difference if this is a simulation or not a simulation, you know, and we talk about that. I can't figure out how it actually affects anything about, you know, the practical or the philosophical way that I lead my life. Right? Yeah. And if the computer just turns off, then you know, that's okay too. But at the same time, like I say, you know, my husband is, is kind of a computer, turns off kind of guy, but he has had ghost encounters, so I'm like, that doesn't really jive,
you know?
Right. So I interrupted you. What was his answer? Did he tell you what he thinks happens?
Um, he's pretty much stuck on, I don't know. And, and I mean, that's fair. He sort of lists a, a bunch of possibilities. He's like not willing to choose one because, you know, he doesn't feel secure in any of those and.
And I, I think the fact that we don't know and, and we haven't figured out throughout the course of our human history is, is the best part about
it. Yeah. It's so interesting. I got like books out of the library. I went to the Al Public Library, which I highly recommend. Yes. The doorbell library. Send them some love.
Mm-hmm. , they did drag story time, they took heat for it, they doubled down. Did it get booked more? They were like, ,
fuck you. More drag queens,
more drag story time. They have a whole section on like gender and stuff in the kids section. They're just like, they have political books just all throughout incredible stories.
Just beautiful children's story. Anyway. I love this library. Mm-hmm. , it's beautiful. I love
this library. We love all libraries, but specifically love
librarians. love the library. So I was there with May and she had like a pile of books around her and was happy and I asked the librarian for suggestions for books for kids about understanding the death of a loved one.
And he was like, okay, I am on it. Like he was like, you could tell he took it so seriously. And then he was on the computer and he was running around and he came with a mountain of books and then he came back with another mountain of books. I was like, wow, thank you. You know, like really emotional and went through all of them and found like three that felt like they were not religious and, uh, appropriate to her age and not scary and like sort of had something beautiful about them and.
The things that really like resonated with me the most was that all of them explain to a child, like, and just, we all knew this, explained to us like this is the greatest mystery of being alive. Mm-hmm. and that mystery alone unites us. Mm. It's like, that was like, the message in these books is like, we don't know.
Like, I'm so sorry. We don't know. There's no answer for you. Like, but at least, at least we're all in the not knowing together kind of, you know.
There was one called, and so it goes, I think it's, it's a translation from I think a, an originally in Spanish story, so I don't know if there was an intended reference to Vagan. Yeah. But I mean there is for us this connection. Yeah. And it was so, it was so beautiful. It's literally just like these boats going back and forth past each other.
And the story is like, some will come, some will arrive and we will be excited and we will celebrate their arrival and some will leave and we will mourn their passing and celebrate their life. We don't know where they come from or where they go. . Yeah. And so it goes like those just, and so it goes, you know?
And
so it goes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's why it's so, so perfectly placed inana. It's work because, you know, it is, it is life and death and horror and comedy and sadness and happiness and so it goes Yeah. And on and on and on,
I have to wonder about you'll tide going forward for your family.
Do you think that you'll have like a tradition of like conjuring the angel Cathy, the Hmm, where your, your Christmas angel ,
um, Kathy loved Christmas. I
would've put money on that yet. ,
she is Christmas pure. Um, So definitely like last night, decorating the house, you know, felt very much like honoring her and including her spirit.
I thought it's so strange that she died on November 30th. Like, so then like November can be for remembering and mourning and then like December you're in, like she, she would be decorating on November 1st, but Yeah,
I know Uhhuh Uhhuh.
Um, well we have an angel Cathy, I'm not sure that will feel exactly right for Mark.
Um, definitely like having, um, we're gonna make, so we have an ancestor area. Mm-hmm. alter. We like to spend time, we've told stories of it before. Um, in the bottom of Maize, Mae has this old T tall. Big dresser in her room. It's drilled to the wall , safety conscious parents who know how much of a goat she is.
It's drilled to the wall. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and but the bottom of it has these big wooden doors and so it's kind of a closed secret little compartment at the bottom, like big enough that she could actually probably crawl in it. But she, you know, it's been like blankets or books, but we're gonna make, um,
not a Kathy altar, but like a memory box in there. So with a photo album of pictures of her in May and like a blanket she gave her and some of the books and toys she gave her. And like a little light and pictures on the walls. And so that may can open it and be, you know, it's right down at her eye level and be in like, CC World a little bit.
CC memory.
Yeah. I love that idea. Yeah. You know, we were, we were talking about, um, how Harriet Tubman's last words were. I go to prepare a place for you and, and I like this idea of preparing a place you're on here on this earth to preparing a place that's just for this and, and, and it can be, this can be anything.
Yeah. You know, but a place for this,
I felt so strongly when I was with her that all of the love that she had put into the world with her family, with the way she welcomed everyone into her family, with her work with the women's shelter, that that was this like weaving around her mm-hmm. And her mother, or was there like, I really felt this like, This weaving of love around her.
And I felt like, cause I knew she was scared of death, so I would tell I had the opportunity to hold her hand and tell her, I just see you in that weaving of love. Like that's the, the only change for you that you will be more completely in this weaving of love that you've made your whole life. I understand being afraid, but I, I really know that you don't have to be afraid.
You are, you, you are waves of love and now you go to be more waves of love, you know? Yeah.
Yeah. I wonder if it's scarier when, you know, You're leaving a big family behind, or if it's scarier, if you, if you're not
Yeah. Both of those are scarier.
Yeah. . Yeah, because I, I told Mark, you know, and, and this is something that I, I say to people who lose parents and grandparents, not like stalk, but like something that is so true that I repeat it, you know?
Yeah. It's that Cathy is a part of Mark. Yeah. It's not like a poetic and, and also May. Yeah. And then if May has children, Cathy will literally be like, it's our d a Yeah. You know, that part of Cathy that, that lives inside you and me is different than the part of Kathy that lives inside Mark and May, and they're both amazing and beautiful.
But for those of you who are listening, if you have lost a parent, you, you've not lost. They literally are half of the juice that makes your, you go . Mm-hmm. , they're half of your existence. That makes you go and we lose, you know, some more good times and laughs and you know, we don't get to build any new memories, but we don't, we don't lose the ones that we made.
Yeah. Right. And I mean, depending on how you feel about interacting with that, with your imagination, with your intuition, like I really immediately felt like I could hear her voice in my head. That's like my memories and my always overactive imagination. I'm not, I don't feel haunted , but I could hear her and like I could with.
Writing. One side is me and one side is her. Or like, I, I, I feel like with my ancestors or my any, like spirit collaborators, I know my imagination is such that I can generate insights by being inspired by their voice and what I learned from them that are new insights to me. Yes. Even though I'm the one playing this imagination game, like I can, I can startle and comfort myself.
I can tell stories I've never heard before. And so I think that's available to us, however you wanna understand it, you know?
Yeah. And sometimes it gets even more fine tune, fine tuned. You know, I was very close to my great aunt, aunt B and after she died, I really felt like I was pretty young. But like all of her sayings, everything, I, I feel like they, they.
Part of her energy went into me is the only like way that I can articulate that. You know, like those little sayings that she would say like, made so much more sense. Wow. And I found myself saying them, you know? So again, it's, it's like you say, like, whether it's imagination or, or spirit or whatever, we can still get advice.
I still get advice from ay, you know, even if it's just not like her face appearing in the clouds and whatever, but just like, ay used to say this. That's good advice now too. You know? And then there's, there's May who is like, I know that Kathy's gone, she told me in my head, yeah, there's that too. And again, we leave the door open for, for all of those different ways of interacting.
Oh, which is . You know what promise you this? I think the reason we have this project is because we wanted to be able to just tell you the truth. Yes. You know, of what we're wondering about and what we're living through. Yeah. And so, Welcome to the Christmas I just Christmas
episode. Jing Jing. Jing Jing
dinging.
No. We are gonna do, um, a really special you episode and collaboration with our cove that we're so, I'm so looking forward to the Coven Circle is this week, but when you are listening to this, it will have happened. The, the, the covens U side party magic will be in the air and, uh, and we'll share it on the podcast stream soon.
We're in our. In between time, we're in our liminal space between seasons. So if you follow this podcast before you know what that might look like. , our seasons are scripted. We do two episodes a week. We prepare all year to do them. Those seasons happen in fall and spring and in between we do the strange things that occur to us in whatever rhythm we feel like.
So that's where you are now?
Yes. And sometimes, like, you know, REA said, um, things happen and so we'll tell you about those things. Yeah. Because this is, this is, this is how we keep Kathy alive for one thing is to tell stories and to not. To not be so scared of saying the wrong thing that we say. Nothing.
Yeah. Um, again, especially around death, and we've talked about this so much that like a lot of times people are so scared to say the wrong thing that they say nothing and that that's worse than saying the wrong thing by me. I think, you know, um, I am a big foot in mouth. I, I put my foot in my mouth all the time, but it's because like, I just don't want to sit silently and I, I would rather say the wrong thing and start a conversation where, you know, somebody thinks I'm stupid or funny or clever or not clever or whatever, than to just have them sit there in the weight of silence, you know?
Yes. I think I reached a point where like the things. That were building up in me, which were like, almost everything that was unsaid Yeah. Was just swallowing me. It was just like a weight on my chest that was pushing me into the ground and breaking my spine. And I was in pain all the time. And I, you know, I, it was physical needing to just start to put, I needed to start to put my foot in my mouth.
I remember you,
you, I remember you talking about having like, um, jaw pain from clenching and you, you yourself like traced that to this notion of needing to open your mouth.
Oh yeah. I needed to start to just say all the, all the ideas, all the strange things and everything good in my life has come from that.
Like, being able to just own my own strange thoughts has meant like being able to write a book. Yeah. Like that wasn't possible when I didn't let myself put my foot in my mouth more . Yeah.
Yeah. You know, we talk all the time about how the, the greatest spell you can cast is to tell the truth and, and not just in a, like self authentic, you know, kind of way, but also in that like, tell the truth and watch the world change.
Hmm. tell the truth and watch the room change, you know? And watch your body change. Watch your body change. Yeah.
Really, for real. Yeah. And your life. I mean, you do, you counter opportunities in your life by, you know, asking someone to make music with you or like mm-hmm. , you know, offering to be there for somebody like that.
I am like a multiverse person. Like I, I think if I had to guess about whether it's a simulation or not, like I really feel that I'm constantly just sort of shuttering along these lines. Like a bead on, on thin colored wool. Mm-hmm. . And then at decision points it crosses and that string goes on another way without me.
And I go this way now, you know, and it sometimes it reconnects. I have this feeling with like, um, some of my, like past lovers that like it worked out in the other, in the other universe, you know, that like in this universe we just, there was no way , we were just totally not meant for each other. We weren't, we, he wasn't mature enough.
is usually what I tell myself. . Yeah. But mostly it was probably 50 50. But, uh, but those are the ones I keep nostalgia for, in a way that I don't with other lovers, where I really feel like for some reason I feel like with that lover, that that really worked out in another timeline and I have like a special place for it in my heart.
Yeah. I definitely get these flash moments of like, you know, me living in my hometown with the, the boyfriend I had when I was 19 and you know what that might look like. Luckily I haven't come across any, it looks better than, than the
No. Right . That's true. That is nice. Yeah. I like the one I'm in very much.
Yeah. Yes, right. Well, I mean, it is, it is the dark time of the year and a lot of what we do around this time of year is sort of to that, that darkness. You know, we put up as many lights as we can of all different colors and bright and twinkling, and we sing songs and, and, uh, to sort of push that away. But again, and I'm all for that.
I'm all about like, you know, you tide cheer and singing loud for all to hear and, and putting up colored lights and making everything so fucking magical that you forget how dark and cold it is. . But I think that we also can have some space to sit in that darkness because it's, it's, it's real. And there are people who are listening to this right now who have lost someone recently who are currently losing someone.
And again, whether that's death or a friendship that just. Yeah.
Relationships ending just sorrow. Sorrow with the world.
Yeah. Opportunities that you can't accept. Um, and so we can mourn right now, you know, so many of the animals that we look to for guidance are in going into hibernation and, you know, capitalism won't allow us to do that.
That's fine. We don't need to sleep for three months. But like, I I, I think that we can, we can take it a little taste of that. Mm-hmm. , take a little taste of that. Just, I think we were talking last year, you and Irisa about. Turning off all the lights on you all. And I did it last year and we just, we, there was the glow of the fireplace and we didn't do it very long.
You know, my husband's very ADHD and like sitting quietly in the dark is not We did it. Yeah. He's like, right, it's been 30 seconds. No. You know, but I, we did it as long as we were comfortable doing it, but it really was a moment that I will, I will have as tradition that we will do every year to just sort of like, be okay in the dark without distractions or flashing lights or, you know, books, even tv, nothing.
Just like, let's just like, so that, that's sort of like my version of hibernation now. Is that like 10 minute ?
I love it. Here's my mini version of it. Um. Is, uh, just a blanket fort. And I literally don't mean like make a fort. I mean like pull all the blankets over your head and breathe slowly. Like
10 breaths.
Yeah. Get inside that blanket womb. We won't call it a fort. We'll call it a womb.
A womb. Yeah. Yeah. . Just do that like that is. That is like a healing dark time ritual to ah, breathe your, breathe the confined breath. Think about our ancestors and caves. Think about that womb. Think about that sort of dark tunnel that connects us all and just ease into the darkness a little bit.
Right? I mean, this heal you. Cause the darkness is gentle and healing too.
Yes. This is, this is the thrust of, of, um, our book that's coming out next year is that the, the dark is a fertile space. You have to have it and, and our earth and how we understand biology and physics, you have to have a period of darkness in order to germinate.
You have to, it's not like it helps, it's like, no, that seed's not gonna grow unless you put it in in the dark for a bit. Our
bodies and minds need. so much so for such an imperative that we don't really understand why, like
barely understand at all
why we would put our bodies at at risk. Like why did we develop this mechanism that we would put ourselves at risk unconscious in the fucking woods,
in the cave, in the woods, tigers
or whatever.
Yeah. But we need it so badly that we will risk being totally without protection because we need the darkness of our internal world in such a profound way that we don't understand. So
yeah. And, but this is another mystery that unites this. Mm-hmm. . .
Yeah. What is that place we touch then? Oh, listeners, we love you.
We'll see you soon.
Yes. We'll see you very soon. And. Bless a fucking bee.
Yeah. Thanks for being us with us here in the dark between our ears. . Bless a fucking bee.
The Missing Witches Podcast is created by Rea Dickens and Amy to rock with insight and support from the Covin at patreon.com/missing Witches. Amy and Rea are the co-authors of missing witches, reclaiming true histories of feminist magic, which is available now wherever you get your books or audio books and of New Moon Magic 13 anti-capitalist tools for resistance and reamp.
Coming fall 2023.