In this Witches Found Episode of our witchy little podcast, Risa shares a conversation with a crone, witch mother, artist and activist she met on her writing and research trip to Northern Ontario this past spring. Kim Kitchen is disabled and visionary, and shares insights from her domestic violence work with both men and women - in prisons and in the high North and in East Africa. She also tells us about lying in the Hypogeum in Malta and the Equinox as the light floods is, chanting for hours.
https://www.kimkitcheninthestudio.com/
Hi, it's Risa. I wanted to offer a bit of an introduction to this episode '’Cause it starts even more in the middle of everything than we usually do. This episode was recorded live in North Bay in a little studio of the artist Kim Kitchen. I was introduced to Kim the way you get handed by person to person when you're looking for friends or witches when you travel.
And I didn't know Kim's work, but I fell so in love with her in that house, in that moment.
Kim is disabled as a result of a debilitating and transformative illness
She explores collective cultural understandings of the female body, its intersections with and presence within the natural world
Her community activism is inclusive, celebratory, exuberant, and
Has a massive visionary spirit. I wish I had audio of this part, but she told me when she was up north, she talks about her travels and her work in the north in the episode, but she was working on an art project, she wanted to make molds of people's bodies who had experienced mastectomy.
And the curator of the gallery space told her, "I'll circulate the call, but I don't think you'll find anybody up here. " they circulated the call and, you know, something like within 12 hours, all of the possible spots to make these busts, these molds were filled, and Kim met woman after woman who came forward to share because at that time when they went looking, there were no images available of what your body would look like after mastectomy.
And as she told me this, I was sitting there, you know- Recovering from the worst of the infections that had wracked my body following mastectomy, my breasts sort of w- weirdly disfigured, one dark, burnt by radiation, the other light, both crumpled in different ways.
Anyway, I'm wearing this weird body under my clothes against my skin all the time on this trip.
That's how it felt. And suddenly Kim, out of the blue, was telling me about all of these women coming to her and letting her make casts to show their versions of these scars to their community. And then Kim made... like lovingly made sculptures of all of their breasts, all the removed breasts until they filled the floors of the gallery.
That's a piece of her work. She is truly a witch, and she shares stories in this episode about going on travels to meet the sacred feminine. And she invites us to remember ourselves, to claim our space, to feel our rage, to reduce our distractions, and to listen for each other, and to remember there's no such thing as far away.
Kim: I'm a crone
Still have that going on. And I'm here today with so many sisters who have, blessed me in my life There's no such place as far awaySo I have them all around me And all those teachings. Experiences, witness to the reclaiming
And now I, I'm very solitary, although my art practice doesn't feel solitary
So just really in my creative fire with very limited capacity.
But my skills of strategizing are seasoned
I rested all day for this
Risa: Thank you
Kim: Oh, pleasure. But, you know, it's the strategies, right?
Risa: Yeah
Kim: And to be so delighted by just that
I live in a global space every day
Risa: Say more about that
Kim: there are so many individuals
Women
Who I share time with every day globally
they've had such an impact on my life, and we share messages and stay connected
It brings me such hope knowing what women have done and continue to do in the world.
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: As Maria Gimbutas said, creators of culture. "
Kim: It was years before I went to Malta that I was living in the Subarctic
Risa: What brought you to the Subarctic?
Kim: Adventure. Perry and I- he'd graduated from nursing. It was at a time when hospitals were closing floors and- there wasn't a lot of jobs, you know, we were told, "If you live there and have an address there, you'll work. "
So we packed everything up and-
Risa: Off you went. And you were a practicing artist and writer?
Kim: I've always practiced art, but up until that time, I didn't have a practice.
Risa: Okay.
Kim: I was working in sexual violence- and intimate partner violence, and I was counseling. I was doing, outreach, like public education, working with women on the street.
So off we went. Six days later, arrived in Hay River.
It's on Great Slave Lake.
It's a 12-hour drive up from Edmonton.
Risa: Wow. Can you drive it all the way?
Kim: The train stops there.
Risa: Okay.
Kim: Yeah. And it's where all the- 12
Risa: hours straight up from Edmonton, which is the northernmost metropolis in the world.
So start at the northernmost city, then drive north for 12 hours, Okay.
Kim: Yeah. The Mackenzie, everything's barged up to the high Arctic on the Mackenzie from Hay River.
it used to be, now the Mackenzie, in places, the water is sometimes not too deep.
So there's been all kinds of changes in that up there. But that was many years ago.
I worked at the shelter there.
And it was the first time that I, worked with men. I had no interest to, serve men in that capacity. However, there wasn't a lot of men offering those services, and the warden had come from the federal prison to our shelter and asked if anybody was willing to provide service to the men in the federal prison, so workshops and individual counseling and my hand went up.
Very shocking.
And while I was, you know, in Hay River doing this work, I was meeting women from all over the high Arctic because Hay River was the safe place for them to be, you know, leave their community, taken out of their community when they disclosed-
and were needing safety, right? And they would come down to Hay River.
I was already really deep into, my pagan practices. Mm.
the sense of, the skill of the art of an empath. And, not understanding culturally what You know, what are the tools? What does that look like when you step into a completely other culture?
But listening and having those... They're always visuals for me.
They're, it's like a running film.
Risa: it's visual.
Kim: Yeah, it really comes to me, right?
Risa: Mine's always words.
It's always. Always.
Yeah.
Kim: these experiences of knowing this 80-year-old, Dene woman who is now reaching out, to do her work and having that come to me that I needed to take her out on the ice with her machete and her knives-
and allow her to work that out, Not something I know.
But something that came in-
Risa: Yeah...
Kim: and said, "This is-"
Risa: This is the path for this energy.
Kim: Yeah.
Risa: this is someplace you might be able- Yeah... to take this.
Kim: Yeah.
Risa: This, this pain is
Kim: intact now... no, exactly right.
So having, and I'm not a, you know, I wasn't a textbook, I wasn't a, a schooled, counselor or social work.
I had learned through my own experience of years and years of healing work And then connecting with these wild, wonderful goddess women-
Risa: Yeah...
Kim: that just transformed everything-
Risa: Yeah
Kim: in a weekend. I love that my children say that.
Risa: Kim told me this story off camera, but tell it again for everybody else.
Kim: This past year, somebody said, "You know, like, was your mom always like this? "
Yeah. She's like, "Oh, no. "
Risa: Was
Kim: she was
Risa: a witch too?
Kim: no. No, she wasn't. And they were like, "Oh, so how did that happen or when? She went away for a weekend, and she came back, completely different. Nothing was ever the same again." Careful. Careful. If you go to a witch's weekend- yeah, like it
Kim: it was just really this reclaiming.
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: It's what happened. It just happened so quickly. I just reclaimed everything I needed to.
Risa: Yeah. It was all right there.
Kim: It was all right there. Yeah. I was remembering. I remember reading Vicki Noble's book Shakti Woman. Healing our fire, healing our world, feeding our fire, healing our world. and at one point in that book, she talks about the rape and the pillage of all the goddess statues throughout the world, right? You know, being just ransacked and knocked to the ground, and they were in pieces. And that, our task now is to remember.
So putting all of the pieces back.
Risa: The body back, yeah.
Kim: Such a strong visual for me.
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: It helps me greatly throughout my life.
That visual.
The remembering.
Risa: Yeah, that's so visceral, those pieces of her body. Yeah.
Okay, so we're in the high Arctic.
Kim: So we leave the high Arctic.
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: And now we're in Elliot Lake.
And we're there for eight years.
North four hours. a, A uranium town.
The Arctic was difficult.
The Christian... it was the Christian oppression of indigenous f- like, it was like back, going back in time. Yeah.
You know? That was still all going on.
We made dear friends with, Dene folk who were really in the closet- Cause it was only safe to be in the closet.
The Pentecostals ran that town, so the hospital was Pentecostal. schools were Pentecostal—like, it really was like stepping back in time.
Elliot Lake was this really incredible grounding point. By this time I was traveling about the world, and I was doing, retreats that, the title was Birthing Our Ancient Selves.
And it was... it really came to me over several years of, this reclaiming work.
And so this retreat, three days, women were inviting me to their communities throughout Canada and the States. Which is when I met Jennifer Berzen. amazing sister, originally from Calgary, musician, and she does these sacred journeys to Malta- every year with Joan Marler-who is the protege of Maria Gimbutas. Joan Marler has Maria's library.
Risa: Wow.
Kim: Joan Marler has continued the work of Maria.
Risa: Oh, wow.
Kim: I became very close with those two.
Risa: Yeah. I had them come to Elliot Lake.
Okay.
Kim: they flew into Toronto, and then on a little four-seater up to Elliot Lake.
And would spend a week and do a retreat
and Starhawk, Vicki Noble, I had this dream once that I was gonna be sitting at a table and we were all together. and I thought we were having tea, but when it really actually happened, I went to a gathering in San Francisco.
I to celebrate Maria Gimbutas. She had died and this was a celebration of her work. It was like five days. It was amazing. And at the end of that, I stayed with Jennifer, and Jennifer said to me, we're all gonna go to this Brazilian bar and have a good time tonight. "
And we went, and there I was sitting at this really long table, and we were drinking this dark Brazilian beer, so it wasn't tea. And everybody in my dream was at that table. Was there.
And I think of all of them now, we're all aging already some have transitioned, that have done just such an incredible amount of work in their life, whether it be academically, on the ground,
It's a massive braiding.
I've always felt so interwoven into this global community.
Risa: Yeah. It's such a relief to the part of me that feels there's so much to do. to see this history of this work, to feel how vast it is,
Kim: it's so vast.
It's like, and when you sit with such women that have, this legacy.
Risa: it's a pretty positive and inspiring and
Yeah, it just makes you go home back to your community to more. Light the fires.
Kim: We're certainly not alone. And all of those women in our lineage are standing there too.
when I went to Greece in March 2024 for this artist residency,
I was funded by the Canada Council and the Arts Co- Ontario Arts Council. it's so hard for a disabled artist to find appropriate residencies.
especially in Europe. Stairs- Mm... everything's, just out of... Just barriers, right? So this woman, Annette, and her husband, Adoni, they had built this house in the '80s, and his sister, MS, had come to her.
So they built this house. It has an elevator in it.
The studio space, everything. it was so shocking to step into a place and be so comforted. It had an accessible washroom, like, everything.
Risa: Have your needs understood and loved and also to feel that other person, the other people who've been through, right? Yes. Yeah. yes,
Kim: While I was there, Joan Marler had said to me, "Kim, you gotta go to Delphi."
So the girls, they got me settled. We had a week, 'Cause I always have to recover. I need a week to recover after flight travel,
So we were in Athens, where I was mostly in bed for four days.
And Nick and Erin went out into Athens, and then by the time I rose, I just had three really, three places I wanted to go to.
Two were the museums. And, by the time I got up, they knew. They knew everywhere to take me and how to get me there the best way, no barriers. the best dining places below the Acropolis- they just, parted the rivers.
And then we went to Delphi. To stand at Athena's temple
the only round temple
in Greece.
And there it stood you know, in these mountains, in this valley, and you could see why it was just this perfect way to get into this river and follow it to the sea, and- And of course, that fucking Apollo shows up and builds further up on the mountain, right?
Yeah. And that's where all the tourists are. Like we were... We had Athena's temple to ourselves. Yeah. Oh And I just about got arrested there.
Risa: What did you do?
Kim: I took some things.
Risa: Don't, don't-
Kim: Don't tell. I won't be bad.
And my social justice child, my middle child- Yeah
said to me, we've gotta come down a switchback path, gravelly, so my wheelchair doesn't work, but they're pushing that and they're getting me down slowly And we'd seen this individual sitting over on a stone. Didn't think anything of it. And then I walked over, and I was outside the ring.
You know, they have things you don't go in beyond. That's fine. There was this nice, flat stone, so I pulled out my bag, and I had my goddess sculpture-
I just wanted to photograph it.
And I had other items, of course.
Yeah.
Kim: And this woman walked over. she had a, a walkie-talkie.
Like, all of a sudden she was, like, military mama. Whoa. She's like, "Put that away. " Of course, Erin's looking at me going, "Oh my God, I told you this in the car. " " This is a heritage site. You can't do this, Mom. " I was like-
Risa: You cannot worship at this sacred place... "
Kim: No. You can't take things out of your bag. "
Kim: And you certainly can't be a witch. "
Risa: So I say to her, '’Cause I'm not understanding, I'm like, "Oh, can I just put it on the ground? " She's like, "No. Put that stuff back in the bag. " Anyhow, so I do all this, and she walks away, and she's now, she's asked my name. it's all going on over there.
Kim: And, we spend time there, and then we leave '’Cause the girls think they're gonna be on us, we're gonna be stopped on the highway-
Risa: Right...
Kim: leaving Delphi.
Risa: They're gonna be checking all our
Kim: bags.
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: Ugh. Last thing my husband said to me before I left for Greece, "Don't get arrested. "
Risa: Don't get arrested in Greece.
Kim: Anyhow, I go back to my hotel room to rest, and Erin sends me this message, and it happened a month before, where a woman was arrested for being a witch- in Athens. It's illegal. She was doing jail time.
Risa: I just worship Hecate. She's one of yours.
Kim: Yeah. Athena was on the nameplate. Yeah.
Risa: I'm just paying tribute to the Pythia, let her speak through me.
Kim: Okay, back to Malta.
Risa: Yeah, please. Okay.
Kim: So Jennifer calls me and invites me to join her. And so I go.
22 women and we were there for two weeks.
These vans pick you up at 3:00 in the morning to go to the temple sites for the sunrise.
Like- all these amazing women. Marlene, who is in one of my films recently, a poet, teaches English at the Malta university, has advocated for the temple sites her entire life. Supper at their homes- and going to the sites with them. We were in the hypogeum, we were laying our bodies down in the hypogeum and chanting.
And there's all these oracles, that travel one kind of floor to the other, right? So your voices are just channeling through the hypogeum. That's where Jennifer came to the decision to apply to record in the hypogeum, she got permission.
Risa: Tell me more about... What you know about the altar and the hypogeum and the spaces there. What, what you know. Why does it light up at the equinox? What is this ancient relationship to the sun??
Kim: Listen, those folks were so connected.
So connected to the great mother, to the great sky. in these temple formations, there was, like, these stairs, all stone, where you would sit on the top of one of those huge stones. It was like a lookout,
The altars on the spring equinox when we were there, we got there at 3:00 in the morning.
Kim: We laid our bodies. Everyone just chose where they wanted to be when that sun came up.
Was so incredible. just to see it all light up.
it's the only time it lights up-
Risa: Yeah...
Kim: like that.
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: Right in through that door, and the altar. And when I was in the hypogeum and we chanted for hours, we were in there for hours.
I crawled in to where they found the sleeping lady.
She's this big. She dates 8,000 years. She's on a couch.
Her dress has pleats. Her hips, she's all round, beautifully round,
Joan talked about the envisioning of her pregnancy-
conception and birthing.
And so in this main chamber, there were these little arch dugouts.
And so I crawled in there and I laid down. It was just big enough to do that, and that's where they found her.
And of course, the drawings, the henna and the red ochre, like, it's all there. It's been so preserved, right? And then these oracle chambers that are, like, cylinder round, perfectly round, that go up and up into another chamber on another floor, right?
When you talk or when you chant, it's like you're right next to that person.
The walls of the hypogeum are all smooth, and they know they were carved with antler pick and obsidian.
And obsidian is not found on the island of Malta.
It's Africa, northern Africa, right? And they know that this was a route, I feel so privileged to have, been there just been able to be on that land.
Risa: I'm so interested in that astronomical knowledge
I wanna know what you felt like they were saying with that space when your body was in that space.
Kim: We can look at pictures, feel very connected to the movement of civilizations and societies, right? But for me, when I'm in those spaces, oh, it's just like-
you're just in this no time zone
People,
have advocated for these temples because they've tore them down and make soccer fields, right? they really didn't want to accept that millions of people were coming to go to these temples.
It was like osmosis, right? seeing the sculpture work and visiting these temples,
We were always chanting and doing meditation and
I've always been, very delighted with my body at all sizes that it's been. And I, I feel blessed by the Great Mother for that.
My parents had a cottage on Raven Lake in Dorset, and that's where I spent most of my life.
I always saw myself reflected in the Great Mother.
So I didn't really have those experiences Of feeling so ashamed of my body
Yeah, it hasn't been the case at all.
being in these places of Malta and now seeing these women it felt like a coming home.
'’Cause that is their size.
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: They're round. They're voluptuous.
In Greece too, the women are... They're Diana and Athena. Muscle city.
Hunters, gatherers
Leaders
Strength. Oh, the braids.
The braids in their hair.
In those sculptures.
Oh, you can just imagine that woman braiding that hair.
The pleats
It's really something, you know?
Risa: What do they want us to know about what we do next? Those women, the Malta women, the Oracle at Delphi
Kim: I think the common ground is to end the competition. To let go of the distractions that keep you like a mouse-... going after the cheese, I saw this in my work too. we will never make what they want us to be, what they demand and prescribe and dictate. Our nipples will never be the right color or shape. I could go on about every part of our body.
And I... It just, it's so sad to see how much energy and time and resources That sister spent handing that over
Risa: Even outside of the body prison, there's the, this constant noise of capitalism wanting us to constantly produce. that's where my mind went when you said stop the competition.
On that level too, I guess I heard something there about not trying to play by their game, by their rules, to put that down somehow. Does that make sense?
Kim: Yeah, it's about stepping out of the game. Like completely out of the game. Like seeing it as such.
Seeing how they rely on, that vulnerability and that weakness and that shame and that, disgustingness that women feel, they carry when you let all that go, the potential The space. Like the space. I let go of Facebook for a year. Do you know how much space I have?
Yeah. I do.
And, people are saying, "So why are you doing that? '’Cause we're gonna miss you on there. " And I was like, " I'm just making space. "
And they were like, "For what? " I said, "I don't know yet. I don't know yet, but it's gonna come. "
Risa: Yeah.
Kim: I just had a very productive year of making work that I just really needed to focus That's what I think our sisters from long ago would say to us,
Just step out of that whole thing entirely. Just see the bigger thing that we're all still in. Greet your divinity.
Your sacredness Your individual ways of serving humanity and yourself. Yourself first.
Yourself first. Fill the well.
Risa: What do you think they were saying about the universe by making a space that filled with light on the equinox and that resonated through the whole building when you sang? What do you think they knew? Or what do you know after being there?
Kim: I do know that their consistent, continual patterns of celebrations of birth, death, regeneration, it's all there-
It's all there, As agriculturalists, sustainability, like that was just all going on.
And the care of each other. on one of the trips into the city while I was still recovering, Erin came home with this leather bag that she had purchased. And it was gorgeous. It was in a clearance section of this gentleman who had this beautiful leather shop. She loved it. we looked at the design, but for some reason we didn't see it.
we really didn't see it.
And then three days later, we're out, and I'm in my wheelchair, and they're getting me about to a place they wanna take me, and I'm holding the purse, and I look down, and there is a goddess in a wheelchair, and two women are pushing her on her leather bag.
Risa: Wow.
Kim: Like a wheelchair.
yeah. It was a wheelchair.
Risa: It's so fun to be a witch. Those are the moments, right?
Kim: I'm like, "Stop. "
Risa: Come on. "
Kim: We just gotta stop. " We were, like, astounded.
Risa: Yes.
Kim: This intimacy. This care, right? when I was doing the birthing retreats, part of that was engaging women to be intimate and caring, with one another again. Washing each other's hair in the rites of menstruation.
The working out, ritualizing, and creating ceremony around the shame.
The shame of abortions-... and the loss and the grief. The shame of losing breasts, wombs. like the shame that has just piled up, right? It's so collective. It's like a, a collective in our lives, right? So it's about, yes, okay, doing ritual acts to release that, but then having this affirmative ceremony ritual that adorns you.
That adorns you in your monthly blood, that adorns you in making choices to not have or to have.
Risa: To be a mom or not to be a mom. like those things that are just so shame, toxic shame based.
Kim: Created trauma in so many women's lives.
Carrying that forth, becoming a crone, like embracing that time in your life, and being adorned in ritual and affirmed in that place, claiming that which is rightfully yours, And the beautiful telling for me is
Knowing when to name the end of things
It's so helpful, right?
You make space. Something new is birthed.
Risa: Yeah. It's a wild piece of magic to end something.
Kim: it's so powerful.
Risa: Yes.
You have no idea what is on the other side of that door, but it's gonna be juicy. it's something you can't know until you've done it a couple of times, been the one to close the door, been the one to end the thing.
Kim: Women have been, crying in their closets for God knows how many generations and-
Risa: and not to say that's just fear or conditioning. It is the most dangerous moment in an abusive relationship to leave, so I understand. We know.
Kim: We know. Which is all to be respected too, right?
Having had the opportunity to go into prisons and facilitate gatherings with women-
You have to fill out all this paperwork, and you just write down what they wanna hear.
And then you go in there, and you show, the trilogy.
Talk for months about maiden, mother, crone- and civilizations before and all of this herstory. you know, and then you take in a DivaCup, and you-... get them to write poetry about being a diva.
I used to take in this music, and we would just let loose, right? Yeah. it was dancing to all the chakras. Okay. and it built up.
We were in this little cell for our group time.
Just make this shit up.
You give women medicine that they need.
We read The Vagina Monologues. A couple years ago when my mom was up visiting and we were in a parking lot and this woman came running across the parking lot And she grabbed me and she said, "Kim Kitchen. "
I still have a copy of The Vagina Monologues, and then she started telling my mom all about the work we had done together,
Risa: For your mom to get to hear that-
Kim: the reverberations too, you know?
Yeah. I'm all about the reverberations. You throw that beautiful stone in the water, and yes, you see it reverberate for a bit, but then you don't, but it's still reverberating. Mm-hmm. And,
Risa: Sometimes it's a little overwhelming.
Kim: The love that is being shared with you, and the gratitude, right?
I found that when I was in Tanzania and Ethiopia, the gratitude, I could hardly... they look you right in the eye.
They're not far from your face, and they just lay so much love down that- Yeah, shook my ground.
took me a while to really be able to feel that.
Risa: Yeah. I can't feel it at all when someone says they've read our books or found those things useful. ' ’Cause it's, when I'm writing them, it's like I'm possessed a lot of the time, or not quite possessed, but almost. I've always asked my voices to come through when I'm writing, and so I don't really remember, in some cases, I put everything, and then close up.
Kim: The vessel.
I get that.
Risa: Yeah?
Kim: Yeah, I get that. However, there is, a time will come.
A time will come that you will take responsibility for being the vessel.
Kim: ’Cause that's, it's also a very key part,
Risa: And as women, we need to feel that, too. We need to learn how to feel that kind of joy and delight and accomplishment.
Now at this time in my life, I feel so accomplished - and what does that look like? That looks like the diapers I've changed and washed by hand and hung on the lin, that's the children that I still get to hold. That's hanging my clothes on the line, which yesterday, first time. It's been a hell of a long winter., putting the bedding out on the line. And then crawling into that bed last night. My art practice, my steadfastness in serving women in this country and other countries
And, my ability to step out into this community, and then my ability to say, "Yeah, no, I'm not doing that.
At this time in my life, I make that publicly known.
This is why they invited me.
This is what I was willing to do. This is what they expected of me, and this is what I did.
I'm no longer a part of that.
There is no negotiating in that for me now. I don't mean that in any way, but I don't need any more friends.
Risa: We certainly don't need bullshit friends. We certainly don't need fake friends. I think for a lot of people I know, to let go of that piece And also just to accept that, I'm gonna keep home really safe.
I don't have to do my work and be known everywhere, and be out of the closet everywhere. You don't have to.
Kim: So many women I know in this country are in solitary practice
Risa: So many are. And in the States, in places where they cannot practice and in parts of the world where it's totally illegal
That's bullshit and should change, but also you can deeply, fully, completely practice all on your own Yeah.
Kim: In your gardens.
in your garden.
In your body.
Risa: Your body exactly as it is.
Kim: Exactly.
Risa: Is there anything else you want us to know about your work or about our work or about their work?
Kim: May you Return to the well and see a reflection
You know, and know however it is you serve
You are enough
And you know, our herstory, it awaits us all
It's all there. There's nothing we can't know now.
And May you find your community
So important You know what I really believe? we should never assess our story alone.
You always need somebody to tell your story to.
Because in the telling of your story, affirmation, celebration of your story. Sometimes when we're alone and we tell our story, it's all the negatives, right?
But when we're with people who we love and who love us They remind us of all the pieces we don't tell. And that's another form of that being dismembered.
Dismembered. And when you remember, you remember. You put those pieces back on. That's a claiming too.
And in telling your story as you should...there's been this socialization of your story isn't important. Your voice really shouldn't be heard, Still quiet and not seen or heard. So in telling our stories, it's about saying, "My voice is worthy to be heard. "
We need to tell our stories
Speaker: Hi, I'm Amy.
Speaker 2: I'm Risa.
Voices you may have heard on the Missing Witches podcast,
we've been producing a podcast that was really, our project, labor of love, kind of a love letter between us two old hag baby witch friends in Montreal. but we went looking for stories. We really were coming from a place of longing and missing. We were looking for a feminist history of magic, and that became a huge, many year life mission.
And somewhere along the way we started our own coven.
Speaker: We're just a couple of besties who, 20 years ago, started making music together, and then making magic together, and then making a podcast together, and then making books together and making all of the things, and we wanted to invite you to come into this creative cauldron of energy.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like our own social media for feminist witches.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the coven. I'm Zoe Flowers, it is a place of, I would say, mutual understanding, mutual learning. We teach each other, we learn from each other, we do magic for each other, light candles for each other, encourage each other, share stories, create stories.
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Reed. I am a member of the Missing Witches Coven. I have been since 2023. I'm an ex-evangelical, an ex-fundie, and so after leaving church, I really, really longed for community and ritual, and I have found both of those things here.
Speaker: I am a member of the Missing Witches Coven. I joined because the podcast lowers my cortisol levels. It's validating, it's affirming, and it's nurturing.
Speaker 3: Hi, welcome to the Missing Witches Coven. What you can expect in joining is one of the most collaborative, creative, and heart-filled communities that I've ever seen.
Speaker 5: I love that, my activism is welcome here. We are a justice-loving, anti-ableist, pro-queer, anti-racist, pro-trans...
Did I say queer? Queer as hell group of people.
Speaker: I wanted to join a digital coven so that I could easily come and go as I please without feeling like I have to do something, regardless of my comfort level.
This is not the coven that's gonna force you to do any of that.
Speaker 3: This is the longest community I've ever been a part of, which says something. I hope that you'll find it as supportive and loving and kind as I have.
Speaker 5: I have learned stuff here. I've been able to share my knowledge with people here.
Speaker: Do you like music? Do you like witchy shit? Do you like history? Do you like meditation? Do you like art? Do you like queer spaces? Do you like trans spaces?
Speaker 4: It's a place where we gather around music. In our meetings, there's usually some sort of song, some sort of instrumentation. We also have the hive, where we get online and one coven member creates a playlist for that month.
Speaker 3: And the conversations that you're going to be able to take part in, there's a whole archive of content,
Speaker: Do you like anti-ableist spaces? Do you like anti-racist spaces? Do you like the community building through the digital web? Then you can come join our hive, our coven. It is the place for you. Are you neurodivergent? Are you chronically ill? Do you have an altar? Do you not have an altar? Do you spend a lot of time in bed?
Do you spend a lot of time on the floor? Do you just need a place to feel like you can be yourself? Then I think the Missing Witches Coven is for you. It was for me. Hope to see you
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's what we do here.
Speaker 5: I'm glad you're here.
Welcome. Welcome. Welcome to the coven.
Speaker 3: every time I'm, you know, frustrated with social networking, I'm reminded that there's already a place for me. So I hope it's also the place for you.
Welcome.
Speaker 2: We love you even though we haven't met because we know that you have been missing witches too. we want you to know that we're here. There's hundreds of us all around the world inventing what magic and witchcraft is together, and we'd really love for you to join us in that project of re enchanting the world.
A home where we all thrive while dancing to the cycles of nature under the phases of the moon, sharing stories and helping each other learn from life and life experiences.
Speaker: And blessed fucking Be!
Speaker 2: and blessed fucking Beees!.