CIIS Public Programs Podcast

TRANSCRIPT

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This is the CIIS Public Programs Podcast, featuring talks and conversations recorded live by California Institute of Integral Studies, a non-profit university located in San Francisco on unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Land. 

Michelle Tea is best known for her book, Modern Tarot, which is now a cult classic. Her latest book, Modern Magic, explores her magical roots. Sharing how she crafted her own magical practice, Michelle offers a framework to tap into the distinctive magic that lies within each of us, a framework that incorporates queer, feminist, anti-racist, and intersectional values. 

In this episode, self-described DIY witch, professional tarot reader, author, and feminist icon Michelle Tea is joined by arts-based, psychedelic-assisted ancestral psychotherapist Camara Meri Rajaberi for an illuminating conversation that explores modern magic.  

This episode was recorded during a live online event on November 6th, 2024. You can also watch it on the CIIS Public Programs YouTube channel. A transcript is available at ciispod.com. To find out more about CIIS and public programs like this one, visit our website ciis.edu and connect with us on social media @ciispubprograms.

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Michelle Tea: Hello. Hi, everybody. I think that we actually don't have Camara right now. So I'm sorry to say that. I'm sure she'll be back. She is in New Mexico and there's a snowstorm. So she might be dealing with some weather stuff happening. 

Camara Meri Rajabari: Yes. Thank you, Michelle, for a little a little hiccup there. 

Michelle: Oh, my gosh. The snow wanted to be recognized. 

Camara: Yeah. Yeah. But I kind of want to back up a little bit and just ask you in general about this book. Like, yeah, why now? And who are you trying to reach even when you think about modern magic and just the magic of this book? 

Michelle: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You know, why now? I mean, I for a while I was doing this podcast, Your Magic, and it was so much fun to have to just have my my practice be alive in this different way for me, where I was being called to think, think about it and connect stories and really go back into my past and see the whole trajectory sort of of how I've always or for so long how I've done done this kind of magical working. And I think that when it went away, I really missed that. And I was like, you know, a writer. And so I was like, I think maybe I want to do almost like a book version of it and keep telling these stories and creating spells. It's so enjoyable to me. And I feel like, you know, the time is always right for a book like this. I loved finding spell books and stories, you know, by by people who were practitioners when I was young. And so they were so important to me, like the modern witches spellbook, like I was, you know, and like, we said, Teish's Jambalaya was such a big book. And, you know, there's just there's so many great occult books out there that the thought of putting one out into the mix. I'm like, yes, I want to do that. 

Camara: Yeah, I really like the way that you even went through your history with this. You know, I like how you talked about your different identities going through maybe your goth phase, being born into a working class religious family. I align with a lot of that, you know, being a feminist and activist and also, you know, your queer identity. It seems like there's this multitude of identities. How does being a witch support these identities of yours or how has it even supported these? 

Michelle: Yeah, right. I mean, well, what's so cool is that unlike other, you know, there's so many other patriarchal spiritual traditions where, you know, you're having to check certain parts of yourself at the door or having to kind of get into some sort of debate about your humanity because you are X, Y and Z. And with these kind of practices, you know, it's almost like the weirder you are, the better, like the more unusual you are, the more yourself you are, the more grounded in everything that's unique about yourself, everything that you maybe had to fight to hold on to. Like those are really valued in these traditions. So it's yeah, it's very supportive. I never feel like I have to. I don't know. It's like after growing up, you know, Catholic and having to like go to confession and just be kind of constantly sweeping through yourself or like, oh, how was that? How is how am I bad right now? How have I been bad? Or, you know, it's like, oh, gosh. So the opposite, it's like, what about myself do I want to celebrate? What about my life? The people around me, do I want to celebrate? How do I want to protect them? You know, how do I want to how do I want to like lean into these ancient practices? How do I want to sort of innovate them to inspire myself and just sort of play with this energy? 

Camara: Yeah, I I like that you at the beginning, you kind of talk about how magic is kind of this deeply personal, yet it's aligned with the political. It's aligned with the spiritual, especially when it comes to anti-racism, it comes to feminism, when it comes to intersectionality. And given the recent election results, what role do you think there may be for resistance magic? What role do you think there might be for a counter narrative to what we I imagine we've been experiencing, but now we're getting ready to experience in a whole other new way. 

Michelle: A whole new way. Up in our face again, just like big reminders of things that like, yeah, of course we know, we know, you know, but we didn't maybe need to be thinking about it up in our faces every day like this. So I love resistance magic. It's in no way a substitute for all the other forms of resistance that are, you know, putting your body out there doing actual work with your with yourself, with your voice, with your body. But I feel like it's a really great support, first of all, for you. Like I took such comfort in my practice today. You know, I wasn't I wasn't dashing off hexes. I might, you know, but I wasn't doing that today. I was just I was meditating and I was trying to ground myself and I was really grounding into gratitude and thankfulness for just like the people that I have in my life. Thank thank God I found my my people like maybe a spell to like let, you know, others find their people. It's so important. It's so life saving. But yeah, you know, there's there is hex magic and I I'm personally for it in situations like this. I think when there's an energy that's truly destructive and is harming people, I think that, you know, if you want to do work to bind that energy, you should do it. You know, does it really work? I don't know. I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, it feels really good for me to take this, the, you know, the psychic energy, the spiritual energy, whatever you want to call it, that I feel and channel it in this direction. You know, it feels really good. It feels empowering. I mean, it's it's really interesting how, like, you know, when you do practice these sort of like offbeat spiritual practices, there's there's so much more sort of justification. I'm not saying you're doing this at all, because I know these are your practices on some level, too. But, you know, I just think about everybody, all like the Christians that just sort of like hijacked the country. And I'm like, you all have like the craziest belief system and like we're just all supposed to just like honor it. It's your faith. You know what I mean? And I'm just like, I don't know. I love honoring the goddess. I love honoring just like, you know, the Greek pantheon. Why not? You know, like the the spirits of people whose shoulders I'm standing on, you know, those chosen ancestors that that actually made the world easier for me to live the kind of life I'm so privileged to lead right now as a writer, as a queer person, all of that stuff. So so, yeah, I just feel like whether you're you want to do magic that sort of honoring that and that you can draw strength from that lets you go out and get through your day in this country that has just shown shown their their their worst to us or whether you want to like throw some shade back at it through a hex. I just feel like, you know, that's your call and you get to do that and whatever feels like the right empowering thing to do. Yeah, but it's actually, you know, changing a vibe out there on some on some numinous level. 

Camara: Yeah, and maybe that's always been why witches have always been a little bit dangerous to the rest of the community, because we're going to do what's called for in the moment, you know, and I think about, you know, I come from southern roots and we have a magical practice called a Hoodoo and in Hoodoo, I think my whole general sense of Hoodoo is like people did Hoodoo to get a leg up, like, you know, if a bill needed to be paid or you needed your man back or you needed your woman back or, you know, like you needed that job back or maybe there was somebody who didn't treat you right. And so, you know, those practices, they seem to even have resistance rooted in them, like for people who never really had a lot of the power, you know, these were the practices that could maybe make us feel more empowered. And so, you know, magic and activism. How do you think right now people could even use it to address their anxieties or their fears around? 

Michelle: For anxieties or fears to use magic, I mean, the way that I've been using it is really meditation is a really big part of my practice. So just sitting with it, you know, and almost offering it, making an offering of the energy, the tumultuous energy that's like living inside your own body, making an offering of it so that like your body is almost the altar. So I was like sitting in front of my altar with all my anger and my sadness and my anxiety and just, yeah, making an offering of it to a sort of benevolent divine energy that can receive it, that can hold it. You know, I love doing these because you're, you know, when I'm doing something like that, I'm really interacting with the mystery of like, what the hell is this even? What are we? What are we? What is this, you know, plane that we all exist on? You know, nobody knows. I love reading science because it's just more and more evidence that like nobody really like knows. Like I just I love that the scientists are trying to figure it out and I can't wait. But like, nobody just knows anything. Like nobody can say we're not in a computer simulation. So that actually does so much to me. I'm like, well, if it might be a computer simulation, it might be so many other things as well, I guess. So, yeah, you know, really connecting with that big mystery, because when things feel as unfair and unjust as life has felt today, I need to just kind of touch something that is so much bigger than me that my sort of bafflement can just sort of merge with it and just be like, I guess, you know, I don't I don't have to understand, you know, I mean, there's there's things I do need to understand. I need to understand how to, you know, how to do what I can do out in the world to try to I don't know, I’m 53, though, I've been doing this for so long. And just like, how how are we here? You know, you see you see an elder elder elders all the time, like in the streets holding the signs with the like, I can't believe I'm still doing this shit. But but, you know, to just sort of like connect with grief, anxiety, all that stuff and just offer it up. 

Camara: Yeah, yeah. And I often think just how we can even use magic to create community even. And and maybe this is what's happening. It's like we I've been in conversations today, as you can imagine, with many different people. And I think one thing that's kind of been like the common understanding or people are kind of pondering on is maybe this had to happen so that we understand exactly what we're dealing with, like who we're dealing with. And and maybe in other ways, politics has been kind of used as smoke and mirror for so long that we don't know, you know, what is this person good? Is this person for our interests? Is this person? But, you know, maybe having someone just clearly say, I'm not for your for your interest, I'm not for a queer community, I'm not for feminism. I mean, when you think about it in terms of community resilience, how do you think this practice could assist in that and building community and strengthening communities? 

Michelle: I mean, I think that anything that brings people together in a way that is like really heart centered, right, in the way that like, I think magical practices like these are, whether that heart is just yearning for, you know, for community or the heart is angry or the heart is, you know, wants love. You know, I feel like they're so deep, you know, they're they're really it's a really deep way to connect with other people. And probably if somebody I don't know, I mean, of course, you can't always make such assumptions. But I think that a lot of people who do these types of practices are very like progressive, radical, like they're not fascists, you know. So you can maybe come together through something like this to kind of like feel for each other, support each other and maybe end up organizing together. I mean, there's such a great history of witches doing, you know, wild stunts in the street to kind of, you know, half half performance art, you know, half political theater, half ritual. I'm thinking about when I first moved to San Francisco in the very early 90s, there was these witches were levitating the stock exchange building. It was this public thing where like everyone was holding hands around the stock exchange building to make it levitate. And it was it just was so wonderful to just be in community with such a ragtag, amazing, creative, inspired bunch of people that wanted to just sort of like point out the ridiculousness of capitalism in this great way. I've seen witches cursing, putting a hex on a police station that went up in the Mission District, that police. Yeah. On Valencia Street, it was in there for a really long time. But I remember when it wasn't there and shortly after it went up, I saw these little line of women, it was maybe about three women or maybe four. They were all they were walking along the wall of it, slowly twirling, kissing their hands, slapping the wall and then doing it. I was like, whoa, those are witches and they're cursing the police station. So it's like, oh, my God, I felt so cared for seeing them. I was just like, I love knowing that there are these, you know, forces out there that they're we're all out there just trying to figure out how can we how can we harness this energy? How can we use it to make our communities more the type of communities that we want to be living in? You know, where maybe that big empty space didn't have to be a cop shop. It could have been so many other things. It could have been a community center. It could have been an art gallery. 

Camara: Could have been a child care center or something. 

Michelle: Could have been another taqueria and I would have been happy. 

Camara: You know, we would actually appreciate it. You know, I want to touch even on just queerness. And you said something about coming to Magic as an outsider. You mentioned that, too. And, you know, we have our trans community, we have queer community in general utilizing magic. Well, how do you see this community kind of their impact on the magic in, you know, the magical community or the magical practice rather? 

Michelle: Yeah, I mean, you know, witchcraft and these kind of practices have always been a place for queer people and like gender nonconforming people to gather and express themselves and express their power. I mean, you know, are queer and trans people a little more magic? Yeah, probably. I don't know. I mean, I sure have met a lot of magical people who do have that extra spark of really significant queer magic, you know, trans magic. And this is a place where, yeah, they're welcome. You know, they can just, you know, do we can be in community together and we can, like, figure out how to build resistance. And also we can figure out how to just channel our own energy and our own, like, kind of spiritual will out into the world. It's just great because there's no rules. You know, that's really what this is all about. It's an outsider tradition with no rules. There's there's traditions. There's you know, there's so it's so ancient, you know, it's like every, you know, no matter where you're in the world, every culture has these ancient sort of folk magic, earth based traditions that you can draw from. And that's really inspiring and can be really grounding. But also you can just make up stuff as you go along. You know, like I've decided that this little guy that I found at the thrift store after getting a psychic impulse to go get it is supposed to represent the writer Cookie Mueller, who's one of my chosen ancestors, she's on a little book. Right. You can kind of like bring your thrifting into your magic or you can research, you know, your own heritage and where, you know, where you come from. What were those, you know, pre-Christian in my case being European, like what were what were people doing before before that happened? You know, as it turns out, quite a lot everywhere, you know. So, yeah, I feel like I just zoomed off topic a little bit, but it's so, you know, make it up as you go along. Bring your bring your own chosen ancestors into it. Yeah. 

Camara: Yeah, because I did want to touch on that because there's this maybe, you know, going around a little bit on I'm on TikTok a lot. And, you know, some people will be talking about, well, that's a closed practice. That's an open practice. What are your opinions about that? Because I know that even when I try to introduce myself to more traditional African practices, even within black community, you still need to be approved for, you know, I guess, initiated or, you know, there sometimes is a divination process to figure out of this is even your family's practice. How do you kind of talk about that, too, like this this issue of closed and open? 

Michelle: Sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, gosh, there's different ways to talk about it. I often think of closed and open as a white person about other white people and myself, you know, going towards traditions that have been, you know, created by people of color and communities of color. But you're talking about even being, you know, maybe like a person of color, but it's like not the quite the region is off or that that's super interesting. I mean, for myself, like if if I were ever told, I guess by I don't know somebody practicing like Celtic magic that I wasn't quite from the right county. I had too much British DNA. I don't know. I myself wouldn't take that very seriously, but also like there's less at stake, I think, in these in reclaiming this mishmash, you know, European tradition than there maybe is in reclaiming African, you know, Caribbean traditions, you know, which have had to like withstand so much, you know. So for me, I do try to pay attention to that. And, you know, if something is open, I just try to tread sort of really respectfully. I mean, you can't. And just to know that, like, I'm a visitor in this tradition and to just be like really grateful for it. I've been doing a lot of work with like tantra, which is from India with this in the Maha yoga tradition. And, you know, it's not super comfortable for me as a white person who has a really strong anti-racist philosophy and, you know, ethics to be like, oh, how dare I go over here? You know, because white people just historically just act like they can go anywhere and they do go everywhere with horrible consequences. So sometimes it even feels like even if the tradition is open, which it is, this tradition is open. It's uncomfortable. But I'm just trying to lean into the discomfort because it's an incredibly powerful tradition that has so much knowledge and wisdom about, you know, talk about, you know, earlier I was talking about, you know, quantum scientists trying to figure out what we are. I mean, you have these yogis who for millennia have been knowing who we are. Right. And figuring out technologies, you know, through meditations to be able to touch that and to feel that that that information. So it's really tricky. But, you know, sometimes just the thought of only doing, you know, saluting the the four directions for the rest of my life is like not necessarily going to help me get closer to like touching God, which is really, I think, what I'm what I'm in this for in the long run. You know, the God in myself, the goddess in everybody else in the in the universe. 

Camara: Yeah. I like that you even talk about just in terms of the feminine and kind of shifting over to like how you were taught, you were taught growing up, you know, from Catholic religion that Mary was this virgin. And then somehow she transitioned even for you, Mary, the goddess. I really loved that transition that you talk about and and even just talking about being a crone, which I think in Western, this kind of Western culture, where we're so focused on being young forever. I mean, you talk about being your 50s. I'm in my 50s, too. And it's like this whole pool, like I can't be on any kind of social media without seeing ads of women pulling at their face. And I'm all like, is this what elderhood is supposed to look like? And there's something about this magic. It has a place for being an elder. It has a place for being this crone, this grandmother. And you told you told this beautiful story about your grandmother taking you to what was it? 

Michelle: It was a tea room. It was like a tea room. Yeah. But it wasn't like just for drinking tea. It was for getting your tea leaves read by a psychic. Yeah. 

Camara: And do you feel like that was one of your first introductions to magic and and how the grandmothers do this? Because I had like a not a same kind of memory. But I remember when I was young, my grandmother pulling open a drawer and saying and showing me all these different objects. And it was weird because they were all objects that had something to do with either one of her children getting in trouble or or something. And I wondered about it. I mean, I wish I could ask her now, were these to protect people? But it's just interesting how our grandmothers even traditionally introduced us to magic and some some form of magic. And maybe I just want to ask you, what is what's that about? Like this? Maybe we can talk about being a crone or growing into a crone. All of this. I mean, you wanna say about it. You know.

Michelle: Sure, sure. I mean, well, once again, like these practices, you can be an old person and you can be just as you can be queer and trans and, you know, like, I don't know, whatever, whatever you are, you can be it. And there's a place for you in it. You know, I feel like when you're older, you get to hold all of your experience and all of your knowledge, you know, and you do get you've done things, you've learned things and you get to pass on, you know, that knowledge. And I think, you know, I know in my grandmother from my grandmother, she, you know, she was raised in a time, I mean, and arguably we're all still being raised in a time without respect for magic, without belief in magic, without belief and without looking, you know, it's very patriarchal and it's very like logic science. And it's like, yes, of course, logic and science. We saw that get threatened even, you know, recently and it could happen again. But also intuition and knowing and the ineffable, you know, and the psychic, like also, this is also a real thing. And I feel like in the absence of a structure that affirms that and supports that, what we get is like superstition. Right. And and I just feel like I grew up with all these superstitious women. They were so superstitious. And as I got older and found occult stores and started and found these occult books and started practicing, I I started looking at the women, the older women in my family really differently. And I was like, you guys are witches. Like my grandmother, you know, had this dream book with you would look it up like, you know, she dream of a dolphin that she'd get her book. She'd look up dolphin. First, it would tell you what they thought it meant, you know, like a dream analysis. But she was really in it for the number that went with dolphin. And then she'd take the number to work and then the bookie would come by. The numbers runner would come by and she'd give him her three dollars, you know, and the number, you know, that came from her dream and she'd win. And it just turned into this whole thing, you know, like I when when she passed, I inherited her dream, her dream book, which is so I know it's amazing. It's coverless. It's exploded. There's no it's like so cool. But yeah, you know, even her taking me to the to the tea room, you know, it was in Boston and we lived in a little city right outside Boston. Very close. But that said, like everyone in Chelsea, where I was from, was like really freaked out by Boston. It was a lot of like just like lousy white people who was afraid of a city. You know, she knew about this place. I don't understand how she was not a particularly brave person. She wasn't particularly adventurous. She actually suffered from pretty severe mental illness, anxiety, stuff that never got diagnosed properly because of the times. But she knew how to go to this. She knew how to bring me to this place and then be like, it's just for fun. Don't tell anybody about it. We're not, you know, but obviously, like if she just wanted kicks, like we could there's a lot of we could have gone bowling, you know, she picked here. So, yeah, it's so interesting how these this this innate magic, I think that so many people and especially women, queer, trans people carry in our bodies like a different way of knowing, you know, and in spite of it being poo pooed and oppressed and not nurtured, we still it's still there. It still makes itself known to us. And these practices are just a way to honor that side of this human life, that there is this whole other other side to being a human, you know, which is we have all of this really weird connectivity with the with the unseen and the unknown. 

Camara: Yeah. And I love that you talk about your grandmother's dream book, but because I did want to know about just, you know, how are you using dreams? I'm so fascinated by dreams. I mean, I've even come to a point where I think there's a waking dream, which we're in right now talking to each other. And then there's this like sleeping dream where you sleep, you know, and maybe I've read in some books, there's not a difference between those worlds. We're just, you know, there's not one world that's more legitimate than the other. Like maybe waking dream. We're seeing some of the same symbols. And and really, to be honest with you, I feel like I'm working a whole another job in my dream life. And I'm all like, who are these people? And why do I feel like I'm always on assignment? What am I doing? I love the dream world. And talk about just how how could people use that with their magic? Because that's another way of knowing. I feel like, you know, there's so many different kinds of dreams, prophetic dreams, you know, like where people are coming to you after they die or dreams that you're just feeling like, wow, this is trying to tell me something about my everyday life. So…

Michelle: Yes. Yeah, definitely. I think that it's really great to keep a dream journal. I think that's the first step, really, in doing any kind of dream work, because it's so frustrating how quickly they dissipate. So for me, you know, I think, you know, you sleep with a notebook open on your bed with your pen ready to go. It's ready to go. And when you wake up before you do anything, you don't you don't jump out of bed and go record my dreams. You stay lying down. You think, OK, OK, what was I dreaming? And then you kind of roll over. You really try to stay in the dream, sleepy state as much as you can. And like even keeping your eyes closed and just whatever, just right across, try to try to keep it legible. But, you know, write down whatever you remember. And it's really hard in those moments where you're still half asleep. I have I have noticed that my mind will try to talk me out of different details. Like some it'll be like, oh, that's not a thing. Don't– you don’t have to write that down. And believe me, it ends up being a thing. It's like the wildest, weirdest shit that later you're like, how was my brain saying that didn't mean anything? So you can't trust your brain. You have to write down every single detail. And then when you've exhausted everything, you can't remember anymore. You sort of very gently roll over into another position that you sleep in. And then it will shake more details of your dream loose and write it down. I think you can use dreams for whatever you want. If you need to solve a problem in your life, you can ask your dream to bring you, you know, solutions, pathways. If there's something you want to know more about, like an essence of a deity or something like that, you can ask. I did that once and I had the most I had the best dream. I was actually really interested in Elegua who from Santeria, right? The child trickster God who I actually I was burning a candle for St. Jude on my altar right now. And then I was looking more into St. Jude to see like, OK, and what's this? What's the spooky witchy part of St. Jude? And in fact, he's associated with Elegua. So but I did this. I was going to sleep and I was like, I'd like to understand more about the essence and the nature of Elegua in my dream. So I made an offering. I went to sleep. The dream is so vivid and I had it when I was in my 20s and I still remember. But in my dream, I was walking through the mission in San Francisco and there was like a big festival happening, sort of like Carnival. And in the middle of the street was set up a boxing ring. And I was like, oh, cool. What's this? I want to I want to watch this. And I was holding a pack of gum and it's my favorite gum. It was like Rain-blo those like multicolored gum balls. I used to be wild about this gum when I was like a teenager. I would like buy buy like a million packages of it, have it in all my bags. So I always had some. I was like obsessed with it. In my dream I had some, and this guy came up to me and he wanted to have a piece of my gum. And he was a short, stocky guy. He was a little pockmarked. He was he was Latino. And he I was like, yeah, here, you know, take a here, have a piece. And he goes, my gum. And I was like, oh, ha, ha. I know it's really good. Right. OK, just take a piece and give it back. And he's like, no, it's my gum. And I was like, no, man, that's my favorite gum. I want my gum back. And and he's like, my gum, bye. And he just like left and walked into the crowd. And I looked down in my arms and they were filled with roses. 

Camara: Wow. 

Michelle: Like more than I could carry. I was like, oh, my God. And I woke up and I was like, God, it's a little on the nose, but I'll take it. Like that was a beautiful dream. He was just so cute. This guy was so cute. He was so like he had such a like a mischievous sort of like thing going on. Like he was so friendly. He was so like, I don't know, I just like he walked right up. And I was like, wanted to give him some gum. I mean, I didn't want to keep it. But yeah. 

Camara: I heard that about Elegua, you know, in terms of offerings, you would give candy, you know, maybe I think I've heard pennies maybe. But candy is one of, you know, his favorite things. So that's such a beautiful dream. 

Michelle: It was so beautiful. I treasure it. I treasure it. So, yeah, you can do these things. You know, I have a friend who lost someone very close to him, very young. And they are currently having a whole dream relationship where, you know, he had a dream and all started where he had a dream. And he just was like, where are you? I can't find you. And she's just like, dude. She was all like, very like, dude, my body, I just don’t have a body anymore. But we can hang out here, you know. And now they they do very regularly. And I've had some really amazing dreams of people who've passed that do end up feeling like visitations more than a dream, you know. 

Camara: I would say the same. Every time someone, you know, in my family has done died, I've dreamt about them just like the next day. And it's usually some kind of just small message, you know. And, you know, I do a lot of ancestral work and it's just like, it's a way to connect with your ancestors. You know, if you have if you're in touch with your dreams, I really just I love that as a practice. And I wonder collectively if we all shared our dreams, if there's just some kind of string, you know, like there's something. 

Michelle: Don't you wonder who are these people in your dreams? Right. Like sometimes you just have interactions with people and you're like, this is such a person. They're somewhere like what? 

Camara: Yeah. And I find with certain dreams, you can tell when it's an energy like a it's not just regular people. It does, you know, I don't know. It does something in my dream where it's like focus this, this is a spirit. And I'm all like, oh, in the dream, I can feel myself kind of go, oh, OK. I'm actually talking to someone who wants to interact with me. So I love that this practice of dreams. What else do you want to share with like beginner, what we call baby witches, even like, you know, people who are just like, OK, what is this world? Because I do believe there's more and more people interested in what some folks call the occult or magic. Like, what do you how do you suggest people even get started? I mean, yeah, they can get your book for sure. 

Michelle: There's other books out there, too. And you can go, I would say, yeah, go to an occult store or, you know, if you don't happen to have one in your neighborhood, go to like, you know, an occult website and see what's there and just see what speaks to you. You know, if something feels like it's not your vibe, maybe it's not. You know, there are definitely a lot of practices and practitioners that do feel kind of gatekeepy. And, you know, if you like something that's like super ritualistic and ceremonial like that, like that, I mean, that does seem really sexy. So go for it. But I just have never found my way into those places. So I've always been just a solo practitioner. And and it's fine to be that there's so many I've met in my time so many other solo practitioners, you know. So it's OK to kind of experiment at home and do the things that feel interesting to you. I would say the first thing to do is put an altar together. And, you know, the way that I did that is I definitely draw from tradition with having like the four or five elements represented. So water, fire, earth, air, and then the fifth is spirit. Or it can be like you, the goddess, whatever you like. And, you know, it's, you know, to me, those are like the building blocks. Like I like to have earth in the form of like crystals. Water can just be water, you know, and something that's cute. Fire is a candle. Air is. I like to use like incense or something that's smoking for that, but also feathers that you find on the street if you're not grossed out by them. I'm not. I'm one of those people that's always like picking up feathers off the street. 

Camara: Me too. I'm always like, is this sanitary? You know, yeah. 

Michelle: Sometimes you're like, it's not. But sometimes it's fine. It seems fine. So, yeah. And then you can also put, especially for that fifth element of spirit, like, what is spirit to you? You know, is it is it something that looks like this? Or is it a religious statue? Is it a drawing? Is it a flower? Love having fresh flowers on on my altar. I'm trying to be more on top of that. And then, you know, there are so many books or there's things online that like if there's something you want to manifest, you know, a spell, look it up and see what's there. So many spells use things that are like in your kitchen. You can use herbs, use apples, you know, you use like things that are really easily sourced and inexpensively sourced. And then you can sort of once you get the hang of it, you can make up things on your own or maybe you want to just start by making them up on your own. I think it's also great to have a cauldron, like an iron cauldron. So I like to burn things. And if you have an iron cauldron, you can, you know, it's so it's so satisfying to be like, I'm letting go of this shit. And you write it down and you burn it. And you're like, yes, I did it. You know, feels really good. So, yeah, there's there's so many ways to kind of start, start checking it out and playing around with it and just honestly following what feels good and inspiring to you and really giving yourself permission to do it. Go for it. You know, I teach a workshop online sometimes called Writing for Witches. And what I found is writing and like writer and witch are two sort of identities that like especially women are so like afraid to claim. Like the imposter syndrome is so powerful. They're like, oh, I'm not really a witch or I'm not really a writer. And I'm like, I don't know, you're spooky and you light candles and you write down your, you know, your intentions or you're writing poetry. You're a writer. You're a witch, you know, so giving yourself permission to like put that on and see what that feels like. You know, I bet it feels cool. 

Camara: Yeah. And it's funny because I think in the beginning of my practice, you know, coming from maybe church teachings, you're always like, am I going to conjure up something that I can't send back? I mean, maybe it's like a Hollywood component to it. But what do you say to people who feel like, what if I do something dangerous? What if I call in something that feels like it's not benevolent or whatever, you know, like, what do you say about the person? 

Michelle: I wish that it was so easy to summon a demon. They make it seem like he just start, you know, you flip a deck of tarot cards and there's demons everywhere. It'd be so interesting. I don't think that you have anything to worry about. What you're working with is your own energy. And I think that can be really grounding for people to realize. Like, it's not about you reaching out to a conscious entity that's invisible, that's going to sort of, you know, infiltrate your life. You know, I mean, we can work with archetypes, you know, and that can be really fun for us to do because it's hard to envision the big mystery, the big divine every, you know, what is it? We don't know. So it's you know, that's why it's great to have these deities that we can kind of focus our attention on, our intentions on. They can be really pleasing and help us, like, elevate ourselves into sort of a sacred moment and sacred space. But they're not I just don't think that that's going to I don't think you need to worry about that, you know. Yeah, I'm like, tarot, you know, I'm like tarot is just like you and me. You know, it's your vibe, my vibe. And we're using, you know, it's this beautiful thing that happens. We're using these ain't this ancient tool, you know, that that to have the cards help us talk to each other in a deeper way. But you don't have anything to worry about. I always say like these things are made in factories in China, just like the clothes you're wearing and the, you know, the the silverware, you know, the things you're drinking your coffee out of. It's like they're not-

Camara: You have to imbue it with your energy. Right. Like, and that's maybe a big part of it is your energy, your intention. I remember I was at a training kind of out of the country earlier this year. And one of the trainers, he said he decided that, you know, it was largely a European group that was in the training. I mean, I was one of the few outsiders, but they wanted to do kind of like this ritual to give some honor to the their early ancestors who were lost, you know, to witch burnings and things like that. And you do talk a little bit about that in the book as well. And, you know, one of the people who was at that training was from Sweden that I met, and he told me that his community even did like a theatre group started to do a memorializing of, you know, women. They like searched out their names and they're really doing some, you know, ancestor work with the lost women who were labeled witches. You know, they could have been midwives or herbalists. What do you think are our witch ancestors, even cross culturally, are probably wanting us to do right now? What are they calling in for us right now? Because this is interesting time. 

Michelle: It really is. I mean, you know, I wrote in my book, I have a whole chapter about the whole the start of the European witch hunts, right? And how it came from the, you know, came from the Catholic Church during the Inquisition and how it grew. And it was really this one guy who like and you just read about, you know, he wrote this book called the Malleus Maleficarum, the Hammer of the Witches, and it's sort of the text of like, this is what a witch is. This is what they do. This is why they're bad. And this is this is how we got to handle them. And it's very evil. I mean, talk about a demon. I mean, it's it's very it's a very evil text. And the things that that he says witches do are just so nutty, you know? I mean, it's actually really funny sometimes, but you're like, oh, it's a wild it's a wild read. But reading it, I'm like, oh, these are the same forces. I mean, if you do believe in it, makes you believe in reincarnation because you're like, oh, my God, here they are again. Say, saying differently, insane things that are so damaging and hurtful to kind of the most interesting people on the planet. Right. And so, yeah, it does make you wonder like, what what can we do for these ancestors? Are we the are we these ancestors back fighting? You know, I think we I think we do them a great service by doing these practices and being very out about what they are. And and and telling the truth about them, you know, in the face of all these lies that have been told, I think honoring sort of what the stakes were for so many sort of misfit people throughout time on this on this plane, on planet Earth, you know, it's always been really rough for people who did not fall in line with whatever that dominant culture happened to be, you know. And we can only imagine that, yeah, these people who fell out were they were, you know, sometimes they were really poor. Sometimes they were poor, maybe a little belligerent. Sometimes maybe they were a little mentally ill. Sometimes they midwives, sometimes they had a lot of money and they were widowed women who had property that, you know, these very nefarious people wanted to take their property and they could if they were in prison. So, yeah, like whatever whatever these people were, they were not. They were sort of on the periphery. And so I just think that, you know, living our best lives, honoring them through ritual, I think can be really powerful. You know, I my whole life, I have been really interested in people who can do a little channeling and do a little mediumship. And like my one of my best friends who I learned to tarot with, he he pursued that he sort of worked with those those gifts and strengthen them. And I've always been afraid of them because I'm like, I'm just going to think I'm crazy. I'm going to think I'm making things up. I'm going to I'm going to complicate my mind. I'm going to be like, oh, did something happen or am I just cuckoo? You know, and I was like, I just didn't want to go there. But since I've entered my 50s, I'm having a lot of like, oh, if I don't do this thing now, like, when am I ever going to do it? You know, so I've started leaning more into channeling. And it's actually not all that it's like not. It seems like such an intimidating big thing. And now that I'm doing it, I'm like, oh, the ether is filled with information for us. Right? All you need to do is be receptive. And yeah, you do have to trust yourself, but it's much less challenging to trust yourself than I feared it would be. I just know when something comes to me and all you really need to do is sit down and meditate and just be really open. And you get information. So I don't know. I think like, do you want to sit down and talk to those those witches? Not you, but like all of us. Do we want to sit down and talk to these these people, you know, who came before us and and see what do what do they want? You know, right. Yeah, you might end up hearing from an angry spirit, but that's not the same as like a demonic, you know, entity that's going to like ruin your life. You know, that's just you know, you can it's like you're just talking to somebody who's righteously angry and you can just be like, yes, and light a candle for them and give them love. You know.

Camara: Right, right. Because maybe that is what needs fixing between, you know, sometimes there's work to be done, at least in the ancestral work I've been taught, there's work that we do for their world and there's work they do for our world. And that is why, like in African traditions, you feed your ancestors because they got to get strong, you know, like they need someone who cares about them. I love that movie. Maybe I don't know who did it. Disney, Pixar, whatever, Coco, that movie Coco. And I'm like, wow, that movie is so deep. But I always tell people when they ask me about ancestor work, I go, watch that movie. You know, I go, really what it's about. Like recently with the Samhain and Halloween, I was just going to do my regular offering on my altar. And then some thought came to me. Maybe it was a channel message to was, you know, look through this photo album. So I had a little photo album that was kind of sitting below my altar. And I looked through it and I found a picture. And then I just went into my cabinet. I'm one of these people. I don't really organize all my pictures, but I had them in a bag. And I just started looking and I ran across one of my aunties. Like it was a family friend who had passed away so young. And I saw a picture of her and I was like, oh, my God, I have not done anything for her ever. And it was just kind of feeling that calling of like, you know, who are these people that want to be remembered? You know, who need to be remembered? You know, we weren't blood relatives, but there's that community aspect, too. The community aspect of our ancestors. And do you do a lot of work with community ancestors? 

Michelle: I do. I do. Much more so than I do with my my blood ancestors, actually. Yeah, I don't I don't know what that's about. Maybe someone's mad at me. 

Camara: Well, I mean, that's a question to ask you, too, is because sometimes people will say, you know, I don't really know my ancestors. Like maybe my family didn't talk about them. Maybe the person was adopted or fostered. Or maybe there's just. Some ancestors you don't want to connect with for whatever various reasons. 

Michelle: I just come from a lot of like lousy white people. And like, I hope they go into the light. You know, I hope they all went into the light and like downloaded some some some truths. But I don't know that I. I don't know. 

Camara: We want to work with the well ones. We want to work with your well ancestors, that’s always what I’ve been taught, you know. 

Michelle: Yeah, totally, totally. And, you know, I do I do feel the presence of an aunt and my and also my grandmother at different times. But I feel very connected to pursuing relationships with, you know, there's this one, this one, you know, writer Cookie Mueller, who I feel like told me to go. The whole story of this is so weird. I was, you know, doing this thing where I was meditating. I was trying to receive information from her and connect with her. And I got a very strong like, go, you know, I'm not on your altar. Why are if you mean it, why am I not on your altar? And you go, I want to be on your altar. There's something waiting for you with the goodwill. Go to the goodwill. And I was like, you're not going to ask me twice to go to the goodwill. I'll go to the goodwill. And so and I was like, so like, yeah, there's something there for Cookie Mueller. And I went in and there was nothing. It was just nothing. And there wasn't even anything I could kind of pretend was sort of her vibe. You know, there was just nothing. And I was like, OK. And then I don't know, they brought out a new cart. And then I never looked at these carts because they always are piled. They're always really messy. And there's like men's shoes and, you know, wires and cords and just shit I don't care about. And I'm just like, but I was like, well, I didn't look there. And it was literally buried under the men's shoes, the cords, this little freaky guy. 

Camara: I love it. It's like a, what is it? Like a little cocker, cocker poodle hound. It looks like a cross between a cat and a dog, really. 

Michelle: So wild. And like this, you know, this writer, she, you know, she was also an actress. She acted in all of John Waters early movies. She was really wild. She was a definite weirdo. She was queer, a queer mom in the 70s and the 80s. I mean, and then so, yeah, I was like, OK, wow, thank you. And then, you know, I and I've had this experience that when she gives me like an assignment, I can't really get any information from her until I complete the assignment. It's really wild. So there'll be times where, you know, she she another time she was like, I want a hot dog. And I was like, oh, my God, Cookie Mueller wants I just it came in so strong. I was like, I have to eat a hot dog. I don't eat hot dogs. But I was like, yeah, you know, because when I did this tarot reading when I first started working with her and I was like, you know, what can you give me? You know, how can you work with me and how can I work with you? Like, what can I offer you? And for that, I got the Lust card. And I was like, this this person lived, you know, and there are just pleasures of the physical form of this material plane that, you know, and I think that's why we feed the ancestors, right, because they're so I'm like, oh, wow, OK, you want me to like live in this like lustful way, lust for life, and you're going to you're going to take a piece of that. And so I I had plans to go to Provincetown where some of her ashes are. And so I got a hot dog and I sat on the beach, you know, and I ate a hot dog for her. And it was so funny because I was teaching one of the writing for witches classes in Provincetown and some of the the women in my class were like because I was like, oh, God, I don't even like eat meat, really. But I'm going to do it. You know, people were like, you don't have to. You can eat a- You can get a veggie dog. And I was like, no, I do not want Cookie Mueller mad at me. She wants a hot dog. You know, she does not want a veggie dog. So, yeah.

Camara: I love that because I have a similar story of like my ancestors. I remember when my grandfather was alive and I was first doing my whole vegan thing when he would and, you know, I go to family gatherings. He's like, girl, you eat high off the hog. I eat low. And so I've always remembered that. And so when I do these offerings, I'm always like, oh, God, I know they're going to want some pork or some fried chicken. And, you know, and sometimes I just like had to negotiate early. I'm like, listen, is it OK if somebody else cooks it? I don't want to cook it in my house. You know, I’ll put it on my altar. And the next thing you know, they were like, OK, yeah. And so I went to Safeway, you know, whatever the grocery store was. And, you know, they have a little deli and there was a woman behind the counter. I swear she looked like one of my aunts. I was all like, that's what that's the woman who's going to be cooking the chicken. And I feel like you can do these things for your ancestors. You don't, you know, there's always good conversations. The these are not it's not a hierarchical relationship, right? It's just like, I need these things. I would like these things. Can you get it for me? And you're kind of like with them, too. You're like, you know, it would be nice if you could help me out with this. You know, it's not a worshiping or anything like that. It's a relationship. So I love that you talk about this hot dog. I don't think I would have been able to do it. I would still be doubled over. 

Michelle: Yeah, I I'm not a full vegetarian by any means, but a hot dog is, you know,

Camara: It’s next level. It’s next level. 

Michelle: I try not to eat mammals, you know, so I'm just it's it was definitely. But I would I also felt like I was having I don't know. You know, it just it felt like the right thing to do. And again, you're touching that mystery and you're just like, OK. 

Camara: Yeah. And I love how this relationship starts to happen. It sounds like even. And that's the magic of it, too, is that we're not only just living in this mundane world, we get to utilize our intuition. We get to utilize our wisdom and own inner authority, I think, sometimes. So, is there anything that we just haven't talked about that you because you have some practices in the book, you have some spells, you have some things. Is there anything in there that you really want to people to try in there that you think would be interesting? 

Michelle: You know, I wrote I wrote a divination kind of practice into it that I kind of had done once, but I was riffing on it. So what had happened was I had gone to a party. I'd followed my favorite writer who was, you know, years and years older than me, was in town doing a reading. And I sort of finagled an invitation to their birthday party. So I went and it was all these I didn't know anybody. And it was all these queers who were, you know, decades older than me. And I thought they were so cool. And I didn't know what to do. I wanted to get I wanted to talk to them and I wanted to impress them. But I just I felt like I couldn't find my in. The house we were at, the the women who lived there had a child. And so I went around, I grabbed an empty potato chip bowl and it had potato chips in it. And I just started collecting all the kids' toys. And I started doing these weird divinations for people and walking up and being like, pick one and just telling, just riffing, just like getting the vibe off of what they picked. And so I, you know, inspired by that, I wrote a little not it's not a spell. It's like a practice, a divination practice where you have a tote bag that's filled with all these little things. And I really put it to work recently. I did an event for the book at this really cute little queer wine bar in L.A. And I just went up to people and I was just like, you want to do this? All right. And they would pick I had them pick three. And then it was almost just like a three card reading, like getting the energy of the objects and linking them to tell a little story. And it worked like people were like, oh, my God. So, you know, it really affirmed my belief that anything, you know, tarot is so ready made for divination, obviously. But anything you can use, anything to do divination, you just have to assign the properties to the objects. Right. So, yeah.

Camara: I love that. I'm going to try to practice that one. I love it. 

Michelle: It’s really fun. Yeah. I mean, my God, I'm looking at your I'm just looking behind you at your really cool. 

Camara: I have like all those little my knickknacks on there with my books. And yeah, I mean, 

Michelle: Like a leaf, a seashell, the evil eye. All of these things. Yeah. 

Camara: Put them all together. And and really your these symbols that are around us, these things that we collect. We do have energetic connections to them my imagine. Huh? Yeah. And so, yeah, I it's just interesting to wonder who were these first people that figured that out, like, you know, this divination and tarot cards and. I love it all. 

Michelle: I do, too. Oh, I've got to ask you, what sign are you? 

Camara: I'm a Cancer. I'm a Cancer. I'm a Cancer sun. I'm a Virgo rising and a Taurus moon. So I feel very goddessy. 

Michelle: Yeah, you are. [Crosstalk] Wow. 

Camara: What about you? What sign are you? 

Michelle: I'm an Aquarius with a Leo rising and a Sag moon. 

Camara: OK, that makes sense. A little fire. 

Michelle: Yeah, it's like a little like, you know, sort of like kinetic or something. 

Camara: Well, you know, Michelle, I'm sure we could talk all night because I love witchy people. 

Michelle: It’s been amazing.

Camara: Yeah. And thank you so much. I mean, I know it was like a bumpy start, but, you know, I got back on here and really have enjoyed just all of the wisdom, the knowledge. And it's really kind of lightened up a kind of beginning heavy day. You know what I mean? Just to kind of talk about and get back into what's really feeding us, because it's so easy to get into what's trying to be more toxic. And these are the conversations where we're getting we're tapping into like, what gives us life, what makes us thrive. And I think that's so important during this time not to know we're not bypassing anything, but we're just not allowed to like take us to the. 

Michelle: It can't be the one call in the shots. It can't be in charge. Yeah, we got to give it its due, you know, and but it can't be behind the wheel. 

Camara: Right. Right. Right. And, you know, we're strong enough to transition it, to transmute it. So I'm looking forward to those collaborations with you and everyone. 

Michelle: Me too. It was so, so cool and inspiring to be in conversation with you. Thank you so much. 

Camara: Thank you so much. And I think that is it. We are going to wrap it up now. And yeah, I hope that you all get Michelle's book. This is just an awesome book. So check it out. All right. 

Michelle: Thank you, everybody. Have a great night. 

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Thank you for listening to the CIIS Public Programs Podcast. Our talks and conversations are presented live in San Francisco, California. We recognize that our university’s building in San Francisco occupies traditional, unceded Ramaytush Ohlone lands. If you are interested in learning more about native lands, languages, and territories, the website native-land.ca is a helpful resource for you to learn about and acknowledge the Indigenous land where you live.

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