Speaker 1: You see, something's going to happen. What's going to happen?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the occult Rejects. Today we're joined by
Speaker 1: Enid Baxter Rice, author of Ancient Spells and Incantations Echoes
Speaker 1: of Magic through the Ages and Across Cultures. This is
Speaker 1: a book that reaches into one of the oldest magical
Speaker 1: technologies human beings ever used the spoken word, before printing presses,
Speaker 1: before modern psychology, before spell books became esthetic objects on
Speaker 1: a shelf. People whispered, sang, carved, paryed, cursed, healed, protected,
Speaker 1: and commanded through language. The spell was not just a sentence.
Speaker 1: It was breath, rhythm, memory, intention, fear, hope, and authority
Speaker 1: shaped in words. What makes these subjects so powerful is
Speaker 1: that these old incantations were not always preserved in clean
Speaker 1: or comfortable places. Some survived in grimars, some survived in
Speaker 1: paptery letters, manuscripts, charms, pottery, fragments, medical texts, and ritual records.
Speaker 1: Others survived because enemies of magic wrote them down inquisitors,
Speaker 1: church courts, colonizers, prosecutors, skeptics, and authorities trying to document
Speaker 1: what they wanted to control or destroy. So when we
Speaker 1: look at ancient spells, we are not only looking at magic.
Speaker 1: We are looking at survival. We are looking at voices
Speaker 1: that pass through persecution, translation, misunderstanding, and time. And that
Speaker 1: is why this conversation matters. Modern people often reduced spells
Speaker 1: to fantasy or entertainment, but in the ancient and folk worlds,
Speaker 1: incantations were part of life. People used them for sickness, childbirth, love, protection, enemies, ghosts, animals, harvests, weather, grief, fear, justice,
Speaker 1: and revenge. They were not separate from daily existence. They
Speaker 1: belonged to the body, the home, the field, the sick
Speaker 1: bed and threshold, the grave, and the sacred space. Today
Speaker 1: we're going to ask what these words meant, how they worked,
Speaker 1: why they lasted, and what they can still teach us
Speaker 1: about human relationship to language, power, spirit and reality. But
Speaker 1: before we introduce the guests, I also want to remind
Speaker 1: people about the website. If you're into reading, we have
Speaker 1: tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t
Speaker 1: shirts up on the site if you're interested fun fact,
Speaker 1: the art is all based on the eyeball. Now let
Speaker 1: me introduce the guest eating back to the rice. Please
Speaker 1: let everybody know what is up with you and where
Speaker 1: they can find all of your amazing stuff, your books
Speaker 1: or anything you like to promote.
Speaker 2: Thank you. First of all, that was such a beautiful introduction.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like marveling. I love the way you
Speaker 2: described that history and the amazing weird way that these
Speaker 2: things survive. This is the book. It's out, you can
Speaker 2: get it anywhere books are solds and I wrote and
Speaker 2: illustrated it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the illustrations are amazing in my opinion, Like that
Speaker 1: really quote my attention. When I was going through the book,
Speaker 1: I was like, Yo, he's a wild And I be
Speaker 1: completely honest, I had to check to see if they
Speaker 1: were like originals or if you droom because I was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: these things actually look like they're old. So your reconstruction
Speaker 1: of them like really made me think I was looking
Speaker 1: at the originals stuff.
Speaker 2: Oh that's exciting. Well, some of them are drawings of
Speaker 2: the originals and manuscripts, and then some of them are
Speaker 2: me doing stuff like this where basically I paint with
Speaker 2: water and write words into the bottom, so the title
Speaker 2: of the book is actually in the bottom of the
Speaker 2: forest on the ghost farest. Some that cover and then
Speaker 2: some I just soaked watercolor paper and dropped ink on
Speaker 2: it and saw what emerged and then kind of pulled
Speaker 2: it out. Those are those weird characters all the way
Speaker 2: through it.
Speaker 1: So that was fine, nice, nice. So I guess I
Speaker 1: kind of where I ask all, like, you know most
Speaker 1: people that come on the show for this type of stuff,
Speaker 1: what got you into this? Like how did you fund yourself?
Speaker 1: I guess into magic, the occult, whatever you call it, witchcraft.
Speaker 2: So definitely in my family there's a tradition of herbalism, which, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, in the Middle Ages, there was no difference
Speaker 2: between magic, science art, you.
Speaker 1: Know, cooking, it was all the same.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So it was all this these kind of
Speaker 2: predictive arts, these things that were mysterious, like how do
Speaker 2: you transform a vegetable into a great soup? How do
Speaker 2: you transform a vegetable into a poultice to heal someone?
Speaker 2: Maybe you can use it to transform anything. So I
Speaker 2: was working on this book which came out in July,
Speaker 2: and it's a plant magic at home, and I was like,
Speaker 2: during the pandemic, I was trying to get my kids
Speaker 2: outside like crazy, and I was like, hey, guys, let's
Speaker 2: do this thing I used to do when I was
Speaker 2: a child, which was to go out and collect herbs
Speaker 2: and plants and berries and bark, and we would make
Speaker 2: dyes for my mother's weavings. And so I got my
Speaker 2: kids into sort of this process, which it's weirdly like
Speaker 2: exciting and relaxing, and that's so I started. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I want to write this book that tells all about
Speaker 2: how to do that, but also has the history of
Speaker 2: each plant and what it was used for in magic
Speaker 2: medicine folklore. And as I was researching that, I started
Speaker 2: finding these amazing incantations connected in these old texts with
Speaker 2: the plants and started writing them down. And then I realized, like,
Speaker 2: this would be a really fun book. And you know,
Speaker 2: there's this access that I have to libraries because I'm
Speaker 2: a professor that you know, most people don't really get
Speaker 2: access to. And it's it's very like dark academia. Like
Speaker 2: I put in the request and I get an email
Speaker 2: and it's in a blocker, and I go to the
Speaker 2: locker and I open it up and there's the book.
Speaker 2: It smells awesome, and I take it home and I
Speaker 2: have one of these things where you actually have it
Speaker 2: right here, where you like set the book in the.
Speaker 1: Use that library. Yeah, when I've gone there to get
Speaker 1: some of the old books. Yeah, they give you a
Speaker 1: thing and they give you like, yeah, they weighted. It's
Speaker 1: like a weighted sock.
Speaker 2: Yeah wait yeah, yeah, yeah, it's totally. It's a it's
Speaker 2: one of those things you heat up like if you
Speaker 2: want to, you're done, you can you.
Speaker 1: Know, to your Yeah, they want you to use that
Speaker 1: to hold the page down instead of your hands. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So so I get these books and typically when
Speaker 2: they're written about by professors, it's scholarly, which is pouring.
Speaker 2: And I wanted to make a fun book that you
Speaker 2: could actually play with and use the incantations and kind
Speaker 2: of reveal some of this old stuff. So that was
Speaker 2: I had a ball with that.
Speaker 1: That is awesome. That is really cool. That's also what
Speaker 1: you did with the herbs too. I have to get
Speaker 1: you back on maybe to talk about that. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: interested in herbs and that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too. I don't know where that history comes
Speaker 2: all the way down from. My mother was from a
Speaker 2: Celtic and Sephardic background, and I remember that, you know,
Speaker 2: when I was little, she was always planting marigolds next
Speaker 2: to the tomatoes, and I was like, why are you
Speaker 2: doing that? She said, to protect them? And I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe it's like the smell you know of marigolds is
Speaker 2: really strong, like as an insecticide or something like that.
Speaker 2: But it turns out there's this like micro biology reason
Speaker 2: that marigolds intertwine with tomato roots and protect them from
Speaker 2: this micro organism called nematotes. And you know, my didn't
Speaker 2: go to school for biology. And I called her. I
Speaker 2: was like, how did you know about this thing? And
Speaker 2: she was like, your grandma told me. And I don't
Speaker 2: know that. My grandma got past eighth grade. So I
Speaker 2: you know, it's just wild, right people know, right? Like,
Speaker 2: And then you look across cultures and there's some plants
Speaker 2: that just show up everywhere as being magical. Mugwort is
Speaker 2: one all around the world. Mugwort is magical, yarrow is
Speaker 2: magical anywhere you go, South America, China, everywhere.
Speaker 1: That is really interesting. Actually, that says something I think.
Speaker 2: I think so too. It's really cool.
Speaker 1: I ended up doing a I haven't finished it. I
Speaker 1: have a five part series of maybe the six I
Speaker 1: think it's only five, and I have like six or
Speaker 1: seven done ready to record it. I did magical herbs
Speaker 1: and the way they affect your twelve cranial nerves, and
Speaker 1: even that was so interesting realizing like what are they
Speaker 1: like what they do to your you know a lot
Speaker 1: of them will affect your vegas nerve and your old factory,
Speaker 1: and like how it actually does start. Some of the
Speaker 1: interesting things that I thought was, you know that I
Speaker 1: found that kind of surprised me is that it almost
Speaker 1: seems like what they were using these herbs for, in
Speaker 1: a sense, it was doing in your physically right. And
Speaker 1: it's like did they know that? Like somehow they just
Speaker 1: knew that and maybe didn't know how it worked, But
Speaker 1: I wonder if they actually understood, like when you smell
Speaker 1: this one, it's going to slow your vegas nerve down,
Speaker 1: so now your stomach will start to feel better, or
Speaker 1: your throat because it connects from here down to there.
Speaker 1: It's just like, did they know that?
Speaker 2: It's amazing When I go to work with schools, like
Speaker 2: school children, I grow a lot of lavender in my
Speaker 2: yard because you know, I always bring it and we
Speaker 2: make like fairy houses and stuff. But the kids get
Speaker 2: like really calm because it calms them down, and it's
Speaker 2: just suthing you can do, yeah, to take care of,
Speaker 2: you know, people when you're working with them.
Speaker 1: I love lavender for that reason. I always I use
Speaker 1: a lot of it. Well, not a lot of it,
Speaker 1: but I do use it often for that reason. I
Speaker 1: have like a wax burner. I put it like lavender
Speaker 1: oil in it to try to.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, I guess I'm like, I harvested the
Speaker 2: early summer lavender. It's like drying. But yeah, it's like.
Speaker 1: All over my g It's one of my favorite I
Speaker 1: love this smelly too, very good. So uh yeah, I guess.
Speaker 1: So when it comes to uh, what kind of sources actually,
Speaker 1: let me let me ask you something else first. Uh,
Speaker 1: was there a moment during the research where you felt
Speaker 1: like this is not just folklore, there is something like
Speaker 1: there is someone's real fear, real grief, real hope or
Speaker 1: attempt at like a real attempt to survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, And that was the thing I think that
Speaker 2: also drew me to it, like over the past few
Speaker 2: years with you know, all the conflicts in the world
Speaker 2: and you know, the first chapter of the book talks
Speaker 2: about incantation bulls, which everybody was living together in you know,
Speaker 2: the ancient world in the Middle East, and nobody was
Speaker 2: supposed to be going to the scribe to get magic spells.
Speaker 2: But the scribe, who is writing spelling incursive, like it's
Speaker 2: even in our language, right, you know, he was kind
Speaker 2: of code switching to whoever the customer was. So if
Speaker 2: it was a Jewish person, you know, he'd write the
Speaker 2: spell and then be like in the name of Abraham
Speaker 2: at the end. And if it was you know, a
Speaker 2: Zoroastrian person or a Coptic person, they'd switch. And then
Speaker 2: later when Muslim people were there, the same thing it
Speaker 2: would be, you know, oriented towards them. So I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: well everybody has in common that we sneak off and
Speaker 2: do taboo things, you know. And then as you read
Speaker 2: the spells, you read like, wow, we all have this
Speaker 2: the same vulnerabilities over thousands of years, Like we all
Speaker 2: want love, we all want protection, we all want health,
Speaker 2: we all want to make stuff happen, we all get
Speaker 2: angry and want revenge, you know, and it's just so like,
Speaker 2: like the the cursed tablets from ancient Rome are so petty.
Speaker 2: Let me see if I can find one. You know,
Speaker 2: when you're reading it and you're like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: this is this is wild. You know, like this is
Speaker 2: so reality TV moment.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, wow, there was they're the way
Speaker 1: we are now. They've somehow managed to be like that
Speaker 1: back then. Way right. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This Pella Cursed tablet, it's like big and it's
Speaker 2: it's funny. The woman who wrote it says, I bind
Speaker 2: to prohibit marriage for Dionosapon. By this written spell. I
Speaker 2: prohibit all other women, be they widows or maidens, but
Speaker 2: prohibit Fetima in particular. I didn't like that's you and
Speaker 2: the spell to the spirit of my friend Macron. I
Speaker 2: leave it at her grave so she may bring it
Speaker 2: to you, Damons, only when I dig it up, unroll
Speaker 2: and reread. Might a woman wed Dionysophon, but not before,
Speaker 2: for I wish for him to take no other woman
Speaker 2: than me. I wish to grow old with Dionysophon and
Speaker 2: no one else. I plead with you. Have pity on me,
Speaker 2: dear Damons, for I have no one. My family belittles me.
Speaker 2: I feel abandoned by all my friends. Protect this spell
Speaker 2: for my sake, so that their marriage does not happen
Speaker 2: and wretched, horrible Fetuma perishes and misery, while I become
Speaker 2: happy and blessed.
Speaker 1: Yo. That is like so real and personal, like you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, like wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're also like calm down.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah yeah right, but like the person was like
Speaker 1: really like so honest in that thing. It's really cool
Speaker 1: to see that.
Speaker 2: So there's that vulnerability, Yeah, there is that vulnerability and longing,
Speaker 2: and you know when it reminds you that when you
Speaker 2: feel lonely, you are not alone, right like that is that.
Speaker 1: Was that was actually really cool to hear because it
Speaker 1: makes it sound like it's real, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like that's things everybody thinks, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then the you know, the crazy part is
Speaker 2: some of the places I was finding these things as
Speaker 2: you mentioned, you know, witch trial transcripts or you know
Speaker 2: the Tattletale monk who's writing back to the pope and
Speaker 2: telling on everyone's nahuattles spells and what's now Mexico, and
Speaker 2: he becomes the best record of the stuff that we have. Right,
Speaker 2: So I was joking with like snitches get witches.
Speaker 1: You know what I had covered myself. I covered a
Speaker 1: Valentinis and then I covered I covered some other group
Speaker 1: of like kind of like Gnostic Christians and it's kind
Speaker 1: of funny how like sometimes you have to like kind
Speaker 1: of you'll take there'll be a lot of actually on
Speaker 1: those people. There was a lot of hostile as you'd
Speaker 1: call it to where it's like you're reading people that
Speaker 1: critique them or didn't like them, and it's just funny
Speaker 1: sometimes even seeing it from that angle, it's just like
Speaker 1: it's kind of silly, but it is interesting how like
Speaker 1: that sometimes that's the way you even got to learn
Speaker 1: about people is from reading like didn't they? And then that,
Speaker 1: to me, that proves that they must have been important
Speaker 1: enough for these important people in the Catholic Church to
Speaker 1: start condemning them one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: There's this like indigenous magic practice from England that there's
Speaker 2: this book called It's like got one of those medieval
Speaker 2: titles that's like a paragraph there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is like the Renaissance time. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you get like the whole page is the title of
Speaker 1: the book. You're like, come on, I guess since you
Speaker 1: had the paper, you're going to use it up right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So these two schools heart Leave and Mulatories and
Speaker 2: they write Hazards of the Dark Arts Advice for Medieval
Speaker 2: Princes on witchcraft and magic, but it's really one prince.
Speaker 2: They're writing too, like they're really worried that this one
Speaker 2: Germanic prince in fourteen fifty six is going to get
Speaker 2: you know, interested in magic. But this spell, there are
Speaker 2: people who conjure a loaf of bread and stick three
Speaker 2: knives into it, making three crosses, and attach a spindle
Speaker 2: to a spindle wheel, and two persons hold it on
Speaker 2: their ring fingers and they conjure the Holy Apostles and
Speaker 2: so you know, it's a it sounds almost like an unoffering, right,
Speaker 2: like a bread offering to the poly Apostles. But they're
Speaker 2: writing this as like critical, you know, like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: exactly help with these people. But like so the whole
Speaker 2: book becomes this really neat way to look at spells
Speaker 2: from that era.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just I thought it was funny, like the
Speaker 1: was telling on the other people. It's like I noticed
Speaker 1: that in the Catholic Church all of a sudden they
Speaker 1: sort of telling on the Gnostics that I guess hit
Speaker 1: him like and it's like so silly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Gnostics you know, were not into Empire. They
Speaker 2: were into sort of.
Speaker 1: I think they just wanted to from the material world.
Speaker 1: Yeah all that too, Yeah, oh huge, yeah, yeah, and so.
Speaker 2: That's that's a little threatening to the Roman Empire version
Speaker 2: of Christianity.
Speaker 1: It's really fascinating, Yeah, the history of it. I covered
Speaker 1: that recently too, and I had to get off the
Speaker 1: topic and we'll get back to your book. I just
Speaker 1: found that so interesting. When I started looking into the
Speaker 1: history of Christianity, I was like, wow, I did not
Speaker 1: know it went down like that.
Speaker 2: It's so fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's like true and I find it funny though, like
Speaker 1: a lot of Christians are against the Catholic Church, but
Speaker 1: it's like, yo, they're the ones who told you what
Speaker 1: to believe. It's like, so you actually listen to them anyway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not to get controversial.
Speaker 2: I've been writing. I've been writing about early Christians in
Speaker 2: Ireland because they're so it's so fascinating. It's, you know,
Speaker 2: Christianization without Romanization, and it made me understand why that
Speaker 2: was such a special belief system. You know, I'm Jewish,
Speaker 2: so I am not an insider. But this idea that
Speaker 2: you could have your saint Patrick who was born who
Speaker 2: was a slave, right this religion where he's in a
Speaker 2: region where everyone's doing human sacrifice all the time, everywhere,
Speaker 2: all over the ancient world, people are just human sacrificing.
Speaker 2: Like there's you know, it's just a great fat thing.
Speaker 2: Lynton comes along and says, hey, no more human sacrifice needed.
Speaker 2: This guy already did it for everybody, you know, just
Speaker 2: work on being nice to each other. And he dies
Speaker 2: the death of a slave, right, That crucifixion was a
Speaker 2: death of a slave death. And then that walks around
Speaker 2: and says, in this religion, anyone is you know, a
Speaker 2: child of God. That's pretty revolutionary and cool.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah sure.
Speaker 2: And wild that that was happening.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, you know, that's what I even thought too,
Speaker 1: just even like just seeing like all the ideas and
Speaker 1: thoughts and even some of the differences between some Gnostic sex.
Speaker 1: It's it's very interesting. It's very interesting.
Speaker 2: Though, super fascinating.
Speaker 3: I agree, yeah, and like, and you know what the
Speaker 3: interesting thing is too, it seemed like the Gnostic sex,
Speaker 3: even if they had different ideas on certain things, they
Speaker 3: all still had no problem like kind of coming together
Speaker 3: or being around each other and accepting each other.
Speaker 1: It just seemed like the Church had a problem with
Speaker 1: all that. I guess I don't know, but it was
Speaker 1: interesting to see if that's true. What I was reading,
Speaker 1: I was like, wow, that's pretty interesting that they all
Speaker 1: still kind of colm mingled and I didn't have a
Speaker 1: problem with each other's other ideas, they just didn't acknowledge it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that history, and there is a thread
Speaker 2: of that all the way through human history where we can, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, have strongly held beliefs and still love people
Speaker 2: who don't share them. Yeah, what happened crazy the internet?
Speaker 1: Crazy? Did the research make historical magic look more organized
Speaker 1: or did it make it look messier, maybe more local,
Speaker 1: more personal, and more human when you started researching all
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely seems that's a really good question. It
Speaker 2: definitely seemed very like local and then it also is
Speaker 2: so connected to language that that makes sense. Right, So
Speaker 2: like the spells, the cadence of them, the materials they reference,
Speaker 2: the plants they reference, but also the rhythms of them,
Speaker 2: like the stuff from you know, I'm just looking down
Speaker 2: at the book, but like things from the pow Wows,
Speaker 2: which is a book you know, from folk America, they
Speaker 2: have such a different rhythm than things from maybe even
Speaker 2: like like some of the African spare spells in the book.
Speaker 2: And then there's also this sense of I guess like
Speaker 2: things bubble up and go underground. So there's like every
Speaker 2: now and then this language, this practice surfaces, and then
Speaker 2: it goes the way again. So it like services in
Speaker 2: the nineteen seventies for sure, and then you seet service
Speaker 2: again in the nineteen twenties, and then we're back in
Speaker 2: the eighteen eighties, and it's just like where things, you know,
Speaker 2: go underground and come back up, and that definitely affects,
Speaker 2: you know, the translations or the recitations of them.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've even seen that happen in the
Speaker 1: witch craft the ceremonial community in like the last fifteen years.
Speaker 1: I feel like I've seen things get popular, de popular
Speaker 1: die in that time too.
Speaker 2: It makes sense. Yeah, I mean I'm not definitely not
Speaker 2: an expert on that community, but that's that's really interesting.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've even seen that with like when I first got
Speaker 1: into it, all of a sudden seemed like chaos. Magic
Speaker 1: was like boom, it was the thing, and I'm kind
Speaker 1: of seeing that again, or maybe it would just passed again,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like ten years later, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it was the end thing to do again. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Now these ideas cycle.
Speaker 2: Definitely, yeah, and then you know the it all reflects
Speaker 2: the importance of language, right. All of these are incantations,
Speaker 2: so there are things that you speak, and you know,
Speaker 2: the even the Bible starts with like the Lord said,
Speaker 2: let there be light, and then light is there, So
Speaker 2: we speak things into existence. So it makes sense that
Speaker 2: the spells would relate to the like time and place,
Speaker 2: the language people were speaking.
Speaker 1: Oh for sure, especially when folk tradition, that's so regional
Speaker 1: kind of I feel like, you know right, that's why
Speaker 1: when you said local, I thought that right away. I
Speaker 1: was like, when you get into that stuff, a lot
Speaker 1: of it, especially even like you said, with the language,
Speaker 1: it could be so local.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and folk, you know, is is kind of a
Speaker 2: Northern Hemisphere way of saying indigenous, right, like like that's
Speaker 2: the stuff that belonged to a place.
Speaker 1: I like that a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the thing that it points to too is
Speaker 2: like right now we're going into the realm of Ai,
Speaker 2: which is a large language model.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So I've learned how we think by learning how we speak.
Speaker 2: So there's something you know, we know from cognitive behavioral
Speaker 2: therapy to religion, like the way that we speak affects
Speaker 2: the way that we perceive and experience the world. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: it must be why these things exist.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. Yeah, you mentioned something about cadence, and that
Speaker 1: made me wonder if you happen to realize if any
Speaker 1: of that stuff I'm not expecting you that you even
Speaker 1: thought about checking. Did you happen to notice if any
Speaker 1: of it was like ever in like pentameter or hexameter specifically?
Speaker 1: That's quite a right. I thought I saw a walk
Speaker 1: by before before we record it. I was like, was
Speaker 1: that a cat?
Speaker 2: She being on camera? Otherwise very grumpy the.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So part of that project for me was paying a
Speaker 2: lot of attention to cadence and when things needed also
Speaker 2: to rhyme or even doing non literal translations, like in
Speaker 2: an academic text we might have it like word for word,
Speaker 2: but then we lose the experience of this of the words, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: So like is it supposed to be lyrical or rhythmic?
Speaker 2: Is it supposed to be sparse? Is it supposed to
Speaker 2: be like a brag of words?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: So I was paying a lot of attention to that
Speaker 2: and wanting to translate them in a way that brought
Speaker 2: not just the like literal like word for word, but
Speaker 2: the essence of the experience of it. So there's one
Speaker 2: that's like really well known called the nine wort spell.
Speaker 2: Let me so I can find it. But I think
Speaker 2: I really did that translation thanks to my poor editor
Speaker 2: like seven or eight times. Not I didn't send it
Speaker 2: to a seven or eight times. I send it to
Speaker 2: a three that you know, the nine words spell is
Speaker 2: pretty well known. It's you know, wart means plant in
Speaker 2: so it's nine plants. And as I was reading it
Speaker 2: and reading the old translations of it too, because that's
Speaker 2: part of the thing, is like you try to do
Speaker 2: your own, but you look at other people's translations and
Speaker 2: see you know where you're at in relation to them.
Speaker 2: And so I began to realize, like this is more
Speaker 2: than just a spell. This is a pneumonic device to
Speaker 2: remember a recipe for a poultice, right that's made with
Speaker 2: nine plants. And if you memorize the spell, you memorize
Speaker 2: the plants, the order they go in and the process,
Speaker 2: and it sort of also works as a transmitter, Like
Speaker 2: I can tell my daughter this and then she'll know
Speaker 2: these plants relate to each piece of this poultice and
Speaker 2: why right? And then so then I, once I understood that,
Speaker 2: I translated it again in a different way, and then
Speaker 2: it made sense to me like that that unlocked the spell.
Speaker 1: Wow, that is really well really yeah yeah, yeah right,
Speaker 1: even saying back then they understood like ways of like
Speaker 1: implanting stuff into your mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like they understood it, you know, better
Speaker 2: than we.
Speaker 1: It' it's weird you still thinking that. Yeah, that is
Speaker 1: really cool. I know the reason why I asked about
Speaker 1: the pentameter and hexameter is because I think the oracles
Speaker 1: at DELFI, if they were to say anything, I think
Speaker 1: they wanted it supposedly a way of like saying it
Speaker 1: was genuine or not, it would be an hexameter. And
Speaker 1: I know that we had somebody on. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was the author that knew or maybe we
Speaker 1: looked into it after that we had the author run,
Speaker 1: but we had somebody on who covered Jim Morrison, and
Speaker 1: I do think he was in I think he was
Speaker 1: in the occult and a lot of his stuff was
Speaker 1: actually in pat Tabita as well. And we wonder is
Speaker 1: that is that is that kind of you know, like
Speaker 1: a call back to back then or was that an influence?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is, and I think that so
Speaker 2: we look at like a lot of bluegrass music is
Speaker 2: in pentameter, and that's like you know, aspirational music by
Speaker 2: man to God. Right, and so there's that old thing
Speaker 2: like if you were a Fixies fan, like Man is five,
Speaker 2: the devil is six and God is seven. That is
Speaker 2: something that's in music, and it's also something that's in
Speaker 2: you know, different ancient practices of numerology.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Again I said I was. I mentioned I was Jewish
Speaker 2: and Jewish history and Kabbalah and all that.
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2: Big deal, right. So and there's numbers in bedded in
Speaker 2: everything that's written.
Speaker 1: It's like a cod.
Speaker 2: It is. And it also is thought to in in
Speaker 2: the magical thinking of that it's thought to imbue words
Speaker 2: with with you know, different kind of essences or powers
Speaker 2: as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, I know. I'm really big into Jamatrim,
Speaker 1: big into well the her medica Bala put it that way.
Speaker 1: It's not your.
Speaker 2: Cabala, but you know, not like Madonnacabla. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know anybody who res web bread bracelet is
Speaker 1: supposedly practicing some sort.
Speaker 2: Of Yeah, you definitely know more about it than I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead, did you have anything else? I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I just found that nine Worts spell and the plants
Speaker 2: in it are mugwort, fennel or sam bucas way bread
Speaker 2: or plantain soon which is also called Lamb's cress, and
Speaker 2: then like cocksburg or glack grass, mayweed or camma meal.
Speaker 2: So it actually has like you can use one or
Speaker 2: the other, which is amazing, nettle, crab, apple, fennyl. So
Speaker 2: those are the plants and they're all like medicinal, So.
Speaker 1: It was really cool. Yeah, it's funny. When you were
Speaker 1: answered this question, the last one I asked you, you actually
Speaker 1: did kind of answer like one or two other ones
Speaker 1: that I had, kind of like the translation and stuff.
Speaker 1: So I can skip forward. Do you think a spell
Speaker 1: can be taken out of its original culture and still
Speaker 1: remain as spell? It does become something else?
Speaker 2: I think it must. I think context is important, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: so I mean the true answers, I don't know. But
Speaker 2: then the other answer is, you know, things mean different things.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, going back again to Judaism, like
Speaker 2: you read the Talmud every year, the Torah every year
Speaker 2: all year long, over and over again. And it's because
Speaker 2: as you change, the meaning of the words changes, right,
Speaker 2: the words don't change, but the meaning changes. If there's
Speaker 2: something about the interaction. So if we're talking about an
Speaker 2: interaction between words, me reading that ancient Roman spell, you know,
Speaker 2: on a electronic media form, you know, on May twelfth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, as opposed to someone carving it into
Speaker 2: brass and rolling it and placing it in an ancient
Speaker 2: Roman grave of someone they love, I mean, one hundred percent,
Speaker 2: Like there has to be a different meaning there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that, especially about like very localized stuff.
Speaker 1: It's like the language I think might matter even the
Speaker 1: full you know, it could be the sound that the
Speaker 1: language even makes that's different than the other language. And
Speaker 1: the specific stuff too, like if they're working with stuff
Speaker 1: that's literally only in their area, you know, sometimes I
Speaker 1: wonder if that will you know, makes a difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's a tricky thing about cross cultural work.
Speaker 2: Like my next book is about prayers. So again, like
Speaker 2: nic language transforming things, and you know, it's important to
Speaker 2: read things from other cultures and you know and and
Speaker 2: ask questions about them and you know, try to understand them.
Speaker 2: But you know, it's that balance of also not being
Speaker 2: like giving a false impression or appropriating stuff in a
Speaker 2: way that's like not that's denigrating. So it's it's it's
Speaker 2: a balancing act. But I think it's important to talk
Speaker 2: about our shared humanity.
Speaker 1: M Yeah, what did you learn about curses? Where they
Speaker 1: mostly revenge fantasies, legal tools for powerlessness, emotional release, or
Speaker 1: genuine spiritual warfare in the minds of the people using them,
Speaker 1: or is it a combination of all of them.
Speaker 2: I think it's a combination of all. I mean, of course,
Speaker 2: like if I wanted to just write this book and
Speaker 2: be just all right, curses and negative stuff, that's the
Speaker 2: stuff that got recorded the most because of who was
Speaker 2: doing the recording, right, Like putting crosses into bread and
Speaker 2: culturing an apostle is not really you know, as cautionary.
Speaker 2: It's like, this is a cune air form of Luenian
Speaker 2: incantation from the second BC, second millennium BC, and it
Speaker 2: says he spat curses and lies like sour fruit. May
Speaker 2: they smash him and deliver him to the goddess of
Speaker 2: malediction and perjury. He spoke the evil into being. That
Speaker 2: was like a countercurse. It was written on clay cuffs
Speaker 2: that someone could wear. It's not a trip. So yeah there,
Speaker 2: I mean it definitely is like you know, I there's
Speaker 2: this guy says, make her. This is from Macedonia in
Speaker 2: the fourth century. Just an excerpt to Anubis. Make her
Speaker 2: attracted to me, Bring her to supplicate herself to me,
Speaker 2: to roll at my feet with passionate desire, melting at
Speaker 2: every hour of every day, unable to stop thinking of me,
Speaker 2: gets like burying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, he was thirsty.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, here's a I cast see thou, damned and
Speaker 2: cursed spirit into that lake of fire, which is prepared
Speaker 2: for these spirit and there to remain forgotten. So that's
Speaker 2: a spirit casting out. Yeah, it's it's pretty it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2: Like the language gets really delicious though in these things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that sounds crazy.
Speaker 2: Fragments that people have saved. So oh, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of these ancient Roman spells. A bunch of them all
Speaker 2: are really uh cursing. Venusta slave of Rufus. I don't
Speaker 2: know what he what she was up to, but she
Speaker 2: puts somebody off.
Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2: There's one for catching a thief. Lady Nemesis got us
Speaker 2: of revenge. I offer you a stolen cloak and a
Speaker 2: pair of boots. Let him who wore them not nor
Speaker 2: recover them except with his life with his spilled blood.
Speaker 1: Oh, I got serious.
Speaker 2: To bring back my boots.
Speaker 1: Want of people someone stole the boots and stolen boots.
Speaker 1: When it came to like healing charms and stuff, looking
Speaker 1: into them in like your research, did they feel closer
Speaker 1: to medicine, prayer, folk psychology or magic or you know.
Speaker 2: Again, Yeah, the the curses feel like like, you know,
Speaker 2: maybe not the best choices, and the the the healing
Speaker 2: terms are so beautiful, like this is from ancient Greece,
Speaker 2: Flee Biting Fly a wild wolf, wolf seeks your blood.
Speaker 2: And then this one is Lakota Sunrise, May you behold
Speaker 2: a dawn appears, behold it So it's like praying for
Speaker 2: someone to wake in the morning again and they're they're
Speaker 2: beautiful and all. So you know, there's this one from
Speaker 2: ancient Mexico. You know, it really is addressing a specific illness,
Speaker 2: you know, and talks about how to heal it. So
Speaker 2: again that kind of mnemonic device, and the early American
Speaker 2: one is to stop bleeding. I walk through a green forest,
Speaker 2: there I find three wells, cool and cold. The first
Speaker 2: is called courage, the second is called good, and the
Speaker 2: third is called stop the blood. And then you're supposed
Speaker 2: to cross yourself a couple of times. So there's that mentioned.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Thanks, love. I love hearing like the
Speaker 1: way that they spoke back then. You know, it's like, damn,
Speaker 1: they spoke better than we do now, more eloquently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's pretty fun.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting just hearing you. When you hear that stuff,
Speaker 1: it kind of puts you in the mind of the
Speaker 1: people then too.
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, I think that that's that's the you know,
Speaker 2: language is just so important for us, and it makes
Speaker 2: a huge difference in in the way the world exists
Speaker 2: for us is how we speak to it and about it,
Speaker 2: which is good news because that means we have a
Speaker 2: lot of power in our lives to make our lives
Speaker 2: feel better.
Speaker 1: That's true. Oh no, yeah, I think we have a
Speaker 1: lot more control and power it. Yes, for sure. Did
Speaker 1: you notice like repeated ritual patterns across cultures and stuff like,
Speaker 1: you know, binding, loosening, ceiling commanding, breathing.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, ceiling binding, summoning, vanishing, Yeah.
Speaker 1: The normal type thing. Yeah, how it is now too
Speaker 1: you see stuff like that still.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's the summoning makes me really nervous. You know.
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, man, like they're just going for did
Speaker 2: you not watch a B movie in the ages stuff.
Speaker 1: Like okay, yeah you didn't watch like Army of Darkness
Speaker 1: or Word later the Ecronomicon.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so, and you know, there's this attraction to
Speaker 2: stuff like mirrors, moves of water, fire, smoke, ash, like
Speaker 2: just really like you know, consistent.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I recently started a series and I
Speaker 1: called it like the Mechanics of Magic, and I was
Speaker 1: like looking at certain basic things that kind of been
Speaker 1: used like over time, like you know, from the beginning
Speaker 1: that we still incorporate now and like the things that
Speaker 1: you just said. It was all things that are so
Speaker 1: so far have covered flames, mirrors, smoke, and when you
Speaker 1: start using like the whole mirror thing, if you're doing
Speaker 1: it like in a dark room or it's like even
Speaker 1: in an obsidian mirror, you're you know, however, you're using
Speaker 1: it and it's not a clear enough image, and you
Speaker 1: can use smoke to help make this happen. Your brain
Speaker 1: will actually fill in the gaps itself and create an
Speaker 1: image for you to see, and it may not be correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like there were certain things that I that they've
Speaker 1: showed in scientific studies that when the flame like if
Speaker 1: you're especially if you're like looking put it this way.
Speaker 1: They've found now that they think that the way of
Speaker 1: flame flickers in certain caves when they drew on the wall,
Speaker 1: it actually would animate it if the if the flicker
Speaker 1: was correct.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: And they've also noticed now that if with your if
Speaker 1: you stare at a candle long enough, they did the
Speaker 1: experiments on people with your eyes closed, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if your male, female, where you're from, what part of
Speaker 1: the world you're from, everybody starts sharing the same exact visuals.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering again, I know this sounds crazy, but
Speaker 1: it's like, did they catch onto this back then and
Speaker 1: they knew that these were ways that would change your
Speaker 1: actual perception in your world?
Speaker 2: This?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like did they realize these tactics worked? Maybe didn't
Speaker 1: understand the science, but notice this does.
Speaker 2: I absolutely believe that, I mean think about how much
Speaker 2: more time people spent around of fire, you know in
Speaker 2: Celtic hearth culture or here in the US, or you
Speaker 2: know ancient people. Just that's just part of the experience
Speaker 2: right of the world, Like you need the fire to cook,
Speaker 2: you need the fire to keep the animals away, and
Speaker 2: then fire also becomes this magical experience we all have
Speaker 2: when we just go camping and you sit next to
Speaker 2: it and you feel transported and you're concentrating on that
Speaker 2: and closing your eyes or using reflective surfaces. Of course,
Speaker 2: that's going to be amazing. I bring in. I have
Speaker 2: an obsidian mirror. I teach college, and I one of
Speaker 2: the things I teach students a little bit is about
Speaker 2: like tonal variation and drawing. It's like visual storytelling and
Speaker 2: the black mirror. In the Victorian times, they used to
Speaker 2: use it to draw, you know, landscapes and stuff, because
Speaker 2: when you look at the landscape, you know, if I
Speaker 2: was drawing, I'd hold it and then look at it
Speaker 2: while I'm drawing this landscape over here, because it reduces
Speaker 2: it down to just the tones and gradations, and so
Speaker 2: it's like a neat way to kind of make a
Speaker 2: They knew it was very atmospheric looking, right, and it
Speaker 2: helped them to wild. Isn't that wild? To reduce things
Speaker 2: down to elements? And the other day I was, you know,
Speaker 2: I have this mirror and I have like fifty students,
Speaker 2: and I'm talking to them about it, and then we
Speaker 2: look up and you know, we're outside. I always teach outside,
Speaker 2: and there the whole building has like the tinted windows,
Speaker 2: and it's functioning literally like a black mirror, like we
Speaker 2: can see the sky behind in just tonal variations. So
Speaker 2: that's what we started using.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that is why. That's pretty cool. Nice. There's
Speaker 1: something weird with that stuff, very interesting, very interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you think modern witches sometimes lose something when spells,
Speaker 1: when spell words are separated from the old physical ritual context.
Speaker 2: I assume so, but I don't know. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think I believe that, Like, I really believe that anything
Speaker 2: you set an intention for and pay attention to, especially
Speaker 2: if you said it using words or eat written or spoken,
Speaker 2: and if you like go into a practice of paying
Speaker 2: attention to it, that you will manifest that like that
Speaker 2: that will happen in your life. And I believe that
Speaker 2: things you withdraw your attention from like that person you
Speaker 2: keep the office or whatever, like if you withdraw attention
Speaker 2: from that whole thing, it will wither and die. So
Speaker 2: you know, I'm sure that there's differences, and but also
Speaker 2: we we make meaning with our intentions and with our
Speaker 2: commitment to shifting things.
Speaker 1: I like that. I think as well, say thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. I kind of wanted to go like a
Speaker 1: little bit into I guess like maybe your art and
Speaker 1: your art background film, your background isnt art, film and
Speaker 1: historical storytelling. Did that change the way you saw these
Speaker 1: spells almost like scenes or little voices or ritual performances,
Speaker 1: kind of in snippets of time.
Speaker 2: I think, so, I mean I didn't start writing. I
Speaker 2: was really I loved writing a lot, and I when
Speaker 2: I was in to get into college, the thing that
Speaker 2: got me a scholarship to go to college was visual art.
Speaker 2: And I was kind of uncomfortably in the visual art
Speaker 2: world for it because I thought like, Okay, this is
Speaker 2: what I'm supposed to do. But my dream was always
Speaker 2: to write and illustrate, and I love research and history
Speaker 2: and old books. And it wasn't until the pandemic that
Speaker 2: I kind of like, you know, we all sat still
Speaker 2: for a minute, and I was like, you know what,
Speaker 2: I don't want to I don't want to be in
Speaker 2: the art world. It's weird. And you know, the film
Speaker 2: being a film professor is so funny because like I
Speaker 2: never have taken a film class. But what I started doing.
Speaker 2: I had this longing still to tell stories even though
Speaker 2: I was a painter. So I started making films because
Speaker 2: they were images or I could tell stories. And and
Speaker 2: I was like in a lot of bands so I
Speaker 2: could like do the music. And then so this is
Speaker 2: like a real return to my heart's joy, Like I
Speaker 2: am happier than I've ever been writing books and illustrating them.
Speaker 1: That like, that's my thanks, that's great.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, I did one last museum
Speaker 2: show and then I I really don't I don't really
Speaker 2: I want to make stuff people can hold in their kitchen,
Speaker 2: not stuff that's.
Speaker 1: I get that though. I get that it's more pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like they get to bring it, they bring the art
Speaker 1: back home with them at least too. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And so then I started, like with all my plants
Speaker 2: and stuff, I've started making these textile designs. And you know,
Speaker 2: last week somebody bought a shower curtain from my shop.
Speaker 2: And that just I can't even tell you how delighted
Speaker 2: I was. I was like, they're gonna be They're gonna
Speaker 2: have this in their house like and then like it's
Speaker 2: it's so great, you know. And then they're gonna move
Speaker 2: it around and it's gonna make their bathroom beautiful. Like
Speaker 2: that is where it's at for me right now.
Speaker 1: That's great, though, I understand that big, big difference from
Speaker 1: them and being I guess, yeah, like presenting something up
Speaker 1: on a wall that people just get to look at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or like people who've paid admission fees and like
Speaker 2: get there and know when to go, and and then
Speaker 2: it goes into storage and you know it's it's it's just, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't need to. I don't really want to.
Speaker 2: I'm not comfortable in that world as much as I am.
Speaker 2: I'd rather make shower curtains.
Speaker 1: Oh guess he's to be serving people more of a
Speaker 1: purpose too. I guess if you think about it, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: when you when you looked at some of these like
Speaker 1: older I guess like some of these older spells or whatever,
Speaker 1: did did they any of them feel like cinematic to you?
Speaker 1: Like you could almost picture it like going on actually, oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially like some of the Inuit spells are so
Speaker 2: lyrical at least freaking find more really quick. Well, here's
Speaker 2: a mirror one. Oh my gosh. It's from the eleventh
Speaker 2: century Moorish Spain, from the Pika Trix. If you have
Speaker 2: a mirror, guard it well, gaze into it, knowing within
Speaker 2: you will bring together winds, spirits, demons, the living and
Speaker 2: the dead. All summoned shall be obedient to you and
Speaker 2: heed your command. You will thereby have power over winds, spirits,
Speaker 2: and demons. And so you shall do what you wish
Speaker 2: over a basin full of water. When you are washed
Speaker 2: and clean, call them soon. They will come to you.
Speaker 2: Soon you will behold the fulfillment of what you seek.
Speaker 2: That was beautiful, It's very cinematic.
Speaker 1: And that you said was from the Pika Tricks, correct, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have some really great stuff in that.
Speaker 2: Book, amazing stuff.
Speaker 1: And that's more of Islam, isn't it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, in Irish Spain, like so it's you know,
Speaker 2: this is like the North African Muslim population of Spain,
Speaker 2: which in fourteen ninety two Spain decides, you know, that's
Speaker 2: the year Columbus sales Ocean blue. But it's also the
Speaker 2: Spain decides, you know, the North African countries have too
Speaker 2: much wealth and power. They want to control the trade routes,
Speaker 2: and they also would like to make their population more homogeneous,
Speaker 2: so they go through this thing to like expel all
Speaker 2: the Moors or Muslims from Spain and to either murder
Speaker 2: or convert all the Jews. And so this project is
Speaker 2: really around that's the Inquisition the last three hundred fifty years,
Speaker 2: and the project is around like consolidating the power for
Speaker 2: the church right in Spain and eventually Portugal, like the
Speaker 2: whole Iberian peninsula, and then also seizing control of those
Speaker 2: like wealth creating trade routes like from North Africa. So yeah,
Speaker 2: the medieval world is like so international and insane and
Speaker 2: it's really interesting. But yeah, the Pika Tricks is like
Speaker 2: a few centuries before that, you know, everybody's kind of
Speaker 2: living in Spain, there was a period where people were
Speaker 2: cohabitating and you know, equally violating their religious rules by
Speaker 2: creating magic books.
Speaker 1: And equally violating their religious rules. Everybody had zero fox.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a lot more fun. We have zero fucks.
Speaker 1: Everybody was getting along. You see what.
Speaker 2: Happens, like, should we start a new political party, the
Speaker 2: zero Fox?
Speaker 1: Everybody would get along at that point, we won't be
Speaker 1: on the same page. Good, I'm tired of this everything
Speaker 1: everybody is.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This one on the opposite page is one that
Speaker 2: I had learned as a kid, and it's the Witch's Ladder,
Speaker 2: which I swear it works. Oh yeah, yeah, I I do,
Speaker 2: I do. This is the one that that I there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's my thing.
Speaker 1: That's nice. I like that. That's when jam that's cool.
Speaker 1: That's cool that and.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, I learned to read tarot cards as
Speaker 2: a kid.
Speaker 1: Oh really yeah.
Speaker 2: So my last museum show, I actually decided, like I
Speaker 2: don't want to make a painting, I want to make
Speaker 2: a tarot card deck. And that ended up being my
Speaker 2: first book. That's this guy, this is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I made a whole day. Me and my friend Luis
Speaker 2: made a tarot card deck. That's the book, and it's
Speaker 2: in English and Scottish. It's like the only bilingual one
Speaker 2: out there right now. And then at the opening I
Speaker 2: read cards for the first time since I was, like,
Speaker 2: you know, in my teens, and it was so fun.
Speaker 2: It was the most fun I've ever had an art opening.
Speaker 1: That is cool. I uh, I forgot. I have questions
Speaker 1: for you now since now since you you're into I
Speaker 1: guess you know the Kabala, whatever you know of it.
Speaker 2: Do you attribute to do you attribute to.
Speaker 1: Taro to it?
Speaker 2: Can? I? Can? I?
Speaker 1: Do you attribute tarot cards to the to the Kabbala?
Speaker 1: Because there is that that train of Actually.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a big discussion about that right now.
Speaker 2: I guess the book came out recently that's tying transmission
Speaker 2: of the Torah and Jewish culture through Tarot, and so
Speaker 2: that is you know, people who have focks are displeased
Speaker 2: on both sides like oh, but I mean again, we're
Speaker 2: in this kind of there are things that are you
Speaker 2: let me see, there's things about the numerology that of
Speaker 2: course are descendants of these ancient ideas that have been
Speaker 2: influencing Abrahamic cultures right forever. And then also what I
Speaker 2: started writing a book about this and I kind of
Speaker 2: set it aside because I started doing the plant book.
Speaker 2: But is the relationship between tarot, its structure, its stories,
Speaker 2: and alchemy, Like so the alchemical process in tarro, I
Speaker 2: feel like that is like a really intense connection. And again,
Speaker 2: of course these guys are coming from again Abrahamic traditions
Speaker 2: which relate back to Kabbalah. But you know the other
Speaker 2: thing is I can just read playing cards. I learned
Speaker 2: to do that as a kid too, Like if you
Speaker 2: give me a deck of playing cards, I can read them.
Speaker 2: And playing cards have a really strange relationship to the calendar,
Speaker 2: like fifty two cards fifty two weeks in a year.
Speaker 2: There's four suits, there's four seasons. There's this season of
Speaker 2: light and the season of dark. There's also day, which
Speaker 2: is the red suits at night. And you know, of
Speaker 2: course the suits relate to like hearts relates to emotions,
Speaker 2: and swords relates to thoughts, you know, just like in Terror,
Speaker 2: and then clubs and spades and so like it. You know,
Speaker 2: clubs is the spirit or clubs is no. Clubs is
Speaker 2: the worldly things like the pentacle, and then the the
Speaker 2: spirit is the is the spades.
Speaker 1: So I knew that stuff, but I didn't know that
Speaker 1: I never realized the fifty two weeks, the four seasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I feel like there's a lot too hard
Speaker 2: card culture, right, like cardomancy and card culture. And then
Speaker 2: you know, in my weird brain, like it really works
Speaker 2: for me like, I feel like I'm that's something I
Speaker 2: can do. And then I did a fundraiser. I don't
Speaker 2: do it for money ever, but I will go and
Speaker 2: do it as a volunteer to help raise money for
Speaker 2: nonprofits or something. And so I was at one raising
Speaker 2: money for my friend's nonprofit for like kid's art, and
Speaker 2: the lady who was supposed to read tea leaves didn't
Speaker 2: show up flake and so not doing you know, a
Speaker 2: service to the tea leaf reading community with that being
Speaker 2: But I was like, well, I guess I could.
Speaker 1: She was.
Speaker 2: My friend was like so upset, and she's like, maybe
Speaker 2: I got to learn how to google tea leaf read.
Speaker 2: I was like, okay, I can read tea leaves, you know,
Speaker 2: I know how to do it. And so I was
Speaker 2: doing it, but it wasn't. I was like, eh, I'm
Speaker 2: not that good at it. So I think it's just
Speaker 2: you know, for me, like focusing on a picture together
Speaker 2: with someone that that taps into my empathy, my empathic skills.
Speaker 2: And then I think other people have other ways of
Speaker 2: tapping into their empathic skills. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think even some of us have certain triggers where
Speaker 1: like you know, the card for you or he leaves
Speaker 1: to somebody else might actually trigger some like you start
Speaker 1: going into in depth float in the brain or something.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: How you know how to read taro cars. The first
Speaker 2: thing I say in my book is like, you could
Speaker 2: also put this book down and never pick it up
Speaker 2: again and just see what comes up for you when
Speaker 2: you look at this, you know, and it's almost like
Speaker 2: a rorshack, like you, it'll help you tap into whatever
Speaker 2: needs to surface. Right.
Speaker 1: Interesting, I like it. I like it. It's fun. What
Speaker 1: is one speller incantation in the book that you think
Speaker 1: reveals the most about human fear?
Speaker 2: Oh, human fear? Huh hmm. There's a ruin of the well.
Speaker 2: It's Scottish, it's originally was in Gaelic, and it's for
Speaker 2: protection during a nighttime walk to the well, the shelter
Speaker 2: of Mother Mary be nigh. Bless my hands and my
Speaker 2: feet to go out to the well and to bring
Speaker 2: me safely home. And to bring me safely home. May
Speaker 2: Warrior Michael aid me, May bridget calm, preserve me, May
Speaker 2: sweet Rihannic give me light, and marry pure be near me,
Speaker 2: and marry pure be near me. And I just remember that,
Speaker 2: like when I was a kid and I had to
Speaker 2: go out to the well or go out, and we
Speaker 2: had rabbits and we had to make sure the water
Speaker 2: wasn't frozen, and you know it's night and just that
Speaker 2: like profound fear like that that room calls in all
Speaker 2: the big name goddesses, you know, you know, there's.
Speaker 1: So many things I found about this interesting. First of all,
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of interesting that you hear like
Speaker 1: Michael Bridget, Mary, like they're actually incorporating like a couple
Speaker 1: of Well, I just find it interesting that you got
Speaker 1: Michael and Mary and then you bring in Bridget in
Speaker 1: like you know that wouldn't be accepted now, Like you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying if you're a religious person.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, part of that's the strategy of you know,
Speaker 2: Catholicism to come on, everybody, let's get on board the
Speaker 2: you know, Virgin of guadal Lupe Bridget. We can bring
Speaker 2: in the same Bridget. You know. Part of it too,
Speaker 2: is like why not call in your whole arsenal? Like
Speaker 2: you're growing up in kind of a colonized country, right,
Speaker 2: Although that I hate using that work because the meaning
Speaker 2: of it has shifted so much. Yes, so you're you're
Speaker 2: growing up in a country that's like where your indigenous
Speaker 2: culture is. You're not supposed to talk about it because
Speaker 2: that threatens the people who are in charge. But you
Speaker 2: still do, and it's like part and parcel for your
Speaker 2: daily life. Like I've heard things from my Irish grandma
Speaker 2: that I heard them as a kid and accepted them
Speaker 2: whole cloth, and then I find out later like, oh
Speaker 2: that that's actually that's like a really ancient Celtic druidy thing. Cool,
Speaker 2: you know, so the stuff like we we in our vernacular.
Speaker 2: So then when you're scared and you're about to go
Speaker 2: down to the well, why not call in everybody? You
Speaker 2: know that's a loose.
Speaker 1: I get that. Yeah, I just thought it was cool
Speaker 1: to see that done. I was like, oh wow, that's yea,
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that. And you know, something I even you
Speaker 1: think about from back in the day, and like I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about like you know, you know, hundreds of years
Speaker 1: ago and even as a child, like how if I
Speaker 1: was younger, how I experienced going outside, you know, than
Speaker 1: how I look at it now. And if you were
Speaker 1: to even think about like hundreds of years ago, we
Speaker 1: didn't have all this artificial light. So when they went outside.
Speaker 1: The only thing that was giving you any light was
Speaker 1: the moon, really, right, and it just had to be
Speaker 1: such a different really kind of a different world to people.
Speaker 1: I would even say, because of not having that artificial light,
Speaker 1: your body is going to actually your sensory in your
Speaker 1: nerves actually going to respond differently. So it's just it's
Speaker 1: very interesting when you think about like how night, even
Speaker 1: as a child for me, or even back then, could
Speaker 1: be actually considered something to be scared about technically in
Speaker 1: a sense like now it's just like, oh, it's a
Speaker 1: big deal if I was to walk out in my
Speaker 1: backyard and go grab something and come back. But thinking
Speaker 1: of as a child and then thinking of as a
Speaker 1: back then when it was there was you know, no
Speaker 1: artificial light, no artificial light.
Speaker 2: There might be marauders, right who could steal you. There
Speaker 2: might be animals coming to drink from the well, right,
Speaker 2: So but yeah, it's just the unknown. And so you know,
Speaker 2: we see like the Puritans come to the US and
Speaker 2: they immediately are sure that the forest is a devil's country, right,
Speaker 2: which is so different than how people felt, like the
Speaker 2: Gnostics we were talking about earlier, where it's like the
Speaker 2: wilderness good for you, spiritual you know. So there's this
Speaker 2: fearful consumption.
Speaker 1: That is funny because I remember as a kid as
Speaker 1: like the woods as being like a scary place to
Speaker 1: go at night or like you know, just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you don't know what's in there.
Speaker 2: I grew up like really in the middle of the woods,
Speaker 2: in like very rural and I remember the first time,
Speaker 2: like I made friends with some city folks and brought
Speaker 2: them back home, and you know, we were walking around
Speaker 2: at night and they were terrified.
Speaker 1: I mean, I thought it was spooky, so I went
Speaker 1: and checked out anyone. Like I remember elementary school. It
Speaker 1: was like so creepy. I was like, oh, we got
Speaker 1: to go in this. He went in there, oh you
Speaker 1: know so, but yeah, I can see how like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you bring city folk in there, like I ain't going
Speaker 1: in there probably lines or bears or something. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't want to step off the you know,
Speaker 2: the road. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 2: But I like that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's thought that was interesting to think about.
Speaker 1: That's that in that sense, like back then and even
Speaker 1: as a child. Yeah, it's definitely a different experience.
Speaker 2: When you're a child. You you I believe when I
Speaker 2: was a child. I'll speak for myself. When I was
Speaker 2: a child, I experienced the magic of the world so intensely.
Speaker 1: Right, that's really yeah, I think we normally did.
Speaker 2: I was pretty like on my own. I spent a
Speaker 2: lot of my childhood alone in the woods, like even
Speaker 2: you know, five six years old, walking aroundside. Part of
Speaker 2: that's just feral like nineteen eighties stuff, but like part
Speaker 2: of it's my cuckoo family. But I felt, I always say,
Speaker 2: like the trees saved me. Like I felt the presence
Speaker 2: of the forest in a very positive way. But sometimes
Speaker 2: I felt like really frightening things too.
Speaker 1: Oh I remember that growing up too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nice, what was it like? Like where what was that?
Speaker 1: Well, Like I was on Long Island, so it wasn't
Speaker 1: like the city of New York. But like, I just
Speaker 1: remember a lot as a child, Like I didn't have
Speaker 1: a brother until I was nine, so I mean there
Speaker 1: was a big difference between our age. So like there
Speaker 1: was a lot of things that like I would either
Speaker 1: do like kind of like in nature. Like again, like
Speaker 1: I even said, I had woods like next to my
Speaker 1: house sometimes I would go in there. My mom was
Speaker 1: really big, Like she had two different gardens in the yard.
Speaker 1: So I helped her. I found that stuff that I
Speaker 1: just thought it was cooler I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess I liked my mom, so I wanted to help her.
Speaker 1: But I have like a lot of memories of like
Speaker 1: just like dealing with like nature. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, help her garden, I had the woods. Then
Speaker 1: there was times where it's like I remember as a
Speaker 1: kid that I'd have memories where it's like I would
Speaker 1: just lay in the grace and stare at the sky
Speaker 1: and watch the clouds, and it's just like you're the shit.
Speaker 1: You didn't you just yeah, and you just looked at
Speaker 1: it with or in wonder and it's like you had
Speaker 1: no preconceived notions, but you just wondered, like what is this.
Speaker 1: I think that's like as a child, how it seems
Speaker 1: magical because you haven't been programmed enough yet to start
Speaker 1: making decisions, so you're just like, wow, I don't it
Speaker 1: just seems magical. You don't have a way to explain it,
Speaker 1: and you're open to it, I think, and it is.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is so beautiful. It's such a miracle.
Speaker 2: Like one of my best memories is just laying in
Speaker 2: the backyard, backyard and looking straight up. And I know
Speaker 2: my mom was probably happiest when she was in the garden.
Speaker 2: That those are my best memories of her, and so
Speaker 2: that's probably why I love plants. This is the other cat.
Speaker 2: I did not intentionally adopt two black cats. They both
Speaker 2: just showed up.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking. I was like, wasn't the other
Speaker 1: one black too?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, Actually when this lady showed up, she was
Speaker 2: the other one. And then I was like like, open
Speaker 2: the door.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, that's funny. Maybe she thought she'd dupious she
Speaker 1: saw the other one go in there, She's like, maybe
Speaker 1: I could.
Speaker 2: And she did, and then she said. My husband was like, okay, well,
Speaker 2: we're gonna have to take her somewhere, you know. And
Speaker 2: then I noticed him walking around the kitchen. He's carrying
Speaker 2: her while he's doing stuff, and I was like, we're
Speaker 2: keeping her.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah yeah. If he's already picking up
Speaker 1: the cat and being nice, do you know what. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good way to tell if the guy's going
Speaker 1: to keep the animal. That's pretty funny. Yeah.
Speaker 2: My son is now and he's turning My youngest is
Speaker 2: turning twelve, and he's he's got a PowerPoint presentation he's
Speaker 2: going to do to try and convince everyone that we
Speaker 2: need a dog. So I'm wondering how that's going.
Speaker 1: To go over. Yo, that is that is funny.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is great. I got like two more questions.
Speaker 1: Will you If someone today wants to approach ancient spells
Speaker 1: respectively without treating them like toys or aesthetic objects, where
Speaker 1: should they begin?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think just and I say this in
Speaker 2: the book too, it's like just to be reverent of words.
Speaker 2: You know, the way that we speak to each other,
Speaker 2: the way that we speak about our children, and the
Speaker 2: way we speak about the people we care about. The
Speaker 2: stories we tell ourselves have a massive effect on our
Speaker 2: mental health. And there was just this really big longitudinal
Speaker 2: study that came out two years ago. I think that
Speaker 2: they had like forty five thousand subjects where they, you know,
Speaker 2: really determined that being able to tell your story is
Speaker 2: incredibly beneficial to your mental health. So that means that
Speaker 2: when you pick up, you know, an incantation, it's something
Speaker 2: you're going to say and give your your power of
Speaker 2: your words to you know, you want to be reverent
Speaker 2: of that and be careful with it.
Speaker 1: I like that, I as well said no, especially when
Speaker 1: you're second personal and stuff too.
Speaker 2: You. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And finally, after writing ancient spells and incantations, do you
Speaker 1: believe the old words are dead history or are they
Speaker 1: still waiting for breath that they're still good?
Speaker 2: I think they're still alive. And I think I'm working
Speaker 2: on a new project right now I'm thinking about. This
Speaker 2: is going to sound weird, but like setting boundaries and
Speaker 2: like protecting yourself and like again reorienting the way you
Speaker 2: tell your own story to yourself and having that help you,
Speaker 2: you know, figure out your boundaries with others. And I've
Speaker 2: been going back to the stoics a lot, and I
Speaker 2: find the stoics to be really interesting. And I know
Speaker 2: they're kind of like they've been kind of appropriated by
Speaker 2: like the menosphere, but there's actually really deep feeling there,
Speaker 2: you know, because that's what they're talking about, is like
Speaker 2: how do I grapple with my feelings? And I found
Speaker 2: this one stoic who all his work is gone. His
Speaker 2: name is Hecatoau of Rhodes, and we have forty nine
Speaker 2: fragments I think it's forty seven or fort of stuff
Speaker 2: he said, and they exist in Seneca's work, and in
Speaker 2: other stoics who are like, let me tell you, like
Speaker 2: Seneca's writing has this pen pal and he's like a
Speaker 2: famous Stoic and he's writing to his pen pal and
Speaker 2: he's like, oh, and let me tell you this one
Speaker 2: cool thing that Hecato said to me one time and
Speaker 2: then he writes it out. My favorite is Hekato's says
Speaker 2: something I've done for that's changed me is I have
Speaker 2: become a friend to myself. And that's like the theme
Speaker 2: of this whole book. And because I read that fragment
Speaker 2: and you know, and then I went through and I
Speaker 2: translated all of Hakato's fragments into English, which hasn't been done,
Speaker 2: you know, and collected yet. And I was thinking about
Speaker 2: him because of the fire at the Alexandria Library, or
Speaker 2: the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, like many fires,
Speaker 2: much in a gle act, we lost like ninety percent
Speaker 2: of ancient knowledge. And this guy only exists in these fragments.
Speaker 2: And so what happens when we like wake him back
Speaker 2: up again, right, and we say, like, have you decided
Speaker 2: to befriend yourself? You know? Here he's back again.
Speaker 1: That is actually I mean that could be magic in
Speaker 1: itself right there, right, I actually say friends with yourself.
Speaker 2: One hundred percent, and that's from five hundred BC.
Speaker 1: Drop jewels back then.
Speaker 2: Like that then right right, my kids we're putting on
Speaker 2: the kids table. I'm like, oh my gosh, my kids
Speaker 2: are like what I'm like, this is thousands of years old.
Speaker 1: It's like, wow, yeah, that's stuff that you know. Content
Speaker 1: creator isn't basically kind of spitting out themselves now something
Speaker 1: along those line. It's true when you see old ideas
Speaker 1: like actually, uh kind of reshaped in history.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're gonna need it. The world is
Speaker 2: I'm sure everyone all through time is felt like the
Speaker 2: world was changing and moving really fast. But the world
Speaker 2: is changing and moving very fast.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it is. It is especially right now, even
Speaker 1: with technology and AI you know all that stuff. I'll
Speaker 1: see it firsthand because I use chat ept for some
Speaker 1: stuff and it's just what I've seen change in the
Speaker 1: last few months is actually wild.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, I really love it as a
Speaker 2: research Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh it's great for that. You could yeah you might.
Speaker 1: For me, I'll have to ask it five times to
Speaker 1: keep checking for this to see if there's any academia
Speaker 1: on it. It will keep pulling stuff. I mean I
Speaker 1: find it all at once. But yeah, it is great
Speaker 1: for academic studies and history and science.
Speaker 2: It is. And then it's also like really bad for
Speaker 2: you if you let it write for you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you have to go through that ship and
Speaker 1: yeah you have to.
Speaker 2: Rec every time like someone starts. It's like you can
Speaker 2: spot it immediately, and you know at some point you're
Speaker 2: gonna I knew this guy who's a great writer, and
Speaker 2: I loved his books, and he then got really into
Speaker 2: like Twitter when Twitter was Twitter, you know, and he
Speaker 2: was writing these like one hundred and seventy character tweets,
Speaker 2: like over and over and over again. And it changed
Speaker 2: his writing, right because that's he repeated that training for
Speaker 2: his brains. Yes, I love it for research. Don't love
Speaker 2: it for writing. My students seem like they have brain damage.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very weird. Yeah, it's a fine line. I
Speaker 1: think to walk with that thing where I think it
Speaker 1: could be very useful, and then you can also actually,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of be negative.
Speaker 2: I think the thing that I say about it is
Speaker 2: like I enjoy drinking chardonay, but I don't give it
Speaker 2: to my kids. So I feel like it's more for
Speaker 2: like a grown up not because that thing we were
Speaker 2: just talking about laying under the trees. We're building architecture
Speaker 2: in our minds that helps us to be able to
Speaker 2: discern all all kinds of things about life. And so
Speaker 2: if we remove those experiences from childhood, which we've kind
Speaker 2: of done, that is why we're seeing anxiety, a lack
Speaker 2: of resilience, and a lack of cognitive function.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well that's really it's really interesting. I like that.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: When that was even bringing me back to like a kid,
Speaker 1: I remember, like it's just funny. It's like and I
Speaker 1: wonder if, like if more people live this way, would
Speaker 1: they not like put it this way? Like as a child,
Speaker 1: I would climb We had an apple tree, so a
Speaker 1: lot of times I would climb the apple tree. And
Speaker 1: then there was even like another like a pine tree
Speaker 1: or something in front of the house too. Dad would
Speaker 1: get a lot of like either squirrels or birds and
Speaker 1: they're like nesting. So I would climb these things as
Speaker 1: the case, cause I wanted to go look at this stuff.
Speaker 1: And it's like, you know, there was the fear of
Speaker 1: like falling and hurting yourself or even kind of slightly
Speaker 1: maybe thinking oh I could die if I fell from there.
Speaker 1: And it's just like I wonder if if more people
Speaker 1: did stuff like that when they were younger, would they
Speaker 1: not be so scared or I don't know, like would
Speaker 1: you end up different when you get older, like different
Speaker 1: things or a fear instead of stuff that is silly.
Speaker 2: Or just being used to doing stuff that you're scared
Speaker 2: of doing. So, like this semester, I have a class
Speaker 2: of fifty four students. They're mostly science majors, and I
Speaker 2: decided to experiment on them, and so I wrote a
Speaker 2: class where like every week, every other week, they would
Speaker 2: spend three hours outside unstructured and have to make something
Speaker 2: from stuff they found in nature around the camp. So
Speaker 2: like basically I'm making them make forts, right, And I
Speaker 2: did sort of a like an assessment before and after,
Speaker 2: and they found that there they became more resilient with
Speaker 2: being outside, which had been hard for them. They became
Speaker 2: more resilient with open ended prompts because the first day
Speaker 2: I said go make something, and they were like, but.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do specific right, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like, no, just.
Speaker 2: Figure it out, Like you got to figure it out
Speaker 2: like go ahead, and and then they also became their
Speaker 2: fine motor skills, improved their hands, like physically got stronger.
Speaker 2: Because I'm seeing kids now were like colle students. I'm
Speaker 2: teaching them how to remove perforated edges from paper that
Speaker 2: I tear out of a art pad, or you know,
Speaker 2: I'm teaching them to make a pinch pot, and they
Speaker 2: don't have the fine motor skills or hand strength to
Speaker 2: manipulate clay. So this is I wanted to see if
Speaker 2: I could affect this architecture because they're still we still
Speaker 2: we all have the capacity to grow right and build.
Speaker 2: So it worked.
Speaker 1: That is awesome. That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: It was pretty cool. Like I was like, oh hooray.
Speaker 1: Nice.
Speaker 2: It was like after last semester because last Mauster, I
Speaker 2: was like, oh my god, what's wrong with these people?
Speaker 2: But it was the last semester was my first group
Speaker 2: of iPad native kids or tablet native like kids who
Speaker 2: grew up with tablets and iPads and you could eat.
Speaker 2: The drop off was profound.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so just you know that thing where our
Speaker 2: parents would lock us out from after breakfast till the
Speaker 2: lights came on. It probably helped us.
Speaker 1: I remember, like me and my friends that could keep
Speaker 1: going off. But like like me and my friends we
Speaker 1: had like you know, a lot of woods by us
Speaker 1: out on Long Island, and like it was like this
Speaker 1: this reg like bike jump that we made that was
Speaker 1: like the ramp was almost going like ninety degrees. It
Speaker 1: was just like you're just shooting yourself straight up in
Speaker 1: the air. So many of us bent our bike rims
Speaker 1: jumping this thing, cause you'd go up so high by
Speaker 1: the time you came down you'd bend at tire. But
Speaker 1: like and I'm like, we would do that then like
Speaker 1: again zero Fox been like oh, let's dring out whatever.
Speaker 1: My father would be like how many how many rims
Speaker 1: are you gonna bend doing this? You know?
Speaker 2: And it hacked arc model.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like now I'd be like, holy shit, no way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. We just I just went back to my hometown
Speaker 2: for the first time in like thirty years. I took
Speaker 2: my family and there's this like you know, like we
Speaker 2: went down into the woods and there's this like creek
Speaker 2: and then there's this bridge and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: me and my friends built this, and they were.
Speaker 1: Like what I was like, yeah, you mean the town
Speaker 1: didn't supply that because.
Speaker 2: We wanted we wanted to do with y'all to go
Speaker 2: down the huge hill like and then round the corner
Speaker 2: and then like Caddie style on our skateboards. So we
Speaker 2: wanted to sit like two skateboards because then you're extra heavy,
Speaker 2: so you get more distance and like sit opposite, hold
Speaker 2: on and then go and then down and then go
Speaker 2: down into the woods and across the bridge and up
Speaker 2: the side. That was the goal. So we spent a
Speaker 2: whole summer building this bridge with like stuff we stole
Speaker 2: from construction sites and and it's still.
Speaker 1: That is hilarious. That is great. Though you left the mark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, I can't believe this thing is
Speaker 2: still here. And then I started walking out on it.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know about that, kid, But
Speaker 1: you left play memories for other people though, who did
Speaker 1: use it. Ifty that's cool.
Speaker 2: It's wild about just like catching air on a skateboard,
Speaker 2: you know, like Loki evil style.
Speaker 1: It's just like yo, yeah, I just yeah, we're we're
Speaker 1: definitely more wild than I think, reckless and less fear
Speaker 1: of growing up and I.
Speaker 2: Mean maysually there's like a happy medium.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, right, that's you know, totally true. Let's
Speaker 1: find a happy medium from now until then and they'll
Speaker 1: probably be fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like it. I like it. This is really awesome.
Speaker 1: I had a really good time with you. I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. Yeah, of course, of course, and I your.
Speaker 2: Listeners should know that, like you made this happen, like
Speaker 2: I you know, there was like cross wires with getting
Speaker 2: me on and you didn't give up. And I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, for sure, for sure, I see Like
Speaker 1: like I said, as soon as I saw you on
Speaker 1: social media, I was like, oh, I just got to
Speaker 1: asking myself because again I looked at the book and
Speaker 1: I you know, looked through it understood what was going on,
Speaker 1: and they looked at the illustrations and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this book is good. I really like it. I highly
Speaker 1: suggest this book, especially for the art itself. I think
Speaker 1: it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: And I'm a ding dong, I like, don't check the
Speaker 2: Instagram messages that are here. I'm sorry a hundred so
Speaker 2: it took me away. But yeah, it's just like when
Speaker 2: I saw this podcast, I was like, oh, this guy
Speaker 2: is so cool. I really want to go on.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you did I'm glad. I definitely and tell
Speaker 1: you the truth, I would really I to get you
Speaker 1: out in the future, probably maybe even the Taro or
Speaker 1: that of the book you wrote, So definitely keep in
Speaker 1: talking to me time.
Speaker 2: I'll just come hang out with you. I can just
Speaker 2: regular skateboarding and.
Speaker 1: Sounds good. Yeah, I love it. Awesome, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: And let let everybody know about your book and where
Speaker 1: they can find it. You know all this and that.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is ancient spells and incantations. It just
Speaker 2: came out in April. This guy came out in July.
Speaker 2: I'm really interested. I'm having a good run. And then
Speaker 2: last year in October was when the Tarot Carts book
Speaker 2: came out. And you can get them all anywhere books
Speaker 2: are sold, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble and bookshop
Speaker 2: dot org. If you want to support your local store
Speaker 2: without leaving your house, they would be in your local
Speaker 2: store too, and if not, ask for them. But thank you.
Speaker 2: And then if you want to get in touch with me,
Speaker 2: I have a website. It's my first name, you need
Speaker 2: my last name, Rice ryc dot com and it's real
Speaker 2: easy to find all my contacts and stuff there.
Speaker 1: Awesome great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I had a great talk. I thought this was a
Speaker 1: blast and definitely looking forward to getting you back on,
Speaker 1: especially again for that planned stuff in the tower. I
Speaker 1: would really be interested in picking.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hopefully get more people on too, it'll be a
Speaker 1: little bit more fun. But yeah, again, this was awesome,
Speaker 1: even just the two of us. I had a great time.
Speaker 1: I had a great conversation. And that is the end
Speaker 1: of another Recult Rejects and until the next one, everybody
Speaker 1: be well later