Smells Like Humans
Top 5% global podcast! Smells Like Humans is a seasonal podcast dedicated to bringing a humorous perspective to quirky and curious aspects of human behavior. Each show, the SLH crew will focus on a different topic, and share personal stories and observations in a way that sounds like you’re hanging out with your funny friends. The stories and commentary are presented with humor and warmth, since let’s face it: we all smell like humans. (Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com)
Smells Like Humans
BONUS EPISODE! WE TALK ABOUT WITCHES!
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Caitlin, a self-described "witch enthusiast" joins Ross to discuss witches and witchcraft and many related topics. Tangents include: Ursula the Sea Witch; Wizard of Oz trivia and mayhem; the myth of the hanging munchkin; manosphere; intention as ritual; creepy London; Peter and the Wolf; the trials and tribulations of Margaret Hamilton; intentional bath time; kitchen cleansing gone wrong; unusual "nests".
Notes:
- Super cool podcast on witches: https://open.spotify.com/show/5G8G4pBD93IqpZgRj2p1MN
- https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/22/witchcraft-a-history-in-thirteen-trials-marion-gibson-book-review
Contact us: contactSLH19581980@gmail.com
Hey, this is Ross from Smells Like Humans. I found this interview that I did with my friend Caitlin just languishing in the attic. I talked to her about witches and witchcraft, and it's an interesting episode. So you could have a bonus episode to listen to, even though this is technically not the beginning of a new season. In fact, if you would like us to continue, we are in that stage where we're thinking, like, do we keep going? Do we do a season four? What do we do with our lives? So hearing from you right now would be really helpful. The email is in the show notes. You can reach out that way. Or you can find us on Instagram and message us there. If you really want us to keep going, we need to hear you. We need to hear your thoughts. We need to hear your encouragement. In the meantime, enjoy this episode on Witches with my friend Caitlin.
SPEAKER_02You liked knowing that there was an actor who was killed by rope.
SPEAKER_00A munchkin actor.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. And was hanging in the background of shots. And you liked it because you wanted your children to look for them.
unknownTo look for it.
SPEAKER_01To be shame if they could find them. Welcome to another episode of Smells Like Humans. This is the podcast where we explore the curious things that people do, the very human things that grab our attention and cause us to wonder what and why. I'm Ross, your host, and my guest today is an amazingly talented human who, if they were a rare stamp, they'd be an inverted Jenny featuring an image of an upside-down Curtis Jenny biplane surrounded by a red frame. It's Caitlin. Heyo! Welcome to the show. Ever been called a Curtis Jenny before? Never. Well, you should be. Now we know that many of us are familiar with the fairy tale or the Hollywood notion of a witch. The pointy hat, the broom, the cackling, the ugly face, often doing bad things, evil in the world. But most of us really aren't aware of the real story of witches in the past and in the present. And most of us are not aware that more and more people are deciding to be witches or practice magic spells and many related activities. And I recently shared with you, Caitlin, that I listened to a very interesting podcast called Witch, released in conjunction with the BBC. And I'll include a link to the podcast in the show notes so you can check it out. I highly recommend people listen to it if you are like me and didn't really ever investigate all things witch, or even if you know a lot about witches, or maybe you are a witch, but you like to hear more, it's pretty cool. I recommend it. And I've been on a journey. I've been on a journey to witch land. I have learned so much that I didn't know. Learning about the history of witches, both in this country and in other countries, is an interesting way to explore your own feelings about women's equality and oppression. I just never thought of it that way before, but you can't do an investigation of witches in the world without investigating how you feel about oppression of women.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And it also informs your assessment of where we are today in terms of creating a world of equality for women and by extension other historically oppressed groups. And I'm not saying that you I'm not prescribing you to get to a certain place on this issue. But what's interesting about exploring witches is that you do think about it. You do think about the role of women in particular across the centuries and how women have been oppressed. When you think back to your favorite witch from literature or film, which do you have one that you say, oh man, I really like the witch, even if it was not an accurate portrayal, just one that you enjoyed in a movie or a book you read or a fairy tale. Anything pop out?
SPEAKER_02First of all, I just want to position myself as uh a witch enthusiast, or perhaps witch curious.
SPEAKER_01You're witch curious. I'm witch curious. That is so great. I wonder if we invented that. When I say we, I mean you.
SPEAKER_02No way. I mean there's curious. There's for sure an intersection between queer values and narratives and witchery. And so bi curious, witch curious, I do identify as bi and as a member of the queer community. So there's something beautiful to me about embracing my witch curiosity. Uh, I I don't profess to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination at all, but I am excited to be curious with you.
SPEAKER_01I like that about witchcraft. I'm also witch curious, I'm very curious about it. And I've this podcast really got the juices flowing. Yeah. Did you have like an encounter with like a literature witch or a movie witch or when you were little or some some encounter?
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01What can you tell me about that?
SPEAKER_02Ursula, the sea witch.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, Ursula. Yes. Yeah. You know, Disney was pretty good with coming up with those evil characters.
SPEAKER_02There were a lot of evil witches in the early Disney.
SPEAKER_01Now, Ursula, that was in Little Mermaid. Was it called The Little Mermaid or The Littlest Mermaid?
SPEAKER_02The Little Mermaid.
SPEAKER_01The Little Mermaid.
SPEAKER_02And they've just done a remake of it, which I haven't seen yet, actually, and I really need to.
SPEAKER_01I have not seen it. I did see the original Little Mermaid. Yeah. Um, but the new one I have not seen. Yeah, yeah. And so what was Ursula scary? That you were you fascinated with her power?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the story's from my parents. So I'm watching Little Mermaid, and I'm like three or four. And uh I was fast first of all, I was fascinated with the movie and would demand to watch it over and over and over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_01Yes, kids do that.
SPEAKER_02Yes. However, whenever Ursula emerged, I was behind the couch.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If I remember correctly, she at the end morphs into this horrifying monster.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Like she gets really big, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean she's very bad enough, and Disney's kind of like, how can we really mess up these kids?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_01Like we want to penetrate their dreams forever. Yeah. Let's make her in 500 feet tall and really super scary, and her voice got super like more monster scary, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So what did you make of that as a kid? Did it freak you out?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, I just remember like loving every other part of the movie and memorizing all of the songs and singing along. Uh, but the moment she emerged, it's like, nope, I'm behind the couch. Uh, and you know, sort of peeking over and is it is she gone? She left yet. Um, and I I to this day I have an incredibly vivid imagination. And so um I feel like those images, I don't really have memories of this, but I definitely I would have been having nightmares for sure. Yeah. Like those images would have stayed with me.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. I think that's probably true for a lot of people, especially with those Disney cartoons, because even going back to I can't remember now, but was it Fantasia where they had sort of a another like they were good at creating these dark, scary, evil characters. Even and even though they were cartoons, they were just magnificently disturbing.
SPEAKER_02Well, of course, the stories, most of the those stories are based on actual fairy tales and like Grimm's fairy tales or or Anders. I think The Little Mermaid is from Anderson.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02And Grimm's uh children's like those fairy tales are even darker often.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, they're than the ones that are Yeah, yeah, because they're really the original versions are very dark.
SPEAKER_02They are very much representative of like the you know, the culture at the time and the lessons they were trying to imbue the folklore.
SPEAKER_01Like this is how you teach your kids to be be careful is to scare the living crap out of them.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Beware strong, powerful women.
SPEAKER_01Yes. I was just reminded that one of the things I used to do, again, you have to imagine a time where there were no choices to do anything entertainment-wise. There was nothing. Sometimes you would just sit in a pile of dust. I used to listen to a record, a recording of Peter and the Wolf.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, where the instruments are all the different animals. Oh yes, and it would always uh they played some really scary music for the wolf. Okay, and uh I would listen to that over and over again, and it's just the music, but yeah, and the instrumentation, there's no there's narration, but it's very a very light touch, yeah. And so it's all in your imagination based on you know who all the instruments represent because they teach you that, and then now when you hear it in the story as it goes on, it's just all in your imagination, and it's pretty frightening. But I would listen to that over and over again, yeah. But anyway, the first witch I was actually afraid of, but this will not be a surprise, is one of uh The Wicked Witch and The Wizard of Oz. Oh, yes, and that movie. Did you ever see that movie? I did, yeah. So they did some really cool close-ups of the witch, yes, and she would cackle and threaten, and she was scary too because I was a little kid when I saw that. I was like, whoa, that's Margaret Hamilton who played that part. Yeah, she freaked me out.
SPEAKER_02That makeup they used, it was a whole it was it was green because there was copper in the makeup. Oh man, and it left her with like second and third degree burns.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'll tell you why. It wasn't just the copper, it was that scene where she disappears from Munchkin Land in a cloud of smoke. Oh, that's right. She's supposed to go down an elevator and then that's supposed to flash.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01The special effect was an actual flash. Oh, and the elevator didn't take her down fast enough. So she got second and third degree burns because of the flash combined with the copper makeup. And so as a result, she refused to do a scene. If you remember the Surrender Dorothy scene, where there's like the the witch is riding a broom and she's spelling out surrender Dorothy, and there's like smoke. Well, that was actual, that was an actual human being on that thing, and it was an actual like like hot pipe making that smoke underneath this little bicycle thing that she was on. She refused to do that. She's like, forget it. Yeah. I've been in a hospital for three weeks because of the other stupid thing that didn't work. You're hell, you're not getting me to sit on a hot pipe for this goofy ass scene, you're probably gonna cut anyway. So they get a stunt double to do that scene, and she was injured and burned.
SPEAKER_03Oh boy.
SPEAKER_01There was a lot of harassment on the set. Judy Garland says she was harassed. There are stories about that.
SPEAKER_03100%.
SPEAKER_01The uh Margaret Hamilton was, you know, there were injuries. The there's stories about the actors who played the munchkin people were a little unruly, they were a little wild, they would come show up drunk, they were not always the coolest people on the set.
SPEAKER_02They also didn't they make Judy Garland. Judy Garland was on a diet of like cigarettes and pet pills.
SPEAKER_01They had her on uppers. They had her on uppers. Yeah, that's right. They wanted her to be thinner, yeah. They didn't want her to look she was 16 and they wanted her to look like 12.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so, and there were constant harassment about that that she had the face. I always heard that an actor playing a munchkin, not a munchkin actor.
unknownNot a munchkin actor.
SPEAKER_01Not a munchkin actor, but an actor playing a munchkin. Yes, died during the making of the movie. And oh my god. And I'm laughing just because I what I'm about to say, which is they somehow fell and got tangled up in uh some rope and were in a there's a scene where they're shown like hanging in the distance, like they're dead, hanging, their bodies swaying. And this was like an urban myth for a long time. What? And one that I told to my kids, and when I had them watching this movie, I say, watch out, look for the hanging munchkin. But they never found him. Okay. But I liked it, and I liked it as something I could tell little kids to look for.
SPEAKER_02Sorry, I just need to repeat that back to you, Russ. You liked knowing that there was an actor who was killed by rope.
SPEAKER_00A munchkin actor.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. And was hanging in the background of shots. And you liked it because you wanted your children to look for them.
SPEAKER_01To look for it.
SPEAKER_02To be safe if they could find them. Oh my.
SPEAKER_01So about this whole munchkin thing, again, there it's not clear whether you know the myth says either it was an accident or suicide, but there's this munchkin hanging in this one scene.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01And it was rumored that maybe it was just an accident on the set, or maybe the person did it uh on purpose. But it turns out, so this rumor got started in the late 80s when they re-released the Wizard of Oz on tape or something, and it and it was enhanced in some way. And so this kind of urban myth got started about the hanging munchkin, and I was fascinated by it. I mean, it was exactly it was just what this is exactly what gets me going, is this kind of story. They explained it by saying, No, it's not a person hanging in the scene, it's a bird.
SPEAKER_02Oh.
SPEAKER_01It's an emu or a crane. When they they they got a bunch of exotic birds from the Los Angeles zoo to walk around the set.
SPEAKER_02It's an emu or it's a crane?
SPEAKER_01It's an emu or a crane in the distance that you're seeing, not a hanging munchkin at all.
SPEAKER_02Emu, like the flightless bird?
SPEAKER_01Yep.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, I've seen it, you know, and it's like there it's a bird. It's just a bird. It's off in the distance. It's not somebody hanging by a rope. It's an emu. So, you know, it was fascinating to me because that sounds like a cover story.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it sure does.
SPEAKER_01And one of those kids, by the way, one of the things that they love doing is they loved, they had a big, they got a giant, big, giant witch's hat. So they're like two feet tall, and the hat's three feet tall. Of course. It's big. Yeah. And they had a little broom, and they would make me recreate the scene right before the wicked witch first appears in Munchkin Land.
SPEAKER_04Oh.
SPEAKER_01Over and over and over. And I sing the little song. Wow. I change the words because they like da-da-da-da-da-do, munchkin land. They're all happy. La la. And I would say, nothing bad will ever happen. And then they would make their appearance as the witch, and then then I would play all the parts of people being alarmed and screaming. And we would do that. You know how kids just like to repeat over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_02And over. That's very sweet.
SPEAKER_01So, what would you say has brought your attention to witchcraft or what's made you witch curious?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, about two years ago, uh, I was, you know, I was in London, and so I was um very far away from my family. And as the holidays were coming nearer, I was just looking for more opportunities to like celebrate. And particularly I was getting drawn to like, how can I celebrate the actual changing of the seasons?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I started doing more research to understand the holidays behind the holidays. So pe the pagan holidays, particularly.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and I was also in London, in England, and I am a bit English in my ancestry, and so I was having a curiosity for rituals and um celebrations which actually have to do with my um ancestral lineage. Right. So I started looking up uh pagan celebrations and made my way to this YouTube channel, um, which if it's okay to shout her out. Sure. Um, this her channel is called The Witch's Cookery, and it's this wonderful German woman who gives really detailed background on the um history and folklore behind pagan holidays. And then, like the thing that really got me into witchcraft in those videos is she described witchcraft as a celebration of magic in the mundane.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I was like, That's nice. Oh, that makes so much sense to me. Right. And was really talking about it being a practice of intentionality, a practice of mindfulness. Yes. And I already have a long history of mindfulness. So to me, pairing like my sort of five-year-old childhood joy of like magic and thinking about, you know, witches and magic in the world with um like and and infusing that into mundane things like cleaning the kitchen or wiping off the counters. That was, I was like, that's so joyful. Like I, and so I started doing things like, oh, I can think about the process of cleaning up my kitchen at the end of the night as a process of, you know, letting go of the energy of the day, whatever had happened in the kitchen that day, and resetting it for the next.
SPEAKER_01That's such a great example because that's one of the things that I feel like I've learned recently that has really sort of changed the way I think about what a witch is. You know, this basic idea of this ritual process or this process of bringing intention into your life and using it as a way to manifest change in yourself, uh, change in your environment, connection to your the natural environment that you're in. And it's and it's I never really thought about that as what part of what being a witch means or practicing witchcraft or whatever, that it's so familiar and so similar to so many other ritualized practices, yeah, whatever we call them, whether it's meditation or whether it's uh a formalized religion or something else, it's it's a pretty it's a pretty common practice that all of us do in some way, but this is just a very focused and intentional way. And then there's all these self-help books about hey, if you want your life to be different, first you have to have some intention in your life, you have to think about what you actually want, you have to really make it actionable, and then that is what's gonna change your life. It's not just wishing things are better. That's right, and so I mean, that's people wouldn't call that witchcraft, they would call it something else, right? But the so there's so much overlap. That's what was exciting to me is the overlap between witchcraft and other sort of mindfulness, you know, using your thought process and your specific intention to make changes in your life. First, you got to see it, see what it is, right, be able to say it in a sentence, yeah. So that you say, you know, I want to do X and and Y, and then you have to start doing it to make it happen. Right. And so it just felt very familiar to me, and it just sort of like a light switch went went off about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that's cool. And so then you so you became curious, you were in London, which is kind of a scary place anyway. It's just frightening to be there. It can be, yeah, you know, yeah they still do Jack the Ripper tours there.
SPEAKER_02They do.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, and so uh you know, people there, they're they they you know, uh it's it's a creepy place, basically. London is a creepy place. I think we're rebranding London, the creepy place, it's a creepy place, but it's a cool place to be on this journey. And so what kinds of things did you discover?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I started, so I just there were a couple different things I started playing with. I made um a kitchen cleaning agent from vinegar and oranges and orange peels.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And um, and there was an intentionality infused process to this. So I I bought the ingredients and I had a spray bottle. And as I was um peeling the oranges and cutting the oranges, I was thinking about the kind of energy that I want this cleaning agent to be bringing into um the place where we make our meals. And in particular, at the time, um, I was quite tired, right, from uh graduate school. So I really wanted something that felt very refreshing. So I was really using this word refresh or renew and thinking about kind of the power that that word holds for me. Yeah. Um, I stuck them all in a jar and I waited for two weeks and I was so excited, Ross. I was like, oh my gosh, I've made this. I mean, I've literally made like a magic potion. Of sorts. And I made like a little sign around it that had the words like refresh, renew on it. And I like decorate it and everything. And I couldn't wait for that two-week mark. This was based on a on an internet recipe that I had come across for like creating this thing.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02Like literally on the day, like two weeks of the day, I like woke up and was like, oh my gosh, it's today. It's today. Like we get to, you know, take out the orange peels and like put it into the spray bottle and I can actually use it. So I put it in the spray bottle and was so excited to like clean my kitchen that night and to have this beautiful citrusy scent, like invoking the energy of refreshing, renewing my perspective on things. And I went and I started to spray and it just smelled like vinegar with a hint of orange. And it was oh, it was just so disappointing.
SPEAKER_01It was different than what you expected.
SPEAKER_02It was different. I was like, I don't want my kitchen to smell like vinegar, you know.
SPEAKER_01And this place stinks. Right. It was just but may may I suggest though that that wasn't really the most important thing. Because in those in that two-week period, you manifested a certain amount of excitement and joy in your life.
SPEAKER_00I did.
SPEAKER_01And expectation. And that was impactful, I'm guessing, for you in those moments. And it was the outcome wasn't what you intended or wanted.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But you took yourself on an experience. Yeah. A magical, uh kind of a quasi-magical journey, right? Yeah. In your mind.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And that I would suggest that was maybe the real gift of it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02That was the real thing. I think that was the magic at work.
SPEAKER_01And people, you know, uh uh people have magic in their lives all the time. We, you know, we sometimes like to pretend we're rational beings in a scientific world, but we're we surround ourselves with magical things and magical thoughts. If you have a bag of some props of some kind, I don't know what they are, but I want you to show me what you've got there in your witchcraft bag.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I brought some props.
SPEAKER_01She's got a Mary Poppins bag, it's a cloth bag, and she's gonna pull out a lamp.
SPEAKER_02I'm trying to decide which one I should do first. I'm gonna do this one first.
SPEAKER_01Okay, whoa, a crystal? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So I so crystal-related witchcraft. Not really my thing. I I have I've read a teeny tiny bit about it, and I personally don't feel particularly connected to rocks in this particular way. And it can be super problematic because often crystals are mined in not kind or ethical ways.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02But this particular crystal was gifted to me by a friend of mine before we left for London. Oh, and she is someone who believes in crystal-related magic.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And she put it in my palm, and I'm gonna show you and sort of describe it to the listeners, but she put it in my palm, in the center of my palm, and then placed her fingers over mine and said to me, and I'll never forget this, she said to me, This is for protection to protect you on your journey to London.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_02And I just thought that was such an incredibly powerful gift.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And so it sat in our London flat. And this is to me a great example of how magic works in the world and not the ways that maybe we think. Like it sat in my apartment, and even though I don't particularly believe in like the magic of a crystal or a rock, every time I saw it, I thought about her and I thought about the fact that there's someone in the world who wishes me to be protected and safe.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02And I and it and we did arrive safely. And I just think you know that's quite beautiful. And so I, you know, we also packed it up when we left. And I and then as we were leaving, I thought, it's so nice. We also have this protection spell for our return journey as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that I think that's a really good example of one aspect of witchcraft is that again, you're bringing intention to a natural object and it has meaning to you. Um, it it continues to resonate that meaning, right? And it changes you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because it's changing, because I would even say that when someone says, I'm giving this to you as uh to wish you a safe journey and for you to be protected, then as you see encounter this in your life, you notice it on a shelf or wherever you keep it, then that message comes through and maybe it changes your behavior in that moment or that day or some choices you make, and maybe you're aware of it, maybe you're not. Yeah, but you're thinking like, hey, I'm on a protected journey.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And again, some people say, Well, that's not magic. And when I was listening to this podcast, some of the witches were saying, Yeah, you don't have to believe that you're doing magic if you're doing this kind of thing, but it is manifesting change in your life by having these intentions. Yes. I also read that there are people who you know make a lot of money selling these crystals online, and the important thing about that for me that I encountered the idea was you don't need to buy things to be a witch or to experience what it means to be a witch or to look at magic in your life. You don't have to take classes. There's you know, things that you have to learn and you know be um study or be educated about, but it's not necessarily a country club you're joining. You don't have to have a lot of money. This it's I feel like it's very democratic. Yes, you anyone in the sense that it's available to anyone, yes, and you don't have to have a lot of money to do it, and so and but so I like the story about this crystal because you didn't go out online and buy it from Amazon, someone gave it to you with a very specific intention, and that and maybe someday you'll give it to somebody else, yeah. Yeah with that same intention or a different one, and won't that be cool?
SPEAKER_02Oh, I think it'd be great.
SPEAKER_01Okay, what else you got for?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Now she's reaching into this giant cloth bag and she's pulling out a book. Yes. The book is entitled Moon Bath, Bathing Rituals, Recipes for Relaxation and Vitality by two people who I think their names are Dakota Hills, which has got to be one of the greatest top ten names of all time. And Sierra Brashir. Is that the how she says her name?
SPEAKER_02I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01How would you say that?
SPEAKER_02Brashir seems right. Where I have been infusing magic in my life most often is through taking baths. Um I was taking baths before I got interested in witchcraft, but um well, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, like taking a bath was one of the ways I could survive the Portland winter where it gets very, very dark. Yeah, that's an interesting time.
SPEAKER_01I'm not a big bath taker, but when I do take them, I realize, oh, this is why people take them.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. It can be really nice. Um, so when again, when I was in London, I came across this book in this little store that I just my heart just loves this store. It was so beautiful. And I this was this was a book, like, I don't know if this has ever happened to you, dear listener, but have you ever like walked by something multiple times and talked yourself out of buying it? And it just happens again and again and again. And like, but it just keeps coming back in your life. And so eventually I kind of got to this point where I was like, Book, you keep talking to me.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02You keep making yourself known. So I feel like I now need to do you the honor of bringing you into my life and hearing what you have to say. And um, so I I bought this book to supplement kind of the baths that I was taking, and it's really lovely. Basically, it tracks it it provides these recipes for baths that you can do based on the moon cycles.
SPEAKER_00Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_02So if you have like a full moon in the fall, it'll recommend particular like essential oils and other ingredients to infuse into your bath. Um now, you were talking about witchcraft being democratic and you don't need to buy things. I can't afford all the ingredients that are listed in this book. In fact, I I would say I can't afford most of them. Right. But what I like about the book is there's a little write-up at the beginning of each page that's like this time of year is a good year to be is a good time to be thinking about abundance, areas in your life in which you feel abundant or feel like you would like to invite more abundance. So it gives you these little prompts for the intentionality we were talking about.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02So that's what I've enjoyed the most about it. And um cool, I have encouraged my friends to cast their own spells over their own bath and to think about like your bath or your shower and your connection to water in that moment as a moment for you to um connect to your intentionality for the day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, that is that's such a cool idea, and it's a this whole connection to nature uh as a fundamental part of your existence, and how we have been so disconnected from nature in so many ways that we we don't ritualize this very fundamental practice of being in water, yeah. Which which is couldn't be more fundamental to the human experience since we emerged from water a few million years ago, right? As whatever the our precursors were some kind of scuttlefish or something, whatever we were. Yeah, but we started just emerged from water, right? We're water people, we are.
SPEAKER_02We are what is it, 70%?
SPEAKER_01We are we're a lot of water.
SPEAKER_02We're we're made of water and we run around, oh it's raining, I can't go outside.
SPEAKER_01Not here in Portland. We were always outside here in Portland. We're soaked. Um but anyway, that's really cool. So that's called moon bath. Yeah, and so people can check that out and you can ritualize your bathing experience, connect it to the cycles of the moon. And how does uh having done this in your own fashion, that has it made any changes in the experience of bathing or your after experience, or does it bring something into your life that wasn't there?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I feel um, I feel that particularly one of the most um profound things that it's done is uh I I now will like so I'll like go into the bathroom and get ready for the bath. And if if the day's been particularly busy, there's a lot on my mind, I'll often bring in like my phone or my laptop or something, like okay, I'm gonna like turn on a show while I'm in the bath or I'm gonna listen to a podcast or something. Right. But if I do that ritual before I go into the bath, like this bath is for my rest or it's for my restoration. I'm noticing a lot of R words. I use a lot of R related witchcraft. Interesting. Uh, if I do that ritual, which like in practicality is me, you know, um taking a handful of usually Epsom salt and just sprinkling it into the bath and thinking in my mind, this bath is for restoration. That's it. It's like very simple. Then I step into the bath. 95% of the time, I don't turn on that podcast. I don't open my laptop. I literally just lay and am there, breathing and present.
SPEAKER_01And that is what's missing in a lot of our lives right now. I remember uh one time you suggested to me um when we were in actor space, you said, you know, before you start this rehearsal, think about the intention of what you want today, what you want to manifest in rehearsal. And that I've carried that lesson with me into anything I do on stage. Wow, did I say that? Yeah, it makes such a difference to like, and I actually have used it in other performance-related activities that aren't acting, just things where I'm gonna be forming something, performing something, whether it's music or something else. It's like what what is my intention for today? And make it a very concrete thing. And sometimes just something like I just want to be present, yeah, you know, in the moment and and not just in my head the whole time. I really want to be around, you know, be be there for other people.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01But it's so powerful. It is, and it's a again, it's it's a it it kind of in some for some people, I think if you call that magic, people are either disappointed or they think it's too woo-woo. So don't call it that. But it's just like bringing intention into your life, whether it's taking a bath or performing on stage or going to work, riding the subway, digging a ditch for some flowers. You don't dig ditches for flowers, that would make no sense. Why do we need a ditch? You plant a flower, not in a ditch.
SPEAKER_02How deep are those roots? I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's weird. Yeah, that's weird thing. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So, okay, anything else?
SPEAKER_02Those are my props.
SPEAKER_01Oh, there were only two props. There's only two props. I thought there might be more props.
SPEAKER_02Sorry. Yeah. I am the third prop.
SPEAKER_01That is your book title. That's your book title. I am the third prop. Interesting when I think about the history of women, uh, the history of witches being a sort of a story of how women have been systematically oppressed over the centuries because they've been outspoken or they've been different or they have been forced out of the commercial marketplace. Uh, however, whatever, what I didn't really realize, so fast forward to now, I was listening to a completely different podcast a few months ago, and it wasn't about the so-called Manosphere, which is a collection of online mostly men who um do not like women, do not like or resist feminism, who are misogynistic, who sometimes uh celebrate violence against women. I don't know if you know about this manosphere. I don't. So I hadn't heard about it, and it was part of a podcast about something else, but they had to kind of venture into the manosphere and explain what it was because one of the principles in the story was connected in some way. And it was so disturbing. And I remember thinking, like, I can't, I've always known there are there's a few isolated pockets of people who just don't like women and they have issues, whatever. And I just kind of wrote it off. But then I realized how how expansive this manosphere has become, and that's the official title for it, the manosphere. You can look it up and read it about yourself. It's it's because of uh the interconnectivity afforded to us by social media and the internet in general, these people are a much, you know, have much more communication with each other than they ever have, and are supported by each other and advocate for things and sometimes encourage people to actually act on their feelings. I I was like, wow, it's so much big. And I felt like, where did this come from? And then when I looked at the history of witches, I said, Oh, they've always been doing this. Yeah, this is not a new thing.
SPEAKER_04It's not new.
SPEAKER_01There was always the manosphere, it was just something, it was called something else. Yeah. And what was interesting is, you know, because a lot of these guys in the manosphere, I mean, again, it I'm I'm sure it's much more complex from this, but it just feels like a lot of guys who feel like they've been spurned by women or they've been unsuccessful, like getting their attention or their affection, or or just feeling threatened by women. And it's like, wow, when you look at like the very beginnings, like the witch's hammer and these people going around promoting the idea that some women are bad and are dangerous. What was at the source of that? And for a lot of it, it was guys feeling emasculated by women to the point where, and this is not made up, they believed that certain women were able to take away your penis, and that some some witches had a nest of penises. And so if guys were having trouble performing in the so-called sack, then there's witchcraft involved.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And your penis has been stolen.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01Now we call those mannequins today or Ken dolls. But anyway, yeah, so it's like, oh, this is this is not a new thing, the Manosphere. No, no, no. It just has a different title. Yeah. It's the same thing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, this is when we're talking about when we're talking about patriarchy, this sort of broad systemic historical oppression. Right. Um, when we're talking about any kind of like broad historical oppression of any marginalized group, it's not, yeah, it's not patriarchy's not new. It just continues to manifest in different forms.
SPEAKER_01And I feel like I was naively so I I I would have said yes to that statement that that we've always had the patriarchy. So I uh that wouldn't have surprised me, but it's this particular manifestation in current world that I felt like, where did this come from?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Why, why are these people suddenly feeling this way? And it's like, oh no, this has always been a thing. Yeah. And if the more you if you listen to the podcast we recommend or you do some studying on the history of witches, it's very interesting to see that, no, this is always this has been a common thread for hundreds of years, where women who are who have independent, who have opinions, who go against the flow, who are transgressive, who are whatever you want to call it, they are perceived as threats and they must be stopped somehow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01My education about what who witches were was pretty much confined to like the Salem witch trials and the crucible, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's just like this isolated group of, you know, goofy clothes wearing, you know, those Puritans with their hats and their and their muskets and their turkeys. Yeah. Like they're they're goons. Yeah. You know, they're idiots.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So this is just an isolated thing. Well, of course, I found out it wasn't. But what I didn't really focus on, and I knew that these people weren't really witches, they were just people who were being scapegoated, or they were people who were on the margins of the community.
SPEAKER_02Or they were witches and they were being scapegoated and on the margins of community.
SPEAKER_01But what I but what I learned just as a sidebar was I learned that most of the people who were actually accused of being witches and were murdered for being witches were not actually witches. So that's kind of an interesting thing. They were just unusual, they were out of the mainstream, or they were opinionated, or they were independent, or they had some sort of uh power, whether it be a healing, they were a healer or a midwife or an herbalist, they were seen as unsafe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they were or they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
SPEAKER_01Wrong place at the wrong time. Here's the part that was missing for me that I was kind of working toward, which is these were real people. They were real people, the people that we call witches that were persecuted and murdered, they were real people with real families, with their lives, they had goals and dreams and hopes. Yeah. And they were just literally grabbed up. They were taken through a ridiculous process to prove that they were or were not a witch, and these, you know, on these trumped up charges, but then then they were murdered. And it's really a much worse story than I had thought about. It was much more just to think about like the emotional damage to not only a family, but to a community when you know that's your practice. Absolutely. And it was pretty stunning to really think about that. And that part really was missing from my childhood, you know, my eighth grade school education about what witches were and how witches were persecuted. Oh, by the way, they were real people. And it and for the most part, their histories were erased.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like it's not like we know a lot about these people because they were erased. Yeah. Like they did not exist. They were say, here lies a witch, boom.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they probably weren't even a witch. They might have just been a midwife or something.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01So I thought that was that was an important. I don't know, it feels so dumb to say it out loud, but it was like really opened my eyes to like, yes, this was way beyond what I thought it was. Yeah in terms of the tr the community trauma. Yeah. And the personal trauma that was inflicted.
SPEAKER_02Yes. When you talked about community trauma, the piece that I feel have felt naive about feel and and becoming very, very real and true for me is the realization that me as a as a person in a female body and as someone who identifies as a woman, I carry, I I I've now had this understanding that I carry that ancestral trauma. And there are there are pieces that have clicked for me of like, oh my lord. So the the things, the feelings that I have about um needing to protect myself, um, even things like cultural norms around people pleasing.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And appeasing other people, making sure everyone else is comfortable before I am, letting, you know, not centering my own comfort for the sake of others. I now see that as rooted in centuries of ancestral trauma where I was at risk, my ancestors were at risk of literally being murdered if they didn't appease the people they were around.
SPEAKER_01Such an excellent point because I think one of the legacies of this historical persecution of people as witches, whether they were witches or not, is that not only did it create trauma for those people, but you correctly point out, you know, those people and their families and the communities they lived in. But if you are a female living in one of these communities and you see how arbitrarily people are grabbed and blamed and accused and tried and murdered, right, even if that never happens to you, that's certainly going to put you on alert. Right. Like I, whatever that person was doing, I better not do. So it creates this legacy of subordination of your own thoughts, feelings, desires, wants, your own right to be a human being and to take up space, yes, to have an opinion, to say no, all of that becomes risky behavior.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01You know, to not take a man, to not be with a man.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01You know, to hang out with other women is all considered like conspiratorial and subversive, and you're at risk. So you have to, if you want to live, yeah, you know, if you're out in if you're out among the monsters, you change your behavior. Right. And that is uh a distressing legacy to kind of be mindful about suddenly. It's like, oh, this has been a long, long history, and it's really hard to change all of those patterns, not only for women, I'm imagining, you change your patterns, but also for men, because there's never been a curative, there's never been the right kind of education experience on a on a systemic basis to help men feel less threatened by women who are just taking up space.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and this is important, right? Because patriarchy sucks for everyone. No, nobody wins because you know, the other there are multiple sides to it, and one of the sides to it is that men there men have their own um uh set of unachievable idealistic standards that they are meant to live up to and hold up and hold up, and you know, you know, are not taught quintessential um uh practices in understanding their emotions and regulating their nervous system, right? In our culture, our culture is like boys will be boys. Um, you know, and you know, in if a boy is getting into a fight, it's like, yeah, just like get it out, man. Like, you know, fight it through, but not, oh, are you feeling sad about something? Tell me about that. Tell me about what that feels like in your body. Can you feel the sensations? Can you feel them move through you? Um and women are there, there, there is a community of women who have, you know, we do kind of come together to learn about our emotional well-being and how emotions are processed, but I think that that was that was out of a necessity after centuries of persecution and the buildup of that trauma and stress on our own bodies.
SPEAKER_01So for now, we'll just say thank you for joining us for this episode. As I said in the beginning, I'm not telling you where to end up on this. I just think it's an interesting journey to go on to find out what really is going on, who the witches were and who they were not, what happened to women over that time period, and what were the reasons for it. And I think just going on that journey will be eye-opening for you no matter where you end up. And we hope you will tune in to another episode because whether you are a witch curious or just a kid looking for a hanging munchkin, it's important to remember that we all smell like humans. Goodbye, everybody. Witch curious or just Sorry. Or choking to death. Uh are we gonna need to call somebody?
SPEAKER_02No, go ahead.