The Witch Wave

Sarah Chavez has dedicated her adult life to examining death and dying through an intersectional-feminist and inclusive lens. She one of the founders of the Death Positive movement, through which she examines the relationship between ritual, decolonization, and death itself. She is the executive director of the Order of the Good Death, a founding member of The Collective for Radical Death Studies, and co-founder of feminist site Death & the Maiden. She weaves together the relationship between death and food, rituals, culture, and society, via her blog Nourishing Death. She is also a museum curator and a co-hosts the Death in the Afternoon podcast with Caitlin Doughty and Louise Hung. Sarah was the subject of a chapter in Caitlin Doughty’s NYT bestselling book, From Here to Eternity, and she has worked on the popular YouTube series, Ask a Mortician.Sarah has also garnered a wide, devoted audience for her writing and posts on folklore, mythology, and rituals that surround death, including her vast knowledge about witches, vampires, saints, and other beguiling beings.On this episode she discusses the importance of destigmatizing death, how both Hollywood and her Mexican-American neighborhood influenced her conceptions of the afterlife, and Yuletide myths and wintery New Year’s magic to help us celebrate what she calls “The Other Halloween.”Pam also speaks about honoring winter darkness, and answers a listener question about taking spiritual workshops online.Our sponsors for this episode are BetterHelp and Zouz Incense.

Sarah Faith Gottesdiener is an artist, author, and business owner living in Los Angeles, California. She wrote the cult classic workbooks Many Moons from 2015-2018, and now creates the Many Moons Lunar Planners. She has sold over 80,000 copies of her limited edition publications, completely independent of any traditional publisher, and almost entirely through word-of-mouth. In addition, Sarah has created art, design, and apparel via her Modern Women line that have been seen in movies, television, and on the bodies of many magical babes, and for brands you have absolutely heard of. Since 2012, Sarah has worked as a psychic tarot reader, reading for nearly 1,000 clients. She is a teacher of the spiritual, the creative, and the magical, teaching classes on energy, the elements, magic, and more. She is also the host of the Moonbeaming podcast. Her new book, The Moon Book: Lunar Magic to Change Your Life is out next week. On this episode, Sarah discusses the power of lunar magic, how to work with the phases of the moon, and why the divine feminine is not necessarily female.Pam also speaks about her lifelong love of the moon, and answers a listener question about how to find non-gender-essentialist, LGBTQ+ friendly witchcraft.Our sponsors for this episode are Lunalux Botanicals, BetterHelp, Mithras Candle, Seasonal Steep, & Zouz Incense

Susan L. Aberth is the Edith C. Blum Professor of the Art History and Visual Culture Program at Bard College, and a world-renowned expert on occult art and surrealism. Her 2004 book, Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art (Lund Humphries) helped introduce Carrington’s magical work to the masses. She also recently co-authored The Tarot of Leonora Carrington (Fulgur Press, 2020) with Mexican curator Tere Arcq, which is an analysis of Carrington’s tarot paintings and original major arcana deck.Susan has also contributed to Surrealism and Magic, Guggenheim Venice (2021); Not Without My Ghosts (2020, Traveling exhibition in England); Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist (Phoenix Art Museum, 2019), Juanita Guccione: Otherwhere (Napa Valley Museum, 2019), Surrealism, Occultism and Politics: In Search of the Marvelous (Routledge Press, 2018), Leonora Carrington: Cuentos Magicos (Museo de Arte Moderno & INBA, Mexico City, 2018), Unpacking: The Marciano Collection (Delmonico Books, Prestel, 2017), and Leonora Carrington and the International Avant-Garde (Manchester University Press, 2017), as well as to Abraxas: International Journal of Esoteric Studies, Black Mirror, and Journal of Surrealism and the Americas. She received her B.A. from UCLA, M.A. from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and her Ph.D. from the Graduate Center, City University of New York.On this episode, Susan discusses her groundbreaking scholarship on Leonora Carrington’s occult art oeuvre, the newly discovered Carrington Tarot, and how bewitching women change the world. Pam also speaks about gratitude magic, and answers a listener question about how to give thanks for a priceless gift.Our sponsors for this episode are Luna Lux Botanicals, BetterHelp, Clarissa Eck Ceramics, Mithras Candle, Zouz Incense

Tayannah Lee McQuillar is a writer and researcher who focuses on shining a light on Black and Indigenous American spiritual and cultural history. She is the author of Rootwork: Using the Folk Magic of Black America for Love, Money, and Success, Astrology for Mystics, and the poetic novella Creole Fire, which imagines a relationship between historical occult figures Marie Laveau and Paschal Beverly Randolph. She is also the creator of two divination decks: The Sibyls Oraculum: Oracles of the Black Doves of Africa, and The Hoodoo Tarot, both illustrated by Katelan Foisy. Tayannah also does ancestor readings and comes from a long line of Hoodoo practitioners.On this episode, Tayannah discusses mindful ancestor work, Black American occultism, and how poetry and history can go hand in hand.Pam also speaks about pairing magic with material action, and answers a listener question about how specific to get in one’s spells.Our sponsors for this episode are Crystals of Quartz, Kismet Berlin, BetterHelp, Wishcraft Goods, and Zouz Incense

Clown is the percussionist, creative director, and co-founding member of Slipknot, one of the world’s biggest, most beloved bands, metal or otherwise.Slipknot has released 6 studio albums including their most recent, critically acclaimed, WE ARE NOT YOUR KIND, as well as 2 live albums, 1 compilation album, and 5 live DVDs. The band formed in 1995 and have since gone on to sell upwards of 30 million albums, receive 10 Grammy nominations, and win a Grammy in 2006 for Best Metal Performance with their song “Before I Forget.”Today Clown is the band’s only original founding member, and as such he’s worn many hats - and clown masks - over the years. He is also an accomplished photographer and filmmaker, collaborator on numerous side projects, and host of his own podcast, The Electric Theater.On this episode, Clown discusses the magical exchange that happens between performer and audience, the transformative power of masks, and the illusory nature of fame.Pam also speaks about Samhain and ritualized disguise, and answers a listener question about how to grieve and honor the passing of a beloved.Our sponsors for this episode are Mithras Candle, BetterHelp, and Zouz Incense

Phyllis Curott is one of America’s first “out” Witches, an activist attorney for the rights of Witches, and author of four internationally bestselling books including the groundbreaking Book of Shadows: A Modern Woman's Journey into the Wisdom of Witchcraft and the Magic of the Goddess. Her newest project, The Witches' Wisdom Tarot, is releasing in late October 2020.Phyllis was named one of the Ten Gutsiest Women of the Year by Jane Magazine, and in 2014 was inducted into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Clergy and Scholars. Her Awaken the Witch Within online course and Youtube series Wicca have more than 2,000,000 views.Widely profiled in the media, Time published her call for religious equality as one of “America’s leading voices.” She is Vice Chair Emerita of the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions, creator of the historic Inaugural Women’s Assembly, and founder of the Temple of Ara, the first Wiccan tradition to integrate core shamanism in the early 1980s. Curott received her BA in philosophy from Brown University and her Juris Doctor from New York University.On this episode, Phyllis discusses her incredible journey as a pioneering public witch, her legal career as a defender of Pagan rights, and her enthusiastic embrace of elderhood.Pam also speaks about why witchcraft is inherently political, and answers a listener question about how to feel the magic.Our sponsors for this episode are Mithras Candle, The Many Moons 2021 Planner, BetterHelp, and Clarissa Eck Ceramics

Welcome to Season 4! Camille Rose Garcia is a world renowned painter, illustrator, and author whose work is steeped in warped fairy tales and (super)natural magic. The child of a Mexican activist filmmaker father and a muralist/painter mother, she apprenticed at age 14 working on murals with her mother while growing up in the suburbs of Orange County, visiting Disneyland, and going to punk shows with the other disenchanted youth of that era.Her fine art has been displayed internationally and featured in numerous magazines including Juxtapoz, Rolling Stone, and Modern Painter, and is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Resnick Collection, and the San Jose Museum of Art, which held a retrospective of her work, entitled Tragic Kingdom, accompanied by a catalog of the same name. Garcia’s book, The Illustrated Alice in Wonderland (Harper Collins) was a New York Times Bestseller, and she has also illustrated such classics as Snow White and Cinderella. Her latest book, The Cabinet of Dr. Deekay, a surrealist fairy tale she wrote and illustrated, is out now from Sympathetic Press. She currently lives in woods of the Pacific Northwest.On this episode, Camille discusses how she came to be a painter of the dark feminine, the power of subverting fairy tales, and the vivid magic that comes with being an art witch in the woods.Pam also speaks about the autumn and underworld stories, and answers a listener question about how to engage in shadow work.Our sponsors for this episode are Clarissa Eck Ceramics, The Modern Witches Confluence, and BetterHelp.

Season Finale! Rachel Pollack is a legend who is perhaps best known as one of the world’s foremost tarot experts, having written such classics as Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom and The New Tarot Handbook. She’s also the creator of The Shining Tribe Tarot and co-creator with Robert Place of The Burning Serpent Oracle and the Raziel Deck.But tarot is just of tip of the iceberg, as she is the author of 43 books of fiction and non-fiction, many of them in the speculative or sci-fi genres, including Unquenchable Fire which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and Godmother Night, which won the World Fantasy Award. She is also an accomplished comic book writer and pioneer, and during her run for DC Comics’ Doom Patrol in the 1990s, she introduced one of the world’s first transgender superheroes - and is now considered by many to be a transgender superhero herself.Rachel’s work has been translated into 16 languages, and she has taught and lectured on tarot, creative writing, gender, and innumerable other topics in the U.S. Canada, Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and China. And until her retirement, she was a senior faculty member of Goddard College’s MFA in Writing program.Rachel’s most recent book is The Beatrix Gates, a volume which collects several of her most visionary stories as well as a brand new essay on magic and transgender living. This year it was nominated for a Lambda Award.One can see why poet Cat Fitzpatrick called Rachel “a living national treasure.”On this episode, Rachel discusses the relationship between tarot and comic books, the importance of visionary transgender storytelling, and why her religion is Heresy.Pam also speaks about following magical clues long term, and answers a listener question about practicing fire magic in the home.Our sponsors for this episode are Clarissa Eck Pottery, Max Razdow’s Mage Cards on Kickstarter, BetterHelp, and Clever Kim’s Curios

Brooklynn is an Atlanta-based singer, songwriter, and producer who makes magical pop music. Her latest album, My Shadow and I, is an introspective excavation of her multidimensional identity as a queer, black woman and witch.She is also an accomplished visual artist and designer, who runs the online shop Bébé Vaudou, which carries her jewelry and clothing line and other mystical merch, including her viral WITCHES AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY t-shirts, posters, and stickers. And she is donating 100% of the profits of the WITCHES AGAINST WHITE SUPREMACY collection to Buy From A Black Woman, a non-profit which supports black woman business owners. Brooklynn also hosts the Witches of Atlanta podcast, where she speaks with local witches about spiritual practice, economics, and culture.On this episode, Brooklynn speaks about art as activism, music as spellcraft, and how we can best support the black community during the current protests and beyond.Pam also speaks about antiracism as spiritual work (including reading Anchor & Star’s zines about whiteness, cultural appropriation, and paganism), and answers a listener question about techno witches.and how we can best support the black community during the current protests and beyond.Pam also speaks about antiracism as spiritual work, and answers a listener question about techno witches.Our sponsors for this episode are the Magic And Realism Jungian Archetypal Dream Journal and BetterHelp

Bonus episode! The Witch Wave is thrilled to introduce Predictions, a new daily episodic story told over 30 days, written and performed by Matthew Freeman. Listen to Predictions to discover what the signs portend, what the stars reveal, and what the cards foretell.Predictions is an audio drama produced by Theater Accident. Subscribe now to start the story from the beginning on June 1st.