Embracing the Mystical Path: A Journey into Witchcraft, Heritage, and Healing with Folk Witch Mahegan St Pierre

When the veil between our world and the magical realm thins, intriguing tales and wisdom await. This is exactly what unfurls as I invite the enigmatic Mahigan St Pierre from Kitchen Toad into our circle. A folk witch with a tapestry of Catholic and indigenous spiritual roots, Mahigan weaves a narrative that harmonizes land veneration, ancestor worship, and the holistic art of herbalism. Their insights are a lantern in the dark, illuminating the corners of witchcraft and spirituality that many yearn to explore. Together, we uncover the otherness that those on the witch's path not only embrace but embody in their daily lives.

Strap on your metaphysical boots as we trek through the evolution of our practices, guided by the stars of community and personal spirits. There's something profoundly comforting about the spirits Mahigan works with—they're family, offering guidance and joy on this enchanting journey. We chat about the shift away from traditional rituals like casting circles and how such changes reflect the organic growth of our craft. It's a candid look at the foundations that both anchor our practices and allow us to soar into new magical territories.

Venture with us as we blend the bristles of art with the palette of magic, creating a masterpiece of witchery that honors heritage and personal discovery. Artistic expression and cultural traditions are not just brush strokes in our practices; they're the very colors that define us. By sharing a tale that chills the spine—a spectral figure from Mahigan's childhood—we acknowledge the mysterious and profound encounters that often mark the lives of those touched by the supernatural. So, pour yourself a cup of enchanted brew and settle in for a magical odyssey where the everyday becomes extraordinary.
Be sure to check out Mahigan's new podcast, Sat Upon a Toadstool, tomorrow on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or on Mahigan's website.
kitchentoad.com/sat-upon-a-toadstool


Don't forget to check out this week's sponsor, Beyond the Sage! 

Kim: 0:04

Welcome back to your Average Witch, where every Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories and sometimes a little witchcraft. This episode of your Average Witch is brought to you by Beyond the Sage. If you're like most witches, you love tea. Step into the mystical world of this witchcraft and tea e-shop, where you will find an array of divine offerings to nourish your mind, body and spirit. Beyond the Sage offers a wide range of divination tools, spell candles and unique gifts, all aimed at empowering your spiritual journey. In addition to their magical offerings, shop creator Dani is proud to offer homeopathic remedy options carefully crafted to support your health and well-being. Every product in the shop is made with organic, ethically sourced or homegrown ingredients, ensuring that you receive only the finest quality goods. And to protect the environment, Dani is committed to upcycling, recycling and avoiding plastics wherever possible. So if you're seeking lucid dreaming, healthy detoxification, trippy teas, safe weight loss or unique spiritual tools and remedies, look no further. Visit the shop at their link tree at linktr. ee/ beyond the sage and let Dani guide you on your journey to enchantment and enlightenment. Embrace the magic and venture beyond the sage. Others of your average witch can take 25% off your order of $25 or more using code AVERAGEWITCH, with no spaces at checkout. In this episode, I'm talking with Mahigan of Kitchen Toad. Mahigan is a blogger, a cunning person and a folk witch. We talked about growing up, woo, being an entrepreneur at a young age and why witches need to be multilingual. I'm also excited to announce that Mahigan is starting their own podcast, and the first episode comes out tomorrow! Check out Sat Upon a Toadstool, available on apple podcasts, spotify, and on Mahigan's website, kitchentoad. com. Now let's get to the stories! Mahigan, good morning, welcome to the show.

Mahigan: 1:53

Hello, thank you for having me.

Kim: 1:56

Thank you for being here. Can you please introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you?

Mahigan: 2:03

Yes, my name is Mahigan St Pierre. I run a small shop named Kitchen Toad. I'm mostly on Instagram, which is Instagram. com/ kitchen toad, where I basically sell magical wares. I offer services, I do divination and spell work and consultations, talismanic consecration, stuff like that, and I also write on the Kitchen Toad blog and have a bunch of fun projects that are all witchcraft and occult and folk magic related.

Kim: 2:33

I am really excited to talk to you and I know one of my friends is super excited that I'm talking to you and I told her I was talking to you this morning.

Mahigan: 2:42

She was like yes, Well, I'm glad to be here.

Kim: 2:48

Me too. Can you please tell me what it means to you when you call yourself a witch?

Mahigan: 2:55

Yeah, this is something I talk about quite a bit. To me, witchcraft is about the relationship that we hold with the Others, as in capital O spirits and fae and land, spirits and gods and whatever you want to call it, and it's really the process of mediating between those two realms and becoming somewhat othered through the process of relationship with spirit.

Kim: 3:26

I love the otherness part that nearly everybody says. I love that about us. Would you say you have a family history with witchcraft or magical practice, even if your family does not use that term.

Mahigan: 3:45

A little bit. My family is very spiritual. We're good old Catholics pretty much everyone in Quebec, culturally Catholic but the more time goes on and the more my grandfather tries to evangelize me, the more what he says sounds like spiritism. He believes in God and angels and saints and all that, but he also believes in fairies and demons and that spirits of the dead can come back to haunt you. His worldview through Catholicism is very folksy and he's very much the one that shaped my family's spiritual background. He's big into the law of attraction and the secret and all those fun things. I came out in the 60s and my mom was very, very spiritual. We're half indigenous and so I grew up with my mom doing ceremonies and stuff like that, because she's an archaeologist specializing in indigenous studies. Through a reconstruction-y kind of vibe. We basically had a whole Native American village in our backyard and did animation and stuff like that. So I grew up with the sweat lodge and a long house and all the fun stuff and then we've always been very, very woo-woo. My mom was a little bit into crystals and gnomes and undines and elemental spirits and I was very much taught growing up. You prayed to God, sure, but you also prayed to the trees and to the rocks and to the rivers, and there's always something that can hear you. So the spiritual background is not defined as witchcraft per se, but it was a very big part of my life growing up.

Kim: 5:31

Sounds very witch-adjacent, at least.

Mahigan: 5:34

Right, yeah, yeah.

Kim: 5:39

Can you introduce us to your practice, like anything that you do regularly that you'll share?

Mahigan: 5:47

My main focus within my craft is very much on land veneration and I do include the celestial realm into the land because with a capital L we're talking like spirits of what's around you and what you can see and what you can interact with. I'm very big into ancestor veneration, whether that's my own bloodline or if it's mythic ancestors. My family name is St Pierre, which is St Peter, and so I do venerate him in my practice through that lens, venerating the local dead as well, the people that came before us and built the places that we inhabit and the infrastructure and the culture and otherwise. I do a lot ofin herbalism. I actually got into magic proper through my kind of mix of herbalism and spirituality. Growing up my mother was always very granola and crunchy. We always did herbal remedies and homeopathic stuff and then I started studying it when I was like.11,. 12 is when I started being very interested in it and that's what led me into witchcraft proper. So I have a big background in herbalism and holistic wellness and nutrition and all those kinds of things Cool.

Kim: 7:02

Mm-hmm.

Mahigan: 7:03

Thank you.

Kim: 7:04

Would you say that witchcraft changed your life?

Mahigan: 7:09

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not really someone who got into it because it was interesting to me. It was always like a thing that existed and I knew it was an option and I knew it was applicable to certain situations. And then I was forced into a corner, essentially, where I was very powerless and desperate for something to change, and so that's how I got into the practice of everything and it definitely had some very big impacts at that time, and then that's kind of what got me rolling into it and it really allowed me to take back power within my life and take back agency and build on confidence and really develop my personality and strap up a little bit for life, because I feel like if you're going to go into the woods in the dark all alone to conjure terrifying ineffable names and spirits, you really got to be able to walk the walk and talk the talk in your daily life as well. I'm not going to go confront something that I can't see and that can ruin my life and then also be afraid of my boss. You know, yes, like those two are a little hard to do at the same time, I think.

Kim: 8:34

What would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice, and has it changed since you first started?

Mahigan: 8:41

Definitely. Yeah, I think it's changed quite a bit because initially I got into it really for the power in the agency and the ability to change my circumstances. My background is a little rock and roll, a little roller coaster-y, and so it really helped stabilize my life. And then, once I was able to settle down a little bit and calm down and recuperate from all the craziness, I started Kitchentoad and now my focus is very much on building community and then serving the community and respecting the legacy of magical service workers through the ages and cunning folk and herbalists and pretty much anyone who had a part to play in their community's spiritual life and belief.

Kim: 9:34

Can you share how you decided on that name?

Mahigan: 9:39

Oh, I feel like I mentioned this before. It was supposed to be a food blog. I moved to Vancouver when I was like a teenager and I was like really inspired by the market scene there. There's a beautiful market on Grandville Island and they sell like local goods and vegetables, and BC is wonderful because there was like produce year round. It's lovely, and I'm big into food and so I was very inspired by that and I like threw myself into this crazy project where I was like I'm going to buy a domain and I'm going to build a website and start a food blog and da, da, da, da, da. And then I didn't do it. I was like stuck with this like $700 domain that I bought for like 10 years and I was like what am I going to do with this? And then the more I thought about it, the more I was like you know, it's kind of catchy, it's kind of a good brand name. So when I started up the business, I was just like well, we're just going to call it that. It doesn't really make any sense. But you know, I like to think that maybe.

Kim: 10:41

I'm going to do it. It does, though. You know it super makes sense to me. Yeah, toads are super witchy they are.

Mahigan: 10:52

Yeah, it used to be. I was blogging under the Frogs Apothecary for a really long time. It was always Frogs. For me it was never like Toads. But then I was like Toad kind of sounds witchier and more like brand new. I wish it was like some kind of like Toads are super sacred to me and like da da da. But no, it was a business decision fully.

Kim: 11:14

I really. That's kind of why my business name is what it is. Yeah, Because I like the way sounds. I like the way things sound when they come out of your mouth. That's why Clever Kim's Curios is what it is because I just like the sounds.

Mahigan: 11:32

Good alliteration, yeah.

Kim: 11:34

Exactly what would you say is your biggest struggle when it comes to your practice.

Mahigan: 11:42

For a long time I think it was imposter syndrome. I think that's everyone's story. You know, when you're dealing with the invisible and like things that most of society is going to tell you isn't real or that you're like mentally ill or you know crazy or whatever, it can get really annoying and really difficult to kind of parse through what is spirits and what is mental illness and what is stress and what is you know, your own inner critic and conscience and like all those things and differentiating between those things. I'm someone who took a really long time to develop the psychic senses of like mediumship and being able to communicate with spirits more openly and differentiate between what was me and what was spirit and what was intuition and what was you know outside influence and stuff like that, and so that was a very big struggle for me. I kind of just like kept powering through and then had like multiple crisis of faith throughout the days and then once I kind of settled into like a good routine of developing those skills and differentiating what was what and really came into my own in my practice and stopped really going from system to system, I mean I did everything. I went from like traditional witchcraft to hoodoo, to chaos, magic, to Tantra, hecate stuff through like Jason Miller's course, through ceremonial magic, a bunch of stuff, and never really found like settled onto a personal practice until maybe five years ago and then at that point things kind of fell into place and I would say nowadays my biggest struggle is probably balancing what is work and what is passion in my practice. Because when you, when your spirituality is a business and is also in the public eye, it can be very tempting to sell out or to you know, if I wanted to one day, like I could totally turn around and start charging like $700 for a six week course that says very basic information and sells you a bunch of products. But I have too much integrity for that. And so I am always like do I make a lot of money or do I stick to my guns and like, be a good person? And it's like navigating the whole business world is crazy, especially in this community where I think people are very people are very cutthroat between what is business and what is friendship and what is magic and what is, you know, community and what it isn't community, and then everything gets very blurry very fast. Yeah, it's a difficult market, for sure.

Kim: 14:44

I bet part of that is because we've been on the outside for so long that when we find community, even if we're paying for it, we latch on. At least that's my experience.

Mahigan: 14:56

Definitely there's a lot of cult leaders hiding in plain sight.

Kim: 15:01

Yeah, yes. So it sounds like you don't have so much of an issue with imposter syndrome anymore. When you did, how did you sort of pull yourself out of that Delusion? Oh good, me too.

Mahigan: 15:21

I'm just pretending like I didn't hear my little imposter voice. And also, well, I do have the very special position that throughout my entire magical career I've been blogging. I literally, if you go back in the Internet archives I'm not going to tell you all where to go because I don't want anyone to find me that I have a very strong paper trace. You can see the very first spells that I've ever performed online.

Kim: 15:54

Oh, that's terrifying to think of. Yeah, so everything that I've done.

Mahigan: 15:58

I don't want people to see that All the misinformation that I used to incorporate and all of the bad opinions that I used to have oh my gosh, yes, and photos of things that shouldn't have been taken, and anyways, you can find all of that. And so you know, I did get the chance that I've always had people to discuss online and also people to like get like kick my ass a little bit. I think that, like having people in your community point out what you're doing wrong or what you're spewing bullshit about, can I swear on this podcast? Hell, yes, okay, awesome, I cost like a sailor Me too, perfect. So, yeah, you know, having people in your community that are older and more experienced, I can really tell you like, hey, what you're saying is wrong, and you're kind of running your mouth for no reason. Maybe, like, look into that is really good. And so that helped me, because in my mind I was like, if I can be wrong about things, that means there's certain ways to do things right, so it can't all be false, you know. So that helped a lot. And then I've also always been providing services. I practiced for maybe like two, three years without telling anyone, and then after that I was already like performing spells on behalf of friends and classmates and people in my life, family and stuff like that and doing readings for folks, because I had the chance to grow up in a very spiritual and very open-minded environment towards those things. I mean, the witchcraft is still a little hard to swallow for my family, but they don't care about tarot and like tea leaf readings and stuff like that, and so I've always had people like believe in what I do, apart from myself. So that always carried me through, but otherwise very much just delusion and being like you know, I'm just going to tough it out, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing for a couple of months and then if I still feel the same way, if I don't, you know, if nothing that I do succeeds and then my spells work out, then I'll give up and then it never happened.

Kim: 18:11

So that's the time, that idea that, okay, this is what I'm doing wrong, but that means there's something I can learn. That is right, holy shit, that's great.

Mahigan: 18:29

It's kind of it's a little backwards, but it really it made a lot of sense to me.

Kim: 18:34

It makes sense to me Like epiphany type. Good Lord, what brings you the most joy in your practice?

Mahigan: 18:46

Nowadays, I would say it's probably like the relationship I've developed with my spirits. I've always considered my spirits to be my family. I kind of considered that they raised me a little bit just because I left home really, really early and was on my own very early on and really struggled with family things and cut everyone off for a couple of years and all that fun runaway stuff. So my spirits really took a familial role for me and really carried me through a lot of things and I imagine, in the same way that a lot of people's, like faith for God carries them through a lot of things, my spirits have always been very present and vocal. Once I started being able to let them in and communicate with them more openly and receive, like accept what they were saying, because they've always been talking, I feel like that's something that a lot of folks experience where, like, everyone's always wondering like, how do they hear their spirits? And they already hear them, but they can't really. They either don't allow them in or they don't. They like push aside what they're hearing from them because they're thinking that oh well, it's not a crazy sign or anything like that. And that was very much me and so you know little things here and there really make me happy. Whenever I get an omen or whenever specific animal related to a spirit I work with shows up or when I, you know, will. Sometimes I'll just go into my ritual room and I'll be like, guys, here's what's happening, here's what I need, I'm going to come through. That'd be really, really great. Maybe shed a few tears, you know, tell them how I'm feeling and then like things like magically fall into place or like the right things happen at the right time, like that to me, is really beautiful beyond all of the sorcery, and like the magic itself and the formulation in the business. I think that very much. The relationship I've cultivated with my spirits is what I like the most.

Kim: 20:58

That sounds lovely.

Mahigan: 21:00

It's a good time. We have a lot of fun here, me and my 14 spirits.

Kim: 21:06

I am not there yet, Jag 14.

Mahigan: 21:11

Oh, it used to be more. I used to joke around and be like sometimes a home is you, your 14 spirits and your three cats. Yeah, I maintain a lot of different relationships on different levels with different spirits, but I mean, like things incorporated very easily for me, which I'm very lucky about. There's a lot of people that, like, will have a lot of spirit takeover or you know multiple spirits that don't get along so they have to keep them separate or anything like that, and I mean I've had a couple of things like that, but generally speaking, that sounds like a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of managing, for sure. Yeah, it's. You're running a household, a magical household on top of it, and so I was very lucky that everyone got along. Everyone was very nice. We're all good here, you know. We all have dinner. It's lovely.

Kim: 22:10

What's something you did early on in your practice that you don't do anymore, and why don't you do it?

Mahigan: 22:16

Oh, casting a circle, I think that's like a big one. I think it's fallen out of favor in recent years from what I've seen. Back when I started it was like you got to cast a circle. Even if you're just pulling some cards, you have to cast a circle, you have to protect yourself this and that and like maybe like a year or two into my practice I was like this is tedious and annoying, I just don't do anything for me, you know, so I stopped doing it. I think that a lot of the time, if you're going to be doing ceremonial magic and you're going to be like delving into the keys of Solomon, whether you're doing just like greater key stuff and just conjuring or consecrating pentacles and conjuring angels and stuff like that, or if you're doing like DSIC, like of course, I think the circles are very important, especially when they invoke certain names or grant specific presences that are necessary for the ritual. You know stuff like that, especially if you're going to be working with like more dangerous entities, they can be very helpful. Generally speaking, I'm very much. If you're going to do grimoire stuff, do it by the book, which includes the circles. But if you're doing folk magic or if you're doing like witchcraft with the capital W and just like going into the woods and conjuring spirits. If you have the guidance, and like the authority given to you by a spirit through initiation or through your relationship with them or anything like that, I don't think it circles necessary, like very necessary, because you're already going there with someone's authority. I always talk about, you know, spirits standing at your back because you show up, but then all of your ancestors show up and all of your familiar spirits show up and all the gods and deities you work with show up and you call on them and you welcome them into the ritual and into the space, and then it's you and an army of like thousands of ancestors and then a bunch of spirits that have dominion over other spirits, and then you're conjuring one or two little shades, you know. So I think I've gone to a point where I'm able to do that, of course, like where protection talismans do all your protection stuff. Spirits can get crazy. But in terms of like having a circle to convoke and to protect yourself against spirits when conjuring them, I don't think it's necessary.

Kim: 24:48

I actually I don't practice traditional witchcraft like with the capital T, but I like the idea that they aren't necessarily doing it for protection. They're doing it to create a liminal space. I've done that before, but since I ward the property and I ask the spirits that are already here to help me with that, I don't feel like I need to worry about it. Plus, I don't do ceremonial magic, so that's how I do it.

Mahigan: 25:25

No, the liminal space thing is definitely. I think it could definitely be a use for it. But also, if you're practicing in your home and you're casting spells and creating wards and in a relationship with spirits, you have spirits coming in and out all the time you already are in a liminal space.

Kim: 25:44

I don't do that in my house I do that out in the garden. This is the specific place.

Mahigan: 25:49

I do that. I think that's a better idea than what I do.

Kim: 25:54

I don't have room in my house for more things, Whether they're corporate or not. I just don't have room. There's stuff in here taking up space. I can't always see it, but it's here. It's so real. Every witch has some shelves bending. Right, oh my gosh, If we were in my studio, I literally have, you know, those wire shelves that you can put up these strips on the wall and they hold the wire shelving full of jars full of herbs and literally it bows in the middle and I need to install another thing in the middle to hold it up. And I have not because it's a pain in the ass. I've ruined every single child's life. This used to be where my herbs were, but it's only like literally this big, and that's not enough now, no, never.

Mahigan: 26:53

So now.

Kim: 26:53

I have an entire room. What's your favorite tool? It does not have to be a physical object. It can be a philosophy or an idea, whatever. Why is it your favorite and how do you use it?

Mahigan: 27:09

I'm a big knife person. I have multiple blades that I use in my practice. I work with them as spirits themselves and I use them for everything. I mean I love the I don't know where I heard it, but there's someone out there another podcast who was talking about blades and knives and stuff and was like Wicca is all about. You know, you have an Athomene. You never use it and it's just for ceremonial use and symbolism and all that. And traditional woodchopters like you need a knife. How are you going to cut things? You know, and I'm very much the second party I use my knife for everything. I use my knife to carve candles, to collect plants, to protect my space, to banish spirits, to mix up certain oils that I do, like I'm doing like a protection oil or a cursing oil. I will be stirring it with my knife. You know I go through multiple processes of honoring the spirit in it and blessing it. I'll anoint it with specific oils and then put it on the stove until it turns blue which good steel usually you can do that with, because there's a belief that blue steel is good against spirits and then I will feed it with oils and tinctures and smokes and all that and prayer before using it. And yeah, honestly, if I'm leaving the house to do any sort of work, the knife is coming with me, even if I need it. If I don't need it, it's always on me.

Kim: 28:47

I didn't think about that with the blue with the knife, but it makes sense with paint blue and the blue bottles and all the other stuff that I see in folk magic.

Mahigan: 28:55

I think I first encountered it in a thing on Japanese folklore, because they have a whole blade smithing spiritual thing going on, and that was the thing that was mentioned.

Kim: 29:14

One of my friends is half Japanese and she is sad that she doesn't speak Japanese or read it, because she can only find Japanese literature about Japanese witchcraft and nothing that I could read, for example.

Mahigan: 29:34

Yeah, unfortunately. That's why I'm a big proponent of learning as many languages as you can, because then you get to delve into other sources and not be stuck in the North American English.

Kim: 29:49

King James version of the Bible.

Mahigan: 29:52

Yeah, you're always hearing the same stuff and everyone who speaks English. The occult world is so small that if you only speak one language, you're very much limiting yourself to the opinion of maybe like 10 to 25 experts on the topic, and then you just got to wait until more stuff comes out or come up with your own stuff if you want to do anything. So speaking other languages really gets you into new ideas, the same way that philosophy in other languages is usually illuminating.

Kim: 30:25

I bet. Can you pick out one decision you've made that changed the direction of your life? And if so, what was it?

Mahigan: 30:36

God, what did I do last week Exactly? Honestly, I'm a very, very intense person in my decisions. I've made a lot of very, very. I don't have any issues making hard decisions. I make them very quickly because I believe that any choice you make is the right choice, as long as you make one. So I moved out on my own when I was very young, in part because I felt like I needed to for the magic stuff. I started a business when I was very young, at a very difficult time when I did not know anything about it. That definitely changed my life. I have moved from province to province multiple times since being on my own and all across the place. That's all. Everything changes your life. I don't know if there's anything specific that I can pinpoint that really brought me to where I'm at now, but the business is a big one and the one that I'm very happy about every day. I'm very, very grateful that I chose to do this at the time that I did, because originally I was going to do the business when I was 31, 32, all that, once I'm settled and have money and know what I'm doing, and all that. But then the pandemic happened. I got my nice little curb payment from the government to thank you, canada. And then I invested all of that into the business and here we are.

Kim: 32:13

Cool, that's nice. I can't believe COVID is like four years old.

Mahigan: 32:23

Tell me about it. Oh shit, Geez.

Kim: 32:27

Speaking of which, how do you pull yourself out of a magical slump?

Mahigan: 32:36

Back in the day. I think things have changed lately because my slumps are different than they used to be, because they used to be like I had a slump and then I could kind of like stop doing magic and just like mind my business and then come back to it. But now if I don't do magic, my bills don't get paid. Back in the day I used to very much delve into fantasy fiction and my favorite comfort, witchcraft movies and stuff like that, like practical magic and the craft and witches of Eastwick and all that fun stuff, and then I would basically go armchair for a little while and just do a lot of research into folklore and beliefs and reading case studies and academic articles and stuff like that, and then eventually something would happen that I was like well, this is a good use for magic, we should probably do it. I used to be very selective in what I did magic for because I am a very independent person and I'm very much like I can do it myself, I don't need intercession of anyone, and so I would like stubbornly just do things the mundane way, even though I knew that magic could help, whereas nowadays I'm like, oh, there's traffic on the road to the city that I'm going to Might as well, do a little road opener. So nowadays I'll usually do a big evil eye diagnostic to like a little egg limpia and see if there's anything on me, and then, if there is, I'll get rid of that. I'll cleanse the house, I'll cleanse myself, I'll set up new protections and then I'll bless everything. I'll refresh all my offerings to spirits. I'll also do like look into, did I miss an offering to a spirit that I owed and that I forgot about? And now they're mad at me and blocking my roads, you know anything like that. And then I'll make sure to do some divination to see if there's anyone throwing anything at me, or essentially like reset myself spiritually and then do something that I really enjoy related to magic. That's not necessarily like casting a spell or anything like that, but a lot of the time I'll procrastinate crafting a spirit vessel or reorganizing an altar, or I like making beautiful things, I'm like very artsy, and so sometimes I'll paint for a spirit or anything like that, and then that kind of gets me back on track and gets me back into the saddle.

Kim: 35:09

I really like that idea that had not occurred to me to make things for them.

Mahigan: 35:17

Yeah, paint, I do pottery, so I made like spirit vessels and bowls and stuff like that that I dedicate to them. Or you know, I love decor so I reorganize an altar and buy new things for it, painting music, anything like that. Spirits love, spirits love that kind of stuff. I think an offering of time is usually the best thing that you can do for a relationship with a spirit.

Kim: 35:52

After Gem show I have things that I'm going to do now. That's cool.

Mahigan: 35:59

Are you going to the?

Kim: 36:00

two-time.

Mahigan: 36:00

Gem show.

Kim: 36:02

Yeah, because I live in Tucson.

Mahigan: 36:05

Oh, no way, that's amazing, yeah, and I have a bunch of friends. Yeah, jeannie, from Tides of T, tides of Tides, of Tides, yeah.

Kim: 37:13

Yeah.

Mahigan: 37:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.

Kim: 41:22

Yeah.

Mahigan: 41:26

Yeah, yeah.

Kim: 42:03

Yeah.

Mahigan: 42:21

That's a really good question, I think for me. I consider myself an artist before I consider myself a witch. In terms of influences, definitely medieval and early modern and Renaissance art and the themes that came through Baroque and Raphelite art and music, and themes of religion as it intermingles with art and heresy and the art of the church and heresy and mysticism, and just the lived experience of art through spirituality and spirituality through art, I think would be one, and in terms of how I would think that one, I guess I incorporate it into what I do as much as possible, you know, making devotional art and always learning about things and educating myself constantly on the things that I'm passionate about and incorporating them into my practice, beyond just being someone who admires it or someone who consumes it, really trying to take lessons from it and trying to extrapolate. And then I think that's the first meaning from the art with which I interact. And then another big influence would probably be my matrilineal line, like my mother and my grandmother and my step-grandma and all that. I come from a family of very strong, very, very wise women, but wise through experience. I'm lucky that the women in my life are very handy and never let themselves kind of be strapped down by anyone's ideals or conceived notions of them. Very strong-headed and very loud and opinionated and successful and artistic and passionate, who were always very open-minded and very, very encouraging in everything that I did, whether that's through art or through spirituality or through magic or anything like that. So that's definitely a big influence on me, especially because my mother literally was like in this house we pray to rocks, here's how to pray to rocks. It was a very good guiding hand in those things. We had a little back and forth when I first started doing magic, where she was like you're not going to burn 28 candles in my living room and we had a lot of arguments and all that. But apart from that, I really appreciate the way that I was raised and all of that and given the tools to do what I do, especially because my family is like we're all entrepreneurs. So I grew up in businesses and around business and I have like six fucking financial advisors that I can go to at all times and being like how do I market this product? I have no idea and everyone can help, which is amazing. So yeah, and then magically I would say like the North American current of folk magic. I don't talk about it too much because there's a whole conversation to be had of nuance and collaboration, inspiration, appropriation and all of the things regarding that. But when I first started out, my book of like cantrips is what I like to call it is Judika Illes' Encyclopedia of 1000 Spells, which at the time I assumed was just like witchcraft, when in reality it is a book of Hoodoo. So it's very much based on Southern American, like the United States conjure and hoodoo and practices that are very much based in the Bible Belt and stuff like that, and so I still carry a lot of that influence through to this day in terms of how I set up spells and how I work with plants and herbs and the language that I use, especially in terms of if we're talking about road opening, if we're talking about crown of success, fast luck, like all of those things are things that originated in practices from the South of the United States, and so that's a very big influence that I like to honor and respect. Yeah, I would say those are the three.

Kim: 47:34

I like those and I'm glad that I have new things to ponder for the rest of the week. What advice do you have for a new witch?

Mahigan: 47:50

Research, just research. So I'm up on Lulun and Weiser and Three Hands Press and all of the books, the big witchcraft books that you're looking into. Those are fun to read. Those are really great Once you've established a practice and once you have an idea of what they're talking about. Especially if we're talking about Three Hands Press, because God knows they have a history of witchcraft. But you know, scholargooglecom is a great place. Read academic articles, research, folklore, folk beliefs, popular medicine research, witchcraft trials and research the politics of witchcraft throughout history, not just in the modern days but also in the early 20s and in Iceland during the quote, and quote burning times, which is a very strange subject. Research your family's history as well and where you come from and your ancestry and their beliefs and their belief systems and how those things evolved through religion and with religion and against religion. So read up on philosophy of magic, what you know. There's a lot of our philosophy of magic comes from the Middle East and you know medieval texts from that era or from the Egyptians and a lot of our astrology comes from the Mesopotamians and Babylonians and Egyptians. So research history and the evolution of magic and religion and spirituality and its effect on culture and anthropology through the years. Ethnographies are great to look into. All of those things. I think if you're going to be a witch, you want to be the best, which you can be. You also have to be an academic a little bit. The subject is so much more complicated and so much more complex than casting spells and getting what you want You're. You're working within a legacy of beliefs and cultures and practices from the world over that were distilled into this very moment that allowed you to do those things. So always respect the people who came before you and the cultures things came from, and make sure that your ideas are solid.

Kim: 50:32

That's the sound bite.

Mahigan: 50:39

Very passionate.

Kim: 50:48

So now that you've seen and answered these questions, who do you think would be interesting to also have answered these questions? Who should I invite on the show?

Mahigan: 51:01

That is a great question. The folks over at the frightful howls you may hear are very, very good friends of mine and also very strong influences on my practice and just incredible people as well as incredible practitioners. If you want to talk to scholars of magic, hit them up. They're incredible and their knowledge is honestly. I'm someone who talks a lot. When I'm around them, I shut the hell up, I just absorb. They're very nice. Otherwise, sasha ravage is amazing as well in the astrology department and in the bridging of witchcraft and magic and astrology Really like her work. I really like manticores, then, as well, who practices some very interesting tie things. God, am I blanking on her name? Ivy dot Senna on Instagram is a good friend of mine as well, and she has been doing a lot of really, really amazing things with Paul X, the fixed our politics in Gemini, and she's also published a beautiful pamphlet through Hady and press called Venus as mother. That I really enjoyed. I think she would be super interesting to talk to, especially because, if I'm not wrong, she is currently doing either a master's or a PhD in economics as a practicing witch, and that's very, very interesting. She's amazing to talk to. Yeah, I think that's like my that's. Those are my big suggestions that I have coming to mind.

Kim: 52:58

I have to take a picture of what I wrote down because I always forget any race, it's dry race. Oh yeah yeah, compulsively erase it, so I have to take a picture.

Mahigan: 53:10

Honestly, a throw away notebook has like saved my life. I buy like the cheapest notebook I find and I just like write everything that I need in it, and then it's changed everything for me.

Kim: 53:22

I can't. I feel bad about throwing things away. Yeah, bitch is a hoarder. So even if it's in the name I have so much shit.

Mahigan: 53:32

There's so much shit I can't you know, I have to remove it Because like I'm like a big notes person and I'm always like taking like 100 notes and like making lists and I like everything that I do. I like critique myself on, so like I write everything down. But I was thinking of getting like a remarkable thing, you think. Is it a tablet? I think I've heard of that? But like I like the idea that like you can write on it and like make PDFs and then just like upload them.

Kim: 54:06

Yes, just air like a digital book that you can actually write in.

Mahigan: 54:10

I read that without it being like I have ADHD. So if you give me anything that has apps on it or anything else other than the thing that I need to get done, I'm not doing the thing.

Kim: 54:21

The draw on the game and Instagram and Facebook and everything else, exactly you know running a business.

Mahigan: 54:27

You've always got something to check emails, instagram, patreon you know everything. Always a notification somewhere.

Kim: 54:38

Is there anything else you wanted to bring up or any questions that you had for me?

Mahigan: 54:44

Yeah, well, I just released a collection for the fixed, our Vega that I think I would love to kind of advertise and get out there a little bit more at the time of recording I'm not sure when this is going up. And yeah, if you guys are interested in what I do or if there is any questions that you have about anything that I said, or if you'd like to book some spellwork or divination, anything like that it's Instagramcom slash kitchen toad. You can email me also at mahi gxn. At outlookcom is my name with an X because it was taken. And yeah, I'm also on Patreon. I do community rituals each and every single month for the Hawthorne tears, so if you guys are interested in that, you can check that out. Yeah, that's about what I've got.

Kim: 55:37

Links will be in the show notes. Make sure you check show notes either on Spotify or Apple or my website, wherever they will be available. So the last two things I ask of every guest thing number one recommend something to the listeners. It does not have to be witchy. Whatever you are super into right now, recommend something.

Mahigan: 56:10

I would recommend the Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman, just because I started listening to it again the other day as an audiobook and it's honestly like practical magic is good. Rules of magic is excellent, if you want, like a novel. That's really like. It really encapsulates, I think, the experience of being a witch in the modern age, even though, like it's set in the 60s and stuff. But you know, same old, same old between the life upheavals and the troubles that magic bring into your life and you know doing things that you shouldn't, and also the complications of being queer in spaces that are difficult to exist within or love as a witch and all those things and just magical realism. I think she really nailed it on the head. I don't know if Miss Hoffman herself is a witch, but I think she really got it right. In the way that life often tends to happen to people on this path, you're always going to be kind of set apart and a little different from other people because of what you believe in and what you do, in the lifestyle that you choose, and that leads to a lot of the adventures that the Owens siblings experience in my experience. So great book.

Kim: 57:37

Along that same line, I'm going to recommend my friends podcast. I don't remember what the answer to the question was, but they interviewed Alice Hoffman on their podcast, the Magnolia Street podcast. I don't remember if she said yes or no, but they talked to her, so check that out. I will be listening to that later. The last thing that I ask of guests is please tell me a story.

Mahigan: 58:05

Oh, what kind of story are you? Are you in the market for?

Kim: 58:11

Either something goofy that happened to you or something exciting that happened to you, or just a story that you like to tell, whether it is folklore or whatever. Don't tell me some sort of please don't tell me something from a reality TV show.

Mahigan: 58:31

Oh God. So on last week's episode of the Bachelor.

Kim: 58:37

On Farmer Wants a Life.

Mahigan: 58:44

Before I'm watching Milf Manor because Wichita.

Kim: 58:47

Wichita is doing a special series on them and their Patreon. I want to die.

Mahigan: 58:54

Oh God, a story I like to tell. This is when I realized that I don't tell many stories. I can tell you the story about the first time that I remember seeing a spirit very vividly and having a very strange experience. So to set the context, I used to live in a military base like a defunct military base, I'd say 25 minutes away from this town named Setsil, which is the commercial metropolitan of northern Quebec with a booming population of 20,000 people. At the time we lived in a very dark. There was no street lights or anything like that, except for one, and then there was a big gate that led into the base. That was just like a residential neighborhood at that point. And so I think I was maybe seven, seven or eight, very young and we were driving down. It was late. I think my mom had just picked me up from my sister's house because she was taking care of me for a bit. We were driving home. I think it was probably like 10 or 11 or something like that. When I'm half asleep I'm in the back of the car just dozing off and we are pulling up around this one bend and I just want to set the scene. There are no lights, we're on a single little dirt road and there's pine trees that are probably like 20 feet high on both sides. You can't see anything. There wasn't even a moon in the sky. It was just so stupid dark. So it's headlights and a dirt road and we're coming around this bend that's known to be very dangerous because the way that it was done was like you couldn't really see if another car was coming during the day. So lots of crashes and stuff like that, just a very liminal, scary space, and we're turning this bend and then all of a sudden I just like screech because I'm convinced that we're about to hit this man like not a car, like a man that's like running across the road wearing this not quite a cowboy hat, but kind of a cowboy hat, and this fringe coat like brown tan leather coat, and these baggy jeans, and he has this big black beard. And my mom stops, the car, halts it and we're skidding a little bit and then we finally stop and obviously she's freaking out, she's yelling at me, but I'm not listening to whatsoever, because there's a man at my window and so, yeah, so there's this man at the window and I am obviously kind of freaked out. But also I think that a common experience when you see a spirit is that you're not afraid necessarily. You're kind of just confused, even if you think it's real you should be afraid, but like you're kind of just like something feels off, so you're like not sure how to feel. That's kind of how I remember feeling and this man like comes up to the window and like speaks to me. The window's closed, by the way, like there's no way I would have like heard anyone talk, but it was like clear as day and I remember his face and I remember everything that he looked like. And I my mom was like what are you like looking at? What are you screaming at? And I described to her like this man who's at the window and what he's telling me, and she starts crying and I'm like what the hell is going on? Like, even as a kid I was like what this is so weird? And then we just like drive off and we go home and like I, a couple of days later I came to find out my mom was married to a man named Philip before I was born and he died two years in a day before the day I was born. So she was widowed and he died from a heart attack in the woods. Like he went out, I think, to check on traps or something like that, because we've always lived very really he was checking on traps or something like that and he took the dog with him and he never came back and then they essentially found him dead of a heart attack in the middle of the woods in the winter and the dog was just like barking and yelling and stuff very tragic. I didn't know any of that when that happened. And then she, like a couple of days later, like took out a photo and like showed me him and it was like exactly like that was him, like I saw Philip and yeah, that's like a big story that like even she'll tell people and yeah, I mean she's always said that like he looked over us and like stuck with us and like we could see his shadows on the walls and like look over, looking over us and stuff like that. Because he was a very good man. From what I hear and as I got into witchcraft and stuff like that, he's actually become a very integral part of my practice as an ancestor that I work with, and so when I was getting into things, obviously, like he was like my mother's, like that was like the love of her life, so she kept a bunch of stuff of his all the time, this like trunk that she used to keep. And this one time I woke up from a dream where, like Philip was essentially telling me, like go to this place in the closet, in this box, in this other boxes in it, and you're going to find this thing. And I did it and I found his knives that used to belong to him. And then I said that those are the knives that I use, like when I said that, like my blades are very important to me, like that's why I have two blades that were given from him. And then I have another that was selected by a spirit for a specific thing, but those carry him through in my practice. And I have, like, his old cigarette tin that he used to fill with rollies, that I used to put his offerings in, and I like candles to him every November 28th because that's the date that he passed. So that's like, yeah, that's like a big one that I always like telling people yeah, a good guy, we like him a lot over here.

Kim: 1:06:10

That's amazing.

Mahigan: 1:06:12

Thank you, yeah, thank you for listening.

Kim: 1:06:16

I know I ramble a lot, so Did you get in trouble for rummaging through her? Call us it and then you have to say yeah, but he said to no, I told her what happened and she was like cool with it.

Mahigan: 1:06:32

My mom is also there. That would not fly at my house. My mom's a very spiritual person as well. She like, for as long as I remember, she's always paid attention to her dreams. My mom has like the same dream every time someone's about to die around her and she it's like very accurate. It's like kind of scary accurate, and so it's happened multiple times where she's had the dream and then she'll like drive like 10 hours to the house of the person who she saw and then like stay with them all day to make sure that no one gets hurt and they usually get hurt, but at least they don't die. So you win some, you lose some, you know.

Kim: 1:07:25

Yeah, we're, we're stress, we all so much I gotta go to Florida.

Mahigan: 1:07:34

Yeah, thankfully everyone lives oh, mostly everyone lives in Canada, so it's not too too bad. We're all in Eastern Canada somewhere.

Kim: 1:07:43

Oh man, that would stress me out.

Mahigan: 1:07:48

Yeah, it's been a while. Thankfully it's been a while. Yeah, I could go on. Honestly, my family's got so much weird stuff happening. My sister's dad lives in her house and he's been dead for 20 years. You know, just things like that. Little old role folk tales.

Kim: 1:08:10

Well, thank you again for being on the show and everybody be sure to go check out the show notes to get links to follow Mahegan on Instagram and everywhere else, and I'll see you over on Instagram. Bye, see ya, mahegan. Welcome to Hive House. Hello, can you please tell me what your favorite quote is?

Mahigan: 1:08:41

Yeah, so that is one of the questions that when I saw it on the list I was a little anxious because I don't remember any big quotes that I really refer to. But one can't just and we essentially had 10 days of partying and drinking and doing magic throughout the whole thing, and so it was like every night it was like you know that meme of Lady Gaga who that's like bus, bus, club, flight, another club, it was that. But instead we were like tarot ritual, going into the woods restaurant drink, and it was just like a crazy, crazy time and we were all just cackling and laughing the whole time. We did not sleep, Did not sleep.

Kim: 1:09:36

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