In this episode I'm talking to Aly kravetz, the Bronx Witch. Aly talks about how she found her practice in a home without magic, how she may be the only person in the room but is never alone, and how she is creating a space for witchy community in the Bronx, and she hopes you'll come visit.
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Aly the Bronx Witch.
Growing up in a mundane household, alone but never lonely, and creating witch community in the Bronx
Welcome back to Your Average Witch, where every Tuesday I talk to a new witch about witch life, witch stories, and sometimes a little witchcraft. In this episode, I'm talking to Aly Kravetz, the Bronx Witch. Aly talks about how she found her practice in a home without magic, how she may be the only person in the room but is never alone, and how she's creating a space for witchy community in the Bronx and she hopes you'll come visit. But first let's hear from one of our sponsors this week, the Rusted Rabbit. The Rusted Rabbit is a handmade crystal jewelry business based out of Michigan. Whether you're looking for a head-turning statement pendant or something more simple and dainty, they've got the piece you need. The Rusted Rabbit is run by Mike and Lindsay of Anahata's Popcorn Fame. They are a married couple who each bring a different eye to the small business, making for a variety of unique items.
They specialize in wire wrapping, macrame, hair accessories, and much more. They focus on the properties of the crystal they're working with, and put those energies into each piece. Check out the Rusted Rabbit to find bold jewelry that's made with love and intention, made for witches by witches. Fly over to therustedrabbitgr.com and use the code YawpQueen to get 15% off your entire order. That's Y-A-W-P-Q-U-E-E-N to get 15% off your entire order. You can also find them on Instagram at The Real Rusted Rabbit or on Facebook as The Rusted Rabbit. Now let's get to the stories!
Kim: Hello, Aly. Welcome to the show.
Aly: Hi, how are you? Thank you so much for having me.
K: I am great. Thank you for being here. Would you please introduce yourself, and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you?
A: Absolutely. My name is Aly Kravetz. I'm known online as the Bronx Witch. I am a tarot reader, Reiki master, and owner of the Bronx Witch Headquarters, which is a spiritual shop and workshare space in the Bronx, New York. You can find me on my website, bronxwitch.com, follow me on Instagram at bronxwitch, or you can check out my podcast, The Better Witch Podcast, on my YouTube channel and on all major podcast platforms.
K: Now, what does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch?
A: Being a witch to me, and this might sound a little corny, folks often say witch stands for a woman or a person in total control of herself. I very much feel like that is what it means to me. Being a witch is something that has allowed me to really get to know myself in a really deep and true way. And from getting to know myself, that has led me to learn to trust myself and to love myself very deeply.
I feel very much free from a lot of the trappings and dogma and constraints that I think a lot of folks in our modern day society are limited by. I see myself and life in things like the trees, and the rain, and the stars, and realize that I am no more limited than they are. In my ability to express myself and in my ability to create the life that I want to have, and to influence not just myself, but the people around me and the circumstances around me. It's been a very beautiful and powerful journey. And I take identifying as a witch pretty seriously because it means so much to me.
K: I love the idea that it helps you care for yourself. It didn't occur to me, but that is something that, the more I... become myself, the more I like myself. That's interesting. Oh, that's interesting.
A: Yeah. Yeah. And caring for yourself in the sense that like, when you realize that the self is made up of so many more parts than just this physical body, and this identity that someone slapped on us when we were born. You realize that there are other parts of yourself that also need care. So when we think about things like self-care, which is like a, you know, a term that we hear thrown around so much, it's often referred to in secular society as, you know, taking hot baths, or having a good meal, or getting good rest, which are all really important.
But they tend to really focus on the physical body and caring for the self that, you know, folks can see and touch. And being a witch really helps you to understand that there are so many more layers to the self, and that all of those layers also need care, and consideration, and compassion, and understanding. And when you approach yourself in that type of a holistic way, I mean, sky's the limit in terms of what you can do and how well you can be.
K: Love, love it. Do you – would you say you have a family history with witchcraft or do you have any stories from childhood or growing up that you remember that seem particularly witchy or metaphysical?
A: Not at all. And I'm so jealous of all the witches out there who grew up in magical homes. Not at all. I grew up in a very conservative Christian household. My family is from the South, Charleston, South Carolina specifically. I grew up in New York, I was born and raised in New York City. I am a native New Yorker all day. But my, you know, my family came from the South in the 60s during a time where lots of African Americans were migrating from the South for work and better opportunities. And so my family very much carried the South with them.
And so I spent a lot of time there as a child every summer. I spent every single Sunday in church, most Saturdays in church as well. As a young person, my, you know, extracurricular activities were all church activities. I really just went to school to go to school, and anything else in my life was a church-related something or other. And as I got older and became a teenager and started exploring witchcraft on my own, my mother was very opposed to the idea, very frightened by the idea, very concerned for my well-being and my safety.
So unfortunately, I did not have that type of experience, which would have been nice, I think. But of course, I think kids, in kid fashion, always rebel against whatever they grow up with. So if my mom was magical, I probably would be like a fundamentalist Christian at this point, just because we just love being the opposite of whatever our parents are into, just to be, because that's what you do when you're a kid, right? You rebel, you do the opposite.
K: Absolutely.
A: So it probably wouldn't have even been the case that I would have lived my life as a witch if I'd grown up in that environment. But I did not get that experience. So it was difficult for me exploring witchcraft and magic and later in life, spirituality, from an environment that wasn't very supportive of that. Having to sneak around and really find my own way, and find other people to teach me.
So it was a lot of learning from books. It was a lot of going to the local occult shops here in New York and doing my best to connect with the witches that worked there, or that frequented there. And I had my own experiences with magic, my own success with casting spells, but they were definitely my own. They were not something that I could share with my family members and even most of my friends. My friends were obviously a lot more supportive and far less religious themselves, but not necessarily as interested in magic and witchcraft as I was. So it was a lonely journey for a long time.
K: I was just thinking that sounds lonely.
A: Yeah, it was. It really was. It was a lot of me, and my journals, and my book of shadows, and my tarot cards, you know, in my room at night. I couldn't have an altar set up. So I had my altar tools, which were mostly made of things that I stole from my mom that she wouldn't notice, like candelabras that were only used for fancy dinners and things like that. I had them all in a big sarong, like a big scarf that I would tie up and hide under my bed. And at night I would pull it out, lay it on the floor, set up my altar, and experiment, and pull cards for myself and things like that. So it was definitely very lonely, but I think a lot of good came out of that as well.
K: Now, let's bring us into present day. What sort of practice do you have? Do you have any daily or regular rituals or practices that you'll share with us?
A: Oh yeah, for sure. I think daily practice and daily rituals are a super important part to going from that place where you might be calling yourself a baby witch, or saying that you're just dabbling or interested, to really being able to stand confidently in the identity of a witch. Every morning I wake up and spend sometimes as much as an hour and a half in prayer and meditation. But if I'm running late, it's maybe just 10 minutes. But I make sure to start my day with a moment of prayer.
And prayer is a word that can sort of be loaded for people. But for me, I just say prayer is just a politely worded request to the universe. And so I start off by acknowledging the four quarters, the four elements, the four directions, giving thanks for the fact that this body of mine gets to do this human experience once again, and setting intentions for how I desire the day to go.
I might honor a particular spirit on that day, give offerings of some kind. I might do some meditating or some journaling. I might pull cards for myself and things like that. But I start my day off kind of just grounding myself and acknowledging the incredibly complicated beauty that it is that I get to be alive right now, and be in this body right now, and kind of forecast what magic I want to come out of the day for myself. So that happens every day shortly after I wake up.
K: Dang. That sounds so good.
A: It is good. It is good. It feels really good. It's a great way to start the day. And sometimes there are occasions, you know, no one's perfect, where I wake up just too late, or something weird is happening and I can't do it. And it makes a big difference to start your day off with intention and acknowledging, you know, that you're not alone, that your spirit is, first of all, that you are a spirit in a body, and that your spirit is not the only one in this universe or this reality, and that you're interacting with energies and spirits all the time.
And you can either be a victim to that, you can just wake up and let the day blow you around like a leaf in the wind and suffer the consequences of that, or you can ground yourself deeply into the earth that we're on, like a tree, and say, "The wind may blow, but I am going to stay steady and have the day that I want to have." And it's not some perfect solution. Life is hard. Life is very, very hard. And some days I get to the end of it and it's just devastating, and I'm in tears, and I'm struggling, but I do believe that it would be far worse if I don't start my day at least trying to be grounded.
K: Dang, that's all I can say about that. Would you say witchcraft has changed your life?
A: Oh yeah, for sure. Witchcraft is my life, now, and it wasn't always that way. I think that it's hard to describe, honestly, the ways in which it's so extensive. I mean, we'd be here for days. Because everything that I do in life is a little bit different than it would have been before I really assumed that identity, and really fully stepped into that space.
Everything from how I eat, what I eat, drinking water, how much of it I drink, what I do before I drink some water, my showers every evening, the fact that I take a shower every evening, all of these things are connected to what I understand about myself. And witchcraft has been the lens that has allowed me to see myself in its true form and realizing that I don't benefit from doing most things the way I would if I weren't a witch.
I think so much of how we live is programmed into us from very early on, and those programs are not made to benefit us. They are made so that we stay workers, so that we stay consumers, so that we stay followers, so that we stay complacent and okay with things like injustice and oppression. And being a witch, I think, helps you to step outside of that programming, and write your own script and your own program. And just like a computer, you know, if you give it a different operating system, it does everything different. Every keystroke changes. So my life has changed dramatically being a witch and it's very different, I think, if I weren't.
K: That... prior to starting the recording we were talking about how it's chilly here in Arizona, but now suddenly I feel warmer because of the things you talked about. You get me riled up and now I'm kinda...
A: Pumped up.Yeah, I love that.
K: I'm kind of mad.
A: Yeah, for sure, for sure. I think it's a justified anger when we think about that we aren't set up for spiritual success from the start. That doesn't really serve other people, even our parents. It doesn't really serve our parents for us to be aware of the power that we hold because then we're less easy to control.
K: Exactly.
A: Right. When you are exhausted and you just need your kid to go to bed when you say, and not be friends with that person because you said so or, you know, eat your dinner, right, eat your vegetables or come home from that party, wear this shirt, right, wear this, especially stuff like that. Because when it comes to things like eating your vegetables, and things of that nature, I think we can all agree that there's a lot of benefit to eating well or things like that.
But when parents want to tell you what color your hair can be or what you can wear to school, ultimately they are really just not in a place where they have the energy to argue with other people who might not approve. Or deal with the fallback that you might experience, and that you might go through emotionally if you are teased as a result of what you choose to wear, or have problems in your school because of it.
They don't have the energy and the time to help you cope with that, or to go to battle on your behalf with others who might disagree with your choices. And so it's easier to just tell you don't wear that. For their sake. So, you know, even our parents who love us so much and probably want better for us than anyone else in the world, don't really want us to have the power that witches have.
K: Dang. So many sound bites.
A: I'm glad you feel that way! I always hesitate, I don't know if the parents out there will agree, because you know when you tell parents that, especially when you're not a parent, and you tell them that they're being lazy, or that they're...
K: Being selfish.
A: Right? or being selfish. When it comes to their children, I don't, I can totally understand why that wouldn't be well received, so. I'm sure...
K: I don't have kids either.
A: So yeah, I'm sure all of us who don't have kids who are probably in therapy because of our traumas from our parents are like, yes!
K: Hello!
A: Right. But people who have kids are probably like, this shit's no fun.
K: You don't know what it's like.
A: You know nothing! You don't understand. And I'm just like, okay, if you say so. I will see your kid in a tarot session 20 years from now. We'll see whether or not this approach would have been better.
K: What would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice?
A: You know, if I could be honest, I think my biggest motivator is knowledge. Either knowledge or power, but I think, you know, they say knowledge is power. So I think they overlap and in some ways are the same. I was just always that kid that wanted to have the answer. My mom found this very frustrating. I had to have the last word and I was convinced that I was right.
K: I call it I'm right-itis.
A: Yeah, I definitely suffered from that for a long time and to some extent I still do, except I'd like to think at least that now I understand that oftentimes there is no right answer. That's first. And second, that being right doesn't always accomplish what you want. Sometimes people can't handle you being right, and you get a lot farther by letting them just think you're wrong and just being okay with being seen as wrong. There's a lot of power in admitting when you're wrong. That was something that I struggled with for a long time.
I'm a Leo sun, so Leo, we're not wrong. You're just misunderstanding, is usually how we look at things. So I've had to reel that in a bit and realize that, no, sometimes I am just really loud and totally wrong. And, and, and it's important that I acknowledge that and be okay with like the embarrassment or the shame that might come from that. But I think that for me, my practice, the reason why witchcraft was so appealing to me as a kid, was I wanted to know things. And in my very Christian household, asking questions often resulted in answers like, "Because."
You know, just very empty. "Well, this is how we do it," or "This is what it says in this book." And no one could give me really good answers about like, why, or how do we know this? Who said this and when? And why haven't we challenged that? Does that make sense for today's world? Like, I don't understand. And I realized that the people around me didn't have answers to my questions and that frustrated me.
And witchcraft, when I was learning about it in the early days, I'm Wiccan and a lot of the writing that I was exposed to at that time was based on Wiccan practice and Wiccan practice gave me answers. And if it didn't give me answers, it gave me tools for how I could find those answers for myself, especially when it came to trying to understand how I, as someone who identifies as a woman, fit into a world where God is only a man. And Wicca gave me other answers, and said "What about the goddess? and you can know her too."
And so knowledge is for me something that you have to experience. I don't think that knowledge is the same as just repeating something that you've heard or you've read. And I felt powerful whenever I knew something. I had experienced something for myself and could say with confidence that this is how it is. Or even if it's just this is how it is for me, it wasn't a whole bunch of speculating. And I felt like the religious folks around me were doing a lot of speculating, but claiming to know.
K: Oh that's frustrating.
A: Yeah, and I wanted to just like know things. And I feel very powerful when I have the answer, or an answer, to something. And and Witchcraft has helped me to to do that find answers for myself
K: Here's a random question brought to me by therapy.
A: Yeah, amen to that.
K: So with knowledge Do you like to know things because it helps you feel safer? Because that's my thing. That's why I like to know everything. Because if I know things, then I can protect myself against the things I don't know.
A: Yeah, I'm sure there's an element of that for sure. I think my childhood trauma that leads to that has a little bit more to do with others. When I was a kid, I was kind of... knowing things didn't really help me much, when I was a kid. My mother was born in 1941 and she went to school in a little yellow house down the road in very, very rural South Carolina and didn't go to school beyond high school in the 50s. And then here I come along, you know, many years later in her life and I'm this hotshot brainiac kid going to private school in New York City and by the time I was in fifth grade she couldn't assist me with my homework anymore.
That didn't help me. It didn't help me to be knowledgeable at that time, because it created a big rift between us, and kind of put us in two different worlds. And made it really hard for us to relate to each other, and ultimately to even just like get along. I think the reason why I became so driven to know things despite how much chaos it kind of caused in my house, was because I was my sister's first lawyer.
My younger sister came along and I was like her advocate with my mom for why she could be allowed to do things, and why she should be allowed to go to this party, why it was okay for her to do this thing or the third. And, you know, she would often employ me to be the person to go explain to my mother why she should be allowed to do X, Y, or Z. And knowledge was the thing that I had to help to do that.
And that actually translated into me thinking for a really long time that I wanted to be a lawyer. I went to the George Washington University Law School for two years before realizing that that wasn't my path and leaving. And yeah, so knowledge really came from a place of wanting to be the person in the room that could defend all the other people that didn't have the words or the knowledge to do it for themselves.
K: I appreciate you.
A: Yeah, I think I make a really good advocate, and I felt like, you know, I can advocate better for people the more I know. So that was kind of my motivation.
K: Love it. Before I ask the next question, let's hear from our sponsor, Full of Intention.
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K: What would you say is your biggest struggle when it comes to witchcraft?
A: My biggest struggle is patience, perhaps? Knowing, knowing that people People work magic and practice witchcraft from different perspectives. So I acknowledge that not everybody comes to the practice of witchcraft from the sort of spiritual slash religious viewpoint that I come to it as.
For me, I see myself as limited by my human body, and therefore it's necessary for me to get assistance, and even perhaps authority, from the spiritual beings that I conjure, that I call on in order to assist me with magic. Not everybody looks at it that way. A lot of people practice magic from the perspective of just empowering their own will, and their own spiritual self to do what is necessary.
But I feel like I'm living in the human world. I'm no longer in the spirit world. And so even though I am a spirit, ultimately I sort of need a liason, if you will. Because of that, I go to spirit in my magical practice, especially when I'm casting or manifesting something. And that means, once I kind of hand over the instructions, and the request, it's out of my hands.
And that means I have to be patient for that particular entity to do what they need to do on the other side to align everything, to get me what I want. My job is to take care of the stuff in the physical, right? So if I've casted for a new, I don't know, apartment, then in the physical world I've got to start packing up my stuff and throwing away things for me.
K: Actually looking for an apartment.
A: Actually looking for where apartments are listed, checking them out. I've got to start doing the physical stuff, and then they'll do the rest. But sometimes I get a little impatient with the process and want it to happen and have to remind myself that, hey, everything is conspiring in my benefit so that the best outcome can happen, not just the outcome. I could get an apartment and then it's crappy, or I can't move into it, or it's not in an ideal location. and Spirit is ultimately trying to have not just the outcome that I want, but the best version of the outcome that I want, and It's not for me to interfere with how that comes to be. It's for me to hold the vision of what I want and Do the work in the physical world to make space for that, so that when it happens I'm in the best place that I can be to receive it. But that can be hard.
K: I Love hearing how different people view how their magic works. I love it. What would you say brings you the most joy in your practice?
A: Hmm I I think what brings me the most joy is just knowing that I'm not alone. Because having a practice means interacting with energy and realizing that that is a living force in the world. And that even if I'm in a room by myself, even if I have no friends, no family, if I'm a completely solitary creature somehow, that I'm not alone. And I think that's actually something that really helped me as a kid when I was very physically alone, in my interests and in my pursuit of magic.
I never really felt lonely. You know, I wasn't like, oh, I'm, you know, I'm so by myself. It was just like, oh, I don't have people that are interested in this, but there's energy that's very interested in this, and that's helping me with my interests. And so I get a lot of joy out of that. And that helps me to keep joy through the hard times in life. You know I feel sad all the time, but the joy never goes away. And so that helps me to navigate things like sadness much better. And that definitely comes from my practice.
K: I've mentioned before, but that one of my, I'm gonna say crazy fears, is that all the atoms that consist, that I consist of are suddenly going to decide they don't want to be me anymore and leave. But it never occurred to me to be soothed by the fact that they are here, and they are existing together, and that they're not the only ones who are hanging out with me.
A: Yeah, yeah. Even if you practice magic from a place where you don't call on any spirits to assist you with anything, you just tap into your own spirit self, higher self, whatever you call it, you're not alone because of that at the very least you have one other being that is with you. You know there's you, the human self that like lives and breathes on this earth, and then there's you the spirit self, that does all the magic and manipulates energy around you. So if nothing else, you have at least one other partner in this journey.
K: That hurts my brain. I'm going to have to ponder that later.
A: Yeah.
K: What is something that you did early on in your practice that you don't do anymore and why don't you do it?
A: There are definitely lots of little things that I like tried for a while and stopped doing. Little things like burning ancestor money, for example, which is a tradition that we get from from Eastern cultures, East Asian cultures, which is the practice of burning what's called Hell notes or Joss paper. It's a fake piece of currency that is burned to essentially send energy, send currency to the spirits of the dead, to our ancestors. And that's kind of made its way over to the West and some practices that are Western practices have incorporated that and picked up on that.
And for a while, I was trying to burn ancestor money at my ancestor altar and they were just like, girl, we are not Asian. Like, what are you doing? And I was like, I don't know. This is what people are doing. They say you should be doing this. And they were like, no, you can totally stop buying those. And I was like, thanks. Okay. No problem. So, you know, there's little stuff like that where I'm a solitary practitioner. So that means I don't have a coven.
And I'm an eclectic witch, which means I'm not initiated into a singular tradition. And so that means it's been a lot of trial and error for me, which may not have been the case if I were, certainly wouldn't be the case if I were like initiated into a particular tradition that already had a lot of systems and structures and, you know, rules for how you do this or how you go about that or how you approach the spirit or how you make this happen.
So it's been a lot of trial and error for me. So there's definitely little things like that. One of the big things, probably, that I no longer do, is think that everything I learn needs to be incorporated into my practice. That's probably the biggest change. As a young witch, everything I learned I felt like, well I have learned this thing, I must now start doing it. And I've learned that I can educate myself on what other witches are doing, what other practices and traditions are all about. But that doesn't mean it's for me, just because I've learned about it.
K: Lord!
A: Yeah, that has, that certainly saves me a lot of money.
K: Say that one again.
A: It definitely saves me some coin, that's for sure, because I'm like going out buying all kinds of things for things that are really not for me. I love learning about spiritual practices, magical practices, different traditions, but no longer feel like because I've learned something that means I now need to become an expert in it and start doing it and become a spokesperson for it and all of that stuff. I can just learn about something and keep it moving.
K: Yes. Yes Do you have a favorite tool that you use like an actual physical thing and how do you use it?
A: Hmmm. My favorite...
K: I guess it doesn't have to be physical if it's like "my brain!"
A: Yeah, no, all those things are great those things are great but no, I do have tools that I like to use a lot. I use my candle snuffer a lot. I use my candle snuffer a lot. I have one pretty much everywhere and anywhere where I have a candle. Which is in a lot of places.
K: What kinds do you have?
A: I'm an altar maker. Well, you know, honestly the underside of any container sometimes is my snuffer, but I do try to actually get snuffers. You know, really whatever I find, but I have, I would say most of mine are brass snuffers that I've gotten from different new age shops, and now that I have a shop I carry a few around, but one of my favorites is a style that I have here in the shop. It's very short and small. And the head of the snuffer is on a hinge, which makes it much easier to drop down into tall candles. Or reach across things, across my altar, and put out a candle that's in the back of the altar or kind of far away from me. So I do like those, they're very handy, and because it has a short handle, it's easy to pack up in my little travel bag if I'm traveling and plan on lighting some candles when I'm traveling. So I do like that. So it's a very practical tool, but it gets a lot of use from me for sure.
K: What do you think of the candle, the loops that you like dip, the wick dipper?
A: Oh, I don't know. I don't know about that. What's a wick dipper?
K: Imagine just like a stick, and it has a little circle that your pinky could fit into maybe. And you put it around the wick as it's burning, and you dip it down into the candle, into Into the melted wax, and then you pull it back out...
A: Mm-hmm.
K: ...and it puts, that extinguishes the flame that way.
A: Oh My. I've never even seen this. I love that! I'm all for it, I'm all for it. Yeah, I've never used one like that. But I can totally see how it would would work for sure.
K: I'm lazy and I do I do what you do and just put something on top.
A: Yeah, I do that a lot.
K: Yeah.
A: That's important to have something to be able to do it, you know, to snuff it out easily. And I just don't have the guts to pinch it out with my finger. And I know that is...
K: Sometimes I'll do that.
A: Oh, that is so badass.
K: Only if it's like a chime candle or a pillar that I can reach easily.
A: Yeah, yeah.
K: But I'm still scared.
A: It makes me very nervous. And I know it's super badass to do it. And I love when witches just like lick their fingers and put it out and just, like, you are the Supreme.
K: I do metal work. So I burnt, I like, you know how like chefs are like, "I burnt the sensation out of my finger." I've kind of done that because I work with metal.
A: Yeah, my mom, like, you know, she's one of these old school cooks from being in the kitchen forever like her way of tasting food is to take a spoon of like the piping hot, whatever that's on the stove, and she just pours it into the palm of her hand and drinks it out of her hand and I'm always like are you okay? and she's like I'm fine I'm like unbelievable I am NOT there. I'm definitely a little sissy with little hands.
K: Yeah I'm not doing that either. Nope. Not the palm. The fingertips yes, but I'm not scalding my palm.
A: No she pours it right into the palm of her hand. Scalding soup whatever it is and just slurps it out and I'm just like oh my gosh and she'll be like come here and I'm like absolutely not lady give me the spoon. I'm gonna blow on it for 10 minutes and then I'm gonna try this.
K: If you could only recommend one book to a new witch, what would it be?
A: Kim that is so hard! Because we're all just different new witches. You know, I would maybe... Okay, let's see. I'm going to try to think about this from a totally non-denominational standpoint, because I definitely have books that I recommend to start with if you are interested in Wicca, or you are interested in hoodoo, or you know etc. But I would say if you are just interested in witchcraft in general, and you just want to get started in kind of a very easy, approachable, not woo-woo kind of way.
You just want to have some practices that help you to start thinking about life in a magical way. I would recommend Good Juju by Najah Lightfoot. It's published by Llewellyn. And she is, she just recently, or very soon to release her next book, Powerful Juju. I would start with Good Juju. It's a small book, it's very simply written, and it just gives you a good overview of just how to start living a magical life. Some very introductory rituals, or prayers, or things to think about in terms of connecting more deeply with nature, with the goddess, with yourself, and that kind of really doesn't matter what type of witchcraft you are interested in.
This would be a good place to start. And then from there you can say, okay, I'm particularly interested in this type of craft, or I have ancestry here and want to learn more about these practices, or I love tarot and I want to learn more about that. But this gives a really good overview of just ways to get started on practicing magic and incorporating witchcraft into your life.
K: Nice. Who would you say are the three biggest influences on your practice or what? Who or what?
A: Oh, my practice. Nowadays, that would be the spirit of my grandfather, Robbie Glover Jr. He was the first ancestor to come through to me, and whose spirit I could feel standing in front of me in my space and really made himself known that we are still here. So I go to him first and foremost really when approaching the other ancestors that I call on or honor. I would say... These are like human people we're talking about?
K: It doesn't even have to be people. It can be just like thoughts or experiences or a book.
A: Okay. So yeah, definitely my my grandfather. I would say my prayer book. It's super important to my practice. I take it with me most places. It's a book where I have written down prayers that I have written, but also prayers that I have taken from others for various things, and I crack it open all the time. And I would say the Goddess. In her very, very many, many forms. Absolutely integral to my practice and to who I am as a person.
K: Hmm. Do you have any advice for anybody just starting out?
A: I have tons of advice. Yeah, I think it's, probably the most important goes back to what I was saying earlier about asking yourself the why? I think that's super important in the beginning. It's the last question that anybody ever really talks about. You know, it's like, oh, you're new to witchcraft, how do you do this? What do you put on your altar? What, you know, how do I make this thing? Or how do I cast this spell? And really the first question should be why. Why are you interested in witchcraft in the first place? And it's okay if the answer is "Because I saw it on a TV show and I think it's really cool." Or "I don't feel powerful in my real life and I want to find that somehow."
K: Yeah. We're allowed to want that.
A: Yeah, that's okay. It doesn't have to be some deep spiritual reason. It doesn't have to be-
K: For the good of the world.
A: Right, because you want to-
K: It's nice, but you're allowed to want things for yourself.
A: Right, exactly. It's okay if you are in high school and you're being bullied and you feel really powerless and helpless and you want to take your power back. What you then do with that, and then how you navigate with that is important to consider, because you could be bringing more conflict into your life than resolution and peace. But if for yourself that's the reason, then that's the reason.
But I don't think that new witches have been told enough, and so they don't know, that the why is the most important place to start and constantly come back to. What, and the how, and the where do I put thi,s and the when do I do that, that's all stuff that you will be able to far more easily establish and understand for yourself, if you know why you're doing something.
You know, if I know why I'm putting lavender in this thing, then it's going to make it a lot easier for me to know when to use lavender, what things to use lavender in, where to put the lavender, what to do if I don't have lavender, etc. But if you don't know why, then all the other stuff is very difficult and you need someone else to direct you. And that's not really witchcraft, that's imitation. That's not the same.
K: That's probably gonna hurt some feelings.
A: Yeah, that's okay. That's all right.
K: Who would you like to see on this show answering these questions?
A: I would like to oh, that's, that's, that's a really good one, Kim. Because these are really great questions. And I have so many witches that I admire and am interested in and would love to hear their take on these things. I would say... I would love to see Madame Pamita. Have you spoken with her yet?
K: She's on my wish list! I made a new wish list for the year and she's on it!
A: Yay! I would say Pammy. She is a great source of information. She's really down to earth and personable, but also very experienced and knowledgeable. So talking to her is great fun. And there's a lot that you can learn from her and her experiences without, I think, feeling overwhelmed, or like someone is just like so in their spiritual head that they're kind of forgetting what everyday people are like. You know she, she will talk about what it's like just being a parent, trying to be a small business owner, having a shop, you know, she was in a band, she's like super cool, you know, just like a regular kind of chick, you know, and, but at the same time super magical, super knowledgeable, especially about Slavic magic. And yeah, I think it would be a lot of fun to hear her answer these questions.
K: Cool. I agree.
A: Yeah. Yeah.
K: Is there anything else you wanted to bring up? Anything I didn't ask or anything you wanted to ask me?
A: Yeah, well, first of all, thank you so much for asking all of these questions. I feel like they're very insightful and I got to talk about me a little bit, which I enjoy, but also hopefully-
K: I'm just real nosy.
A: Yeah, but also hopefully share some things that are beneficial to the next witch. That's kind of the, or well, it is the premise and the purpose of my podcast, the Better Witch Podcast, is to help people go from baby witches to better witches. And I feel like one of the best ways to do that is to hear from other witches that are practicing, about their experiences. So asking questions about things I would do differently, or that I've changed, or that I have to have, I think are helpful for other witches to hear, and hear the reasons behind that, and why.
And I guess what I would ask you is, we as witches don't have to be public about our practices. It's kind of a big decision to be in a public forum and expose yourself to, you know, folks who may not be so happy that you're being public, or that you call yourself a witch, or things like that. And so I'm curious what your experience has been like being a podcaster, but just in general being out and public about being a practitioner. How has that journey been for you?
K: I'm going to tell two instances.
A: Yeah.
K: The first one is when I publicly said to someone that I don't know at all that I'm a witch. And that was when I was trying to get some of my jewelry into this shop that opened up downtown in Colorado Springs. And they were – I made little planchettes. And then when they said "Well, what do you do?" and I said "I make witch stuff." And they said "What does that mean?" So I said "Well, I'm a witch. I make jewelry and tools for for witches."
And then they later came back and said "We did, we decided we're not gonna work with you. My husband is afraid of Ouija boards." I was like, all right.
A: Anyway.
K: But more recently, actually, in December, somebody reached out to me specifically because I'm a witch, a public witch, and said, hey, we're doing a witch thing at this local bookstore, can you come and sell stuff?
A: Yeah.
K: And I was like yeah, hell yeah. So I don't know if that exactly answers your question, but... I don't know. I'm just trying to care less.
A: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, because you're going to get that mixed, You know, it's gonna always be like that. You're going to get some people that are just totally opposed or really weirded out. I am located in a building, my shop is located in a building that's part commercial, part residential. So it's commercial on the ground floor and then apartments above. And I got a delivery from the USPS, and it was not my usual postal person. And this guy, I'm five feet tall and 125 pounds. And this guy was probably six feet tall, big black guy with dreads, probably near 300 pounds. Just massive guy, took up my entire doorway. And when you come to my doorway, one of the first things that you can see is a mat, a floor mat that says The Witch Is In, you know, and it has the sort of typical witch on a broomstick silhouette. And he comes to the door and as I'm walking over to the door to greet him he literally just goes *gasps* and like jumps back a few inches.
In feet, like the boogeyman was standing there, and I was like "Are you okay?" and he was like "Yeah I just, I just saw your mat just scared me a bit." And I was like "It scared you? My floor mat?" and he was like "Well, I I just, I just the witch, what's that about?" and I was like "Well I'm the witch." and he like looks at me and I was like "Do I look scary to you?" you know, and I'd like to think I'm still a cutie patootie hot tamale, you know what I'm saying, and he looked at me and was like, "No, actually, you're very not scary."
And I was like, "Great. You can stop flirting now, because you made yourself look like an absolute idiot, being afraid of my floor mat. But yeah, I'm the witch here and I'm not scary at all. And I'm glad that you learned something today. Give me my package. Nice to meet you." You know what I mean? So you'll have people that are literally, physically frightened by the idea of you. And then I have people who walk by and are like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. It's so dangerous that you're in my apartment building. I'm going to be down here buying crystals all the time and talking all the time.
You know, there's a little old lady named Carmen who's never bought anything here, and probably never will, but she comes in every day just to say hi and make sure I'm okay. One day it was late in the evening and I had closed the door, but I didn't close it all the way. And I was like packing up and stuff and she rings the doorbell and I go to the door and I'm like, "Oh, hi, hello."
And she goes, "I saw that your door was ajar and I just got nervous that something wasn't well, and just wanted to make sure that you were okay, and that you know that your door is open." and I was just like "Thank you Carmen, so much. I truly appreciate you." And you know, judging from her background I'm 100% sure she grew up in a Latin Catholic household. But she checks on me every time she passes by, and just drops in to give me encouragement, and And tell me how much she hopes my shop stays here and that it does well. And all of that.
K: My heart!
A: Yeah, I love, shout out to Carmen. You know. Could probably take that postal worker down with her love and kindness So yeah, so it's it's definitely a mixed bag of reactions that you get, and it you kind of never know What people are gonna say. I've had people laugh in my face, like Bellyroll Santa Claus laugh in my face when I say I'm a witch, because the idea is just so ridiculous to them based on what their conception of a misconception of what a witch is.
K: "Do you think you're at Hogwarts?"
A: Oh yeah, yeah you get that all the time. "Oh, what is this, Harry Potter? Ha ha ha!"
K: Yes, I think I'm at Hogwarts.
A: You know and yeah, so and that can be very hurtful. So it's not, it's not easy. So I definitely you know, every time I meet a fellow witch that's out in the world, Making their craft, sharing themselves in the public, telling people to their faces" Yep, I'm a witch, whatever you take from that is what you take from that." I, you know, say hats off to you, and I definitely wish you much love and luck and success with all the things you're working on, and with this podcast.
K: Thanks, gosh! Oh wow.
A: Yeah.
K: Well Same to you!
A: Thank you.
K: Now the last two things yeah number one, please recommend something to the listeners It doesn't have to be metaphysical or witchy spiritual. Just, just anything whatever you're into right now.
A: I recommend therapy.
K: Hell yes.
A: Yes. I for every single person on the surface of the earth. You do not need to be quote unquote "struggling," or having gone through some specific trauma that you can put your finger on, or anything like that, for therapy to be beneficial to you. Everything that you do as a adult or someone close to an adult, I imagine most folks tuning in, are at least of teenage age, everything that you do as a person is directly tied to the things that you experienced as a child. For better or for worse.
And it's important to know why you do the things you do, why you tick the way that you tick. I don't think it's possible for a witch to be a witch if they do not know themselves. And if you don't understand why you navigate life the way that you do, you don't really know yourself. And it's going to be very difficult to manipulate or influence the people or things around you, if you don't know how it is that you can do that in the first place. K: Oh my gosh.
A: Yeah, so I recommend therapy to absolutely everybody, so that you can get to know yourself. When you get to know yourself, then you begin to trust yourself, and love yourself, and see the power that you hold. And you are in control, rather than your life experiences or your emotions or your unchecked or unaddressed traumas being in control of you.
K: Yes.
A: Yeah.
K: Last thing, would you please tell us a story, preferably one that if you have a family reunion and everybody's sitting around on the back porch or the patio, I don't know what New York life looks like, but where I'm from, it would be a big backyard with a grill.
A: Yeah. I don't know that here. It'd be like in the park. In the park hanging out.
K: But your family's all around and everybody's hanging out and you're like, "Remember when cousin whoever did thing?" that story. It doesn't have to be a family reunion story, but that sort of thing where you're like, "This is a story I like and it makes me laugh."
A: Yeah. Well, I will tell the story of my cousins because they like to tell this story. And I was very, very young when it happened, so I don't have a memory of it, but it always gets a good laugh out of people. When I was like maybe three or four years old, so I was able to walk around but not really talk yet, my cousins were employed with the task of babysitting me, which is always like, why? Why do parents do this? But I can understand it.
So my cousins were visiting from out of town and they were allowed to babysit me and they were, you know, teenagers at the time. And they thought it was just so funny to take Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid packets and sugar and a little bit of water and make these concentrated sugar Kool-Aid balls and give them to me and then watch me run around and with my face all scrunched up and literally running into walls because they were so sweet and sour.
I am not sure how long this went on for but it was like their favorite pastime and I'm pretty sure that I still suffer some damage either from hitting the walls or the sugar content, okay, because things are very jumbled in there these days. And yeah, I think that that was it. But yeah, my cousins, that was what they would do when my mom wasn't around. They would make these little Kool-Aid sugar balls that they would feed to me. And then they'd be like, Oh my God, watch her reaction. And I'd be like, "AAHHHHHH!" running around, but not old enough to really like, talk about it or say anything.
So no one knew it was going on until I was like an adult and they like confessed their crimes. But now, now they love to tell that story to anyone, especially I'm married now. But if I was dating someone, they'd be like, "Let's tell you about the time when Aly was three and we used to give her sugar balls, and she would run around in her diaper and fall over." I'm like, "Oh, great story, thanks." So that one gets told a lot. I'm 36 now, so I feel like we can move on, but no, they like to tell that one still to this day.
K: I'm guilty of that.
A: Yeah?
K: Sort of. Those Bertie Botts Every Flavor Jelly Beans. Little kids don't know. Little kids can't read that it tastes like sardines.
A: Right.
K: Sorry, to my nieces.
A: How cruel. We're so terrible.
K: Yes. My apologies to my nieces. That's why I give them $50 for their birthdays.
A: That makes up for it, I'm sure. I would definitely eat a sardine flavored jelly bean for $50, no problem.
K: Actually, I don't know if I would.
A: Really?
K: Fish makes me barf.
A: I don't mind fish terribly, but I like $50 way more. So I would...
K: It depends on how... If my head hurt, then no. But if I didn't mind barfing that day, sure.
A: Sure. Right.
K: Because I would vomit. On that super fun note, thank you for being on the show.
A: Yes. On the note of vomit, this has hopefully not been word vomit, and been helpful to some of you.
K: It helped me.
A: Oh, good, good. Good.
K: But thank you again.
A: Yeah, sure. So you can find me in real life, because I'm witching in real life, here in the South Bronx at Bronx Witch Headquarters, we're a spiritual shop and work share space. Which means that in addition to candles, crystals, tarot decks, books, used and new, we also have space for practitioners to reserve for tarot readings for clients and a private room for Reiki healers, massage therapists, yoga teachers, basically anyone who needs reservable space to grow their practice. A lot of the work that we do really benefits from face-to-face contact with folks, but going to people's homes or bringing them into your home can be very challenging, not so desirable, and so I've created a space where practitioners can work and serve their communities in a space that's safe, and that's got all of the amenities that you need.
Free Wi-Fi and wireless printing and coffee and tea and storage and all of that great stuff. And our goal is to be the hub of witchcraft in the Bronx. If you are looking for witches, if you think you might be a witch, if you want to be a witch, if you need the tools to be witching, we wanna be the place that you come to to find those products, those services, but also that community. We have events and classes here that will perhaps introduce you to your next witchy best friend.
So if you are local, definitely check us out. The South Bronx is one of the most underserved places in this country still. We have some of the lowest literacy rates, some of the highest chronically ill and elderly members of the community. We are 94% people of color, and most of our households are families of children under the age of 18. And COVID did not make any of those numbers any better. And so if you feel like this is the type of place that you want to see in areas like this, but you don't live here, please visit our website, BronxWitch.com. There is a link of ways that you can support us, from donating books, to donating supplies, to donating funds. And it would be of great help. So I do hope that you go to the website and learn more about us, and maybe a little bit more about me, and reach out and support this growing community.
K: Love it. You can find that link in the show notes below, or wherever it is on wherever you're listening. Okay, and thank you again for being on the show, and I will see you on the internet. Bye!
A: Bye! Blessed be!
K: So Aly, welcome to Patreon!
A: Oh, hey! Welcome! Hi, Patreon folks! Welcome to Aly! Hi! *fade out*
*Fade in* People love to cast, you know, write about spells that they're casting. Here's a spell for that. Okay, great What happened? Where's the proof? How do I know that that spell was effective for you? And then the question of well, why should I do that? For myself? Is important. You used basil in this. That's great. Why? and why might I want to use the same ingredient or not? So yeah, I try to encourage people who come to me for any type of guidance or interested in what I have to say, to just to constantly be asking themselves that, why am I doing this? And if you're honest with yourself, which is important, and the answer is because I saw it, I saw someone else do it, then consider that... *fade out*
K: To hear more of the Patreon episode, head over to patreon.com/cleverkimscurios for a free 7-day trial. The $5 tier will give you podcast bonuses, videos, recipes, access to the Marco Polo and Facebook groups, and more. There are also tiers starting at $10 where you can get spell boxes, intentional handcrafted jewelry that I make especially for witches, and there's even a special crystal tier. Check it out at patreon.com/cleverkinscurios. Thanks for listening to this episode of Your Average Witch.
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