It's Taurus season, and as a reminder, I'm taking the month of May off... since I'm a Taurus. I remastered some of the most popular episodes from season one so you can actually hear them, and I even included some new stuff that I cut out the first time. In this episode I talked to Sarah Louise of Bright Witch Brews. She shares some spiritual stories, tells us how she asked the fae to help her business, and we talked about how she uses her pendulum.
Birthday Month Remix: Bright Witch Brews
Welcome back to Your Average Witch, where every Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories, and sometimes a little witchcraft. It's Taurus season, and as a reminder, I'm taking the month of May off since I'm a Taurus. I remastered some of the most popular episodes from season one so you can actually hear them, and I even included some new stuff that I cut out the first time. In this episode, I talked to Sarah Louise of Bright Witch Brews. She shares some spiritual stories, tells us how she asked the Fae to help her business, and we talked about how she uses her pendulum. Now let's get to the stories.
Kim: All right, welcome Sarah.
Sarah Louise: Hi Kim. Thank you so much for having me on.
Kim: Thanks for coming on. I'm just going to say it because we had to start all over again, because my computer turned off because I forgot to, I didn't realize that it had come unplugged. So welcome back again.
Sarah Louise: Thank you.
Kim: It's really, thank you very much Coming on the show and for tolerating this thing that seems to be happening.
Sarah Louise: I'm really excited to be here I've been listening to all of your other episodes and I've been really really enjoying all of the questions that you've been asking, they're really interesting and I've been really enjoying just mulling them over and having a bit of a contemplation. It's been really nice.
Kim: Oh good! Well, please introduce yourself, introduce your business, tell us who it's for, what you do, and why it's different from others like it that are out there.
Sarah Louise: Sure. Hi, I'm Sarah Louise-
Kim: I'm sorry. Also, let us know where we can find you.
Sarah Louise: Sure. So, I'm Sarah Louise. I'm an artist and creative writer and tea witch at Bright Witch. So I sell enchanting little tea blends with edible glitter, and I write cosy tea time tales, and I hope that soon I'll be expanding out into some art prints as well. The whole intention behind this business is to create this really enthralling sensory sensory experience, and to kind of offer a place of inspiration and sanctuary from the day to day. So with the tea, everything about the tactile experience of it is really important to me, so I wanted to have just these really beautiful scents and flavours, and the aesthetic with the glitter, and I just really wanted to make this little magical potion from something that I, at least, drink every single day. And with my tea tales and my art, I wanted to give people a little fantasy and a magical world that they could kind of visit and lose themselves in and engage their imagination. So the way that my business is different from others out there is that I think I really like to focus on the sensory delight, and just create this really novel experience and kind of enrich that with these little tea tales and little magical writings. At the moment I'm working on a long form story, as well as I write little tea tales that are just these little tea break escapes, and I haven't seen really other people marry those two things together. And I just, yeah, I really think that words have a lot of power, and so the writing that I do through Bright Witch, I really want to just invoke this sense of magic and awe. And you can find me at brightwitch.com. I'm also on Instagram and TikTok at brightwitchbrews, though I'm mostly active on Instagram.
Kim: I'm really excited to try your stuff because when Charlye and Macy described it, they were talking about the glitter and I am not a glitter person, but I want to eat some glitter. It just sounds gorgeous! And I can just imagine how beautiful it is and how I'm specifically talking about the blue moon, right?
Sarah Louise: Yeah. Yeah. The blue moon is definitely a favorite.
Kim: I am dying to try that. I plan on ordering some, so. (both laugh) Now, what does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch?
Sarah Louise: So most of my magical practice, at least from day to day, it focuses less on the external aspects of spellcraft, so less on specific little ritual things or working with ingredients or objects, and is more focused on creating internal states of feeling or states of being. So I daydream a lot and lately I've been trying to really focus on using my imagination and my daydreams as my main magical practice and means of spellcasting because it's just something I do naturally almost all day, every day. So at the moment my beliefs kind of lean towards ideas of panpsychism, so the idea that consciousness is a fundamental aspect of the cosmos at large. So –
Kim: Oh no, that's making me think things!
Sarah Louise: Oh no? Oh I thought you were saying "Oh, you're wrong! No! I know the secrets!" (laughs)
Kim: No. What? (both laugh) What?
Sarah Louise: Yeah, so there's a bit of background to coming to those kinds of ideas. And then they're not even really set in stone beliefs. Because there's so much we don't know about the way everything works that it seems kind of foolish to go, "Yes, this is definitely the way things work and this is definitely how magic works and this is definitely how consciousness works." I don't think we're ever going to get to a point where we can ever say that as human beings with the senses that we have. But the general kind of philosophy I guess I subscribe to is this idea that, where do you draw a line between what is conscious and what's aware? We've got human sentience and then we've got animal sentience and then earthworm sentience is going all the way down to are those microorganisms sentient? Where do you draw the line?
Kim: I'm afraid of sentient microorganisms because what if all your cells decide they don't want to be you anymore? That's like a legit fear I have.
Sarah Louise: Oh wow.
Kim: I hate that.
Sarah Louise: I love that as a horror story idea. That's amazing!
Kim: Things that keep me up at night.I wish I didn't think of it.
Sarah Louise: Just erase that thought So, yeah, my general idea is that kind of everything is conscious, like just these little building blocks that spin themselves up into these little complex forms and complex life. So I think that when we connect to our own internal consciousness, that's almost like a communication with the wider consciousness, and that pulls on little threads across reality beyond ourselves. So, that's why I work a lot with imagination and with states of feeling and states of being, and I guess just trying to work with my own internal consciousness through imagination.
Kim: That's very similar to what my...
Sarah Louise: And I'm imagining all of my cells in my body just going, yeah, quitting time.
Kim: "I don't like this chick!"
Sarah Louise: I actually really like that idea from just a story perspective.
Kim: I... don't want to read that. (laughs) That's really, I feel like that's similar to what I believe. I'm just really bad at expressing myself. Wow.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, I find it really interesting, the ideas of animism, and you know, just imbuing inanimate objects with a state of life, I guess, and then I guess taking that one step further and going, well, you know, just taking it down to the smallest little particles.
Kim: I do believe in a universal consciousness, though.
Sarah Louise: Yeah. Have you had any experiences?
Kim: No. I don't want to think about that! (both laugh) There's just so much mundane crap going on in my life. I don't want to think about the universe talking to me! Not today.
Sarah Louise: That's enough to be dealing with. (both laugh)
Kim: Would you mind introducing us to any daily practices that you have?
Sarah Louise: Sure. So most of my daily practices just focus around moments in mundane life where I make time to either ground myself or just kind of daydream in an intentional way. So I'm always drinking tea, like I'll make so many cups of tea throughout my day, and I'll maybe drink half of them before they go cold. But, you know, I'll just stir some intention into my tea or ground myself as I'm making it because it's just such a little tactile sensory process that engages so many senses. Or I'll just take like a break in the middle of my day and just go stretch out my legs or whatever, and just spend some time in my own head. And that's most of my practice. I used to be really interested in, I guess, the daily rituals that I guess you would typically associate with more witchcrafty kinds of things like tarot draws or I used to use my pendulum a lot. I've got this little necklace that I bought online, it's a little foxglove pendant that I use as a little pendulum and I really enjoyed using that. I used to do little candle rituals where I'd just sit and watch a flame for a little bit while I was doing my morning set-ups and those kinds of things, or doing my makeup. But since I've been at home, I've been working from home, I haven't really been doing my makeup that often, so I haven't had that ritualistic aspect in my day for a couple of years now. But maybe I should start doing that again. I find candle flames quite soothing.
Kim: Yeah. What kind of things would you ask it?
Sarah Louise: So, I, when I first started I was really interested in consciousness. So, I was coming from a history where I just kind of didn't really believe that there was really anything beyond the brain in terms of conscious experience, you know. We live in our little meat suits and we go about our days and then we die and then it's, you know, game over kind of thing. That's what I used to believe. And then I had some experiences that made me reconsider that stance on things. And so a lot of the questions I would ask my pendulum were things about, you know, afterlife and prelife and reincarnation and what are the bounds of consciousness and those kinds of things, but trying to put them into a yes or no format. It's not something that I took super seriously in that I didn't take the answers from it as gospel because you're dealing with the subconscious, which I don't think when that bubbles up to the conscious brain is a super reliable witness. But it was a lot of fun.
Kim: Pre-life?
Sarah Louise: Yeah, I was reading...
Kim: I mean, that makes sense, but...
Sarah Louise: Yeah, I was reading these books by a hypnotherapist from the 60s. I am really trying to remember her name. Yeah, it's Dolores Cannon. these books where during a hypnotherapy session she accidentally regressed someone back before birth into the kind of space before life, before someone incarnates. I'm still very skeptical of these ideas, but I find them really, really interesting. So I read a few of her books and was kind of using the pendulum to kind of probe into these ideas of, you know, questions like, have I been alive before? Have I been dead before? Those kinds of things.
Kim: Okay, random question. Do you think that pre-life and post-life are the same plane or place?
Sarah Louise: Ohhh. My assumption was yes. Because I, like, the way I think about it is it's kind of this astral, imaginal, soupy kind of realm that we come from and then return to. But I could be completely wrong. I personally don't have any memories as such of these kinds of places. But, uh, have you seen the film What Dreams May Come? With Robin Williams?
Kim: No.
Sarah Louise: Oh, it's...
Kim: Maybe I have, maybe I've seen parts of it. I know what you're talking about.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, it's kind of... It's quite a heavy film, so you know, like content warning for, uh, for, you know, topics of death and self-harm and these kinds of things.
Kim: I have seen it.
Sarah Louise: Yeah.
Kim: That was a long time ago. And it bothered me, so I wiped it out of my memory. (both laugh)
Sarah Louise: It's an intense film. It can be pretty dark and pretty heavy. But overall, the way they present ideas of, you know, afterlife and pre-life and reincarnation and just that kind of astral realm as being really influenced by your own state of consciousness, is kind of what you experience in this really fantastical kind of malleable environment that kind of connects to the physical world so you can communicate through these little artistic modalities. And that's kind of how I think that it works, when you get into those kinds of realms of reality, I guess.
Kim: It's just weird that this is coming up because I talked about this with Charlye.
Sarah Louise: Oh really? (laughs)
Kim: And it was at random. It was not a planned conversation just like now.
Sarah Louise: I'm trying to think.
Kim: Am I gonna die? (both laugh)
Sarah Louise: I don't think I've finished that interview yet. I'm 37 minutes into it.
Kim: I haven't released the second part.
Sarah Louise: Oh, the second part. Okay. Yeah, I can't.
Kim: Why is this coming up? I'm paranoid now. Great.
Sarah Louise: (laughs) There is no such thing as a coincidence.
Kim: Awesome.
Sarah Louise: Have you seen that meme?
Kim: I don't know.
Sarah Louise: There's a TikToker who was recording these videos in the woods and he'd start off really dramatic facing the camera and he'd say "There is no such thing as a coincidence." It kind of became a meme. I find it really fun.
Kim: I haven't TikToked in a long time.
Sarah Louise: Yeah. Do you have an account or do you just kind of scroll through?
Kim: I do have an account but I don't do put anything on it. Mainly I'm just there for the lulz.
Sarah Louise: It's a wonderful vehicle for entertainment.
Kim: and the the Indian boys learning to dance. I like watching those.
Sarah Louise: Oh wow, that sounds so wonderful. I have to see those, I love, I love dancetok. Mostly like the hip-hop dances that I really enjoy.
Kim: Yeah, me too.
Sarah Louise: So incredible, incredible dancers on there, so creative.
Kim: Do you have any family history with witchcraft?
Sarah Louise: I'd probably say a lot of the women in my family are pretty witchy, but I don't think they would call themselves witches. I could be wrong, but I grew up in a quite a Catholic family. I was never very dogmatic myself, but my extended family on both sides are fairly religious. And I was kind of always into magic, and especially the idea of fairies as a little girl. And then as a teen I got into astrology and crystals and and Wicca during that 90s, early 2000s New Age resurgence.
Kim: When The Craft came out.
Sarah Louise: And I grew up on that. Exactly. Like those 90s witches movies are my heritage. (both laugh) I grew up on things like The Craft and Practical Magic.
Kim: Yeah.
Sarah Louise: And, you know, The Craft is kind of a little bit darker, but I never really found the idea of witches to be evil or kind of scary. I just wasn't really exposed to that kind of rhetoric growing up. My grandma was always making me little fairy type of costumes for my dolls and teddies and things, pasting glittery little fairies on my hairbrushes for me. She's an incredible gardener and she used to have this amazing sprawling garden. So there was always this kind of, you know, like secret fairies live at the bottom of the garden kind of sense. And I was like, I was really taken with the idea of angels, especially like guardian angels. And I used to get these little angel pins from my relatives for religious events, like, you know, Eucharist and Confirmation, and I still have my collection of little angel pins. So I guess there's a little bit of a bleed through from some of the, I guess, religious imagery I grew up from into, I guess, into my magical sense.
Kim: Are you out to your family?
Sarah Louise: Like I haven't had a conversation where I'm like explicitly, I am a witch and I do witchcraft kind of conversation, but I mean my family, at least all of my immediate family and some of my extended family, know about my Bright Witch Tea business, and they know that it's pretty witchy, and they look at the Instagram and what I post, so it wouldn't come as a shock, I don't think. There's probably a section of my extended family that I probably just wouldn't mention it to it because I don't think they'd go in for the idea of witchcraft because they're very very Catholic. Attending mass in Latin level of Catholic .Don't know if they'd be quite into the idea of witchcraft. I'm not sure where their beliefs lie on that kind of things
Kim: And that's like the witches, witchiest version...
Sarah Louise: It's the witchiest religion, exactly. (laughs)
Kim: What was your first experience with witchcraft?
Sarah Louise: First experience... so It's kind of really hard to draw a line, honestly. So as a kid I'm sure I fed magical potions to my bear, or if I was mixing little hot chocolates and cackling or something. (both laugh) And I collected, there was this, sometimes through news agencies and post offices you could get these little subscription things. So there was this set of astrology cards that would come out kind of every week or every month and you'd pay $5 and get a little set of cards, and then you'd collect the next bit. And I collected little astrology cards that way, so zodiac cards. And then, yeah, it was really, I don't think I still have them, which is a shame. I don't think I ever finished the set. I remember in later primaries, maybe I was in fifth or sixth grade, my dad used to take my brother and I into his work office while he worked on weekends. So the place would be completely empty, but we had unlimited access to the office printers. So my brother was printing out just stacks and stacks and stacks of Dragon Ball art. (both laugh) And I was printing out like just pages of spells and crystal meanings and herb uses and just made myself like this just chunky, chunky book of shadows.
Kim: That's amazing!
Sarah Louise: Yeah, it was so much fun. It's just like this black and white printer and so it's just printing out list and list and list of... I kind of wish I still had it. I don't know what I did with it. I think I might have gotten rid of it in one move or another and just got lost to the ages. I think the first spell I ever did was when I was a tween, and I had this little petition scroll, this tiny little piece of paper that rolled up and went inside this little screw top pendant. I found that in my jewelry box the other day, it's such a little nostalgic thing.
Kim: Was there a spell in it?
Sarah Louise: There was an intensely cringe-inducing poem. (both laugh) I read it and I cringed myself into a black hole and then I put it away into my jewelry box.
Kim: Oh, gosh. I cringe when I look at my livejournal from like 2003.
Sarah Louise: Yeah.
Kim: And that was not that long ago.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, this is something that I wrote when I was like 13. It was like, I was so into the idea of like soulmates and, you know, destined love and all of those big romantic kinds of stories. So it's like a little come to me love poem kind of thing. It's pretty cute. Like if I was reading it and it was, wasn't by me, I'd be like, Oh, that's adorable, but because I wrote it, I look at it and go, Oh, I'm shriveling. (both laugh)
Kim: What would you say is your best witchcraft experience?
Sarah Louise: I guess this actually happened fairly recently, like in the last few months. I was starting to work with, I guess, the archetype of the Fae. And so I did this kind of meditation where the intent was to send out these little fae light messengers, to try and find people who would most benefit from or appreciate the work that I do with Bright Witch, and help steer them towards my page if that was something that they would be open to. So I did this exercise where I visualized these little giggling balls of light just flying out around the world and just kind of tapping people on the shoulder. And a few weeks after that, I got this really interesting email from a new customer. I won't say her last name for privacy, but she told me her name was also Sarah Louise. And she wrote me that she had just woken up that day, a few hours before her alarm from a really curious dream. So in this dream, she heard a group of dream characters repeating the name Bright Witch. She described it kind of like they were discussing a private joke or a secret, and that these characters were, in her words, kind of egging her on to investigate the name. So she woke up and she immediately googled Bright Witch and found my store, and then she saw that when she saw that we had the same name, that's when she decided to write me and share this little story. I get goosebumps every time I think about just that connection. So that's why I keep a little fairy altar as a little thank you to those wee cheeky fae.
Kim: That's crazy!!
Sarah Louise: Isn't it?
Kim: I love that story! That's freaking cool!
Sarah Louise: Yeah, I find it really hard to chalk that up to coincidence. Like, every time something like that happens, I will look for, I guess, the mundane explanation. But, honestly, the more I spend time on this path, the more I...
Kim: Where is this? Where is that? Come on!
Sarah Louise: How is that a coincidence, honestly?
Kim: Exactly.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, so that was intense and I loved that, that was so great.
Kim: That's amazing! What would you say is your worst witchcraft experience?
Sarah Louise: Okay, so I don't know if I'd call it like worst as such, but I did have kind of a really frightening experience. So I was experimenting with astral projection, because I just really wanted to know if it was real or if it was just lucid dreaming or what is it? Is it possible? So one day I was kind of napping in and out and meditating. And so I was falling in and out of sleep paralysis and I just could not wake myself up. I'd wake up, I'd have sleep paralysis, but I'd be so tired that I would just kind of keep waking, falling asleep, lucid dreaming, waking, sleep paralysis. And I sort of cycled through that a few times. One of the times after I woke up with sleep paralysis, but before I fell back asleep, I tried to project. So I kind of rolled over within my body. Like I could physically feel myself moving through space while also feeling my body lying still on the bed. So I kind of flipped over and rolled out and landed on all fours beside my bed while I was also still in bed. And I couldn't see anything, but I could feel my position in space, and I was not in my body. And then I was kind of blind, like everything was kind of dark, but then there was this kind of tear, like a jagged tear appeared up near the ceiling, and shards of this really brilliant white light, like silver white light was shining through it. And I started rising up towards it.
Kim: I don't like it.
Sarah Louise: I did not like it. I freaked out. Because I just had this really certain sense that if I touched that light, I wasn't coming back. So I just kind of was like, NOPE. Wrenched myself out of that experience. And then I think I fell asleep into a lucid dream. And the lucid dream just had this complete different quality of experience. So I could distinguish between this weird kind of rolling around kind of feeling and lucid dreaming, they were really distinct. I don't know if it was an actual spiritual thing or just a really funky brain experience that was just brought on by sleep paralysis. I don't know. It was both amazing and very, very frightening.
Kim: I don't want that.
Sarah Louise: No. I haven't tried it since. (both laugh) That was enough.
Kim: No, thank you.
Sarah Louise: No, thank you.
Kim: What do you feel is your biggest motivator in witchcraft?
Sarah Louise: Learning, for sure. I just really love doing deep dives on a new topic or a new skill. So I'll become kind of obsessed with a topic and then I'll move on to a new thing, and then I'll cycle back around. So I usually have a few different plates all kind of spinning at once to keep me enthusiastic, but also sometimes riding that edge of burnout.
Kim: Yeah. (laughs)
Sarah Louise: So I was really into tarot for a while and I did courses in tarot and then yeah, just sort of move on from different topics and then I'd be presented with a new thread to chase. And yeah...
Kim: Are you a cat?
Sarah Louise: Laughs Maybe. I'd love to come back as a cat. Like, what do I have to do in this life to come back as a cat? Especially my cat. She lives the most charmed life. She's asleep on the bed at the moment.
Kim: Nice. What does she look like?
Sarah Louise: She looks, she's a long-haired domestic calico, you know where they've got kind of orange and black and white kind of. And she's enormous. She's just a big cat. She was the alpha of her litter when we rescued her. And she's a little bit chubby, but most of her size is just, she's just a big cat. And she's got this kind of ragdoll looking face and she knows she's cute and exploits it ruthlessly.
Kim: What's your biggest motivator in life?
Sarah Louise: I think it's really the same thing, just learning. I'll do deep dives into learning about different art techniques or I'll do courses in creative writing, I'll do deep dives into business learning and entrepreneurial resources and singing. I really love learning singing and I've been taking voice lessons for a few years. That's probably the... writing and singing are probably the two most consistent topics that I have been learning about over time. But I'll kind of mix and match, like I'll go through phases where I'm really into one thing and then I'll kind of pull back from that and go on to a different thing and yeah, very much shiny object, cat brain syndrome for sure. (both laugh)
Kim: What do you geek out about?
Sarah Louise: Oh, okay, so I've got a few things, but I can talk for hours about ghosts and the paranormal. I just love ghost stories.
Kim: Do you have any of your own?
Sarah Louise: I do. I do. Would you like me to save that for, would you like me to tell it now or save it for the last story?
Kim: It's up to you!
Sarah Louise: Alright, I'll tell it now. (Kim claps) So a few years ago...
Kim: Yes, that was me clapping.
Sarah Louise: (laughs) So a few years ago, I think I mentioned before, I went through a really witchy phase when I was in my teens and then into my early 20s, and I was really interested in energy work and energy healing and that kind of thing. And then in my mid-20s, I don't know what happened. I must have just read something or something just switched that off. And I just woke up one day and just didn't believe in any of it. You know, it's it's just the brain, that's that's all it is. Everything everything else is just a a quirk of perception and, you know, there's nothing really beyond it. And then after a few years of that kind of belief I was just like Just kind of spiraling a little bit. I didn't really, I didn't really have any kind of spiritual faith or anything that was that was keeping my head right. And I'd just taken a few kind of setbacks in life at that point, you know, just like in relationships not working out, jobs not working out, that kind of thing. And so I was kind of, I was trying to work on some side projects at that time that were quite stressful and yeah, I was just in a bad space and I just googled,"Proof magic is real." And I came across Dean Radin's book, Real Magic, and that kind of opened my mind a little bit to, I guess, the possibility that consciousness isn't necessarily confined to our brains. You know, that there might be a bit more to it than that.
So at that time, this was back in 2018, and I was just about to turn 30. And wo it was with with this kind of still very skeptical, but starting to open my mind a little bit mindset that I went on a trip with my friends to New Orleans. And we went on a ghost tour. And I wasn't really expecting much other than you know, like really cool histories and spooky stories and wandering through all these really interesting buildings. Then we come to the last venue of the evening, it's this ballroom at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel. So we get a bit of history of the ballroom and what its purpose was throughout the years, how it started. And then as this kind of little piece of theatrical spookiness, our tour guide had us all lined up against kind of like one wall of the ballroom and he goes over into the corner to flip out the light. And this poor little child absolutely flees the room, he was just like NOPE. This thirteen year old boy is just like "I am outta here." So he springs through the ballroom doors and waits outside. So basically the central part of the ballroom area was empty. And so we all started taking photos once the lights were turned out, and then we were kind of all wandering around the ballroom. And I get to the middle of the room and I kind of just have this really physically intense, physical sensation across my neck and shoulders that kind of feels like a menthol balm, you know, like a tiger balm, where it's kind of like that prickling heat sensation. It felt like someone had just smeared that all across my back and down my neck.
Kim: That's unpleasant.
Sarah Louise: It was, I was just like, ooh, that was, at that point I'm like, "Ooh, this is like a psychological reaction to a really spooky atmosphere!" and wandering around. Then we wrap up the tour and we're all waiting outside as we're getting the little, okay, thank you for coming, goodbye, kind of speech. And I'm flicking back through the photos on my phone and I look at my screen, I'm like, oh, there's a smudge on the screen. So I'm rubbing at the smudge in one of my photos and it's like, okay, that hasn't gone away. So let's zoom in... and I see a face... (Kim gasps) where there should not be a face. And, yeah, so I, I bring up the, the brightness and the levels and there is this transparent figure standing in the middle of the ballroom right as we were all starting to take photos. This is before anyone started moving around. Like it's after... I took the photo after the kid had fled. Like he was already out the room, so it wasn't the kid, it wasn't the boy. But I tried to explain this figure away. I was getting to the point where I was like, was it like a holographic projection that showed up on my camera, but not anyone else's for some reason? (Kim laughs) And we couldn't see anything with our eyes, so what would be the point of setting up that technology? (Laughs) And I just had to come to the conclusion that I think this is a ghost. And the figure was standing in the spot where I felt that sensation.
Kim: Oh, ew!
Sarah Louise: So the two things kind of matched up. And if it wasn't for those two really distinct things, I wouldn't have trusted it. I wouldn't have believed it. And I would not blame anyone else for going, yeah, that's, no, that sounds like bullshit. (laughs) But because it happened to me, I'm like, no, that, that, that happened. Okay, that's interesting. And it just kind of blew my mind way open. So I guess the possibility of, you know, ghosts or spirits or energetic imprints or whatever it is they actually are. And I was looking at its face, like I was zooming in, like my, my friends and I were examining it, like scrutinizing it in detail over the next few days. And zooming in on its face, it looks, it had like a motion blur on its head. And it, it was kind of looking towards the door. And so we were thinking like, maybe it looks like it had followed the boy. Like it turned its head to watch the boy running out of the room. It was really creepy.
Kim: That's disturbing.
Sarah Louise: It's really disturbing But then you know...
Kim: And then you stood in it. That's horrifying.
Sarah Louise: I know I know!
Kim: I Don't want to stand in anything.
Sarah Louise: It's like in Harry Potter. You walk through a ghost. You just get like...
Kim: I don't want that.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, so yeah, that's my ghost story. I've forgotten what the original question was.
Kim: That was awful, thank you. (both laugh) Oh, geeking, geek things you geek out about.
Sarah Louise: Geeking out, that's right too. Yes, so I geek out on ghosts and basically anything to do with like paranormal scientific studies like experiments into psychic phenomena and mind matter interactions and like just quantum squiggly wiggly weirdness. I just, I love it. (laughs)
Kim: I don't think we have the right equipment to, to catch it all yet.
Sarah Louise: No, no, I agree. And it's really interesting as well, because there are some experiments where it's like... our attention kind of affects the results of things, and our beliefs affects the results and the outcomes of things. So it's, you know, we love science because it's like, you know, what's true is true and it's, you know, it's set in stone and it's, you know, you can measure something a million times and you get the same result and that means it's true. Whereas that kind of doesn't happen when you study consciousness, and the way it interplays with the tiniest little facets of our reality, like it gets very, very blurry, which I just find it so interesting.
Kim: I get really excited about that.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, me too. I definitely recommend Dean Radin's book.
Kim: If we're all made of energy, it just makes sense that eventually we'll learn how to shift it around from a distance, because everything's energy.
Sarah Louise: Exactly.
Kim: And everybody who's like poo-poo's magic and is naysayers about it, that's just science. (laughs)
Sarah Louise: Yeah. There's some pretty compelling studies out there that show that that is just a reality of energy affects energy at a distance.
Kim: Ooh, do you want to hear a theory?
Sarah Louise: I do. (Kim laughs) I love theories.
Kim: Okay, so why weird shit happens when you're almost asleep.
Sarah Louise: Yeah?
Kim: So, we have brainwaves, right? So we have a like a field that comes from our brain that is not necessarily a, it's not from our brain, it's from ourselves. And I don't remember who did the testing, but they've done testing about that. Somebody, someone has. Yeah. And weird things, like I think that's, like when you're asleep or almost asleep, that's when you hear weird shit. And I think that you're, as you fall asleep, like that field expands a little bit because you're not monitoring it so closely. And so more shit can get in.
Sarah Louise: Oh, that's really cool. Like you're a little radio and your little, your little receptive fields expand.
Kim: Yes.
Sarah Louise: And so you pick up more. Oh, I really like that.
Kim: And so the weirdies are like, this thing's getting bigger, I'm gonna slide in here. (laughs)
Sarah Louise: Just slide into your little dream DMs.
Kim: I... that's the worst term in existence.
Sarah Louise: (laughs) I apologize.
Kim: That term horrifies me so much. I don't even really know why, but it does.
Sarah Louise: I think the word slide, there's something I really dislike about the word slide.
Kim: Especially since it's usually talk, they're usually talking about something that's creepy being slippery.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, exactly. Slippery.
Kim: I hate it. (laughs) How do you feel your environment has shaped your practice and do you think it might be different if you lived somewhere else?
Sarah Louise: Yeah, I think it would definitely be different if I lived in another country, especially if I lived in the Northern Hemisphere. So this kind of ties in with the, spoiler alert, your next question about Sabbats. But growing up in Australia, our seasons don't really match up directly with the North American or Western European kinds of climates. So, you know, we get summer, winter, spring, you know, we get the four seasons but we kind of experience them in a different way. And being in the southern hemisphere means that our seasons are the opposite of what the rest of all of you up there are experiencing. So it kind of makes it hard for me to connect to the seasonal holidays, like the wheel of the year, just because it doesn't really align that neatly.
Kim: Do you feel like... So you've been to the United States?
Sarah Louise: I have.
Kim: Okay.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, a few times.
Kim: Do you feel like the magic here is different from magic where you are?
Sarah Louise: Oh, that's a really interesting question. I feel like it would definitely have to be, in like a definitely in a cultural sense. You know, like, especially when you're looking at, I guess, going back to Indigenous magical practices.
Kim: That is part of what I'm looking at.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, yeah. You know, like, I'm not super familiar with the many Indigenous practices of Native Americans, or even really Indigenous Australians, but, you know, I grew up hearing things like Dreamtime stories from, you know, the local indigenous nations here they come into our schools and they tell us their kind of, they're kind of children's versions of their stories and their folklore. So I think just, yeah, growing up with different kinds of imagery and I think the way in which they're the same would be, you know, there seems to be a strong emphasis on connection with the land. I think the relationships with land will be different between Australia and the US, just because the topography is different, the climates are different. But I really do enjoy just the idea of having a relationship with your environment and a relationship with the nature that you have around you. (clears throat) Excuse me. I think that's something that I really like. And it's something I'd love to even connect with going back to, I guess, like my family heritage comes from England and Ireland and Scotland and those kinds of areas. So I'd love to spend more time in the UK and Ireland, especially, and get more familiar with the landscapes in those regions. I think environment is really important to shaping so much folklore.
Kim: What do you think happened?
Sarah Louise: Happened?
Kim: Yeah. Why, because you and I seem to have a similar ancestral background. What is up with our people that we are not as connected to the land as the people who, like do I have to go back to where they're from?
Sarah Louise: Yeah, it's interesting.
Kim: Is that it?
Sarah Louise: Yeah, because like, I love Australia. Like, I think of Australia as home, but not in the way that it's home for Indigenous nations.
Kim: Yeah.
Sarah Louise: There is a different quality of connection, I think, that Aborigines have with Australian landscapes. And just... there's something about the weight of history. You know, like, like comparing 60,000 years of heritage in the land with, you know, three or four generations of, you know, my family coming from Europe. There, I'd really love to know more about where my family came from, and the threads that go back to those places. Yeah, it's...
Kim: Have you done any of that?
Sarah Louise: It does feel like there's a disconnect. I tried to look up like Ancestry.com and I think my grandma's got a family tree that she's got, but I can't... I don't really know the stories. I don't even know how we... When did my family arrive in Australia? I have, I don't actually know the story.
Kim: Have you done the DNA, any DNA of the DNA stuff?
Sarah Louise: No, I haven't done the DNA analysis. I couldn't find any useful, useful information on things like ancestry.com so I didn't really bother with, you know, ordering a kit or anything. It might be fun to do just, um, just out of curiosity. I mean, I suspect that I'm a 99% English, Scottish, Irish mix. (laughs) I don't think there's anything... There might be some Dutch, maybe some Germanic heritage, I'm not sure. Yeah, my grandma's not sure where her great-grandmother came from, so she suspects that her line might have come over from maybe Denmark. But can't quite find the threads of the records.
Kim: Is there like a census in Australia? That's how I found most of my stuff.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, there is a census. We've actually got a census coming up in August, I think. But yeah, I tried to, I think it might be one of those ones where I'd need to go to maybe a library or some actual record hall. I should look up and see.
Kim: Oh yeah, you probably don't have...
Sarah Louise: I could find the records of my grandparents' marriage, but I couldn't really find anything before that. The records seemed kind of incomplete, or maybe I was just looking in the wrong place or in the wrong way, and my Google fu just was failing me on that day. Who knows?
Kim: You probably don't have Jehovah's Witnesses. Is it... I don't know if it's Jehovah's Witnesses or Latter-day Saints obsessing over everyone's genealogy. You probably don't have that because one of the biggest databases of that stuff belongs to, I don't remember which one, it's either LDS or Jehovah's Witnesses.
Sarah Louise: Right, okay.
Kim: Which is nuts. Nosies.
Sarah Louise: (laughs) I know we have Jehovah's Witnesses here in Australia and, you know, Mormon populations, but I don't really have much contact with them. I knew someone who grew up in something of a kind of an isolated religious cult in, I guess, the Australian outback, but that's, yeah, I don't really know too much information about it. Like I don't know how sinister it is. (Kim laughs) Anytime you hear the word cult, you just go, ooh.
Kim: Something bad's happening.
Sarah Louise: That sounds really sinister. But I don't know if it was just more of a closed community kind of thing. This is just how they were describing it. (laughs)
Kim: So do you celebrate the Sabbats? And do you have a favorite?
Sarah Louise: The ones I only really celebrate are, you know, like Yule and Christmas and, you know, Samhain around Halloween. Just because they're so socially mainstream.
Kim: Yeah.
Sarah Louise: And Halloween is definitely my favorite and Samhain around Halloween just because I'm an absolute sweet tooth and I'm all about cozy...
Kim: I was going to say, it's candy time.
Sarah Louise: Candy time! (laughs) And I love decorating for Halloween, and dressing up and going to parties. And I know, you know, Halloween and Samhain are different things. But I, I really like the introspective aspects of Samhain and I guess just doing a little bit of shadow work kind of really ties in with the way I like to practice.
Kim: Now, do you do it in October?
Sarah Louise: Yes. Yeah, we-
Kim: So it's warm?
Sarah Louise: Our actual Samhain, like the equivalent Samhain is more March, April? I'm not sure, but yeah, I kind of celebrate with the Northern Hemisphere timeline.
Kim: When it's warm.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, it's warm.
Kim: That sounds so great to me. (laughs)
Sarah Louise: So Christmas- Christmas is always sweltering hot.
Kim: Oh yeah.
Sarah Louise: So it's, it never feels, you know, there's a disconnect between watching Christmas movies like Home Alone and where everything's nice and snowy and twinkly lights. And we have the twinkly lights but you're also wiping sweat from your face kind of thing. (both laugh) You know, it's a different, different vibe. I do. I love snowy winters. I've spent a couple of winters in the northern hemisphere. I've lived in Germany, and then just sort of traveling on various holidays and things. I think I've had a couple of winter Christmases now and I love them. They're always so magical.
Kim: Where did you live in Germany?
Sarah Louise: I was there two times actually. I was living and studying there in Dusseldorf, which is on the sort of closer to the northern western area of Germany. And then a couple of years after that, I lived in Berlin for about eight months.
Kim: Cool!
Sarah Louise: Berlin is incredible. I love Berlin so much.
Kim: Everyone says that and I, stupidly I never went. What a moron I am. (both laugh)
Sarah Louise: I stupidly studied French in high school because I thought, you know, oh, maybe one day I'll live in France! And then I've lived two whole stretches in Germany. I've never studied the language properly in high school.
Kim: But they touch, don't they? Did you go to, did you go over there?
Sarah Louise: Go to France or to Germany?
Kim: Yeah.
Sarah Louise: I've visited to France. It's actually kind of a funny experience because they seem to hit every... Sorry to all the French people listening to this because I know some wonderful French people, but a lot of them hit the stereotypes of rude French Parisians. (both laugh) I was there in high school. I went on like a school trip over there. I was really, really lucky that I got to go. And yeah, we were only in Paris for a few days, but I landed and they lost my bag. So I spent like this whole trip without luggage. And the guy at the airport was super rude and was just like, you know, you shouldn't make a fuss, you know. That's...
Kim: Oh my gosh.
Sarah Louise: It's gonna be stressful for your host family if you're upset that your bag is missing. I'm like well. I'm not that upset about it, but you don't have to be a dick, you know? And then the host family all of them are wonderful except for the daughter who was around our age 15 16. Like she would throw tantrums. Like it's the weirdest behavior I'd ever seen. She would just throw tantrums and go and slam the door and then put on the Black Eyed Peas in protest of something. (Kim laughs) It was really strange. And then we were wandering up the Champs-Élysées as part of a school group. And it's where all this like really beautiful, fancy jewelry stores are and, you know, a bunch of 16 year olds wearing backpacks and really daggy clothes are like oh let's go into this really fancy jewelry store. Because one of those ones where they buzz you in with a like a...
Kim: You touch everything.
Sarah Louise: Yeah exactly they buzz you into the shop. And the the doorman must have just been having a really boring day because he kept closing the door in our faces. And we'd go up to, because we thought they were automatic doors, so we'd approach the door and they'd open and then they'd slam in our faces like, what's going on? And then we see the little doorman smirking and pushing the button. (both laugh)
Kim: I mean, I feel kind of like, what a jerk, but I also feel like good for him for entertaining himself. His job probably sucks.
Sarah Louise: I thought it was really funny. I thought it was really funny. (laughs) I didn't think it was malicious because he was kind of, once he knew we'd cottoned on to it, he let us in. (laughs) But yeah, I love traveling around that area. I'd love to explore more of Europe. I just love travel. I cannot wait until the global situation as it stands is different so that we can travel again.
Kim: Yes. What would you like to see discussed more in the witch community?
Sarah Louise: I would love to see more discussion of why practices are the way that they are. I want to know more about what people believe about how and why magic works and how that informs their practice. Because when I started up my, I guess, my witchcraft again a few years ago, I really struggled with the idea of magical correspondences. So, you know, things like crystals and colors and herbs and planets, that they have these kinds of abstract ideas attached to them, like love or a specific kind of healing or a personality trait. And I just, I couldn't find any information on where that came from. You know, like, why is this associated with this thing? And there's so much history and context that goes into those kinds of correspondences, and then how they translate into folk practices in general, that when you're just looking at a rote list of this crystal means that, and that herb means that, you lose all of that really nice history of why that came about. So I wish people would talk more about that. There are a lot of YouTubers that do exactly that. There's one I subscribe to who's a real big history buff and she goes into the history of specific aspects of pagan history and practices that I really enjoy, that kind of thing.
Kim: You and Kim Stoll are on the same page. (Sarah Louise laughs) Her example was Rosemary.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, yep.
Kim: Okay, along that line, I want to know if, like Malachite...
Sarah Louise: Malachite, is that the green one?
Kim: Yeah, are we using it for money because it's green and our money is green? What if you're not from the United States?
Sarah Louise: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Cause cause my money looks like Monopoly money.
Kim: Yeah. Do you use rainbow fluorite?
Sarah Louise: (laughs) I like gold. I really like gold for it. Cause it's like, that's the OG money. Or salt, I guess you could use salt for it.
Kim: But could you use rainbow fluorite for a color...
Sarah Louise: Yeah you could, I don't see why not.
Kim: ...word I've forgotten already and you just said it? What did you just say? What is that word? What are we discussing?
Sarah Louise: Gold?
Kim: No...
Sarah Louise: Money?
Kim: Correspondence. (both laugh)
Sarah Louise: Yeah, I think you could because I think it ties back to, I guess, the consciousness. Whatever you kind of associate, whatever helps you foster a particular state of mind in yourself, and the associations that you have, I think is the important thing. Like I do think that there is a kind of momentum, like when you have cultural agreements around, you know, green means money or gold means luck or, you know, these kinds of things, I think that does get a bit of momentum and collective weight in consciousness. That's really interesting and can be powerful to tap into and draw upon. But I wouldn't discount your own personal associations at all, you know. If you associate rosemary with something completely different than what it's, you know, it's written down on paper, correspondences are supposed to be, then I think you can absolutely go for bringing that into your own craft.
Kim: Yeah, I'm a big proponent of do what you can with what you have.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Kim: I don't know hardly any of the correspondences of what grows on my property. I just know what I see it do, so I know what I tell it to do in my work.
Sarah Louise: Yeah, yeah.
Kim: Just continue doing that thing that I see you doing.
Sarah Louise: Exactly. You know, it's just sort of like, you know, the path of least resistance kind of idea. Like if the energy is flowing in a particular direction and behaving in a particular way, then, you know, just to push it further along that path, you know?
Kim: Yeah. Thinking back to when you were new at witchcraft, what do you wish somebody had told you?
Sarah Louise: I think it's, I wish someone had told me to journal my experiences more. You know, like I wish that was something I had thought to do. I mentioned before that I went through two phases of witchy spiritualism. I was big into it into a teen, into my early 20s, and now I'm really interested in it again. I feel like if I had actually, it wasn't until I had that kind of ghost experience and that energy sensation that I really started remembering past experiences that I'd had before that with the same kind of energy. So things like little moments of clairvoyance even or clairsentience and what that feels like and what that was like. So if I'd thought to document that at the time that I had those experiences, I might not have, I guess, lost the faith in those intervening years because I would have had my own road map to refer to and go, well, that's what that felt like and that was my experience then. And I captured it right after it happened so that I know it's not tainted or distorted by memory over time. And I think that would have been really useful for me to have over the years. And be really interesting as well to look back on those little experiences in childhood, and just little weirdness of things like, oh, I can't explain this now, maybe I can explain it in years to come.
Kim: Yeah. Yes. Who would you say are the three biggest influences on your practice?
Sarah Louise: So three, I guess the first one would definitely be all the women in my family, especially my mother. So she introduced me to so many beautiful illustrated storybooks and fairy tales and art and crafts that really informed my artistic taste and style today. And we watched movies like Practical Magic and Ever After together and she'd make up fairy stories at night to help me sleep. She'd read Harry Potter to me and my brother before bed. Even the music she listened to while I was growing up was really witchy, Stevie Nicks and Tori Amos and Robin Dunne. She just really fostered a sense of magic and curiosity while we were growing up that has really influenced everything that I connect to in a nostalgic way today. And the next influence would definitely be scientists like Dean Radin and Peter Fenwick. So people, seeing people within the scientific community move from non-believers to skeptically open-minded to, well, here are the findings, we're pretty sure there's something spooky going on here, really informed the way that I approach magical practice. And I'm like, well, does it work in this context, and why not, and why does it? And, you know, I don't do well with things like, here's a spell, put this candle next to this ribbon, and now your spell will work, because it's a cake, you know, it's like a shake and mix, that's not how I think about it. I have to have an understanding of the mechanics behind why things work or don't work. And the third influence would be just the online community at large, for sure. So YouTubers and community figures like Harmony Nice was the first one I started watching, Thorn Mooney, Brown and Bendy, Gem Goddess, WBAH, obviously, and even Rachel Steven, who is a teacher of narrative craft who is also a witch. Honestly, the list is so long. And Harmony Nice was my very first introduction. I watched her video on tea leaf reading and then I got really into her supernatural stories and then the algorithm just kind of fed me all of this goodness over time, so now I've got a good list of people I turn to.
Kim: Who do you think I should have on the show?
Sarah Louise: Yeah, I second Macy on this. I would love to hear Jordyn from Moonlight's Apothecary on the show. I watched one of her Ghost Hunter videos, and it gave me a headache for hours. I loved it, like not the headache, but just the sheer energy of what she captured on video was really amazing. And I've always really enjoyed hearing her on WBAH, so I'd definitely love to hear more from her. Did you hear on one of the podcasts that she was on being, I think it was at one of the Halloween specials maybe, or the Spookysode Specials, I can't remember, but while she was being, while she was talking with Macy and Charlye on WBAH...
Kim: The whispers?
Sarah Louise: Whispering, yeah. The whispering in the background! I was listening to that with my with my partner Zack and he's like, oh, that's a really cool audio effect I'm like, yeah, that's really, that's, that's that's creative and then hearing Macy or Charlye say after that, like no we didn't hear that at the time. That was that was not put in. Yeah Yeah, just carrying the gateway to other realms.
Kim: That's so weird. I would like you to recommend something, anything at all.
Sarah Louise: I think I would recommend Dean Radin's book Real Magic. That was so instrumental to me opening my mind to certain spiritual possibilities. That was my gateway. And so if anyone listening is at all interested in the science of consciousness and how mind and matter kind of interplay and like to really do a deep dive on the mechanics of that, I'd really recommend that book.
Kim: I know you told the story already, but please tell me another story. Any story. It doesn't have to be witchy or ghosty. It can be something stupid that happened that you like to tell people because it makes you laugh.
Sarah Louise: The only things that keep coming to mind are these little experiences that I had as a kid. Just like these moments of strange, inexplicable knowing.
Kim: Oh, I love these.
Sarah Louise: Like, they're so trivial, like they weren't really anything, you know, like the great prophecies foretold kind of moments or anything like that. I remember one time there was like a quiz happening in class and you'd have to raise your hand and then answer the quiz question before anyone else did. There was, before the teacher had asked the next question, I knew in my heart and mind and soul that the answer was going to be 90. I don't know why. And so the teacher had only half asked the question when I raised my hand and just shouted 90. And the question ended up being, what is the angle of a right angle? And it's just like, it's just this really weird, I think that the thing that stands out about it is like, there's just like this, this really bizarre feeling of certainty. Like, you know how when you go, you know, two plus two, what does that equal? Four. You don't question it, it's just certain.
Kim: Yeah.
Sarah Louise: There was that kind of feeling to it, which I thought was really, just really interesting. And, uh, there was another moment where I remember my mum had picked my brother and I up from school. It must have been just before we were teenagers or something, and she seemed kind of a bit stressed about something. And we were driving along and I had this kind of mental image of this scene from a film clip. I can't remember which film clip it was, but there was this yellow sign that just read Notice of Eviction, and it was just really strong in my mind. And then I was really confused and then just kind of returned to reality. I'm like, oh, that was a really weird kind of mental image to have. Then my mum tells me later that we had to move out of the house we were renting in at that time because the owners wanted to move back in, and that's why she was stressed out. So it's just like, like, there's little, little pockets of just like weird imagery, or just knowing that I'm trying to tap into again, because it's just, it'd be so useful if you could channel that into something practical.
Kim: Yeah, on a regular basis.
Sarah Louise: Exactly. Yeah.
Kim: Well, thank you for the stories.
Sarah Louise: Thank you so much for having me on. I've had such a fun time.
Kim: Thanks for being here. Thanks for coming on the show! Thank you again for coming on the show.
Sarah Louise: Thank you. Thanks again so much for having me. It was a great time.
Kim: Yay. I will see you out on the internets.
Sarah Louise: Surfing the waves of the interwebs.
KIm: Bye.
Sarah Louise: Bye.
Kim: Thanks for listening to this episode of Your Average Witch. You can find us all around the internet on Instagram at YourAverageWitchPodcast, Facebook at Facebook.com/yourAverageWitchPodcast, at YourAverageWitch.com, and at your favorite podcast service. Want to help the podcast grow? Leave a review. You can review us on Amazon and Apple podcasts, and now you can rate us on Spotify. You just might hear your review read at the end of an episode. To rate Your Average Witch on Spotify, click the home key, click Your Average Witch Podcast, and then leave a rating. If you'd like to recommend someone for the podcast, like to be on it yourself, or if you'd like to advertise on the podcast, send an email to youraveragewitchpodcast at gmail.com. Thanks for listening and I'll see you next Tuesday.