In this episode I'm talking to Cat Heath, a blogger who writes about elves, heathenry, and witchcraft. Cat tells us about why you should be careful when working with elves, explains why string is her favorite witchy tool, and introduces us to her experiments in witchcraft.
The audio in this episode is a little fiddly, so if possible I recommend following along on the transcript.  

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Cat Heath.

Elves, Witchcraft, Heathenry, and String

Welcome back to Your Average Witch, where every Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories, and sometimes a little witchcraft. In this episode, I'm talking to Cat Heath, a blogger who writes about elves, heathenry, and witchcraft. Cat tells us about why you should be careful when working with elves, explains why string is her favorite witchy tool, and introduces us to her experiments in witchcraft. Unfortunately, there were some audio issues in this episode, but you can follow along on the written transcript by going to youraveragewitch.buzzsprout.com. Now let's get to the stories.

Kim: Hi Cat, welcome to the show. 

Cat: Hello, thank you for having me. 

Kim: Would you please introduce yourself and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you? 

Cat: Yeah, sure. Oh my word. It's always one of those things with introductions, isn't it? Like, oh my god, they want me to talk about myself. So I'm Cat Heath. I'm the author of Elves, Witches and Gods, Spinning Old Hidden Magic in the Modern Day. I also have a book out called Essays from the Crossroads under my blog name Seohelrune. And I also write on the Seohelrune blog which is seohelrune.com. And I'm also on Instagram under that name too, Seohelrune. 

Kim: Awesome!

Cat: That's what I do. My religion is heathenry. But I also practice witchcraft. And my secret flavor of witchcraft is very much, you know, you've got kind of like dirt witch sort of thing, and folk magic kind of thing going on. But then there's also a lot of weird experiments with historically tested forms of magic. So my thing is a bit trouble. 

Kim: Oh, that sounds interesting. I also have never heard the term dirt witch, and I really like that. (laughs)

Cat: It's something all my friends say. Like, I don't know if I qualify as a dirt witch, but I mean, I'm a little bit of a scumbag, and, you know, I kind of MacGyver a lot of stuff, so maybe it counts. Hopefully it counts. 

KIm: Okay, I just got an instant crush on you when you called yourself a scumbag. (laughs) Love it. What does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch? Do you call yourself a witch? 

Cat: I do, yeah. It's one of the terms that I go by. It's probably the oldest term I've gone by. But to me, a witch is someone who is... you're kind of in between, right? You're not entirely of this world, you're not entirely of the other world. You're kind of in between, occupying a different space, really. And, you know, involved in that, for me at least, there's a sense of responsibility there. And, you know, I want to try and... How do I explain this? I want to be able to walk well between the worlds. I feel like I have a responsibility to act well with the different types of beings, the different types of people that I interact with. And also, a huge part of being a witch for me is people coming to me and saying, hey, I have this issue with something unseen, can you come and help me out with it? And that's kind of a huge part of it for me as well. So, yeah, it's a very animist view, it's a very, um, it's very much based in relationship. And yeah, I guess that's it for me. 

Kim: I don't know what it is, lately I've... it seems like everybody I ask on the show... is animist. And I know not everybody is, but everybody I'm talking to lately is. 

Cat: You've just fallen in an animist hole haven't you? 

Kim: I guess. 

Cat: You've just gotten sucked in and before you know it you're going to be like one of us, one of us. 

Kim: Oh I am one of us.

 Cat: See there you go. 

Kim: It's just interesting. 

Cat: It's a cookie. It is interesting though isn't it? And it's good to see that you know more people are becoming interested in animism and also aiming to get a deeper understanding of what animism is beyond this really simplistic view of, well, everything's got a soul in it. And then arguing about, well, does my chair have a soul? So, yeah, it's really good to see people expanding that knowledge and deepening that knowledge. And yeah, it rocks. I think it's very necessary too, given the times that we live in. 

Kim: I think it helps kindness spread. Because yeah, okay, your kid's beating up it's stuffed animal. Cool, it's just a stuffed animal, but you can still teach a little bit of "Well maybe you don't have to beat the crap out of that thing, just love it." That's a very simplistic view I know but I just thought about being a little kid thinking, oh, I can't do that. That's mean. 

Cat: Yeah. And you kind of have to like, you know, with children as well, they, even though it's more nuanced and more, it's a regular situation in life, with a kid, you can't really be that nuanced until they get older, you know, so it is best to kind of take that, "Okay, right, how would you feel if that was you?" You know, you kind of have to try to teach them that compassion.

Kim:  Do you have any family history with witchcraft? 

Cat: Ooh, not witchcraft per se. I'm from a really weird family. Have you ever heard of spiritualism? Like the religion, the one that came up in the 1800s in St. Louis? 

Kim: No.

Cat:  Okay, so a way to describe spiritualism is necromancy with optional Jesus. 

Kim: (laughs) Okay... 

Cat: And it starts in the 1800s with these girls, and they started hearing these knocking sounds and we started to communicate with them. I mean it's a lot more complicated, the story, but I can't remember it all right now. And basically they start this whole thing where they're like, "Dude we can communicate with dead people." And then that became the entire point of spiritualism. And at some point, spiritism split off and they got matched with doctrine. But now spiritualism is a very nebulous term, and some branches of spiritualism incorporate philosophy, other branches are more explicitly Christian. My family has been involved in spiritualism for like three generations before I was born. And so I grew up with my dad doing things like going into trances, telling people what sickness they had, laying his hands on them, or just like praying for them. I've seen his face completely change, his voice completely change. And we just had really weird things happening all the time as a kid, when I was a kid. 
You know, it was always, there was always something going on, and my dad was always kind of pulling me aside randomly and teaching me little bits like how to feel energy, how to manipulate energy, how to... what was the other thing he taught? He used to test me on psychometry as well. It was very odd. But basically my life had gotten crazy by the time I was 13 and I'd already been kind of like wishing for things to happen at school, like really wishing very hard, and I realized I could create changes by doing that. And then when I was like 13 or so, the situation with the ghosts and the hauntings in my house had gotten so ridiculous, and spiritualism doesn't really have good tools for, you know, hey, we need a binder here, this is stupid. So I started looking at books on witchcraft in the library and found some tools and that's how I got into it, really. And then after that I started hiking on the moors and, well, I was hiking on the moors anyway, but I started to see the local moorland as being kind of like a big place of practice and learning and really kind of coming to understand the unseen layers of the landscape and the different of the human beings that live there and building those relationships. So that's been going on since back then, like 13. 

Kim: That is so interesting. I can't believe I've never heard of it.

Cat:  What, spiritualism? Oh, it's wild, It's absolutely wild. (both laugh) You know sometimes I'll tell people what I grew up with they'll, I'll think of it as dead normal.  And then people will be talking, and they're talking about spiritualism as like an academic subject, and I'm just like, "Oh yeah, I grew up with that! Like, this is actually what they do!" And they're like, "Wait, what?" Yeah, it's really random. And what's really bizarre is that, you know, obviously with my accent, I'm not from over in the States. I live here now and I'm a US citizen, but I'm originally from Lancashire in northwest England. And what's interesting is that spiritualism originated in the States. And my family must have gotten into it pretty early, for it to go back three generations when it emerged in the 1840s and 1850s. And what's really weird about my dad's family is that you actually had two different families of spiritualists intermarrying at one point, too, which is how you got my granddad. And there were people who were known, even before they got into spiritualism, for stuff like working with energy and healing things. So it's, you know, this is stuff that my cousins told me. You know, like, my cousin did a bit of research into family history on it. She's really into the spiritual side of things. So she did some research on it and she told me all this stuff and I'm like, wow, that's interesting. 

Kim: I don't even feel like I'm doing an interview. I feel like I'm watching, I'm like listening to a podcast that someone else is doing about this. 

Cat: Oh, I can imagine, that's for sure. 

Kim: (laughing) Okay, I've got to bring myself back here. What, do you have any daily practices that you do, or if not daily, consistent ones? 

Cat: Well, I try to daily, but you know how life is, right? 

Kim: Indeed. (laughs)

Cat:  Yeah, right? You start out as a teen and you're like, yeah, I'm doing good at this daily thing, but then life gets more complex and you're like, oh man, I feel guilty. I do try to do regular offerings to my gods and my allies because, for me, especially the kind of work I end up doing, if I'm getting called to help people with some sketchy stuff or I'm doing experiments with sketchy stuff, my first line of defense is my alliances with the holy powers I worship and my allies. So that's a huge thing. And also, I'm a really big believer in not just offering when you want something. There's nothing worse than a friend who just gives you stuff because he wants something. So I try to be more like, "Hey, I appreciate you," you know? 
So I try to do regular offerings, and they just tend to be very simple; incense, usually. And that's not traditional for heathenry, but the gods have indicated to me that that's cool with them, and it's showed in our work. We've had better work when I started doing that more regularly. So I'm like, OK, I'm going to keep on doing that. Aside from that, there's meditation. I do meditation quite a bit. It's actually part of my treatment plan for ADHD. So meditation is a really huge part of my magical work, too. I do a practice called Heathen Soul Lore, and a lot of how I work with my different souls is through meditative practices. So those are my two main consistent regular practices, offerings, meditations, and just practicing basic skills. You know, we think about things like grounding, centering, shielding as "Oh, this is what newbies learn," but you really have to do it throughout your life. You know, it's, there's never a point where you leave those so-called basic skills behind. So, you know, I always try to keep on top of those as well. 

Kim: Yeah, if you're building a wall, you still need the bottom bricks. 

Cat: Yeah, yeah. And I don't know, I've kind of come across people who, you know, they'll forget to practice for years, and then they're like, something happens, and they're like, I can't believe this happened. And I'm like, yeah, but you haven't been practicing, it's like a muscle. 

Kim: Yeah. 

Cat: You know, you've got to keep it up. It may say basic in the book, but you may have considered it as a basic exercise, but it's really more foundational versus basic. And like you said, you need those foundation bricks for the wall to stand. So that could do with a good reframe, couldn't it, really? Like a different framing so more people understand that from the outset. 

Kim: Hmm. What was it you said? 

Cat: Which bit? 

Kim: Heathen... 

Cat: My religions? Oh, Heathen Soul Lore. 

Kim: Soul Lore? 

Cat: Yeah. Yeah. 

Kim: L-O-R-E? 

Cat: L-O-R-E. Okay. Okay. 

Kim: I can link you the website. It's this website by this Heathen lady called Winifred Rose, and she's been researching Heathen period ideas of souls for like 20 years now. And all her work is on there, plus exercises, because she's also been working with the souls for the past 20 years. And I'm in her study group as well. So it's all been, it's honestly been life-changing, getting involved in that. It's just been absolutely incredible. Very very healing. It's changed a lot of how I practice, how I conceptualize how magic works as well. So, it kind of calls to it. I definitely recommend it. 

Kim: I'm super interested. This is... what are we? Not even barely 15 minutes in and I'm already... I want to be your friend. 

Cat: Hey, friend me on Facebook. 

Kim: (laughing) Would you say witchcraft has changed your life? 

Cat: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think the biggest thing for me was, you know, having those tools from early on. It was a way to go from being terrified all the time to, you know, sort of like retaking my own agency. Because there was a point when I was a teenager when things were sort of mounting up so much with the different experiences I was having. Because, you know, if you're a kid and you see stuff, you're not always seeing nice stuff, right? And, you know, when your parents don't necessarily understand, because they don't see, like, my dad will sense things and he gets taken over by his guide, but he's never seen them. He's never seen the dead, he's never seen different spirits, he's never had that experience. So, you know, he works completely differently to me. And I think it was very difficult for him to understand just how terrifying it is to be a kid, and having these unexplainable things happening in your room at night, and not really being able to tell anyone about it. 
And witchcraft, for me, it gave me a feeling like, okay, I don't just have to deal with this. I can put up those boundaries. I can also become an active participant here and interact. And as time has gone by, I've used witchcraft to sort of like create changes in the direction of my life as well. So, for example, before I moved to, well, before the job came up for me to move to Korea, so I used to live inside Korea, I did a stitched piece of magic. I do a lot of the fiber. So knitting, spinning, embroidery kind of magic. I did an embroidered piece of magic, basically wrote a bindrune on it, and then a charm outlining, laying out everything I wanted to happen. I basically consecrated it, I set it down to layer magically, and then within three months I moved to South Korea. I had a job that was fun, it's one of my specifications, it paid well, and I ended up finding the love of my life, you know, and so I ended up marrying my husband. 

Kim: That is neat. 

Cat: And he's also a heathen. He's also a heathen as well. 

Kim: That's extra wild. 

Cat: What are the chances of finding a heathen inside Korea? 

Kim: : I don't do math, so I couldn't tell you. 

Cat: : As far as I knew at the time, there were like three to four heathens that I knew about on the Korean peninsula. Obviously, I don't know any, like, was there any Korean Koreans who were in the, like, who were there who we were getting to heathen with. But you know, in the English-speaking community, that was it. And, um, you know, my husband comes from New Hampshire, I'm from Lancashire, somehow we met in South Korea, and we were both heathens and we hit it off. You know, it's... So yeah, witchcraft has really changed my life. 

Kim: You just gave me... I'm a metal worker and you just gave me so many brain explosions about things that I should try. 

Cat: Yeah, that would be so cool. 

Kim: I'm excited.

Cat: All those different layers of like sort of ritual actions and incantations you could put in with metal working. 

Kim: Yeah, and I was going to have to quench the metal. I can get some moon water. Oh my gosh. Oh my GOSH. I mean like when you think of it, I'm going to go off on a tangent here, prepare yourself for the tangent. 

Kim: I love a tangent. 

Cat: Love a good tangent. So I'm really fascinated by Viking Age funerary culture. There's a random interest for you there, because necromancy. One of the really neat things that you learn when you're studying this is that it's possible that when the blacksmiths, a lot of the blacksmiths have their forges on the grave fields, right? There's this thing in some places where the blacksmiths would be forging on the grave fields, and there's been experiments in, not certain it's an experimental archaeology thing, that's shown that it's possible to use human bones to carbonize metal in the smithing process. Like, imagine that, here's a sword, it's full of ghosts. 

Kim: Oh my gosh! 

Cat: Right? Right? 

Kim: Holy crap!

Cat:  So just think about the possibilities there, and then the whole idea of creation. The Norse creation myth. You've got fire and ice, right? And so if things come together with those two elements, it's... Alchemical. I don't say alchemy because...

Kim: My brain is doing things. 

Cat: So awesome it's so awesome. So many things you can do with it.

Kim:  My brain is doing so many things. Cartwheels. all the ideas. Gymnastics inside my head, Simone Biles is in my head.

Cat: Awesome! I'm glad you're like setting up on it. 

Kim: Well not two weeks ago, maybe it was two... I don't know I can't do math.  Even in time, I don't know. Recently, this year, I interviewed a blacksmith who does workshops where he teaches you to build a forge. And I'm thinking, hey, I want to go do that class. And now this, oh my gosh. 

Cat: It's a sign. 

Kim: This year is, I'm getting chills, this is bizarre. 

Cat: Year of the blacksmithing, year of the blacksmithing, heck yes. 

Kim: Okay, okay, I need to chill out. We need to ask you questions. It's not, I swear, I am not usually like this.

Cat: It's fine. 

Kim: I feel like I've had about 40 things of caffeine. (laughs) What would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice? 

Cat: Honestly, I love that sense of connection. You know when you're in a ritual and everything's going well, and you're just kind of like, you feel like you're plugged in. It's almost like you're a weather vane, and you're just kind of moving in the right direction with the wind. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Like, all of it's a dance, and you're like in full flow. Yeah, I love that. That is, like, getting to that space. And also discovering things, different ways of working that maybe haven't been done for a thousand years, or maybe something that's being revealed right now but it works really well. These are both huge motivators for me, you know that sense of connectedness. And also, you know, the element of discovery. Yeah. 

Kim: That's awesome. Do you ever feel like you have imposter syndrome or that, do you ever feel like that? If you do, what do you do about it? 

Cat: Oh my god, I think everybody does though, don't we? You know, anyone, I do. I fully admit to that. When I was younger, it used to take a different form as well. Things would happen, and I would convince myself I was mentally ill instead of things happening. And then other people would be like, oh no, I experienced that too. I'd be like, no, shut up. It's easier if it's mental illness. It's never easier if it's mental illness, side note. But um... No, like that... 

Kim: (laughs) It comes up so often. 

Cat: (laughs) But it's... I think it's kind of like related, I think those two things are related. And so, you know, when it comes to self-doubt and imposter syndrome, now it's more like, I know this stuff's real. It's been proven to me beyond a shadow of a doubt. But will it happen the same way again? Will the spirits listen to me? Will this happen as it did last time? Can I replicate this experiment? If this person comes to me with a problem, will I know how to help them? That's the kind of thing I experience, and really the only way to get through it, I find, is to do. So just suck it up and do it. Do the best you can. And then this is a really awesome tip from Lee Morgan. I don't know if you've ever read his work, but Lee Morgan, in I think it's Standing and Not Falling, he recommends that people write a list of their magical wins. You know, whenever you do magic and it comes out in a book, you write it down, you put it in your grimoire, your book of shadows, your working journal, and you, just like when you're feeling it, you look through it, you look through that list. 

Kim: I don't have it written down, but I do have specific memories that I look to when I'm thinking, "What am I even doing? Okay, well I had this result. I've seen this happen. I've seen it." 

Cat: Yeah. 

Kim: But you actually get into the proving the theory. That's interesting.

Cat:  I do. I do. And I also kind of get into this whole thing where I'll come up with an experimental way of working, and I'll test it out, and I'll get other people to test it out as well. Or I'll do it with other people to see what they experience while we're kind of redoing the thing that I've come up with in the experiment. And we all kind of compare notes for different effects. You know, like, OK, there's a cold wind at this point. There's a, I felt like I was being touched at this point. You know, like, this is when the atmosphere changed, like, the floor went cold. You know, we kind of compare different notes in that way. And that's a really... it's terrifying, but it's also really validating too. You know, kind of like fighting the bullet. 

Kim: I don't want things to touch me. My husband has had things touch him. I'm not interested. Please don't. 

Cat: It doesn't bother me as much as it used to. I think I'm just desensitized to it all.

Kim:  I don't even like people touching me though. 

Cat: Well, that's legit, but humans are dirty. If there's one thing that COVID taught I think everyone. 

Kim: Oh my gosh.

Cat: So many people consider washing hands optional. 

Kim: I wish it had taught everyone, but get your point. (both laugh)

Cat: I know. It's funny, I was in the kitchen yesterday just kind of like putting dinner together for the guests that were coming and my husband got this Ancestry DNA testing kit. He said he was trying to fill this test tube with spit. And I was like, are you kidding me? What the hell is with this year? If we're not shoving these like Q-tips up our noses to get straight mucus out to test for the plague, we're gozzing, so spitting into test tubes to see what kind of variety of like people we've come from. It's gross. 

Kim: Yeah, I'm not fond of bodily fluids. 

Cat: I'm just like, get out of the kitchen and do it somewhere else! Why...

Kim: Oh no, he was doing... oh no. 

Cat: He was stood like... he was just stood there and he's making this ridiculous noise, because he's got a funnel on top of a test tube and it kind of sounds like, if you've ever heard somebody... if you've ever been around a trumpet player and they take the mouthpiece off and they just blow it with their breath to the trumpet attached to it, that kind of weird raspberry noise? It was making that noise. And I'm just like, you'd better not be hocking up lugeys in there, alright? That's... 

Kim: (both laughing) Oh no! 

Cat: It was gross! Go somewhere else, will ya? So yeah, I don't mind being touched by non-corporeal things nearly as much as other humans honestly. At least non-corporeal things don't have like bodily fluids in them. 

Kim: Give you clap. 

Cat: The clap or the rona, or you know RSV what else is floating around. 

Kim: Yeah gross. No thank you.

Cat:  Yeah, scabies. Really scraping the barrel of traumas here, aren't we? (laughs) My word.

Kim:  What would you say is your biggest struggle with your practice? 

Cat:  My biggest struggle is time and not being exhausted. You know, like I dream about... 

Kim: Yeah, I do know. 

Cat: I have all these awesome ideas for experiments, you know, like this is the thing, this one thing I've been experimenting with for a couple of years now really and it's based on this Swedish archaeology site that I took a look at and "I'm like oh yo, that is necromantic as hell." And then I realized it matches a description of a necromantic grid from the sagas. So I was like all right how do I work with this bad boy? Okay I don't actually know what it would do. So I had this rule because, you know, growing up as I did, with all these scary things happening, I don't want to subject my kid to that. So I'm very, very careful about what I bring into the house and how the different layers I build into my experiments to protect everyone around me, basically. So because I had no idea what would happen with this grid, I then had to look into scheduling some time away. My husband was just taking over, and we were disappearing off into the mountains of West Virginia with some friends just to crack out this painted grid on a home despot drop cloth to try and see what kind of necromantic nonsense we could get going on. The end of that story is that we end up haunting the hell out of this Airbnb. 
But, yeah, stuff like that takes time to put together. And I don't always have the time. There's always like child care that you need. Or just in a day, just like day to day, finding the time to do your regular practices. Or, you know, like when there's a festival or a high holy day that comes up and you're just so dog tired. And, you know, sure people are like, well, you're just going to suck it up, but if it involves a trancework component, then I'm always like, can I stay in trance or am I going to fall asleep? Is this going to be dangerous, ultimately? You know, am I going to be compus mentis? Or should I just go and like, you know, approach my allies and say, hey, I can't do it today, but can we kind of like, you know, change your time up little bit? You know, those are my biggest challenges. Time in everyday life, time to get the hell away to go do weird experiments that may or may not land a place getting haunted and (Kim laughs) you know, being exhausted. 

Kim: Yes. Adulthood. So overrated. 

Cat: It is so, so overrated. 

Kim: What brings you the most joy in your practice? 

Cat: Probably the connectedness, the sort of like heat of reality that you get. When a ritual goes well, and doing the kind of work I do, these experiments. And not everything I do is an experiment, some stuff is just set, I've been doing it for years. But there's sometimes a moment, if I'm doing it right, or if I'm just making an idiot out of myself, like some being will feel sorry for me, step in and give me a few hints, that gives me a lot of joy. Well, because it's like, okay, I've managed to make contact, and sure, it wasn't because I was doing everything right, necessarily. It's because I'm like, oh, this person, this human is doing the equivalent of a crappy kid drawing that we're going to put onto the fridge to make them feel better about their efforts, and so let's give them a hand. Or, you know, if I'm doing better, they're like, hey, yeah, we're almost there, let's give them the rest of it. So, you know, because we want more people doing this, we want more humans doing this. So that kind of like connecting and that exchange of information, and just that peek behind the curtain of what's there, what exists, and that we humans aren't the only beings with sentience and agency. We're not the only people, essentially. And I'm not just talking about the unseen either. I've seen some really, really amazing things happen with plants, trees, animals, birds. I just that gives me that glimpse of that wider reality, it is a delight, you know, it is the high. 

Kim: So you'd feel like they do want us to do things? To interact? 

Cat: Yeah, yeah, not all of them, not all of them, some of them are just like get the hell out you stupid human, you know? But I think that there are some who do. You've just got to, you know, you've just got to kind of be careful. 

Kim: Get their attention, probably. 

Cat: Yeah, you've got to be careful. You've got to get their attention. And this is one of the reasons why I work with, you know, I kind of take my cues from these historical forms of magic. Because I figure, you know, what I find is that there are certain beings that seem to be connected to different magical practices. There's been different beings that have shown up for different magical practices and kind of given me hints, and they seem to be connected to me in some way. And so like a working theory I have right now is that, you know, by experimenting with these, I'm trying to hit up beings who do want to work with humans. You know, I'm trying to make contact with the ones who do. It's like a more sure path, if you know what I mean. Rather than going looking for one, so just like, no, get the hell out, human. You know? Because it isn't safe. It is a dangerous, dangerous thing. I'm sure Morgan was, I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, but I'm sure Morgan was very clear about that. It's... Yeah, you do have to... And it also depends on who your allies are, I find. You know, like, I work with the ælfe, which is the Old English word for elves. And I use that term specifically because the ælfe that you find in the Old English sources, they are kind of a little bit like fairies but also like the ælfe that you find in the old Norse sources too. And that word really kind of epitomizes the group of ælfe that I work with. And so a lot of the things I do, a lot of the different allies that I interact with and the different beings that crop up and who seem to want me to get this information out there and get these practices out there, they're related to that. And so it's kind of like a friend of a friend sort of deal, only I'm not so much of a friend as slightly wacky. So, I don't know if that made any sense. I just rambled a whole lot. 

Kim: I, it's... I don't actually process anything during an interview. (laughs) Most of the time I do my processing when I'm editing.

Cat:  I can see that. I can see that. 

Kim: What would you say is your biggest fear in witchcraft? 

Cat: Hmm. I don't know. All the things I used to consider biggest fears are not so much... I think like, losing that connection would be it. 

Kim: Yeah, that sounds terrifying. 

Cat: Yeah, yeah, you know, if you get into the Heathen Soul Lore, one of the things that you start to realize as you look through it, and you work through it, is that the Heathen Soul Lore has this... the idea is that you have multiple souls, who are all people, and all persons with agencies themselves, and different afterlife destinies and stuff. And the more I look into historical sources with regards to these souls, some of them, things I've asked of them, seem to harm them and their ability to connect. So it can definitely happen, and I really... that sounds like hell to me, losing that connection. So, you know, I wouldn't swap it for the world, even if it does sometimes lead me into time shifting and terrifying situations. 

Kim: (laughs) It never even occurred to me to think about losing it and now that's my new biggest fear. 

Cat: Welcome to the new horror. 

Kim: Thanks.

Cat: You're welcome. My brain is full of stuff like this. 

Kim: Love it. (laughing)

Cat: I think if a demon ever possessed me, like, god why am I in here? 

Kim: Yeah, basically, good luck with that, guy! 

Cat: Good luck with that, bruh! It's, uh, 

Kim: It hurts in here.

Cat: it's not fun in here. It's not fun in here! Yeah, basically. Like, I'm terrified, well, I kind of disturbed a whole bunch of my friends on Facebook because, you know how, the, you know the new AI art thing, well I say new, it's been happening for a while now. But there was this children's book that this guy on Twitter put out, and he did it all using AI. But when you zoomed in on the pictures, these allegedly cute pictures of these children, all the hands were messed up, and the fingers looked like they were broken and stuff. And so I was thinking about that. And naturally, my brain takes it to the worst possible place. And so I go on Twitter, not Twitter, I go on Facebook, because I have to obviously share this nonsense mess. Because if it's infecting my brain, it's going to be in theirs too.

Kim: You've got to spread it!

Cat:  Right. So I was like, hey, yeah, I was just thinking about these AI things and the pictures with the fingers. And could you imagine, like, I was thinking about a short story, like a plot hook for a short story, and how in a not-too-distant future, children became convinced that that's how their hands are supposed to look. And so children started maiming themselves and demanding surgery to allegedly correct their fingers because they'd been watching these, like looking at these AI images for so long. And people were just posting on the comments going, oh my god, F'n hell Cat what the hell? (both laugh)

Kim: Thanks, I hate it. 

Cat: I feel like, you know, I thought I had some bad thoughts about this whole thing, but no, that wins. Yeah, I just want to write a horror...

Kim: You should write it. 

Cat: I don't want to write that. I've got like, I've got like three... 

Kim: Too many books in there?

Cat:  Well, I have a fiction book that's currently going through its final edits, and that is a hellscape, an emotional hellscape. Then there's the second book in that series that I'm starting the preliminary edits for. I have the third book in that series that needs editing. I'm happy to be writing the fourth book in that series, plus I also have another book, and I've been doing the whole writing on this heathen book, so I'm kind of a little bit busy, I have to say no. These books are kind of like, these books are kind of like, um, do you knit? If you knit, you'll understand what I mean, like where you just keep buying yarn, because you're like, oh my god, I can make this with it, but then you never get around to making it all. 

Kim: I do that with stones. 

Cat: Oh, right, so yeah, like, you know, what you can do with those stones I have no idea. So, I'm kind of cutting myself off. I'm kind of cutting myself off until I've finished and pitched a few more books and got them in the editing pipeline. And I honestly don't want to write about children mutating themselves either. 

Kim: Yeah, actually, yeah, because if you actually have children, I would not want to do that. 

Cat: Children and animals are my cut off. I can't. I can write horror, like most horrendous things happen to adults, but not children and animals. And it's the same with watching it on TV. I can't watch horror movies where kids or animals get hurt. That scene in I Am Legend where the dog dies, I'm just like, no. No. I want to leave this theater now. F this movie,  I want to get out of here. My husband was then my boyfriend and was like, "Wait, what?" No, I 'm out. I am done with this. Kill the dog. 

Kim: Yeah, I was, yeah. John Wick was the one that got me.

Cat: It's just vulnerable. 

Kim: I was like I'm angry. How dare you, Keanu, for you to be in a movie like this. 

Cat: Even vulnerable adults, or any vulnerable people of any kind, I don't like storylines about people who are vulnerable of any kind, whether they're like dogs, cats, children, or seniors, or adults with disabilities. No, it upsets me. And I used to work with adults with disabilities, or disabled adults. When I worked back then, it was person-first language, so I had to adjust. So, disabled adults. I used to work with a whole bunch of disabled adults, and they were awesome. They were such lovely people, but they're so vulnerable, and without other people looking out for them, you know, they're going to get manipulated, they can wind up in all kinds of horrible situations and yeah. 

Kim: I was an occupational therapy assistant, so I worked with a variety of vulnerable people too. 

Cat: Yeah, yeah. 

Kim: It changes the way you look at things. 

Cat: It really does because people who haven't worked with vulnerable people, they only see the cosmetic, like surface level. One of my clients, she was this lady in a wheelchair and she had hyperspasticity in the limbs. And so she was very stiff at all times and she shook. And she had to be spoon-fed, and we had to do safe swallowing training so that we could feed her safely, so we didn't hurt her. And we take her out to restaurants and stuff, because why the hell not? She's an adult, she should get to go eat in a restaurant like a regular person. So we take her to restaurants, and we actually got asked to leave once because another customer had made a complaint saying that watching our client eating was making him feel sick. Like, just turn your head, dude. 

Kim: Yeah. Or leave.

Cat: Just leave her be. Leave her be. She's just trying to eat her lunch, you know, which is a right that everyone should have. 

KIm: That's incredibly obnoxious.

Cat:  It is, isn't it? It is. So, you know, I always think about stuff like that, but that guy couldn't see anything beyond how she looked. You know, he didn't see the struggles that she had. He didn't see that, you know, like, this was a person who, her life had become so limited relatively quickly, and was dealing with really severe medical problems. But somehow, she always managed to have the smile of a star, you know? Like, you sang songs to her and she would try to sing along with you, even though she couldn't move her mouth properly anymore. And she'd get this big smile on her face. And, you know, like... I always wonder how... I never met her before she kind of went into a decline. And I always wondered how she was before that. And I think she was probably one of the strongest people ever, because she managed to kind of like have that joy still even though... And I know you can argue that "Oh she probably wasn't aware of it,"  but I don't think so. I don't, I don't believe that.

Kim:  I think I think that's what people tell themselves. So it's easier to live with. 

Cat:  I think so too. Yeah, yeah. I, that's what I feel like too. You know, I think she was one of the strongest people I've ever met. But people would never really recognize that, because all they saw was this lady in a wheelchair who made strange noises when she ate and had to have her food thickened and you know, made the food look gross to them, and that's all they saw. 

Kim: Well they're miserable people. 

Cat: They are. They are miserable people.  And yeah, that's a really sad note, I'm sorry. 

Kim: I actually cried. 

Cat: I'm sorry. 

Kim: I cry all the time, so it's okay. 

Cat: I was very sad when I found out that she passed. She passed when I lived in Germany, and I had a dream the night that she passed about past about her, you know, like this guy, I was working at the place again, this guy knocked at the door, he was wearing a black suit, and he was filling out transfer paperwork, and I just had this feeling that, you know, no, no, I will never see her again. And I'm begging my boss, you can't let him complete that paperwork, you can't let him take her! By the end of the dream, they got into his car, but like, the more he wrote, the more her different physical issues lightened. And by the end of it, she was walking out the door and grabbing at everyone. So that's what she always did anyway. And really in everyone's faces, and she was clinging to this guy all happy. And I watched him drive off in this VW Beetle, through these woods that kind of open to a little road for him to go. And the next day, oh I'm getting emotional now! The next day my mum messaged me and said... 

Kim: If you cry, I'm going to cry even harder.

Cat: If you cry, then I'll cry, and we'll all cry. The next day my mum messaged me and said that she passed that night, and I was like, oh... 

Kim: That actually makes me feel better though. 

Cat: Yeah, yeah, because it's like, I know she went to a good place. I know she was happy going, you know. 

Kim: That's... wow. 

Cat: And like, the guy in the suit was not unkind, you know. He just had a job to do. And he, you know, he was smiling and kind of like talking to her and stuff. It... yeah. 

Kim: Oh, I'm thinking about my patients. (crying and laughing) 

Cat:  Yeah, so, me but in. It might give someone some kind of comfort. Apart from being a poor person. 

Kim: After all that, what would you say is your favorite tool and why? 

Cat: Ooh, I don't know. I hate trying to pick one thing. 

Kim: It doesn't have to be a physical object, by the way.

Cat:  Oh, that could be even worse then. Oh, I have some perennials. So my perennial favourite tool is probably string. 

Kim: Hmm! Good one!

Cat: Yeah, because you can use it for knot spells, you can use it to MacGuyver other tools, you know, like you're going about and you need something that you don't already have. And if you have a spindle, you know, string is a really good practical thing to have. 

Kim: That's such a good one. 

Cat: I always put it in my go bags. I make like magical go bags. And I have a main one, like if somebody calls and is like, hey Kat, we need help, you can come round. Then I'll pick my main one up and I'll head out the door with that. But I always have some kind of supplies in my bag anyway, regardless which bag I've got. You know, like my basics is like black salt, protection oil, cord, that string thing, that I made ritualistically with flax (inaudible) and chanted over and whatnot, a holy stone or a hagstone, and like some small offering substances, like cornmeal, sometimes butter if I can find the little plastic packs, the alcohol minis, they're also really good for offerings for you to be working with, coins, they're good for dead. Aside from that, and I don't know if I can really call it a tool. So I, you know this grid, I keep talking about the necromantic grid.

 Kim: Yeah.

Cat: (laughs) I got a pop-up tent because one of the things that one of the spirits that I kind of got the attention of, colliding around this grid, told me is that it needs to be covered over. It's more like a mound, it's more mound-like. So I did an experiment, I did a couple of experiments, so having a pillow fort over it kind of thing, which is a disaster because my cat decided she had to get in there. 

Kim: (laughs) Of course. Of course. 

Cat: So that was fun. That was fun. And then when you've got like chairs falling and stuff, you're like, oh my God. So I invested in this $30 pop-up beach tent and I drew the grid inside and it's literally this thing that you pull out the bag and you throw, and it's up in three seconds. 

Kim: I love those.

Cat:  So it's like, three, two, one, Necromancy, go! 

Kim: Magic! (laughs)

Cat: Yeah, I mean, it's not fully set up at that point, but at least I've got my kind of like mound and grid up and then, you know, once I've got that up, I can, you know, do the sort of like space, create like space delineation, the chanting as I'm like howling the area and all that kind of business. So it's just a really good way of getting started. It doesn't take forever. It doesn't require complicated logistics in, that cats might mess up. So yeah, I love it. Just like the whole thing where I can pull this thing out and be like, Ooh, padunk! 

Kim: You know, nobody has ever mentioned those butter packets, and that is such a good idea. 

Cat: I'm surprised Morgan didn't! Oh my god.

Kim:  I don't think I asked her this question. I don't know. She had different questions than you have. 

Cat: Oh well they're like the mark of butter packets. I've never seen anyone use them so liberally in practice. And I know this because I went to, Morgan and I got employed for witchcraft purposes and also to present workshops for this tour in Iceland, going to these weird places and like running rituals and stuff. So I've seen Morgan in action a fair bit now. And yeah, they make good use of the butter. 

Kim: That is so neat. She did actually tell a story from that trip. 

Cat: Ooh, which one? 

Kim: The troll party at night that you almost walked into? 

Cat: Yeah, yeah. Not the best idea I've ever had. 

Kim: I would have been walking up. I would have disappeared too. 

Cat: It made me laugh because usually when I come up with these ideas, like, Hey, yeah, let's go for a stroll up this hill at night!" Usually when I'm like that, people are like, no, come on, what the hell are you doing? Morgan was just like, give me a minute, I'll go get my pants on. I'm like, alright, back on. 

Kim: She said that, and I was like, me too. Can you imagine? 

Cat: Yeah, it was... I was just like, oh hell yeah, I have my people here. They're as wild as I am. So yeah, that was a good time. 

Kim:  If you could only recommend one book to a new witch, what would it be? 

Cat: Probably Althea Sebastiani's Spellcraft book. She is the only person, and this might be because I haven't read enough new books, the new person books for a while, but I was really impressed with Althea Sebastiani's book because I rarely see, in books, I rarely see people teaching how to sense and manipulate energy. And I think that's a feature of witchcraft, as opposed to other forms of magic. One of the main features of witchcraft, of the forms of magic. And she actually teaches people how to do that. And the way that she structures it is, it's a practical course that takes place over, I think, two months. And she gets them doing different activities in accordance with the moon, while also teaching them, sort of like, theory behind how spellcraft and magic works. And so, yeah, I definitely recommend that. I keep meaning to finish reading Irene Glasse's Magpie training witchcraft course, the witchcraft course. I know Irene, she's absolutely wonderful, a really, really excellent witch. I haven't finished reading her book yet because of stuff I do, I'm always researching, so finding time for leisure reading or if I am leisure reading, reading that isn't just trashy novels, is really difficult. You know, I love me some shifter novels, you know, like these werewolf novels. I love me those. I love me just... there's a series... I'm not going to go into that, but anyway, yeah. 

Kim: I have a friend who writes those, actually. (laughs)

Cat:  That's the kind of books I write! I have such joy, like, subverting the usual werewolf tropes. It's like, the whole point. Yeah, no, I know you said one, but Althea Sebastiani, and I would also probably say Irene Glasse's and Caine Dreamwalker's book, because they co-wrote it. But I know Irene personally. Absolutely excellent, witch, really, really well-respected community leader in this area too. I, yeah, can't say enough good about her. Totally trust putting myself in her hands. 

Kim: Nice. 

Cat: And I've heard really good stuff about her courses too, but she also teaches courses online. 

Kim: I do love some online courses. I'm actually in Althea Sebastiani's Feral Witchcraft course. 

Cat: I love her work. 

Kim: Me too. Did you see how she's posting, like, I don't know if it was today or yesterday, because Instagram is weird about how it shows you things, about how you have to actually be practicing and you have to be studying and you have to be working, and if you're not doing the work, you're not a witch. 

Cat: Yeah, no, but that's one of the hard lines I really appreciate about her. And I think that's the central message that she kind of, well, not kind of, but she hammers in again and again and again in her book about spellcraft. So yeah, definitely recommend her book. And it was one of those books where, have you ever read a magic book, or a book about witchcraft, or any kind of magic really, and you start reading it, and the sort of energy in you kind of recognizes what the other person is putting down, and you start responding? like you get, like you can't stop buzzing just reading the book? I get that with her book. That's not, that's usually a sign that it's good shit so yeah. It's like hey idiot read this!

Kim: (laughs) What's something you wish was discussed more in the witch community? 

Cat: Anthropocentrism. This sounds really out of left field. I see it all the time. People... And this goes back to the animist perspective as well. I see a lot of people expressing sentiments that are very much on the lines of of, this spirit is doing this for me, for my spiritual growth, or like, whatever. Or, kind of like talking down about the different types of inhuman people you're interacting with, when it's like, yeah, they've got agency, and you need to kind of de-sense yourself in this whole thing, because you're not seeing the situation how it actually is, for one. And two, you're disrespecting any other inhuman people you're working with. 
And this is what you see especially in the discourse about familiars, this whole idea of, like, "My pet is a familiar," or this idea that the witch is in charge of the familiar, and that's never traditionally been the case. Traditionally, it was the familiar who was the source of the witch's learning and power. The familiar existed in a hierarchy within their own people, and then the witch existed within that hierarchy, through their connection to the familiar, even lower than the familiar. So, you know, just this idea that everything exists for humans, I think that kind of needs to be talked about more. And second, that probably would be purification practices, I think. And this could just be because of the kind of stuff I get into, but purification is a huge part of what I do. I live in a pretty active area. Energy kind of goes up and down around here. It's to a point now where... I've seen my neighbour literally put circles of salt around her and her mum's cars. This is just the kind of weird stuff that goes on around here. During 2020, the street was full of shadow people. 

Kim: I don't like that. 

Cat: Yeah, it was right before we had all these deaths from COVID, because we got hit really badly. They had to open up a local ice skating rink to store bodies. 

Kim: (whispers) Oh no.

Cat: Oh yeah, it was horrible. And it's kind of just sort of progressively gotten weirder since then, really. We had this mimic spirit show up and it's kind of...

Kim: I HATE that. Hate it.

Cat:  Yeah, it kind of bounces between the houses a little bit. It's been in my house a few times and it's kind of given itself away pretty quickly because it pretends to be my husband and then I've been like, "Ha ha, he's not even in the house dipshit, get out!" (Kim laughs) But my neighbour, her mum is terrified of this thing. She's really, really terrified, and that's the worst thing you can do to a mimic. They feed off that. It's like catnip to them. And so, you know, like, she kind of, she gets really terrified. She ends up calling the priest in and it's all thing then. 

Kim: The police?

Cat:  The priest. Oh. No, we have exorcisms next door. 

Kim: Okay. 

Cat: So, you know, stuff like that going on around here, it's all because the energy around here just kind of like gets... it's like these tides almost. It gets higher, it gets lower. And if I don't purify regularly, I'll find myself getting more migraines, I'll find myself even more hyperactive than usual, I'll find that, you know, my heart starts racing, that I find it even harder to sleep. And, you know, if I don't stay on top of that, it's a whole thing. And I think there needs to be more discussion about purification and the physical effects of energy on the body. What this kind of work can do to you physically. And how to also mitigate the effects. What herbs you can take to support different parts of your, I always say, what I like to call your energetic system, like your soul body, so what herbs you can take to help support your magical practice and help it to handle the energy that you're working with. 

Kim: Who or what would you say are the three biggest influences on your practice?

Cat: Oh, probably the moors, honestly. I mean, I spent years up there. Some weeks I would walk 60 to 70 miles a week, and it was often just me. It was often just me up there with my backpack, or me and my dog, and we'd just wander. And I came to know a set of different sites where the spirits at those sites, the beings that lived there, were amenable to having a gifting relationship. And I think that was one of the biggest, some of the best training you could have as a witch, honestly. And back then in the 90s, the advice was get a good pair of hiking boots and walk a 5-mile radius. A lot of books I read back then seemed to all say that. So I really took it to heart that I was hiking anyway. So that's one of the influences on my practice, just that time spent out in the wilds. 
For me, that has influenced the way I think about supplies, to how to work on the go, how to kind of use your smarts instead of your strength to kind of solve problems or any kind of issues that crop up. A lot of people, when they go out into the wild, they think in terms of, you've probably seen that meme, "a witch should be the most terrifying thing in the woods." Right? 

Kim: Well, aren't you... Okay.

Cat:  No, it's not like that. It's like, if you actually think that, you've either never experienced any being bigger than you, or you've stayed at home, like you're either too small to bother with, or you've just stayed home, you know, there are beings out there that are way bigger than us, and that, you know, there's a reason why the rest of us have traditionally always been dead mad or a poet. So when you get out there and you're working in those, doing that kind of wild witchcraft, you quickly learn that you're not all that and a sack of spuds, really. That if you're going to get out of some situations, you have to learn how to improvise and work on the fly, and just use your knowledge, use your smarts. 
And if you look at folklore, whenever humans come out on top, it's because they've used their smarts. It's not like this power fantasy of, like, guy with a gun, shooting the aliens, pew pew! It's not like that. And I think that's excellent training for that kind of practice. Just, again, that's one of the biggest influences on me. Another of the biggest influences is the elves. I know people think about Santa's little helpers, but no, elves are very, very powerful. They've been degraded in sort of like the collective imagination.  But originally the ælfe were, you know, people would say, oh you don't want to mess with the fairies. But the word fairy was used as a replacement for elf. You know? They're not that different. They've got a different etiquette, but they are just as powerful. And if you make them mad, you'll know it. 
But they also will teach you things. They will also, if they like you and you have a good relationship with, if you have allies among them, they will help you out with stuff. And then the final biggest influence, and it's a more recent one, that is the Soul Lore, the Heathen Soul Lore practice. That has completely changed how I see a lot of stuff. I don't think we spend enough time thinking about what the soul or souls look like. And when you think about it, your souls are the machinery with which you work magic. So the better you understand your souls, the more efficient you can work magic. I mean, this past year of doing this work with the soul lore, it has been so changing. It has been really healing. I keep saying that, it's been very healing. But it has. It's been very healing.
 It's helped me to find ways to work with my neurodivergence that I don't think I would have had otherwise. I've learned to identify, like, differentiate between different sources of energy from different souls. I've learned which souls to work with the different types of magic. I've learned how to get counsel from my different souls as well. And also to work with my souls in a more... hmm... There's a way of communicating with other people in a subtle way. So, you know, there's... And that, I've only really experimented with my husband with this. I mean, nothing nasty, it's just kind of like a, hey, can you go suggest to his soul part like this, that, you know, we should do blah blah blah if it's amenable to him. You know, it's nothing like I don't want him to have his free will, it's just more kind of like, I've done that, and then shortly after that my husband suggested it. So that's still kind of in the experimental phase. So I'm going to, like, the next stage is to widen my net out, see if it works with friends, and after that, if I can do it with strangers, and kind of go from there. So those are the three main influences.

Kim: I'm digging into that. 

Cat: You so should. 

Kim: I'm excited. That's fascinating.

Cat: It's a free website. It's a free website. It is heathensoullore.net. Everything on there, this lady, Winifred Rose, who did all the research, she actually, she has it as books that you can buy as well, but it was important for her to put it out for free too, as an act of service, because she just wanted people to have it. She believes so much in the healing potential for the soul lore work, that she just wants it out there without necessarily glory for herself. I think that's just amazing. You know, that's a real... That's a real... That's real pack-wolf behavior, isn't it? 

Kim: Yeah! 

Cat: So... You know, I recommend her work as often as I can. It's been so changing. And... I don't actually know whether I would be nearly as happy as I am now today without it. 

Kim: Hmm. 

Cat: It's just whole-making in the best way.

Kim: Neat.

Cat: So I'm just going to keep toting it.

Kim: Good! I'm glad I got to hear about it.

Cat: I want everyone to be well. I'll post a link in the notes if you want.

Kim: Yes please! Well I wrote it down, so yeah I would like that. Because I'm going to invite you to something after this. I have something to talk to you about. 

Cat: Oh, OK. Sounds cool. 

Kim: What would you, do you have any advice for a new witch? Words of wisdom. 

Cat: Find a balance between listening to the people and their takes on stuff, and listening to your own instincts and what you're experiencing. That's my, I think, one of the biggest challenges. In a lot of ways, coming up in the 90s was hard, but it was also, looking back, it was also really good because I got to figure out who I was as a witch before social media became big, and before those kind of social pressures happened. And so I got to kind of shape myself more. And I see a lot of people, like new people, they'll go, they'll be on social media, they'll be asking lots of questions because naturally it's there, you can talk to all these people. But then, one, you're not necessarily putting in the practice, and you have to do to be, right? You have to do to be, you have to do to write, you have to do to tell people. So the practice isn't necessarily happening, it's kind of getting shifted, like the process has kind of shifted to aesthetic in a lot of ways, and like talking about it. 

Kim: Yeah. 

Cat: They're also not necessarily getting to find their own relationships with beings, and their own guides, and their own experiences for themselves. And I think that's such a key part of being a witch. You've got to... When you look at the early modern period sources, the witches back then, they could be sitting in the garden, and then this fairy walks in, and is like, hey, you want to be a witch? And usually a woman's like, hey, you're in. I'm in. I'm a witch. I'm in, kind of thing. (Kim laughs) And then they learn from their familiars. Like, they went from there. So it's good to have the extra voices, but it's also good to just kind of keep your own council, too. And also, no book can fix your practice. That's a huge one. No book will ever, ever be a substitute and get you where you need to go, more than practice. There comes a point when you just have to sit the hell down, suck it up, and do the damn exercises, and do the work. Or you'll never get there. And there's no products either. Don't even think you can buy a crystal or whatever that's going to fix it. It ain't. If you're not putting work in, it's not... You know, crystals and all these other tools you can buy are great to help you with props, but they're not the core of everything. They're not the quick fix. And I think in the space that we are in, where we are hyper-capitalist, there's always this, you know, get this product for better living, better living through athames, whatever. And I don't know if I pronounced that right. I've never been a Wiccan.

Kim: That's how I pronounce it. 

Cat: Alright, rock on. Better living through whatever. And so we've all kind of grown up in this environment of, you know, there's a product for that, there's a product to fix this problem. And there isn't in witchcraft. Sure, you can get herbs that can help you with like, herbs and salt if you need to get rid of the spirit or whatever, but the fundamentals, you're never going to get the fundamentals unless you do the work. So, I think that's a trap a lot of people fall down and fall into. And I see a lot of people fall into that trap. And then they don't progress, and they just kind of peel off. They go out, or it becomes more of an aesthetic. And I've got friends who have been calling themselves witches for years, and they don't do anything. They don't do any witchcraft. And they don't make the time to do any of the work in whatever form. We talked about consistency, the issues of consistency and exhaustion, and not necessarily being able to do daily practices, but trying to at least get the practices in as best you can, in the capacity that you have. Not everyone's got the same capacity either. Some people have got physical issues that make it harder. Some people have environmental issues. Yeah, but do what you can. If you're not doing what you can, then, yeah, you're just not doing anything. You're not it. You're not even sticking the feathers up your butt to call yourself a chicken at that point. So, yeah, we're in the mixed metaphors bit now. (both laugh) Welcome to the bad quotes and mixed metaphors section of the day. 

Kim: So listen up kids. 

Cat: Listen up kids. Make like a tree and fuck off. It's a Boondock Saints quote, alright? Boondock Saints. The guy made mixed metaphors all the time, you know like make like a tree and leave? Anyway, he's my icon. 

Kim: (laughing) Who would you like to see on the show answering these questions?

Cat:  OK, so I have a friend. I have two friends, but I don't know if one of them would come on. I have more friends than two, (Kim laughs) but

 these are the two that come to mind. (kim laughs) Honest, I promise! I have a friend called Kellene Rees. She's not a writer but she has some really interesting perspectives on stuff. I think people would probably really dig what she has to say. Great person as well. Irene Glasse, she lives, like I said she's a local, she lives not far from me, she heads up the local UU pagan. What do they call it now? Congregation, yes, that's the churchy word, isn't it? Congregation. So she heads up the pagan congregation and is also a working witch and also a heathen too. And also, I have a friend called Daniela Simina. She actually grew up learning how to be a fairy witch, fairy doctor from her grandmother. And she's from Romania. She's from Romania. She asked me to endorse one of the books she's got coming out next year. And it was one of those books that I... Yeah, yeah, when you've got a book published, and people who have written books kind of in a similar field as you have, they'll hit you up and be like, Hey, can you read this and let me know your thing? 

Kim: Like a blurb?

Cat: Yeah, maybe write an endorsement for me that I can use? And I'm usually like, yeah, hell yeah, bring it on. So, yeah, I would definitely... Daniela's book, I read it, and there was so much that I recognized in her practice, like so much that was so familiar. Obviously, I can't relate to growing up in Romania during the communist dictatorship, but the magical elements of it, for sure. I got the feeling that me and Daniela could, even without having worked with each other before, we could easily get in the same ritual space and catch what the other is doing and work together pretty much seamlessly. 

Kim: Cool. 

Cat: She is awesome. And yeah, she's doing the rounds to promote her book, I think, right now, so she would definitely be up for going on. And she's one of those people who's like, I'll get something in a vision, and then she'll message me. Or she'll get something in a vision, and I'll message her. And I'm like, hey, have you seen such and such thing? And she'll be like, dude, I was going to message you about that. Or she'll mention something that I had recorded in my journal but hadn't told her. But then she'll mention it, and it's really niche. But then I'll be like, hey, you're not going to believe this, but this is a bit I didn't mention when I told you about this whole thing. Here's a bit of my journal showing you that I did write that down. So, that's neat, we're both getting that thing. So she's, yeah. 

Kim: It sounds like you should be working together. 

Cat: Yeah, but there's like a few states between us. That's a little bit of a barrier. States are big things.

Kim:  Yes, especially out this way.

Cat: Well, especially out your way, yeah. 

Kim: Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to bring up, or anything that I didn't ask you that you wanted to talk about? Or did you have any questions for me? 

Cat: The only thing I want to bring up is, oh, no, I do online classes on the kind of magic that I experiment with, looking at everything from the history, the sources, the experimentation angles, how to do it on a practical level, how to participate in new experiments. And I'm going to start doing them again. I've taken a little break and will start doing them again. I haven't decided yet what the first class of the year is going to be, but I am probably going to be getting into... I'm probably going to be running the Elf series again later this year, and that's going to go... That's going to go all the way through about what Elves are, elves and their relationship to elves and witchcraft in Old Norse sources and Old English sources, working with the old magical medical charms to deal with issues and do purifications, things like that. How to work for the Mugwarts for fumigation. 
A lot of people think they can only use white sage, but we actually have, in Old English, we actually have sources that tell you how to prepare herbs for use as smoke fumigation. You know, we have charms addressing herbs as people that you can then chant as well while working. So there's a lot of this stuff out there that I like to put out there, just so that people know it's there. So I'm going to be doing that with the elves. I'm also going to be getting into the sort of like, it's a filthy, filthy name of a class, but it really gets into sort of like the sexual associations between witches and elves. So a whole bunch of elf fuckery, that's what I'm going to be doing here. (kim laughs) I'll probably run the Fiber Magic class again, which is fun magic, knitting magic, the sort of like use of wool in different magical traditions, knot magic, and the relationship between seidr and spinning. And finally I'm probably going to be running my classes on burial mounds again for a kind of updated class based on the experiments I've been doing. So there's probably going to be a whole lot more animism stuff coming out. I'm going to want to start putting out stuff about, you know, the whole wolf age, apple age, all that kind of business. So there's a whole lot of stuff I've got going on in my head, I haven't got it nailed down yet. 
Just follow my Facebook page, I'll announce it there, and my Instagram. And my blog, I'm currently in the middle of this big series on... I mean, traditionally in heathenry there's been this gulf between Reconstructionist methodology and what people called Woo, or Gnosis, or Experience. And I've always kind of uncomfortably straddled the two, because I never understood why they were apart. But as a neurodivergent person, I struggled to understand inferences. So it was actually easier for me to participate in the short-list communities, because we were more delineated what to talk about, but while doing all these experiments and whatnot, having these experiences. And now, thankfully, we're in a much better time when we can talk about both these things together. So I'm doing this blog post series about how we can combine reconstructionist methodology with gnosis to create workable, modern versions of historically attested practices. And they may not be exactly what people did back in the day. 
But my entire thing is, I kind of see this part as being almost like a seam of gold that you're trying to mine for. And even if we can't find the same mine to go down it the same way, we can try and dig our own mine. And then hopefully some being might take pity on us and help us get the rest of the way, you know, and then we're back to the whole thing about being this sad pathetic human that's trying to do things and this being taking pity on you. you know. So, I'm doing a whole blog series about that, and including that discussion about, you know, the importance of being honest about what you experience, and also, like, how you disrespect your allies and you are not honest about where you get things from. Responsibilities to other people when engaging in this work, other humans, like the animal people in your life as well. And then the unseen in the neighborhoods. So it's a huge series. It's an absolutely huge series. And you get to see me being my magical crash test dummy self, exploring the the madness. So, if you're into that, if that sounds good. Read it. It's probably going to be about six to eight posts long. It won't shift, right? 

Kim: And there will be a link in the show notes. 

Cat: Okay, cool. Yeah. Yes. I mean, there might be some rants sort of like mixed in, like rant posts, of like stupid things happen and I just can't hold it in. But, because that's always like a marker for me for like, if I've gotta write a blog post, if I find myself doing something mundane and ranting, like cleaning the toilet and ranting to myself over it, I'm like I'm not going to get this out. I've got to dump this into the world so other people can suffer too. Sharing.

Kim: Now at the end I ask for two things.

Cat: Oh?

Kim: One thing is, could you please recommend something, anything at all? It does not have to be witchcraft or religion or no, it doesn't have to be related to that at all. Just recommend something to the listeners.

Cat: Recommend a thing to the listeners... Go outside. Go outside.

Kim:  I agree. I agree. 

Cat: Close your eyes. If you've ever felt a storm coming, you're going to be able to feel that energy in the air. Try to feel it on a day when it's not storming. You know how it feels already, right? Try to feel it on a day when it's not storming, and then think about what that energy could be. I think it's the sort of atmospheric energy from all the other beings that you're living around. And doing that is one of the nicest things you can do when spring is coming. Just kind of like feeling that buzz of life growing. It just always makes me feel good. So I recommend doing that. And also try drawing your feelings. Something my therapist did last week, as I struggled to describe feelings, and she led me through my feeling exercise, and she said, OK, get your art supplies, and draw how it feels. And you don't have to be constrained by human shapes and forms, OK? Just what imagery does it remind you of? And then just take a look at it and think, okay, what does that tell me about what's going on right now? What does that tell me about my needs? How can I integrate taking care of those needs into my self-care? So those are my recommendations. 

Kim: Neat! The second thing that I ask is, please tell me a story that you love to tell or that you love to hear. Preferably something that you would tell around a campfire or in a gathering of people you know really well and who know you. 

Cat: Oh god, I don't know. First I have to figure out the ones that won't get me arrested. 

Kim: Also that. 

Cat: I'm joking, I don't really have any that are going to get me arrested. Um... Hmm. So this is a really quick one, but I've been kind of thinking about it lately, because somebody posted on Twitter about how this little girl in their class, they're a teacher, this little girl in their class saw a statue of Odin in a video and she was like, oh I've got one of those at home. I asked him to keep nightmares away when I wake up with nightmares, and he does. And this person was like, I'm not sure, I'm going to see if this kid actually knows who this god is. So she tells him and puts out the details and this kid's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the guy. 
And it reminds me of this one time when I was pregnant with my kid, and I'm walking down the aisle, on one of my 50 million trips to the bathroom when I worked at the home despot, and so I'm there waddling along with my orange apron on, and I turn down this aisle and there's this kid in the stroller, and the kid has to be like 2 or 3 years old at the most, and this kid just stares at me right away. I'm like, I don't know what's going on here. And all of a sudden the kid leans forward and covers up one eye with his hand and stares at me. (kim gasps) And I just, I'm like, my mouth, I felt my mouth drop. I mean, I've been worshipping the old man since, I've had oaths to the old man since 2005. So this is a highly significant event for me, you know? As random and weird as it was. And I just kind of like... I kind of walk around the kid, looking at the kid, and the kid's parents, like, is talking to an associate and just not paying attention. And I'm thinking, wow, that was really weird. So that's the only story I've got right now. I probably should have thought of one. 

Kim: That's cool! I love weird stuff like that. 

Cat: Stuff like that happens to me all the time.

Kim: Good. I love it. Well, I mean, maybe not good for you, but I enjoy hearing about it. 

Cat: People tell me on Facebook, and they're like, you know what, I told my husband some of these stories before we met, and he started to kind of, and he's like, you know, I thought you used to kind of, maybe you were sort of elaborating on things that happened. And then we had our first date. And we got followed by the Iraqi National Soccer Team (kim laughs) in this ramble of time in Korea. We ended up in this juicy bar ramble that I didn't realize it was a juicy bar. And it was just this whole weird thing. And then things just got weirder as time went on. There was this one time where we got kicked off this mountain shrine after we saw these drunk guys mess up a chicken sacrifice. 

Kim: (laughs) What?? 

Cat:  And my husband and I was just like, you know, I didn't used to believe. I didn't think you were lying. I thought you were maybe kind of elaborating on stuff. But after being around you, now there's just no doubt in my mind. It's actually weirder than what you say. I'm like, yeah, it's always been like this. The stuff that man has seen, the stuff that man has dealt with, oh my god. He deserves a medal, honestly. 

Kim: Well thanking for being on the show, and for sharing a lot of stories!

Cat: Well, thank you for having me. I'm sorry if I talked to you a bit too much. 

Kim: That's what this is for. 

Cat: When I get going, I get going. 

Kim: And thank you again, and I will see you probably over on Facebook. 

Cat: Thanks for having me. 

Kim: You're welcome. Thank you for being here.

Cat: Definitely look up that stuff, and thank you.

Kim: Thanks, bye!

Kim: Well, Cat, welcome to Patreon. Cat: Oh, hello. Thank you. I'll try not to get too weird. Kim: No, this is where you get extra weird. (laughs) Cat: Oh, I get extra weird here? Oh, God, I don't need that encouragement. *fade out* Cat: *fade in* And we ended up sitting on the seat together. And it was fine, like, while we were in the harbor. And then we started getting out of the harbor nd all of a sudden it was like every time the boat dipped, it was like somebody threw a bucket of water in your face. (laughs) Kim: That sounds great. Cat: It happened the first time. Me and Morgan just burst out laughing. And this woman started screaming in fear. So you had this woman screaming incessantly, her boyfriend trying to calm her down, and then it got to the point where the boat was pitching so much that me and Morgan... *fade out*

Kim:  To hear more of the Patreon episode, head over to patreon.com/cleverkimscurios for a free seven-day trial. The Monthly Magic tier will give you access to the Monthly Magic Marco Polo group, the private Patreon Facebook group, access to the written monthly spells, and more. There are also tiers with just digital content, or 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/cleverkimscurios. 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, 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.