Jamie Della, author of A Box of Magic

Sorry in advance for the bits of audio weirdness.
Jamie talks about growing up in a magical family, how to understand your intuition, and how our practice is a cooperation between ourselves and the universe.

jamiedella.com

Welcome back to Your Average Witch, where every Tuesday we talk about witch life, witch stories, and sometimes a little witchcraft. Your Average Witch is brought to you by Clever Kim's Curios.I did have some audio weirdness in this episode so I apologize in advance for that. In this episode I'm talking to Jamie Della, author of her latest book, A Box of Magic, available now.  Jamie talks about growing up in a magical family, how to understand your intuition, and how our practice is a cooperation between ourselves and the universe. Now let's get to the stories!

Kim: Hello, Jamie. Welcome to the show.

Jamie: Hi, thank you so much for having me here.

Kim: Thank you for being here! Would you please introduce yourself, and let everybody know who you are and what you do and where they can find you?

Jamie: Thank you, I'd be happy. So, my name is Jamie Della and I am a healer, a Chicano witch, an author of 10 books, but the latest coming out very, very soon, probably actually be out by the time we have this podcast. It's called A Box of Magic, A Guided Journey to Crafting a Magical Life Through Witchcraft, Ritual Herbalism, and Spellcrafting. People can find me on my website, jamiedella.com. I am on Instagram and TikTok, @jamiedellawrites. Let's see what else... I also have a newsletter that goes out twice a month on the full and the new moon, and I am a water activist, and I live in the mountains in a small little hamlet of about 800 people after living in very busy Southern California. I am so happy to be a mountain witch right now. And that's me!

Kim: Cool. What does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch?

Jamie: It means, what it means, etymology because I am a writer. I am a wordsmith. So when I look at words, to me, the most important thing is what is their lifespan? What is their epitaph? And for me, the word witch comes from the word wise. And we are wise when we follow the seasons and look to nature as a guide for living our life. example, in fall we let go, in winter we rest, in spring we birth, and in summer we bloom. And if we follow that energy, the collective consciousness, then we are like stepping into a river and following the current and having all of that energy with us. So to me that's wise. And another interpretation of the word which, which is also similar to the word wicce, W-I-C-C-E, and it also means to bend or shape the unseen forces.

Kim: Ooh, ooh. 

Jamie: (laughs) Ooh, that's a good one!  So for me, my first example, because you know, my first book, the Wicca Cookbook, came out in 2000. So I have been explaining witchcraft for 23 years to a variety of people, I mean in terms of people who don't know what it is, you know, standing up in a Barnes and Noble where nobody expected to hear from a witch suddenly because maybe it was March and not October because suddenly that's when we manifest into the world, you know, it's not like we're around all the other 11 months, but we are. But anyhow, the door, the veil to the world of beyond and parallel universes is thin, and so they can suspend their disbelief for a little bit. And I'll use the idea of when I was writing the Wicca Cookbook in 1999, I was pregnant with my youngest son. And so what I used in labor to fight the nausea, which is an unseen force, was a lemon. So I would sniff at the lemon and that moved the nausea away from me so that I could center myself and breathe through the pain of childbirth. To me, that's witchcraft. It's that simple and it's around us all the time. So I've had, you know, for 23 years, I've fallen on my sword for that word witch because I find it that important for us to reclaim it, just like we had to reclaim the goodness of femininity, and that women aren't all evil in some cultures as they see that, or other times that they've seen us as less able and less capable. And so we've had to stand up for that word "woman" and to stand up for "witch" to me is the same. I came of age during the women's movement. I was such an adamant little feminist at 10 years old. I remember one time I was playing horse with a friend, you know, basketball where you do a shot and then they have to do the shot and they have to repeat it and then you spell out the word horse if you keep missing. So I was 11 years old and I was playing with my boyfriend, my crush, and the ball went bouncing past me and he goes, "Get the ball." And I go, "Why? Because I'm a girl?" And he goes, "No, because you're closer, asshole." I was like, oh, okay, all right, all right. You know, I mean, I feel like there is, you know, there is a way to hold your middle ground with the word witch, with whatever, whatever you're reclaiming, and that you don't push so far that you push people away, but that you educate while you entertain and inform. And to me, that's what it means to be a witch.

Kim: I love that.

Jamie: Thank you.

Kim: It also reminded me yesterday, I saw something on Instagram. It's nearly completely unrelated to what you said, but it just reminded me. I'm sure it's related. Somebody said something about their Barnes and Noble era of witchcraft. (laughs) That made me laugh.

Jamie: Their Barnes and Noble era of witchcraft. What does that even mean?

Kim: I don't know, but I put it to, okay, to me, it reminds me of being in Barnes and Noble and, and like, walking through that aisle. It wasn't even a full aisle. It was like one shelf and one section, two shelves. But I remember being there and then like picking it up and furtively looking around to see if anybody was watching me as I read it.

Jamie: 100%! And you know, that's the thing that's I think kind of hard for people today to recognize, you know, I mean the girls... ladies today. They didn't have to wear nylons.

Kim: Oh my God.

Jamie: Like the freedom of not wearing nylons or high heels to work-

Kim: Oh my god. Rage, rage.

Jamie: (laughs) ...you know, you can't even know what it's like. But I feel like that, yes, it was, now it's, I remember watching, because I've been watching it like, as I'm sure you have over the years, over the last couple of decades, where it was in the occult section, witchcraft Wicca was in the occult section. And I remember at one point they had the Wicca cookbook, or maybe it was the Book of Spells, under personal transformation. I was like, oh, that's cool. And then eventually magical studies, and then eventually tarot, and then it grew and grew and grew and grew. And so now it's this thing where we can be in an elevator and somebody else could be talking about their church service and we can be talking about our new moon ritual. That's what I always wanted. Like you said, we would look around furtively. Or if you and I met and I saw your hair, how it's dyed, different colors, and maybe you've got a stone on, some tats, and someone had said, oh, if you were to ask me on the street, what's your book about, I might go, well, you know. It's a pagan book. And you're like, really, tell me more. But I used to do jewelry checks with people all the time where you would look and see what they're wearing and if they're wearing-

Kim: A string of pearls, then I'm afraid of them.

Jamie: Exactly. Because if that's the only pearl necklace you're wearing, baby girl... (Kim squeals) (laughs) I'm just kidding. And then, you know, if you see someone wearing moonstone or a hemp necklace or something, you can go in a little deeper because that's how I started with my first book. I would say, oh, it's a seasonal cookbook. And then I would go to the Celtic holidays because somehow the Celts being pagan, people can understand that. That's okay with them. The Irish, the Scottish, they're so lyrical with their fairies. It's so sweet. You're like, oh, really? Is that what you think about them? Okay. Fairies? Not always, but sometimes. You ease people in. Because I've tried frightening people. Because you just get so frustrated about being ostracized. You kind of give what you get. Then after a while, you realize they're the dominant culture, the people who haven't believed in witchcraft for the last 20 to 50 years, whatever it is. Now there's more on board and they're curious. So why push them away if they're honestly curious? I mean, they're not, when I first came out, people were, oh, do you still ride brooms? You know, you would do these kinds of interviews and people would ask the most inane questions, and you had to learn to laugh. Otherwise, you weren't going to help anybody.

Kim: You'd just be mad. You'd have ulcers. (laughs)

Jamie: That, that too, because anger corrodes the vessel that contains it.

Kim: (gasps) Ohhhh!

Jamie: You asked about a favorite quote, that's one of them.

Kim: That's so good! (both laugh)

Jamie: Because it does, right? It doesn't hurt anybody else but you.

Kim: (pauses) Don't be hurt my feelings this early in the interview, please. (both laugh)

Jamie: Okay, sometimes anger is very protective. If you have, if it's the Shakti and you've got good Shiva and you're moving it in the right way. How about that? I do believe in righteous anger. Don't get me wrong. (laughs)

Kim: So you say you've been doing this a good while. But when you grew up, did you have any family history with witchcraft, or any stories from when you were a kid, where even if your family wouldn't say they were a witch, or the word witchcraft would never enter your home, they still did witchy stuff?

Jamie: Yeah, it was called different things. I come from a Mexican-American family, so there's so much ritual in everything we do. So it's all part of it. But my mom used to say, she went to a Catholic school and she said that when she was a kid, she didn't know if she wanted to be a witch or a nun when she grew up because both had power. 

Kim: Ooooh, yeah!

Jamie: I feel like it's always been there. And then my maternal grandmother died the month before I was born, so the world to the spirit was always open. So if I could speak to my grandmother, who I couldn't see anymore, then I could easily speak to the spirit of a tree. And to me, that was an automatic, the spirit world was always available. And then I had another grandmother who is a psychic tarot reader So she was always reading our cards everything, so many decisions and my family are based on numerology or astrology You know you okay, we're gonna buy that house. But gosh when you add it up, it's a nine So, you know your marriage might end. Are you sure you want to go to that house? Yeah, I mean it's with everything and my grandmother taught me very early on that I was awake to the spirit world and that they were going to be talking to me. Because I lived on a land where my family had lived since the 1700s in Southern California, which is really rare. And so I had access to a lot of DNA memory and people, the spirit world talking to me. And my Nana told me, this is one of the best advice that I ever received, especially at an early age, that to be told, yes, you have a light that is shining and the spirits are going to answer it like it's a porch light. They see that you're listening, they see that you're observing and that you're going to pay attention and speak with them. However, you are incarnate in a human experience, and they are etheric. They don't have dominion over this earth reality, you do. So you get to tell them they need to go away because you have to sleep you have to do homework You have to whatever it is. You don't want to talk right now. They have to ask permission to speak with you. It's not the other way around. And that was huge advice for me, to give me that kind of confidence to speak with the spirit world on that level. And this isn't like, you know, I'm not saying I don't welcome the spirits was because of course I do. And that they don't arrive on it interrupted, or either, you know, where I don't know they're gonna show up and give me some amazing advice or some great direction. My new book is evidence of that. I listen to the spirit world, but if they're pestering me as they did when I was very young, because no one had listened to their story for five generations and they wanted me to tell it. So I understand why they are persistent and I also got that great advice that I didn't have to listen every single time because I could have a more reciprocal relationship with them where it was we respected each other back and forth. And I just I found that to be one of the best pieces of advice that you can have, because if you're being pestered by some energy that you need a break from, you get to say, I need a break. That was a big thing for me. I also learned about soul families, and portals like 1111 from a very early age. For me, this has always been just the lifestyle. It's no other way to look at the world but to look for the messages and the omens and to recognize that it's an alive world. When I see a feather- right now, I'm constantly finding feathers. You know how we go through those phases where something just constantly comes back to you over and over again. I am finding feathers all the time right now. I can say, hey, I think this is about my 10th book taking flight, or maybe I need to lighten up because I'm thinking too much about my book, or maybe whatever intelligence and East inspiration is coming through in those feathers, I am listening, and I'm paying attention. The more we do that, the more the spirits respond to us, and we get to have that rich conversation that happens every single day, not just on a Sabbat.

Kim: That's cool.

Jamie: Yeah, it was really nice.

Kim: Also, I think that's a good message for people, especially like newer witches.

Jamie: Yeah, and you know, and I also had like, you can take the other thing is you can blend any of your background, right? So I grew up with Christian Science. I went to Sunday school every week and was told that I could, that with, knowing that I am a perfect expression of the divine source, that as long as I see my wholeness, I can heal anything. Physical, emotional, mental, by seeing and recognizing my wholeness with the divine source. God, goddess, great spirit, whatever you want to call that energy, that where we all originate from, that if I see myself as just like a sunlight, a ray of light from the sun itself, that I never lose my connection to the sun. I'm just having my own individual experience of my unique personality and life experiences and family history, but I never lose my connection. Whenever I remember that, I can heal anything. And that, to me, was a precursor for magic. And what I've added is all the fun blingy stuff, you know the bells the feathers, you know, the athame, the drums, all the things that make this earth experience so juicy. Because yes, we are spiritual beings having a human experience, and that's the point, to have a carnal, visceral experience just absorbed in all of our senses whenever possible. That's how I like to live, and I'm sure it's sometimes exhausting for other people around me, but for me, it's the only way I want to live is seeing magic in everything.

Kim: The most.

Jamie: Yeah! It's just being too much. You're too much of this and too much of that. It's like, well, then you're too little. How about that?

Kim: Yeah. The old "find less" thing.

Jamie: Yeah! Yeah.

Kim: Well, can you introduce us to your practice? Do you have any consistent rituals you'll share?

Jamie: Sure. Sure, sure. Well, my first ritual that I do every morning is I write for a single page from Julia Cameron's Artist Way, except I don't write three pages. That's exhaustive. I just write one. And so that's one of my first practices just so that I touch base with myself, because I feel that if we're going to do magical work, then we need to see ourselves as the God and the Goddess and the Divine Source. And therefore spending time with myself and giving myself some kind of self-care is an important element of my magical practice is to treat myself like a goddess. That's one of the first things that I try to do. Another daily practice is I observe the moon every day. You see its phases, you know, do I, during the day or at night, whenever I can see it, have an idea about its phase and whether or not I feel the zodiac influence, you know, do I feel the new moon influence? Just to try to recognize, and be in that kind of connection. Again because it's a collective consciousness and there is an idea that we're all giving birth to something at the new moon, or we're shining our brightest at the full moon. And everyone's doing this, whether they know it or not. And so to tap into those cosmic influences is a daily practice of mine. And then I am a ritual herbalist. So whenever I go outside, I'm talking to the plants, I'm talking to the trees, I am in the process of collecting rose hips right now, I have a lilac infusion at my Kali altar that I need to work with. So, finding some way to work with the bounty of Mother Earth in a daily practice is also how I maintain my connection with nature. And it's not always going to be, you know, some incredible, magical, "...And we will use this oil to anoint the circle for the Mabon ceremony..." No, sometimes I just love to oil my entire body as a way of protecting myself and sealing my skin and feeling nourished from the inside out with the help of the plants that I sang to while I harvested. So for me, it's included in everything, right? And yeah, so that's part of my practice is also listening. You know, right now I have wasps everywhere around us. So the first thing, you know, one of the things I have yet to do today, but to look up wasp medicine. Why do you keep showing up? What do you have to say to me? What resonates of your spirit medicine that I can listen to right now? And so for me, it's also everyday practice of listening, just listening to the world, and engaging in conversation. 

Kim: I think wasps get a bad rap.

Jamie:  Well, you know what, the other day I swallowed one though, Kim.

Kim: (in horror) Oh my God.

Jamie:  I know, it flew into my smoothie. So here's a daily ritual and how witchcraft has changed my life. So it was a day that my partner was gone so I had my red wine, my popcorn, my movie, my personal pizza. I was ready for the evening, you know, but I was having a smoothie first. I was trying to do something good before the wine. And there was a wasp that had flown in there, so I swallowed it and it got stuck in my throat, and it bit me and then I spit it out. But of course in my throat it was very, very painful. Well I had been making nettles infusion tea because right now there's an abundance of rabbit brush where I live, and so anyone who has allergies is really having a hard time. So I made nettles tea for my partner. I don't get affected by allergies, but so that it was available for him. And so I immediately drank the nettles tea. It was there for me. I knew the honey was there for me. You know, we study magic. We study the correspondences, just like you will practice soccer drills, so that by the time you get to the game it's all innate. So that when a wasp stings you, you know the first thing to do is to drink something with antihistamines, natural antihistamines that will soothe. Then you take the honey that's going to soothe your throat. Like you study these things. We know our colors, and our crystals, and our herbs, so that in the moment of need the information is available to how to put it into practice. So that's what I did with that wasp. And then we found the other wasp. And I want to love it, right? Because all these are beautiful creatures, but I'm like, but you bit me in the throat. (laughs)

Kim: That sounds really terrible, I'm sorry that happened to you!

Jamie: It was terrifying. Yeah, it was. But at the same time, I just kind of thought, well, you know what if you have a message for me Oh my god, this is really cute. So I just had to look it up since we were talking. So part of the symbolism surrounding the wasp is to take action; merely having an idea is not enough to see your way to success. Always have a plan, but keep working toward that goal. Don't just sit and ponder. So I think maybe for me is, you know, there's a big push when your book comes out and there's a lot that you do. You're getting, you know, it's the same as getting ready for a baby. You got to prepare the room, the space, and then it has its own life. You know, your job is just to birth it. And then after that, the book has to do a lot of work, just like the child has to step up and live their life. And so there's a lot you do and you get kind of tired, but you can never let the foot off the pedal when you're getting ready to give birth to something. You don't let go at the end, you stay present all the way through. When I gave birth to my babies, the whole reason for you know using that lemon was so that I could be conscious and reach down and touch his head when he was crowning, and to really be as present to the life experiences. I mean, can you tell I'm a triple earth sign? I'm like, let's feel. So yeah, I feel like that's, that's how, you know, witchcraft just weaves its way into my life is that, you know, trying to make sense of all the symbols and the omens and the messages that come through.

Kim: Okay, so since you sort of grew up with it, would you say it changed your life, or it's just that's what your life is?

Jamie: I feel like the way it changed my life is, is when in 1999 when I wanted to be an author I was working for a literary agent as her assistant. I wanted to originally write stories to tell, to remind, write stories for the Highlights Magazine, the one that was like in the kid's dentist office. Yeah, that was my goal. I wanted to write children's stories that reminded them that how important their wonder is, how important that childlike enthusiasm is, that connection to the garden of life, because we all try to crawl right back into that space as we become adults. We seek our childlike wonder and enthusiasm and hope and brightness because we get hit so much with life. And so I thought that's where I was going to go. So I was working for my literary agent, like I said, in 1999 as her assistant. And Wicca was just starting to get big. It was just starting. And so an editor at a publishing company, because they have to look for what are the trends and get people on board, this editor reached out to this agent and said, do you know anyone who could write a Wicca cookbook? Well, I had just been starting going to pagan sabbats, but of course I was like, you know, I was into the feng shui and I was like, always telling my agent what we needed to do to create more energy in our space, and keep the energy flowing. So she knew I was on this esoteric path, and she recommended me to write the Wicca Cookbook. So witchcraft changed my life.

Kim: That is really cool.

Jamie: Exactly! So the witchcraft changed my life because it gave me the opportunity to be a published author. That's how it changed my life. It just, it stepped right in and I had this opportunity then to embrace this part of me. I didn't know I was going to be a public witch. I remember it when I was 12, and people would always start asking you around sixth grade, like you're supposed to figure it out by then. So what are you going to be when you grow up? You're like, I don't know, I just got my period, what the hell?

Kim: Seriously. Be alive? I don't know.

Jamie:  Yeah, hopefully, you know, yeah. Maybe pay my own bills. Maybe someone else is on bills. I don't know. But in any case, I remember thinking I just remember I was like, you know, like how you get downloads that just kind of like shock you sometimes, where spirit just decides to just give you a message? I remember this happening, like in the middle of a four square, you know, we're we're playing with the ball and I got this: "What you're going to do has no name."

Kim: Oooooh!

Jamie: And I thought, okay, that's real clear, like real clear. Thanks a fucking lot. Yeah, I like it. (laughs) But so I feel like the nameless arts, witchcraft, is what the spirits were telling me. This is the direction you're going to go in. I went to school to become a public relations, you know, marketing professional. I thought I was going to be on the front cover of Entrepreneur Magazine making six figures a year, you know, helping people recognize corporate social responsibility. 

Kim: It is six figures, but the figures are actually sigils. (both laugh)

Jamie: Oh my God, you're the bomb. I love that. Oh my God, my 30-year-old self is cracking up right now. (both laugh) She's all ugh, I hate when I get that wrong. So anyways, yeah, I didn't realize it was six sigils just I thought it was... So I So yeah, so I I thought I was gonna go in this corporate direction and I couldn't hang out in the office I couldn't do it. I'm too much of a free spirit. I couldn't wear the nylons. I didn't wear them. I got in trouble for taking long lunches-

Kim: Good for you.

Jamie: ...never for not doing a good job. It wasn't like I was bad at doing my job. I would stay until however late to get the job done, but if I needed to take a longer lunch, take a break and just be myself for a second and not to be just an employee, that's what I did. Well, that wasn't acceptable in the 90s. Now you can have, there is such a thing as work-life balance, that wasn't a thing. Your dedication to a company was how much you sacrificed yourself, and that wasn't something I could do. And so witchcraft gave me a way to make an income, a way to make a life yhat I didn't foresee coming.

Kim: Well what would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice, and it has it changed since he first started out?

Jamie: I think the very first thing my girlfriends and I would do, we did a lot of bowl burnings. That was our jam. We did, we were, we were burning off stuff, because we were, met in our late twenties and we were entering our Saturn's return and trying to let go of the pettiness. Or not even the pettiness, just sometimes even, you know, my dad took off when I was very young. And so dealing with feelings of abandonment, and how do you move forward without holding on to somebody else, or the responsibility for somebody else's poor choices? So in the beginning there was a lot of bowl burning and now my practice is more about tending to my different altars. I work with deities, so I have, like I mentioned my Kali altar. We have a wood-burning stove that is dedicated to Brigid, and I say a prayer to her every day. I make sure I sit in front of my Kuan Yin altar because as a double Capricorn with a Virgo moon, I'm very hard on myself. And so learning compassion with that energy of a big deity is really important to me. So I feel like now I'm no longer trying to make peace with parts of myself that I haven't accepted. That was my early practice 30 years ago. Today, my practice is more of a maintenance, and more of doing my part. Like I'm going to go to a ritual retreat this weekend, but they're not Wiccan, they're not witchy, so I'm going to introduce them to what a Wiccan circle would look like in honor of Mabon. And so now I feel like I'm more in the mentor educational realm, whereas in the beginning of my practice, I was a novice. I was a neophyte learning and doing all the memorization, and now I pretty much probably memorized all the correspondences that I'm going to memorize. You know, like I don't know that I'm gonna come up with new ones unless they introduce themselves to me. You know what I mean? Someone gives me a new crystal I've never met before, and I might, you know, you know bathe her in moon water and sit with her. That's my practice, is to sit with my allies, whether they're crystal or herbal or magical tools like a feather or an athame or a drum. I sit with them and listen. What is the message you have to tell me? So I feel like in the beginning, I was so adamant about doing it right, you know, quote-unquote right, and now I'm very familiar with my own practice and comfortable with it and don't feel like it needs to fit into anybody else's box.

Kim: That reminds me of a quote from the late, great, amazing Anthony Bourdain.

Jamie: Okay.

Kim: Uncle Tony. "To break the rules, you have to know the rules."

Jamie: Yeah. Yes, and I really feel like that's kind of where I'm at because, like I said, I grew up with these ideas, but I didn't begin practicing until my 20s. And now that's literally been 30 years. So I have a 30 year practice of knowing myself as a witch during Samhain. It's one thing to know yourself as a witch when you're brand new to it and it's super exciting and you're like, ooh, I'm gonna be present to it this year. And it's another thing after every year, to realize "This year I honored my ancestors, this year I honored this ancestor. She really showed up." Because sometimes different people will show up and you'll get different messages and it's not going to look the same. I think that's really important because not only are you going to have maybe a different, you know, like for us, we had so much snow last winter where I live here in the mountains. I mean, it was record-breaking. That the winter solstice meant one thing; it meant a lot of quiet. A couple of years ago, I went off social media for the entire winter season just to be in to try to experience the stillness in a way that I could hear more conversations, or allow more things to settle in. And so each year it's going to be different, and to expect that it could look the same, I don't think that's realistic. We see that with maybe our parents or somebody we knew who decorated their house the exact same every Halloween, or the exact same every Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving. But allowing some differentiation every year, and season to season, and as the meaning and the lessons of each of the Sabbats live in us deeper, because we're in different stages of our life, too. So I feel like that's one of the most elevating and yet frustrating aspects about being a witch, is that you're always your own best teacher. And so listening to yourself is really one of the number one, for me, at least one of the top three things as a witch, as part of your practice, is listening to what feels right for you, and recognizing in your own body where you register your intuition. Because some people, they'll say, just follow your intuition, and they keep thinking it has to be in their gut. Well, maybe your intuition manifests through your fingertips, or in your heart chakra, or at the tip of your crown chakra, you know? And I feel like recognizing really what's important to you and what motivates you is the most important part of witchcraft, because it's the craft of your own journey of the wise, your own interpretation.

Kim: That's something I don't think people talk to newer witches about enough, is learning the difference between the voice of your intuition and the voice of your anxiety.

Jamie: Yes! Or that your anxiety cannot be healed. For example, my dad took off when I was three and I saw him less than four times for the rest of my life until he died. And so therefore, I will always have daddy issues. Hell no, no. You're not stuck by any one trauma in your life or any one feeling because feelings can't hurt us. It's the stories that we make up around the feelings. When I go through my feelings of anxiety, I'll just say anxiety is passing through me. My mom had breast cancer 10 years ago. She never asked for what stage am I in because she just said cancer is passing through me. So any feeling or anything can pass through you but if we hold on to it for whatever reason, whatever lessons we need, even if we don't know what it is, sometimes we'll have that. Like I'm grateful I don't have allergies. If I did, I wouldn't want anyone to make me feel bad about it, and that's not my intention. I don't want anyone to feel guilty because they can't figure out how to manifest themselves out of something. That's just your life journey, and it just takes as long as it does. When the Wicca Cookbook came out, yes, Wicca was very popular. In 2000, I shot a pilot for the Syfy channel to host my own cooking show. Then 9-11 happened, and this career that I thought I was going to have went away. But maybe it's supposed to come back now. Maybe it was more important, because we don't always know divine timing. For as much as we want to look out of different windows to have as many different perspectives as we can, we only have our one perspective. So the universe, or the great creator, or whatever you want to call the intelligence and the love in the world, is a multifaceted diamond and can see the manifestation of how something is going to really speak to our highest good better than we can ever understand. So maybe now, when I don't have small kids, when I am more mature and have less of an ego, that this is a better time for a book to take off in a way that I thought it was going to 23 years ago. And I feel like that's so important, because we all try to come away with, I manifested this, I did that, I manifested the new job, I manifested a new house, this spell worked because I did this, this or this. No, we are working within a live universe that is conspiring in our favor. So if you get a rock star parking spot, it's because the universe and you made that happen. We manifested this. And I feel like there's so much personal attribution, especially for new witches, because it does feel empowering, but it's empowering because you engaged in the conversation with the universe, not just because you alone by yourself, this entity, because nobody exists outside of this world. We are all part of it. We are all connected, one member of a complete society of all living creatures from the rocks that you can date. So if rocks have a birth date, then they're alive. (Kim laughs)  I'm sure you've seen crystals grow. You know what I mean? Where you're like, look-

Kim: (laughing) I thought you meant date romantically.

Jamie: (incredulously) What'd you say?!

Kim: I thought you meant date romantically and I thought "I wonder where this conversation is going."

Jamie: Oh my gosh. (laughs)

Kim: I can't explain what my brain does. (Jamie laughs) That's just where it went.

Jamie: I love it. It just went that way. But yeah, I guess I just say that because I feel like I want, and I know a lot of people are going that direction, but you know, my jewelry chooses me, you know, when I look at all my, because of course I love, I love jewelry. So I have necklaces and earrings, and some days I will be drawn to a garnet necklace for example and I think oh, maybe today I'll need some grounding, something's gonna happen, and I need to, and I need to have this grounding. This piece is speaking to me, is reaching out saying you need me today, and I feel like that's, that's the conversation I want to do.

Kim: What's your biggest struggle in your practice? 

Jamie: You know what? I'm not sure I have a struggle. I guess the only struggle I have right now regarding witchcraft is that people are learning primarily through memes (Kim laughs) and yeah, that would be my struggle. You know, a long time ago there was a survey through one of the popular witchcraft sites, and they were asking how did you find out about witchcraft, and it included, you know, Instagram, books, a conference. And it didn't include mentor, and I thought that was so sad that we have complete,  some people have completely lost sight of the fact that this has been an oral tradition for a very long time. That we learned one-on-one. And not in because of any gatekeeping way, but because when you're given, you know, this is fire, let me show you how to work with it. Here's the element of air. These are all the possibilities. Of course, you could read that in a book, and that's important. But sitting with a mentor, or your coven, or a high priestess, or even someone who teaches classes, allows you to figure out how to apply it to your life. Because that information does nothing for you unless it comes alive. And sitting with somebody and speaking with somebody about how to apply some of these practices, such as circle magic, just things that I learned very early on. If you're in a drum circle or any kind of circle of intentional work, the person right across from you is a mirror to you. And there is so much that happens in that kinesthetic energy that sometimes you come home from something like that and you don't, you need to talk it out, especially as women. We relate. That's how we process information. You ask us to give directions, we'll say, so you go down the street and then where the big tree is, you turn left. And then you'll go by a field, and then right about where the field is, there'll be a big sign. You know, and, and, and because we're always relating to each other and to our universe. And so that idea of like, how, what does that mean, that that person across the way, she was kind of, um, or he was kind of, or they were just, um, looking at me different, or maybe they did something that I didn't recognize as being profound or even annoying. And to see your own reflection there, and all these little principles about magic that every time someone speaks in a circle, if everyone's picking a tarot card or an oracle deck, every message that shows up is also for you. And those are the kind of things that happen in intimate relationships, and it makes me sad that that feels to be missing in witchcraft, and that's what I am trying to bring back. Is that intimacy, a relationship with each other and with all these correspondences because we don't use lavender in a ritual, we work with it. You know, I wouldn't say I used you for this podcast. You know what I mean? We're working together, hopefully, for an interesting conversation. And that is more where it puts us all on that reciprocal relationship with the magic, because I believe that magic happens through the relationships. It's in the channel of connection where the magic happens. So I feel, for me, the biggest struggle with witchcraft is in trying to get a message across and not understanding the stupid algorithms to do it. (laughs)

Kim: I hate them so much. (Jamie laughs) What brings you the most joy in your practice? (laughs)

Jamie: The feeling of connectivity, feeling connected to deity, feeling connected the elements, to, you know, when something wonky happens and you're looking at your candle wax dripping and trying to figure out what does that mean? What is it saying? What is that a symbol of? Like, life is always one big puzzle that you get to just keep figuring out, and then maybe reassigning new meaning to it as long as you're allowing yourself to be flexible and grow. So for me, it's the biggest joys of the connection and in the relationships.

Kim: What is something that you used to do early in your practice and you don't do it anymore and why don't you do it?

Jamie: Let me think. What don't I do? (laughs) I'm not buying crystals all the time. I've got plenty. (both laugh) That's one thing that I that I don't do. I'm not, and I'm not in the stage of acquiring, you know, I'm more in the stage of appreciating the crystals who have worked really hard for me. I guess really the number one thing  I don't do anymore is second-guess myself.

Kim:  Oh good one.

Jamie: Well, I don't I don't second-guess myself like I used to.

Kim: How does that work? (both laugh)

Jamie:  Well, I guess what I mean to say is that when I put an altar together, I don't worry did I do it right. You know what I mean? Like, I'm no longer concerned for, you know, that that I could have done it wrong. I guess that's the thing. I feel like when we start off with witchcraft, we're always concerned that we could be doing something wrong, that something's off somehow. When I create an altar, I don't worry whether or not I did it right or wrong based on somebody else's parameters. I trust my own self to know that if it feels incomplete, or it needs something else, that else that I can walk around the house and find something, find whatever might be calling, you know, oh, I want the spirit of the whale on this. Oh, this needs a rattle. We need a yellow candle here that I can find that in my house if I feel the need for it. So I feel like that's something I don't do anymore. In terms of second guessing, I'm not comparing my practice to anybody else's.

Kim: I do second guess myself, but I don't worry so much, if I got it wrong, that something terrible is going to happen. Because I think this might not be exactly right, but whatever, I'm not going to die. (Jamie laughs) Probably. SoI just let it go.

Jamie: (laughs) Yeah. There's a possibility...

Kim: If I do, whatever. I had a good time this week.

Jamie: Yeah. Oh, that's so cool! (laughs)

Kim: What is your favorite tool in your practice? It does not have to be a physical object. And why? How do you use said tool?

Jamie: Hmmm. My favorite tool right now in my spiritual practice is my athame. It's new to me because I never had one. I never felt I needed one. We would always draw the pentacles with our two fingers, the pointer finger and the middle finger. That was my way of doing it. So when I finally found an athame, or when she found me, I was thrilled. And it is such a huge moment to direct this knife, and point the direction that I want to go in, and to be so affirming. I can sometimes be a little wishy-washy, you know, when I don't want to be. And this knife, this athame gives me that opportunity to say, this is what I want. And I'm not backing down. And that's brand new for me because I try to be like "Well universe unless you have a better idea, blah blah blah..." you know, do this kind of a thing, and this gives me a power for asserting my will that really feels yummy in my hand.

Kim:  I love it. I love that description, I love that it does that. I love that.

Jamie: Oh, thank you! Yeah, me too.

Kim: Oooh, I love things that make me feel confident. (laughs)

Jamie: And, you know, that's the thing, right? Like how empowering confidence is. You know, they talk about it being this, like, you're super sexy when you're confident, or all these different things. But to me, confidence, again, with the etymology, con, being with, and fido, or like loyalty, like confidence to your loyalty to yourself.

Kim: Oh, I like that. I like etymology!

Jamie: Oh, I know. And, you know, I've seen different ways of interpreting confidence, but that's my way. And, you know, I like that loyalty to myself gives me confidence.

Kim: Imagine the 3 things, whether it be some sort of idea or a person or an object that most affected your practice. What would you thank them for?

Jamie: I feel like my mentor, Connie DeMasters, who co-wrote this book, A Box of Magic, with me from beyond the veil, that meeting her was the biggest influence of my life and the unconditional love that she gave me grew my confidence to be a public witch. That is one of the biggest influences on my practice that I can imagine. I feel that my teachers, Jeanette Reynolds, whose first Sabbat ceremonies I went to, Linnea Weatherstone, who has been a public witch for longer and is the generation above me, always supporting. The support within the witchcraft community from other people, you know? Raven Grimasi, he and I used to sign books together at Pagan Pride and just being in a community where we support each other especially in the beginning when there was so few of us and we were protecting each other quite physically sometimes, you know? That this is, that they were the biggest influences for how to help the next generation, and grow witchcraft. Because I believe that witchcraft is a earth activist lifestyle. I mean here we revere and honor the four elements, and so that our practice with them, when we work with water, it's a deep, meaningful connection. So I believe that keeping that going, and allowing it to grow, has been one of the bigger influences. To not be so tied up in knots about being the one that's going to present witchcraft to the world, you know? Allowing all of us, because a rising tide lifts all boats. And that's really important to me. I got your quotes. I got your quotes here.

Kim: You're just full of them, I love it!

Jamie: Yeah. (laughs) So that's, I think that would really be, for me, my biggest influences have been the elder, and it's always been women. Like it's, I've just had, you know, women teachers. I haven't had a male teacher before unless they're teaching me something in life, but just in terms of witchcraft that hasn't been my practice to have a lot of the male figures, but the female figures, and the female friendship, and women supporting women that has been the biggest influence in my life in my practice.

Kim: I know you gave some advice earlier, but do you have any advice for anybody just starting out with their practice?

Jamie: Know where... yes. Thank you so much for your questions, by the way. I love them. They're so unique and fun.

Kim: Well yay!

Jamie: I want to start with them and tell you that. Tell somebody just starting out to find out where your intuition speaks to you in your body and in your head. Maybe you're, you know, maybe it's one of the claires that you look at. Maybe you perceive through visions or through hearing things or through smelling things. Like really come to understand your body and your way of receiving the information. I think that's really, really important to pay attention to that, and then to work with your intuition like you would work with any muscle you were trying to develop, which means consistent practice. It doesn't have to be huge things, and you shouldn't wait for the huge things. You know, like the everyday practice of, you know, asking yourself what you want in the morning for breakfast. What do you want, body? Do you want an egg? Do you want yogurt? Do you want fruit? Just really listening to your body more. That's one of the first things I would say is really listen to your body because your body has an intelligence that we don't always recognize, and it's really important to develop that relationship with your own flesh and bones.

Kim: Yeah, plus people want to make you doubt it.

Jamie: Yeah because that way they can sell you something!

Kim: Mm-hmm.

Jamie. Personally.

Kim: After having answered these questions, who do you think would be fun to hear answer these questions? Who should I have on the show?

Jamie: You know, I would love to see you. I have a couple of different friends whom I would love to see you with. Kelly, aka Mercury, is my cousin and we found each other at my dad's funeral and she already had my first book, which was really cool. And when A Box of Magic, my mentor's curriculum arrived at my doorstep, whe is the one who helped me work through it. She has twin, Twin Moon Magic Candles, and her approach to magic is so... How do I want to say it? Like she's so confident and I love that. I love how just direct she is with it and how open she is because, because of my Capricorn tendencies, I have a tendency to be kind of strict where she is very open and etheric and watery with it. And then another person would be Yesha Matthews and she's the Mandala priestess of the Mount Shasta Goddess Temple. I took her shamanic priestess training course a couple of years ago and it was so powerful to teach me about more magical women who have lived, and how they have helped us carry our that are witchcraft traditions, or our traditions of prophecy, or perhaps healing, and introduced me to more gods and goddesses that I hadn't been familiar with before. So I think those two would be people I would definitely recommend that you reach out to, because they're pretty phenomenal. And Yesha is right now, she just left Petra, she's been traveling in the Middle East for a while now because she does spiritual pilgrimages that are pretty rad.

Kim: Is that second person on Instagram?

Jamie: That second person is on Instagram as Mount Shasta Goddess Temple, or I think she's also Priestess Yesha. But I can send you her information. I'll tag you on one of her amazing trips that she's on right now.

Kim: Just followed both of them. Okay! (laughs

Jamie: You're quick!

Kim: That's how I, I don't store things in my head. It's in my phone.

Jamie: Okay.

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

Jamie: Yes. Thank you so much for asking. I would really like people to check out my latest book, A Box of Magic, A Guided Journey to Crafting a Magical Life Through Witchcraft, Ritual Herbalism, and Spellcrafting. And so I feel like a lot of our books are, a lot of our witchcraft books, they're ways that you can practice and they show us, you know, this is green magic, or this is Egyptian magic, and they're non-fiction. And this book has memoir in it. It includes the times that I sat at my mentor and asked her questions like, how can I say I love the goddess if I have mommy issues? How do I make that work in my head? What do I do? And so I feel like looking at the relationship that you could have with a teacher. And your teacher could be your spirit animal, it could be the color turquoise, it could be anything. And just recognizing like you said earlier, we have so much to learn. There's so much that we should always be growing, and for me this book gives that opportunity to grow because it introduces relationship, and the student-teacher relationship in witchcraft, and I just feel that's something we've lost a little touch with, and I really want to bring it back. So I hope everyone checks it out. I have a newsletter that goes out on the full and the new moon. You can find me at jamiedella.com. Ask me questions about my book. I'm open. I answer all my emails. I don't ignore them. So please reach out, because I'm willing to chat and share and grow this craft with the world.

Kim: Awesome. And the book is out now everyone.

Jamie: Woohoo!

Kim: Hie you to a bookstore, or your audible!

Jamie: Or your audible! and I had the chance... or the audible I had the chance to read the, I was able to narrate my book.

Kim: Oh, I love when authors do that.

Jamie: I love it. And so I was really, I mean, I recorded it in the same town where I received my magical education. I went by my mentor's place, her house, and plucked grass from her lawn and brought it to the altar at the recording studio and visited my old teachers. I really, you know, at the Eye of the Cat at Long Beach, I really believe in honoring our teachers. And so that's what this book is about. And not just the teachers, but the relationship we have. So if you think of any amazing teacher that you had who really saw something in you that maybe you didn't see, a horizon that you could reach for, that's what this book is like. And so that at the end, I feel that, and I've been told, which just makes me so happy that people feel like they've really been taught by two priestesses. Not only myself, but my mentor who crossed over from the other side. And to me, if you can speak to the spirit world, nothing is impossible to you. Absolutely nothing. You can do anything if you could talk to ghosts and have them talk back to you. I promise.

Kim: Now at the end, I have two things that I ask of guests. Thing number one-

Jamie: Bring it on!

Kim: (laughs) thing number one is please recommend something to the listeners. It does not have to be witchcraft related.

Jamie: Okay. I recommend that you do at least one self-care thing for yourself every single day. And you get to decide, like maybe you make a list of five different things. You drink, you know, six glasses of water. You take a walk. You do a little bit of yoga. You sleep in. You give yourself a facial steam. You take a bath. Whatever it is that fills you up, that you do one self-care, at least one self-care thing a day, because when you treat yourself like the divine, then your ability to create the world that you choose feels much more realistic.

Kim: That's a good one.

Jamie: (laughs) Thank you. Thing number two, cat in a hat, what do you got?

Kim: (pauses) That completely threw me. (both laugh) Please tell me a story.

Jamie: Ah, any story will do?

Kim: Yep.

Jamie: Let's see. Any story. So I've done the wasp story. Okay. But it's another bee sting story.

Kim: (laughing) Okay...

Jamie: No, I'm not going to go with another bee sting story. I'm going to find a different one. Okay. I have a story. I have another story. So when I, um, when I was a bleeding woman, back when I was a bleeding woman, I used to put my menses, uh, pad into a big cauldron that I had, and I would fill it with water, and I would water my plants with it. And one day came the day when my son, my youngest son was about two and a half, and I had his placenta had been in the refrigerator. I was waiting for a radio contest or a podcast contest, like, what's the strangest thing in your freezer? I would go, "Placenta!" you know, and I could win, but that never happened. (Kim laughs) So it was time to bury the placenta then. And so I wanted to bury the plant. The first time I tried to do it, we had his naming ceremony and I forgot to defrost it. So I was like hacking at the, you know-

Kim: (laughing) Oh no!

Jamie: ...to put it in an orange tree and then the orange tree died. And then I'm like, Oh shit, my son's going to die. And I was like, Oh my God, forget that. So then I had the whole placenta. And then when my son was sons were, you know, two, three and like four or five, we, I bought an aloe plant and I planted Kobe, my youngest son' placenta, with my son's, under the aloe plant with the intention that giving that plant my son's DNA so that they could have that connection. So that they, that plant, that aloe, and Kobe could be connected. So he could feel that he could have a brother in the plant world, or a sister in the plant world, whatever, whichever. Neither. whatever, doesn't matter. But in any case, they were with me and they had that experience. And so that, Kobe is now 24 and we still have pups of that plant. Some of my friends have it, some of my mom has one, I have one, Kobe has them. They're literally all over and so that whenever he visits them, he still today pets it. That's his plant ally, that's his buddy. It has his DNA. And so it was a lesson that I got to teach my sons about how to connect with something that feels like we can't, you know, it's easier to connect with a dog. You can feel like it's your buddy, you know what I mean? But like can you really feel that same way about aloe? Well, you break open aloe and all that gel that is there to heal you of your wounds and your burns and your cuts and your scrapes and it's always ready for you. So I feel like that to me is one of my favorite magical stories and just you know involving my children from the very beginnings, even with something as odd as seeing their mother's blood pour over a plant, and getting to the point where that's not weird, that that's acceptable. And you know, it actually makes good sense because you see how good those things grow with her blood, you know I mean, I feel like introducing things that could be considered weird. And it's such an early age where it just becomes part of life. We told time by watching the moon's phases not by looking at a calendar you know, so just really integrating the magic into your life. As kooky as it might look to others, stand by it because one of these days science is going to prove that our magic is essential.

Kim: Yup, I'm waiting.

Jamie: I'm waiting. Anticipating. (both laugh) I was like, I would sing Carly Simon's Anticipation if I could, but you don't want me to.

Kim: Well thank you so much for being on the show.

Jamie: Oh, I appreciate it. It was such fun.

Kim: Yay! Okay, then I will see you over on Instagram and everybody be sure you go check out Jamie's book immediately.

Jamie: Immediately, if not sooner! Thank you, really, for doing this.

Kim: Thank you so much! Okay bye! (fades out) (fade in) Jamie.

Jamie: Yes dear.

Kim: Welcome to Hive House! (fades out)

Jamie: I'm going to make it bigger, more goddess, more Mother Earth energy, and you know, owning it for myself as well. So for me, magic always needs to evolve. It never, rarely stays stuck. Even with people who have crossed over, we can still morph our relationships with them. So I don't think that there's anything that's static. It's always changing, always growing.

That's cool. 

Jamie: Yeah. 

Kim: If you're 3 animals stacked up in a trench coat, what animals are they? They don't have to be... (fades out)

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