In this episode I am talking to Morgain Daimler. Morgan has written books about the Fair Folk, the Morrigan, other gods and goddesses of Ireland, and many more- including fiction! Morgan tells us about spirits and entities of the land, how she changed her method of celebrating holidays based on the Pleiades, and she gives me a new question to add for future guests.
This week's sponsor is Flora & Function, run by my wonderful and delightful friend Sarah Piper.
Be sure to check out her gorgeous pottery and jewelry at Flora & Function today!
Morgan Daimler
author and worker with the Fair Folk
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 am talking to Morgan Daimler. Morgan writes books about the Fair Folk, the Morrigan, and other gods and goddesses of Ireland, among other things. Morgan tells us about spirits and entities of the land, how she changed her method of celebrating holidays based on the Pleiades, and she gives me a new question to add for future guests.
Before we get started here's a word from this week's sponsor, Flora and Function. If you've been a listener for a while you might remember the giveaway I did including one of Sarah's birthday candle spell dishes. Sarah Piper over at Flora & Function creates incredible pottery that helps bring a bit of magic to your everyday rituals. She draws inspiration from nature and her own practice to create beautiful candle holders, mugs, butter bells, and more. This year she's working with Tabitha of Two Geminis and a Leo, who by the way is going to be a guest on the show next week. Tabitha runs Backwoods Brews and Botanicals and is collaborating with Flora and Function on an astrology series. Each month, they release a limited edition mug and tea combo specifically designed with the zodiac sign for the upcoming season. This Friday the 14th, they are releasing the Taurus bundle. I would take it as a personal favor to me if you would go buy the Taurus bundle, since I am a Taurus. That would be cool. Sell out the Tauruses immediately, please. Thank you. Check the show notes to find links to Sarah's mug design over on her socials @Flora.and.Function, and her website to shop from her online.
Now let's get to the story.
Kim: Hi Morgan, welcome to the show.
Morgan: Hi Kim, thank you for having me on. I am an author. I do both nonfiction and fiction. My nonfiction focuses a lot on Irish mythology, fairies, kind of anything along those lines. We've also got some books out that are translations of Old and Middle Irish into English, which is a subject I have a lot of passion about because most of the translations we have that we're using today are from a hundred, 130 years ago, and they're questionable. A lot of the Victorian translators took some really interesting liberties, we'll just say. So I have kind of decided as an amateur linguist to do my own versions and translations to put them out there. And I try to stay as close to the original as possible. And I'm sorry, I could go on about this the entire interview because I have a lot of passion for the Irish language, but I won't. So yeah, that's sort of who I am and why I'm here. And I've been a witch for over 30 years now, so a good portion of my life.
Kim: So I'm a nerd, and I may ask you how to pronounce things. You were actually recommended to me when I asked someone how to pronounce something.
Morgan: Aw, that's flattering.
Kim: Yeah, Lucia Starza from the UK, she was like, "You really should ask Morgan that." I said, oh, okay. And that's when you went on my list. *laughs*
Morgan: So I'm glad I made the list.
Kim: Me too, I'm glad you said yes! What made you combine... I'm making assumptions here. What came first, witchcraft or the interest in Irish mythology and history and things?
Morgan: That is a great question. So, I'm part of the Irish-American diaspora. My grandfather was from Ireland. Obviously, being in the U.S., I've got other ancestry going on too, but I grew up with a lot of the sort of Irish stuff as a background to my life, including not obviously the mythology because my grandfather was very, very Catholic, as was my father, but you know, the idea of like the good folk, the fairies, and there being sort of more to the world than what we might always see or perceive. And me personally, I've always had perception or experiences with sort of non-physical reality, I guess you would say. Something like ghosts and spirits and fairies. And to me that was just sort of normal and having the family that I had, you know, they didn't discourage that idea. Like no one ever told me, oh fairies aren't real, you can't believe in this. And...
Kim: They didn't... that's cool.
Morgan: And I really appreciated-.
Kim: Did it just not occur to them or they just not have that belief?
Morgan: I think it was actually a combination of they didn't see it as like a bad thing, and also having that Irish cultural, that Irish American cultural idea that, you know, these things are real and even if you don't think they're real, you don't say that because they might be.
Kim: *laughs* Yeah, just in case beliefs.
Morgan: Right, right. And that's sort of a big attitude in the diaspora, at least around where I grew up, that, you know, unless you're 100% sure something isn't real, you just sort of give it respect and treat it like it possibly could be. So that was kind of, you know, what I grew up with. And despite my dad being very Catholic, as I mentioned, my mother was actually, I think, a Congregationalist, some kind of Protestant. And when they got married, which was in the late 70s, that was a huge no-no. Like both of their families were very against the marriage because of the religion aspect. So they came up with what I personally think is the wackiest solution ever for this situation, which was that my parents had to agree when they had children that the children would not be raised either Protestant or Catholic.
Kim: Oh gosh.
Morgan: And I'm not sure who thought that was a great idea. I mean, I thought it was a good idea growing up with it, but I don't know why they expected then that their kids would grow up Christian. *laughs* Because we weren't raised with any of it. I refer to it as like being secular agnostic. So my parents never talked about religion, never talked about God or any of that. You know, Christmas was when Santa came with his reindeer, and Easter was when the Easter Bunny came with chocolate ,and you know. That was kind of what I grew up with. And what I would tell my parents when I was younger, you know, that I received fairies, I was building little fairy houses in the yard, and you know. Asking my mother to write a letter to leave for the fairies on the windowsill. Like they were just very okay with all of that. You know, they just sort of took it in stride. So I was 11 when I found out that witchcraft was a thing, not in the storybook children context, but in the spiritual religious context. A friend of mine introduced me to Scott Cunningham's book, Wicca for a Solitary Practitioner, which was fairly new at the time. I'm kind of making myself sound really old to some of this, but...
Kim: That was my first book. *laughs* I mean witchcraft.
Morgan: It is the book that I recommend still to this day to people just starting out, because it's very straightforward, it's very easy to understand, and he presents things in ways that aren't judgmental. I never read any of Cunningham's books and thought, like, "I have to do it this way", or every other way is wrong. He just, he doesn't seem to have that attitude with what he writes, which I really appreciate. So, yeah, I was 12 when I decided I was going to self-dedicate into witchcraft, which was a really interesting experience. I think once I kind of combined that, and I kind of had that mind-blowing moment of like, "Oh wow, like God and Goddess and spirits and people actually believe in this," which was something I'd always kind of, in an unstructured way, had. And then I think I got into the Irish specifically at that point because I had that sort of cultural family connection to it. If that makes sense.
Kim: It does. That is so... the fact that your parents agreed to that very odd thing, and then actually did it, is fascinating to me. Because I am so "You don't tell me what to do." *laughs*
Morgan: I, to this day, I kind of don't understand, like I said, I deeply appreciate it, but I don't understand what either of the families was thinking. I mean, my dad's family was extremely Irish Catholic, which, unless you've experienced that, it's a whole thing. You know, he was one of nine kids. He actually went to seminary to be a priest... *laughs* I love my father, he's a very interesting person, and dropped out to join the Navy. But I mean, that's how religious they were, you know, it was a very serious thing for my dad's family. So for them to be like, "No, it's fine. Just, you know, marry and just don't raise the kids in any religion." It baffles me to this day. I'm grateful for it, deeply appreciate it. But yeah, it was very weird.
Kim: Wow. What do... dang. *both laugh*
Morgan: I don't know. I'm glad they did it because I don't know what direction my life would have gone in if I'd been raised, like, you know, Catholic, or very anything else. I think it was having the luxury of not having that structure imposed on me when I was younger, kind of let me find what worked for me, the best place for me to be.
Kim: Too bad we all don't have that. I mean I do. I do have that experience, but too bad everyone doesn't.
Morgan: Yeah I think I think it would be better. I understand why a lot of religions don't do that because they're not structured that way, but I do think it would be better if everyone just had that experience of kind of being a blank slate in a bit of a way. And then getting to find what resonates the most with their soul.
Kim: Now what does it mean to you when you call yourself a witch?
Morgan: That is such a great question because one of the things I love the most about witchcraft and about being a witch is that there's so much diversity to it. So I'm going to give you my answer, but just prefacing it by this is completely my opinion and this isn't how I judge other people's witchiness, but just for me. For me being a witch is about using magical practices that are very straightforward and simple and organic as opposed to more like that ceremonial magic, complicated, fancy kind of approach. And having a spirituality that encompasses that idea that there are spirits and fairies and gods and goddesses and all sorts of things out there. You know, like that Shakespeare quote, "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy..." And I think, you know, that's kind of a core for my witchcraft, is that idea that there's just so much out there. And being a witch is about trying to connect to some of that, and find ways to live with it and work with it.
Kim: That's my first Shakespeare quote of the show. *laughs* And it's a good one!
Morgan: I am a huge nerd. HUGE nerd.
Kim: Me too! It's a good one to start out. New requirement, everyone has to come on here with one. *both laugh*
Morgan: It will be interesting to see what people come up with.
Kim: Actually, that might be really fun. Okay, I might actually do that. I was kidding, but that might be fun.
Morgan: What's your favorite Shakespeare quote?
Kim: Are you asking me, or is that what I should say?
Morgan: Both. *laughs* That's definitely what you should say. But also, yeah, if you have a favorite quote, I'd love to hear it.
Kim: I don't have it absolutely memorized, but it's the one where Mercutio's describing "...true I speak of dreams..." I love that. I love it.
Morgan: That's an excellent soliloquy.
Kim: I love it.
Morgan: I think, you know, one of the things I love the most about Shakespeare, honestly, is that in our day and age, we see him as this very highbrow, like fancy theater. But in his day, he was actually like the equivalent of like the matinee movie, like the B movie.
Kim: The dollar movie.
Morgan: Yeah, yeah, like he's so much of his stuff... because the culture has changed so much. We don't appreciate it the way they would back then. It was very bawdy, it was very raunchy, it was very like, just that very sort of entertainment for the people. So I just love the fact that over time we've taken that and made it into something completely different, but it's still the same.
Kim: It still makes my heart happy.
Morgan: It does. I do appreciate Shakespeare.
KIm: Now I know you've described the religion that your family on both sides practiced, but do you think any of them were witches unconsciously?
Morgan: So... my mother is definitely a very intuitive person. There were a couple points growing up where she would say things that she just had no way to know, but she definitely wasn't someone who thought of herself in that sense. My grandmother, my father's mother, who is actually Cherokee, but very, very Catholic, she, when he- because he fought in Vietnam with the Navy, and I have pictures of her, she would set up these elaborate altars and pin like a whole bed sheet to the wall and put all these saints cards attached to the bed sheet and have candles. And I mean obviously she would never have called that witchcraft, and that whole side of the family would be like mortified that I'm saying this. I always thought when I would look at the pictures, because she was doing protective magic for my dad, was what it was. It was, you know, a thing that she created to try to help keep him safe by calling on all these different saints and with these different prayers and things. And to me, you know, that is something that I would call witchcraft, even though she wouldn't. So I always kind of felt like she was one of those people that sort of instinctively did things like that.
Kim: I would like to see that.
Morgan: I'll try to see if I can dig one up.
Kim: That sounds... I mean, I like. When I see people- generally of Latin descent, that I see anyway, I know there are others, but that's usually who I see because I live in the Southwest. But when I see their shrines and ofrendas and things, they are so pretty.
Morgan: Yeah.
Kim: I love it. And when I go to the botanical garden here in Tucson, there is, I don't remember if they call it a shrine, that's what I would call it, but it's this little thing and it's this pretty archway and it has a little statue in it and it's always covered in flowers and it's freaking beautiful,and I love looking at them.
Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's so many just really beautiful expressions of spirituality out there for sure.
Kim: Now as for you, do you have any consistent practices that you would share with us?
Morgan: Sure, I mean my particular type of witchcraft, I refer to it as fairy witchcraft. Although to be clear, like my concept of fairies is a little different than the Disney Tinkerbell kind of fairy, but for me, it's really important with my witchcraft to connect to the Good Folk, what we call fairies in English, and to just be part of and feel connected to sort of that daily cycle of living. Which I realize sounds just very over the top, but it's actually such an organic thing, I think, that we forget to do because our lives get so busy and we get so focused on driving kids to school, and making lunches, and answering email, and all of that other stuff that it it kind of gets in the way and we forget sort of just to simply live, to simply exist. So like one of my daily practices is to just sit. Ideally for five minutes, but I have kids so that does not always happen, but to sit for at least a couple minutes and do some basic breathing exercises. You know, just that five count breathing in, then holding it, and then five count breathing out and to just really try to take a little bit of time to reconnect physically you know to my body and to my presence here in this world. So that's definitely something that I try to do every day. I can't say I succeed in doing it every single day but I try. And just taking a few minutes to just, you know, look out a window even, and see what the world is doing. Because it's so easy to forget those things and to just get caught up in that hustle and bustle.
Kim: Yeah. I'm gonna veer off for a second. I'm curious about the Fae. I didn't think I worked with them, maybe I do, I don't know. Do you think everybody, not everybody, everywhere has them? There's something here in my, because there's something here. And I'm curious about it.
Morgan: That's actually a really common question that I get. I mean, I think, I always try to be careful how I phrase my answer here. I think that there are spirits everywhere. I think that what we would specifically call fairies, kind of that Western European concept, is something that we do find in other places. I think that as communities move, as groups of people emigrate and come into new places that the spirits that they believe in, including fairies, the things that they have community connections to and personal connections to, that those beings follow them. I also have a personal thought that there's a lot of symbiotic relationship between fairies and humans. We need them, they need us. So I think they tend to go with the people who they have a connection with. I do also think, though, that there are beings that we would refer to as like... fairy-like, around the world.
I hesitate to use the word fairy specifically because some people sort of find that offensive, that idea of "You can't just label everything you find with the word you're familiar with from your culture." But I would say fairy-like because they would be very similar in descriptions and qualities and sort of how they interact with humans, and what they can and can't do with humans, or to humans. And I think that wherever you go, you're going to find those ideas and those beings and still that sort of connection to the human communities around them. You know, I've mentioned that my grandmother is Cherokee. And Cherokee, we have the Yunwi Tsunsdi and the Nunnehi, and when the Cherokee Nation is today, you know, they believed that those spirits went with them, that those beings went with them. You know, they didn't leave that all behind when they were forcibly moved.
So I think that's just another example of the way that these spirits and these beings will stay sort of connected to the human communities. And especially going into the 21st century, where we have so many communities and groups of people and cultures kind of, you know, for good or for ill, influencing each other and affecting each other and populations moving around. I think that we're getting a lot more different types of these beings, fairies, fairy-like beings, kind of everywhere. So I think that wherever you go, you're going to encounter these sorts of things. And I haven't yet found a single human culture that doesn't have some kind of spirit that meets those qualifications, that would hit sort of that checklist for what I would look at to say, you know, do I think it's a fairy or fairy-like kind of thing. So yeah, I think they're everywhere, wherever you go, you're gonna run into something. What it specifically might be, that's where it gets really complicated, I think.
Kim: The idea that I brought them with me from either Virginia, where I'm from, or Colorado, where we came from, from here...my brains doing origami right now. *laughs*
Morgan: There are sorts of spirits that are attached to specific places. Like if we're talking about land spirits, or you know. The spirit of a particular stream or mountain. Like that's gonna stay there obviously. These other types of spirits, you know, these fairies and fairy-like kind of things, and things that aren't, you know, literally physically anchored somewhere in the human world... those I think definitely move around.
Kim: I know there are things outside the house, but the things inside the house now, I am... now I wonder who they are.
Morgan: There's a long tradition of house spirits in in all sorts of places. Ireland is actually one of the few places that doesn't have house spirits per se, because there's much more of a focus on keeping the Good Folk sort of not in your home for various reasons. But most other places, Scotland, England, Germany, you're going to find the idea of these. They usually would be referred to as domestic spirits, like the official term, but different sorts of things that they're just sort of, they're used to living around humans, they want to live around humans in human houses. And that goes way, way back. I think even like in ancient Rome, they had, I'm not going to remember the term for them now, but household spirits.
Kim: My brain!
Morgan: And the household spirits, some of them will stay with a particular house, but there's a lot of stories of them following families. You know, being attached to a particular family rather than a particular location.
Kim: Yeah, I've heard both.
Morgan: Yeah.
Kim: Oh, this is interesting! *laughs* Okay, we're looping back around.
Morgan: There's a lot of ground to cover.
Kim: Would you say that witchcraft has changed your life?
Morgan: You know that is such a complicated question for me because on the one hand, definitely yes. And I'll circle back to that in a second. But on the other hand, because I was 11 when I got into, and 12 when I decided, you know, with my very mature 12-year-old self, that this was 100% the religion for me, which I mean, it has been, I've stuck with it. But I think starting so young with it, it's a little hard to look back and think what would I have if I didn't have that, it's almost as if it's a part of who I am, just because it's been three quarters of my life, you know. But on the other hand, I definitely think that there are ways that I can pick out and say like yes, this has definitely changed who I am.
I remember being a teenager and one of my uncles had to go in for a triple bypass and it was not looking great and I was doing healing magic to try to help him, and then he pulled through and recovered. Whether that was because of my healing magic or not, at the time it just felt so empowering. Like I could really help people, I could really I can really do useful things with this. And I know that has definitely changed me as a person, that feeling like no matter how bad a situation is, I'm never helpless. There's always something I can do, at least magically. And, again, you know, whether it works, whether it doesn't, what happens with it, it's just that sense of like there's always something I can do. One way or another.
Kim: I like that about witchcraft. And it's something I dislike about religion. Because with witchcraft I am able to do things and it's me doing it, and I don't have to rely on a higher power, for lack of a better term, to do it for me because I follow their rules or I pay them off or whatever. I mean, I guess it kind of, I kind of am. Because I'm, I kind of am because I'm like trying to move energy but yeah. Again, we go back to the don't tell me what to do. *laughs* I got issues man. I got an Aries moon.
Morgan: It's okay, that's a good personality trait. I've got nothing but Libra and Scorpio in my whole chart so I'm just a...
Kim: Gosh. *laughs*
Morgan: ...an astrological nightmare. I'm not even kidding, I wish I was, but I'm not. Yeah, it's, I think that I think that that is one of the greatest things about witchcraft, is that I mean, obviously, again, there's a million different ways to be a witch, so you know, I'm not trying to sound like this has to be the one way, but that idea that you're not, it's not a reward system based on if you're just good enough, then the gods will, you know, grant you a favor or, you know, that idea of...
Kim: It's not a vending machine.
Morgan: Yeah, it's not a vending machine and obviously there's consequences for actions and that can get in a whole big philosophical debate, but it's not like I've seen with some other religions where it's like if you have a good life it's because you're a good enough person, and that's sort of your divine reward. I think what I like about witchcraft is that it's so proactive. And I know when I got into my 20s and my 30s and was more researching historic witchcraft, one of the things I really loved about it was how it was really something that you saw being used by people who were disenfranchised, or marginalized, or you know, powerless in their lives in a, you know, socioeconomic or class kind of sense. And witchcraft was a tool they could have no matter what any of those other circumstances were in play, to help themselves and to help sort of resist some of the difficulties in their lives because of things like classism or you know, socioeconomic problems. And I love the fact that witchcraft is something that it's not just for any one group of people, it's not for any just one type of person, although I'm sure we could argue that certain types of people are more drawn to it than others. But it really is something open to anyone who's willing to put in the effort and engage with it and try to do it. And that it can be so helpful to people who don't have other resources or other recourse with things.
Kim: Okay, that makes me want to add something to this next question.
Morgan: Feel free, add as much as you want.
Kim: What would you say is the biggest motivator in your practice? And do you, has it changed since you started?
Morgan: Yes, and that is an excellent question. I'm going to have to explain this a little bit though. So, the biggest motivator in my practice is definitely fairies. Which again, I'm using the word, but specifically when we talk about the Irish, is Sí , with this. Sí is kind of the term a lot of people use, people of the fairy hold. And I had always had some connection there, as I mentioned, and always sort of had an interest in the study, the folklore and the stories and the mythology and all of that. You know, when I was much younger with my witchcraft, it was always like Irish gods and goddesses, and that was where my focus was. But particularly the last 13 years or so, I had started to kind of change and focus a lot more on them in particular.
I feel like I need to give a whole definition of what fairies are in this context so that people are understanding, but you, but in Ireland, the way the Sí are understood, they're very similar looking, very similar in appearance to humans, but they're sort of in this demi-god status. They're not quite fully gods, but definitely much closer to that than humans would be. And when I went to Ireland in 2016, I was actually going with a group tour for the Morrigan. It was the Morrigan Sacred Sites Tour. But for me, it ended up going sideways pretty much immediately. (Kim laughs) Shocking.
Kim: Of course.
Morgan: Yeah. I honestly don't know why I didn't see that coming, but at the time, previous to that, my main focus had been on Macha, who is one of the Three Morrigans, and to an extent Odin in the Norse pantheon. And I'd been pretty much following a fairly straightforward, eclectic witchcraft kind of approach to spirituality and to practice. But when I went in 2016, pretty much as soon as I got there, everything was just all Good Folk, all fairies. And I ended up going through this initiatory experience while I was there with them. And everything after that, everything in the last six and a half years has really just been completely focused on them. And you can even see it in my writing, like if you look at what I was writing up to about 2016 and what I've been writing since then, it really radically kind of changed how I was looking at things, how I was doing things. And even to the point then in 2018, I went to Iceland and had another sort of... I don't mean to sound like I'm constantly having like intense mystical experiences because I'm not. But it's happened a couple times. (Kim laughs) And I ended up changing whereas most witches, particularly neo-pagan witches, focus on a solar calendar and a solar and lunar calendar, I should say. So the holidays are based on, you know, when the sun is in certain places, and you celebrate the full moon every month, and all that. I ended up changing so that I was focusing on a particular constellation, the Pleiades, and where they are at certain times of the year in the sky, and celebrating holidays based on those locations and those times, and I end up getting sucked into like getting a crash course in sort of the history of that kind of practice. So you know in that respect things have changed really radically for me across the last six or so years. But that core kind of remains the same if that makes sense.
Kim: That... is interesting!
Morgan: It's a bit of a rambling response but yeah... it's been an interesting six years.
Kim: Hmmm. *is silent for several seconds* I don't have time to ponder! I have to ponder later. *both laugh*
Morgan: Yeah... I've written about it. I have a book out called Living Fairy, which talks about some of my approach to witchcraft, which I've written several books about that, but also particularly the thing with the Pleiades and the constellation and how that's kind of come to be and how that system sort of works.
Kim: Neat.
Morgan: It's something. (Kim laughs) It's a little strange to have a holiday cycle that's so different. And I wonder sometimes if this is how people who grew up Christian feel when they first get into like neo-pagan witchcraft and the 8 Sabbats and all that. Because of course my whole life, minus my early childhood when we had the secular holidays, it's always been that Wheel of the Year, the eight holidays. And there's a lot of comfort in having that familiar cycle. You always know when it's coming up, and then you forget, and then you realize the day before that it's a Sabbat tomorrow, and you have to run out and get your stuff. And I know I'm not the only person that's happened to. So, but then when you change to something that's very different, and that really not a lot of people are also doing. I mean, there's a handful, because I've been sharing this as I've been kind of creating it. So there's some other people that follow it as well. But it's just very odd when everyone else is talking about celebrating whatever holiday it happens to be. And for me it's like, oh, no. I actually don't have a holiday now for a ways after that. It's kind of jarring. Not bad, I don't think, but just... Like I said, I wonder if that's how a lot of neo-pagans feel when they first come into paganism. That you almost feel like you're still supposed to be doing the other thing.
Kim: I feel that way about Christmas.
Morgan: That's fair.
Kim: And Yule, frankly, because I live in North America and it's cold everywhere else. Not here!
Morgan: Yule... Yule is one of the ones I kept, even though it's not part of the system I'm using just because I do have children.
Kim: Yeah, that makes sense though.
Morgan: Yeah, you kind of get kids used to celebrating Yule and it's right at the same time when you have Hanukkah and Christmas and all of these other winter and winter solstice kind of oriented holidays going on.
Kim: It's very in your face.
Morgan: Yeah, yeah, and they're, you know, my youngest is young enough that I can't turn around and be like, "Well, we're not doing this anymore." That would just be mean. So.
Kim: *laughs* I would have lost every shit I ever had, *laughs* if my parents were like, "No more Christmas."
Morgan: You know, and I understand like, like I said, when I was little you know for us Christmas wasn't religious, it was just Santa came with reindeer and presents. But yeah, I would have freaked out if my parents were like "We're not doing that anymore." It's just such a fun holiday. Obviously with Yule we do it differently, we do it on the solstice and they love that anyway because they get to stay home from school for an extra day.
Kim: Yay!
Morgan: Yeah what kid doesn't love that? And we have a Yule log, and you know. We kind of, we have our own sets of traditions I guess I'm trying to say. But it's still, like you grow up with that and its presents and family being together and all that, you do not want to hear your parent being like "Nope, not doing that anymore. Gonna do this other weird thing other people in the world do."
Kim: Yeah, make sure you tell all your friends so you feel real comfortable.
Morgan: Yeah, nothing's better for you as a child growing up in the U.S. school system than being as different as possible from your peers.
Kim: Good times.
Morgan: *laughs* Yeah.
Kim: We're going to switch track a little bit and move into everyone's favorite, imposter syndrome. What are your thoughts? Do you have it? How do you escape it?
Morgan: You know, I do have it. If I could figure out how to escape it, I will definitely let you know.
Kim: Oh good! Everyone pay attention!
Morgan: So far, I do not know. I mean I do like to, when I'm feeling particularly bad with this, because I definitely have wicked bad imposter syndrome constantly. Anytime in any situation, I'm always like, why am I here? Why is anyone listening to me? What is happening right now? I do try to remind myself of that little story that Neil Gaiman tells. It's all over social media, it's not hard to find. But he was at this particular event and ended up talking to another gentleman named Neil. And the other gentleman was kind of like, "I don't know why I'm here, you know, I'm not a celebrity, I'm not anyone special." It was Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon. He was like "Trust me, sir, you're, you're fine. You're supposed to be here." I think thinking about that helps me like, if people who I would say are legitimately genuinely famous, Neil Armstrong is a good example, also struggle with feeling like they they didn't really do anything that significant and you know that they shouldn't be contributing to society in a public kind of way then I don't feel as bad when I struggle with it, *laughs* if that makes sense.
Kim: Yeah.
Morgan: Yeah. But that's as close as I've come to a solution and that does not work all the time, it just It just helps a little.
Kim: Yay for being human.
Morgan: Yeah, I mean it's hard and I think, particularly in the U.S., but also from what I've seen in other places, but particularly here, there's so much pressure to like prove, to justify, I should say, to justify that you deserve to be where you're at. Or to have what you have. And I think it's hard not to always feel like, you know, someday everyone's going to figure out that "I'm actually just an ordinary person who gets up in the morning and makes lunch for their kids and, you know, what's so special about me" kind of a feeling. So it's definitely hard not to struggle with that, I think. And I assume that's true for most people, whatever you do. There's always that feeling of like, I don't really deserve to be here. Even when you do, even when you're Neil Armstrong. So.
Kim: Well, speaking of a struggle, what would you say is your biggest struggle with your practice?
Morgan: I mean, at this point, at this point in my life, because I'm a full time single parent, it's time... is, is really my enemy. Now I'm trying really hard not to quote Star Trek. *laughs*
Kim: I love Star Trek. Quote away.
Morgan: Yeah, it's that quote from Generations, which is actually a quote from a poem, but I can't remember who wrote the poem, "Time is the fire in which we all burn." And I really strongly feel that right now. You know, when my kids were younger... I have three kids. When they were much younger, it was a little easier, I think. And when you start to get when they're a little older, it actually gets harder, I think. There's just always so much to do, and so much to stay on top of, and so much to make sure is running smoothly, that it definitely feels a lot more challenging to engage in my practice the way I used to. Like I mentioned, even the breathing thing, which I try to do every day, sometimes I can't find five minutes for that, so I have to just do it for one or two. Or you know, whatever. And sometimes I'm sitting in my car when I'm doing it, because that's when I have a moment.
Kim: Yeah, there's lots of car things for me too.
Morgan: *laughs* Yeah. Sometimes your car is going to be the one place you have a few minutes to sit and kind of focus. So yeah, I definitely feel like that's a bit of a struggle. You know? And over the years it's been different struggles at different points. I don't know that any spirituality or any witchcraft practice is ever easy. I think there's always something that you either feel is challenging, or blocking you, or you just don't have the time and the focus for the way you would like. And I say that and I'm sure there's like a couple of people out there that are like, "No, my entire life is perfect and I dedicate completely to this and it's fabulous," and maybe that's my life goal. Eventually I'll get there.
Kim: (Incredulously) Who are those people?
Morgan: *whispers* I don't know. *laughs* I don't know. I like to dream. I like to dream and imagine they're out there because it gives me hope.
Kim: I mean, that's... okay. That's fair.
Morgan: Like maybe one day I can achieve that. I don't know.
Kim: What would you say brings the most joy in your practice?
Morgan: That's a good one. I mean, honestly, I think I get a lot of joy with just engaging with it when I do find those few minutes. I do like when I do ritual, that feeling that I get when you're sort of in sacred space that you've constructed and you're feeling just very engaged with the numinous. Whether it's fairies or spirits or gods, but that really strong feeling of connection, I think that gives me a lot of joy. And sometimes you find joy just in the moment unexpectedly. When you're doing something, and it's just like that feeling, that energy, everything just kind of lines up and you feel like everything is the way it's supposed to be. I've not had that happen often, but I have had it happen and it's a nice feeling.
Kim: Yes. Plus 500 points for your use of the word numinous.
Morgan: I love the word numinous.
Kim: Excellent.
Morgan: Numinous and liminal. *laughs*
Kim: Yes. Yes! *laughs*
Morgan: I love the word numinous because it's so all-encompassing, you know, and it saves me having to use a paragraph of trying to fit in everything. It's just, it's just numinous.
Kim: Now we all have highs and lows. How do you pull yourself out of a magical slump?
Morgan: You know, we definitely all have them. And I have certainly had moments in life where I just don't feel any inspiration, I don't feel any connection to anything, I don't feel any inspiration, I don't feel any... I don't feel anything basically. And I'm not talking about like depression, or that... because I do think that's sort of a separate issue to discuss, but just from pure spiritual, pure witchcraft place, just not feeling it. And what I personally try to do is just push through and keep doing the little things. Even if I'm not feeling it, it's that sort of fake it to make it kind of thing. Where like, if I'm not feeling like I should, you know, make a little offering or burn a little incense or, you know. I do rituals on the dark moon myself, or do the dark moon ritual. I kind of try to push myself to at least engage with it a little bit, because I found the one time that I didn't take this approach, it just made things worse, and then everything felt really disconnected, and everything felt very disjointed, and then I started to feel guilty because I hadn't done stuff in so long. So for myself, I find that if I can just try to keep up with even the tiny little things, just, you know. Something basic or simple every day, that that helps me push through those periods.
Kim: What a fun cascade that sounded like. *laughs*
Morgan: Yeah. I mean, there's also something to be said, of course, for rest. And this is why I said depression is kind of a different situation. Because I've found, you know, if I'm in a place where I'm just mentally not in a good place to be doing it, then I give myself a break and I just don't push myself. And I think that's a little bit of a different kind of situation. Because sometimes you do need like a mental health break from spirituality or from witchcraft for a bit until you're in a better headspace with things. In my experience anyway. I'm sure there's people out there that the exact opposite is true, and that when they're feeling depressed they need more of that. But for me, I just found that if I just took a little bit of a break and let myself kind of recover a bit, that that worked a lot better than trying to push through it and then feeling like I was just messing everything up. Which is not a fun feeling.
Kim: Do you have a favorite tool in your practice?
Morgan: I do, although I'm not sure everyone would consider it a tool.
Kim: I was going to say, it doesn't have to be a physical thing. And I said my jewelry studio, so...
Morgan: Oh, nice. I like your answer better than mine.
Kim: No, no, yours is better! *laughs*
Morgan: My favorite thing in witchcraft that I use is water. I am a big, big advocate for using water for pretty much everything. *laughs* It makes a great offering, particularly if you're pouring offerings outdoors, it's one of the only ones that's almost always environmentally safe and good to use. It's great for cleansing, it's great for blessing, I use it to make my sacred space, you can mix a little salt in it if you want to give it a little extra kick... it's just... it's so it's such an all-purpose kind of thing. I'm sure some of this is influenced by the fact that I'm just one of those people that really loves water. I was born by the ocean. I've never lived more than I think 10 or 12 miles away from the ocean. I grew up where I live. There's a swamp in my backyard, literally. So I was always playing back there, and playing in streams. So I think I've always kind of had this connection to water. And so the idea of using water in my witchcraft, and sort of for everything that I'm doing, I've never yet found something that water can't be used for. Sometimes you need a little creativity, but it's just a good thing.
Kim: Yeah, I use it every day for an offering because I live in the desert and it's valuable and I have it.
Morgan: Yeah, I think you know, wherever you live, water is life, you know? Especially clean water. So it's a really beautiful thing. And, you know, talking about how my practice has changed, obviously when I first got into witchcraft, coming into Cunningham, I was very much about, you know, you cast the ritual circle that particular way, and you want to have your athame, you want to have quarter candles, and, you know, all of that. And probably the last five years or so, definitely the last four more strongly, I just use water. You know, I, as long as I'm oriented, so I know where the directions are, I just will get some clean water and kind of sprinkle it or pour a little out at the boundary of the circle and say my little circle casting thing.
Kim: For the homies.
Morgan: Yeah. *both laugh* And then I use it as an offering in the ritual, and then when I'm un-casting the circle, I'll just go the reverse direction and pour a little more, and say something different of course. So that's definitely a way that my practice has changed, but it also, I think, kind of emphasizes the way that water has come to be more significant for me as a tool than it was at the beginning. You know, that's one of the beautiful things about witchcraft is that you can change it and adapt it, and I think it evolves as we grow across our lives. Or so I like to tell myself. Now I really am sounding super old, but that's okay.
Kim: Who or what would you say are the three biggest influences on your practice?
Morgan: You know, I think it depends a little on if we're looking at how I sort of shape my approach. Because then I would say, like Emma Wilby, who is a scholar who's written about early modern witchcraft and Irish folklore, not that that's a person, but we'll pretend. And you know, it would be things along those lines. If it's people, that have kind of influenced how I look at things or how I approach things, it would be Laura O'Brien, Catherine Heath... pardon me, my cat is attempting to climb my leg, which is not helping me answer this question. (Kim laughs) Laura O'Brien, Cat Heath, and probably honestly Scott Cunningham. I know at this point it's a little dated, but I think that he and his work were really sort of foundational to me in just that idea, which I'd mentioned before, that it's not so much about a right or a wrong way as what works for you, what speaks to you. Obviously, we can get in a whole conversation, because that's not 100% across the board, there's details and we obviously don't want to get into cultural appropriation or being disrespectful towards different traditions, but just that idea to be open-minded and to not feel like if something isn't working for you, that it's because you're not good at it, or you're not witchcrafting, you know, correctly.
Kim: Right, yeah.
Morgan: Yeah, you know, we have to find what resonates with us and it is different for everybody, which is a good thing. And I think that he really helped me understand that. Because as we've established with the factual inaccuracies will summon me thing, I can get a little rigid in my thinking. So I think that that kind of helps me to remember that, you know ,it's not that it's right or wrong to use an athame or not use an athame, or use candles or not use candles. It's just what works best for you.
Kim: Do you have any words of advice or wisdom for new practitioners?
Morgan: I think honestly my best advice is to just keep an open mind, and also it's okay to make mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. One of the first rituals that I did was my friend who had introduced me to the Scott Cunningham book, who was interested in Wicca briefly and then she kind of went a different direction. But we decided to do, I think it was a full moon ritual in her parents' finished basement. And we set the carpet on fire.
Kim: Hey, I love a fire story! *laughs*
Morgan: Always great. You know, we were 12, so our solution, we put it out very quickly, for the record. But our solution was just rearrange some furniture to cover the burn spot, and our parents did not find it for over 20 years until they found out.
Kim: Oh heck yeah. Good job then.
Morgan: It was very effective. But yeah, so I think people when they're first getting into it, take themselves a little too seriously. And I understand that you want to do things right, you want to feel like you're engaging with it correctly, but you're going to set carpets on fire sometimes or...
Kim: Paper towels.
Morgan... walls and claws or, yeah, something else.
Kim: When you use a paper towel and light your candles? Yep. I make great decisions. *laugh*
Morgan: We used birthday candles poked through upside down seedling planters, the little thin plastic ones.
Kim: Oh, that sounds super flammable.
Morgan: Yeah, I mean we were 12. But in retrospect, definitely not the way you want to go. But yeah, everybody makes mistakes. Like it's, it's really not something where you're going to do it 100% correct all the time. And you kind of have to have a sense of humor about it and be like, okay, well, you know, "Oops, I set something on fire, we'll put it out, everything's okay." Obviously, try not to do that again, but yeah. That would be my, my best advice for newer people is just, you know, keep an open mind and don't judge yourself too harshly. And you know, I've been doing a lot of quotes through this whole interview, so I'll end with a Maya Angelou one here. You know, 'When you know better, do better."
Kim: Oh. That's a good one.
Morgan: Yeah, I think a lot of us get in this mindset of like, part of why we don't want to make mistakes is we don't want to admit we were wrong because then we feel bad and we feel like it makes us look bad. And it's just part of growing, and learning more, you know. And when you learn that you were doing something that, you know, was maybe not the best thing to do, or you were doing something wrong, or whatever. You believed something wrong because you read a book that was factually inaccurate. *laughs* I'll keep tying this back into everything else we've been saying. There's nothing wrong with saying like okay now I know better, and now I realize that you know there is no ancient Irish potato goddess, and I can move forward.
Kim: That sounds specific. *laughs*
Morgan: It is. It's something, it's an in-joke in the Celtic pagan community, Irish witchcraft community. There was a book that came out in the late 80s or early 90s which is just a terrible book, terrible book for factual inaccuracies. And one of the things that it claimed was that there was an ancient Irish potato goddess, which of course, as I'm sure people knowing this probably already know, but I'll say it anyway, the potato was not imported to Ireland until the 17th century because it's a South American plant. So there is no ancient Irish potato goddess. *both laugh* Never has been. But if that's your first book, and you read it, and you don't know better...
Kim: Yeah.
Morgan: And then you learn, and then you say, "Okay, that was a thing that I believe that was not true. So now I'm moving on."
Kim: So you've experienced these questions. Who do you think would be interesting to hear from? Who should I have on the show to answer these questions? Who do you recommend?
Morgan: I mean my two main recommendations would be two of the people that I named as major influences for me, which would be Laura O'Brien. She's a witch in Ireland. She's in quite a bit over there with particularly the Morrigan. And then Catherine Heath. She has a book, Elves, Witches, and Gods, which is looking at witchcraft through a particularly Norse lens, which is just fascinating. And that's a subject that I don't think people talk enough about, particularly in the heathen community, but even in the witchcraft community, like Norse witchcraft doesn't seem to be something that a lot of people are aware of or talk about much. So I think either one of them would be really interesting guests for you. Lots of good conversations.
Kim: Cool. I love it. Is there anything else that I didn't ask you that you wanted to bring up? Or did you have any questions for me?
Morgan: I feel like we've covered so much ground, which has been really fun. I've really, really enjoyed talking to you.
Kim: Yay!
Morgan: Yeah, it's always good to get to the end of an interview and have been able to honestly say I had fun doing it. Which is not always the case, but definitely true here. I'm on social media under Morgan Daimler because I decided to be straightforward early on. You know, the usual Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, inescapable social media as we discussed. I do have a Patreon of my own. I also, as I mentioned, I have quite a bit of non-fiction books out through Moon Books. I have one coming out actually the end of January 2023 called 21st Century Fairy, which is looking at fairies in a modern context in the modern world. I also have a novel coming out in May called Into Shadow. If you like really queer high fantasy, then that's the book for you.
Kim: I do. *both laugh*
Morgan: It's basically a story of a woman who's in her late 30s, has four children, there's a dragon, and her children are killed kind of in this dragon related accident.
Kim: Oh Jesus.
Morgan: So she decides, where the book starts, is she decides that, you know, she's gonna kill the dragon, which is kind of impossible. But she finds a way to do it and then realizes that the dragon was actually guarding this magical weapon that is much more dangerous than the dragon was, and so she has to kind of set off on this quest with her friends to try to figure out how to deal with this magical weapon. It's much more fun and interesting than I'm making it sound right now. *laughs* But yeah, that could be one thing.
Kim: Is it going to be a series?
Morgan: At this point, I'm working on the second one. Okay. And that's out through Cosmic Egg Books, which is a smaller publisher in the UK, but I'm excited for it.
Kim: It sounded pretty epic.
Morgan: It's really fun. I set it in a world where pansexuality is the norm. So when I say it's very, very queer, like it really is.
Kim: Here for it. Good, great. Good.
Morgan: There's also some polyamory, because I can't stand love triangles. So and yeah, I think, I think it's a fun story. I think it's a good adventure. I was at a point when I wrote it where I really was tired of all the grimdark stuff, you know, like Game of Thrones. I know people love it, but just that really depressing. Kim: Yeah, but we can love other things.
Morgan: Everyone suffers all the time.
Kim: Yeah, everyone dies? *laughs*
Morgan: Yeah, exactly. I really do have to say that it starts with her losing her children, but that's kind of what sets everything in motion. The book itself, I wanted it to be something that felt fun. So one of my beta readers described it as darkly wholesome. (both laugh) You know, but yeah, I wanted it to be something that was hopeful, ultimately. So if that all appeals to people, then definitely check it out.
Kim: Cool. Now at the end, there are two things that I ask, kind of demand. Would you please recommend something to the listeners? Anything at all.
Morgan: Anything at all... Ooh, so many options. You know, if I had to recommend anything at all to the listeners, then I would probably say, see I'm thinking as I speak here, I would probably say I recommend checking out books on Irish folklore. Which I realize is gonna sound horribly on brand for me, but I think a lot of people...
Kim: *laughing* That's allowed.
Morgan: Why stop now? I think a lot of people, when they think of Irish folklore, they think of fairies, they're actually thinking of like the pop culture version, sort of like popular narrative. And I think if you dig into the older folklore, the actual folklore that we find, it's so fascinating, and there's so much to it, and there's so many great stories. And I think it's one of those things that people just don't think to do. There's a pretty good podcast YouTube channel by an Irish storyteller named Eddie Lenihan. So I guess I guess we'll say that. I recommend that. Check out Eddie Lenihan's YouTube and podcast. And he is a very, very well-known, famous storyteller in Ireland. But he retells all of these traditional stories and fairy stories. And he does it in a way that it really pulls you in. But it's a great way to kind of understand what those stories are actually like, as opposed to the sort of popular narrative.
Kim: Disney?
Morgan: Yes, yeah. Usually when I say that I practice fairy witchcraft, one of the first things I get from people is, you know, that they, their understanding of fairies is that Tinkerbell, Disney, tiny little winged sprite, which is so different from the Irish concepts, that I have to sort of get into that explanation of, you know, human appearing demigods that can influence your luck and your health and all this other stuff, and it blows their mind.
Kim: I kind of think of Brigadoon and changelings.
Morgan: Brigadoon! I love you for the fact that you know Brigadoon. (Kim laughs) My father was a huge fan of musicals so I've seen like every single musical movie from like the 60s and 70s. We watched Brigadoon on a regular basis and it's such a good movie. It's ridiculous, of course, but it's such a good movie. Such a good play. Yeah, that's I'll recommend that to all the listeners. Go watch Brigadoon.
Kim: And finally, finally, would you please tell a story? Preferably one that you would sit around a campfire with people you know and everybody knows the story but they're like "Remember when XYZ happened to Charlie?" and everybody tells that story. Or it can be one you make up.
Morgan: *laughs* I have so many good stories, so I'll tell you one about Iceland. This is a true story and there are other people involved, including Cat Heath who I was talking about before, because I was in Iceland with her and a couple of our other friends that this happened to. We were staying at this place in Southeastern Iceland. Frost and Fire is the name of the place we were staying at in Hveragerði, I think.
Kim: Are you kidding!? That is romantic as hell!
Morgan: It's absolutely gorgeous. Iceland, for the record, it will kill you with a quickness, but it is an absolutely gorgeous place. And where we were in particular, right next to this river, and there's volcanic vents everywhere, so there's all this like steam rising up out of the ground. Frost and Fire, one of the things they offer for meals is you can actually get food that's been cooked in one of the vents, which is just really neat, in my opinion. And where we were, there's the river, there's a little bridge, and then there's all of these sort of steep hills with all of these volcanic vents, so all this steam just coming up out of the ground. Hence why I said it will kill you with the quickness, like you do need to be kind of careful walking around Iceland, but gorgeous. And my friend who I was staying with, Mel, and I were in our room hanging out and there's knock on the door and it's Cat and her friend and they were like, we're going to go out hiking. It's like 10 o'clock at night, by the way, pitch black. We were like okay, let's get some shoes on. Ten oclock at night, we'll go wandering around in the dark.
Kim: Where the vents are. Where the vents cook things. Yeah. Okay. *laughs incredulously*
Morgan: So, first we couldn't find the pathway that led to the little bridge across the river up into the hills. So we ended up walking all the way out to where the main road was. And it's pitch black, it's like 40 degrees and very windy, so it was an adventure. And then we had looked up, and I can't remember which one of us first noticed it, but we were like, the moon looks strange. Because it's supposed to be the third quarter, right before the full moon, a week before the full moon. So it should be that nice half crescent that you get. And it was full. So we're all kind of standing there at the edge of the main road, staring at the moon as you do, and debating whether it was full or not. Because of course when you see that it's full, you immediately start questioning yourself, and try and remember, and we're trying to look it up on phones, and no. It was in fact supposed to be at the last quarter.
So we took a picture, which is hilarious because I have the picture and you can see that it's a full moon even though it was not supposed to be a full moon. And that should have been our first clue that we should just go back into our room and not get into any more nonsense. *laughs* But no. So we kept wandering. We finally found the pathway to the bridge. We get across the bridge. And the wind at this point has gotten really weird. It's high but it's like you could almost hear voices on it. And I should mention that three of the four of us are witches. And so the fourth one might also have been, actually, I'm not 100% sure, because I didn't know her very well. But we're kind of debating whether we should continue.
And things just start to get super weird. We're trying to walk up the path and all of a sudden you can't keep your footing. Like everyone's just sliding back down. Even though this is like a regular hiking path, it's not like normally difficult to walk on. *laughs* And there's this feeling in the air, almost like electricity was how I felt it. But some of the other people were getting very concerned that this was like not a good time to be out and about. Iceland has a lot of spirit activity, a lot of spirit stuff going on. So we decided to go back to the room. And we get in the room, and looking out the window back to where we planned to go hiking, you can see all of these dark shadowy shapes moving.
Kim: NOPE.
Morgan: Yep, and it was clear that there was like some kind of, Cat said it was probably trolls, but Huldufólk, elves, you know, something was majorly going on out there. And you could see what almost looked like little bonfire lights on the hillside, and all these dark shapes. And so we're all kind of standing there, and we're like, you know, well, it's probably a good thing we came back in, because we were just about to like crash a supernatural party or something. And I said something to the effect of, because I wanted to go back out, I said something to the effect of, "You know, if we kept going up the hill, I probably wouldn't have come back." And all of us distinctly heard this voice say, "Yep." *laughs* *Kim gasps* And we all looked at each other and we all, it was one of those moments where everyone's like "Did you hear that?" We're all like "Yeah I heard that." so then we locked the doors and we did not go back out that particular night. But that that story has kind of gone down in infamy as that time we almost crashed a troll party in in Iceland.
Kim: Man, when you said the thing about the moon, my chest just clenched up.
Morgan: Yeah, you know, and the funny thing is, all of us have a good amount of experience. You know, it's not like we're brand new witches or brand new pagans where you see warning signs, but you just don't know better, which is fair. Like, all of us have been doing this for a significant amount of time and genuinely should have known better. Like, as soon as the moon thing happened. *laughs* We should have been like, something is really strange here. Because it is a full moon, we can all see that it's a full moon, but it's not supposed to be. This was right around the autumn equinox, by the way. And that should have been the point where we were like, "Nope. We need to like pack this in."
Kim: But you know, I would have wanted to keep going too because I'm nosy and I want to know. I want to see what happens.
Morgan: You know how earlier you had mentioned that you kind of struggle with that like "Don't tell me what to do thing?"
Kim: Yes. And the universe is telling you maybe not. *laughs*
Morgan: Yeah. I have this personal problem sometimes where I'll, I'll get involved in this sort of nonsense and it's like my common sense turns off and I'll be like, well, "No, now we have all these signs that we should not do this. I'm doing it."
Kim: Exactly.
Morgan: Like every single bit of common sense, like all these different indicators, we couldn't find the right pathway. The moon was full when it wasn't supposed to be.
Kim: *laughs* Yeah, the MOON was wrong. *laughs*
Morgan: Yeah. And to be fair, if the moon is wrong, that right there is the point we need to just turn around. *both laugh* You know, we couldn't walk up the pathway because it had gotten weird and slippery, which... it was fine the next day. But there's all these indicators of like, you need to not do this. And the other three people were like, we need to not do this at this point, like, let's go back. And I was the one that was like, "I can make it up the hill."
Kim: "But what if we DO do that? Exactly! I got more appendages!" *laughs*
Morgan: I'll CRAWL up the hill. Yeah, yeah I can definitely get that mentality of, you know, "I know I shouldn't, but I'm gonna." Another time we were in Iceland actually I tell people constantly don't step into fairy rings, don't step into circles and mushrooms. It's just not a good idea.
Kim: Well, that... I'm gonna... do it. *laughs*
Morgan: Yeah. So I'm alone wandering around in Iceland. We were in northern Akureyri and I had not been feeling well either, which is another brilliant part of this. And I start to see these mushrooms, like in a trail, leading off into the woods. So of course I followed them, (Kim laughs) which is the first thing I would always tell anyone else, don't do this. And I end up finding this really weird place with this big fairy ring, and there's just a lot of other weirdness going on there. So of course I kept going into it. Like...
Kim: Well yeah!
Morgan: This is why I tell people I am a horrible warning, not a good example. Don't do what I do. (Kim laughs) Yeah, and the amount of nonsense I get into with this philosophy of life...
Kim: Yeah, but we have a good time.
Morgan: I do. You know, I've had an interesting life. And so far, I've always made it back. So.
Kim: I wish you continuance of that. *both laugh*
Morgan: If I don't, just know that I jumped into a fairy ring one time too many.
Kim: You heard it here folks. (Morgan laughs)When she vanishes in six months...
Morgan: Yep, that'll be why.
Kim: Well, thank you very much for being on the show. And for telling stories. It was a pleasure.
Morgan: I hope that was a fun story to end with.
Kim: It super was! Okay, then I will see you on the internet. So Morgan, welcome to Patreon.
Morgan: Yay! (both laugh) I love Patreon.
Kim: Me too. I'm trying to figure out which question to start with... *fade out*
Morgan: *fade in* having said all that critical stuff, I love the witchcraft community because it's so diverse. I'm going to keep saying that because I don't think I can say it enough. I love that there's so many people who get into witchcraft with this genuine passion for it, and for sharing what works for them, and the way that they do things. And I love that, you know, I can be someone who primarily works with the Irish Good Folk and has a very sort of early modern witchcraft approach at this point. And I can have friends that are into, you know, Norse witchcraft or are into eclectic Neopagan witchcraft and, you know, just keep listing random different... *fade out*
Kim: To hear more of the Patreon episode, head over to patreon.com/cleverkimscurios for a free seven-day trial. The five dollar tier will give you podcast bonuses, videos, recipes, access to the Marco Polo and Facebook groups, and more. There are also tiers starting at ten dollars where you can get spell boxes, intentional handcrafted jewelry that I make especially for witches, and there's even a special crystal tier. Check it out at patreon.com/cleverkimscurios. Thanks for listening to this episode of Your Average Witch. You can find us all around the internet: on Instagram @youraveragewitchpodcast, Facebook at facebook.com/youraveragewitchpodcast, at youraveragewitch.com, and at your favorite podcast service. Want to help the podcast grow? Leave a review. You can review us on Amazon and Apple podcasts, and now you can rate us on Spotify. You just might hear your review read at the end of an episode. To rate Your Average Witch on Spotify, click the Home key, click on 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.